Kim Jong Il inspects Taehongdan Potato Processing Factory

    Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) - General Secretary Kim Jong Il inspected the Taehongdan Potato Processing Factory on Saturday. Being briefed on expansion project of the factory, Kim Jong Il went round newly-built dehydrated starch noodle, syrup and liquor shops and other production processes to learn about their construction and operation in detail.
    Acquainting himself with details of the factory ranging from the operation of the newly-installed machines to quality of products and their packing, he noted with great satisfaction that the builders successfully constructed such a modern factory in a short span of time.
    He met with Kim Myong Hui, a woman researcher of the fermentation institute under the branch academy of light industrial science who has sincerely helped workers there, and appreciated her unrewarded efforts.
    Stressing that the factory should keep production going at a high rate since it is of weighty importance in further improving the diet of the inhabitants in the county, he advanced tasks to be fulfilled by the factory for its management and operation. more potato processing factories should be built in the areas massively producing potatoes, he added.
    Then, he learned about the potato farming in Taehongdan county this year and proposed once again important tasks to be carried out for potato farming.
    Agricultural officials and workers should be mindful that a radical innovation in potato farming is an important work for the building of a powerful nation and continue concentrating efforts on the cultivation of potato, a high-yield crop in highlands, so as to radically increase its production, he said.
    Learning about the life of the discharged soldiers who volunteered to work on the farm, he was very satisfied to hear that they are playing a pivotal role in increasing the agricultural production in the same spirit as they displayed in the days of military service.
    On the same day, he appreciated an art performance given by servicemen of a KPA company stationed there.


Foreign figures visit DPRK embassies

    Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) The chairman of the Pernik city council of Bulgaria, the deputy mayor of the city, the mayor of Etropole, the mayor of Dimitrovgrad, the president and a vice-president of the Bulgarian Taekwon-do Federation paid congratulatory visits to the DPRK embassy in Sofia from Feb. 8 to 15 on the occasion of February 16, the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il. They laid bunches of flowers before portraits of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il and handed messages of greetings to the leader to the DPRK ambassador on behalf of the cities and organizations.
    Figures of different strata of Egypt including the general secretary of the National Democratic Party of Egypt, the general secretary of the National Progressive Unionist Party, the mayor of October 6 City and the chairman of the Committee for the Study of the Juche Idea on February 13 paid congratulatory visits to the DPRK embassy in Cairo and laid floral baskets before a photograph of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
    The general director of the joint intelligence bureau of the Pakistani army on February 16 sent a floral basket to the DPRK embassy there.


Kim Jong Il's work published in Venezuela

    Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- Leader Kim Jong Il's famous work "On preserving the Juche character and national character of the revolution and construction" was published in booklet by the Cantaclara Publishing House of Venezuela. Clarified in the work, which was made public on June 19, Juche 86 (1997), are the reason why preservation of the Juche character and national character of the revolution and construction serves as a fundamental principle to be maintained in accomplishing the cause of socialism, and tasks and ways to carry it out.


U.S. warmongers' outcries under fire

    Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- U.S. secretaries of state and defense and other heavyweights continue to threaten the DPRK with "use of force" and "preemptive military action," talking about its "threat" of "conventional armed forces" and "development of weapons of mass destruction" in the wake of anti-DPRK remarks U.S. President Bush made, listing it as a member the "axis of evil" in his "state of the union address" for this year. In this regard, Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary terms this a premeditated and deliberate move to ignite the 2nd Korean War.
    The commentary goes on:
    The U.S. pretends to wish the reunification of the Korean peninsula and the improved inter-Korean relations but it is, in fact, keen to ditch the north-south joint declaration, bring the situation on the Korean peninsula back to the state of confrontation and war in the past. The groundless abuses heaped by bush upon the DPRK were intended to justify the U.S. aggressor forces' presence in South Korea and its hostile policy towards the DPRK, torpedo the process of reconciliation and reunification on the Korean peninsula and, furthermore, strain the situation and finally unleash a war against the DPRK at any cost.
    The U.S. imperialists are, indeed, arch disturbers of Korea's reunification and a group of warmongers, as they are working hard to spoil the hard-won atmosphere of reconciliation and reunification and force another war upon the Korean nation. A group of traitors, anti-reunification forces in South Korea, do not hesitate to do harm to fellow countrymen while kissing the enemies of the nation in order to gratify their greed for power.
    They can never escape a judgement by history and the nation.
    It is an invariable will of the Korean nation to resolutely smash the moves of the anti-reunification forces at home and abroad and achieve the country's reunification by the concerted efforts of the nation. And no force on earth can stem the strong trend of the national history towards independent reunification.


DPRK delegate on social development

    Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) A DPRK delegate made a speech at the 40th session of the U.N. commission for social development on February 12. He said that what was essential for achieving social development by incorporating socio-economic policies was to set right the governments' viewpoints on social development and show their political will to take social measures.
    He continued:
    The DPRK has long enforced popular policies including the systems of universal compulsory free education, universal free health care and the free provision of houses to the people, thus fully granting them rights to social life.
    The social measures of the DPRK remained unchanged despite repeated natural disasters in recent years and continued political and economic pressure put upon it by the hostile forces.
    The DPRK government has taken measures to allocate a great portion of its state budget as expenses for enforcing popular policies for the improvement of the standard of people's living including free education, free health care and the construction of dwelling houses for tens of thousands of families and service facilities.
    The DPRK government has given priority to the allocation of funds for education in the homeland, while sending funds for the development of education of overseas Koreans on a regular basis.
    This has been possible because the DPRK has thoroughly embodied in all its activities President Kim Il Sung's idea of "believing in people as in heaven" and leader Kim Jong Il's idea calling for always placing the interests of people above anything else.
    The DPRK government will, in the future, too, continue to pursue the socialist system of Korean style and popular policies so as to contribute to international efforts to attain the goals for social development set at the summit meeting of the U.N. commission for social development and the new millennium U.N. summit.


Policy of commercializing education denounced in S. Korea

    Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- The South Korean Federation of University Student Councils (Hanchongryon) released a statement on Feb. 21 denouncing the South Korean authorities for reducing education to a victim of commercialization, according to a report. Recalling that the educational authorities recently made public a report intended to abolish the policy of leveling high schools and introduce the autonomy of registration fee and the system of admission into colleges through donation, the statement branded it as a policy of stamping out education, which is bereft of the basic philosophy of education.
    The authorities should immediately stop the policy of commercializing education and make a switchover to the policy of ensuring the public character of education, the statement said, and added:
    If the authorities do not withdraw it but persist in the policy of more seriously obliterating education, they would be bitterly denounced by Hanchongryon and many other people.



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