Balaraja blog

N. Korea's Kim attends New Year concert

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and his son and heir apparent Kim Jong-Un attended a Lunar New Year concert celebrating the communist state's army and people, official media said Thursday.

Kim Jong-Il, accompanied by senior party, state and army officials, enjoyed the performance by the Unhasu Orchestra, the KCNA news agency said without giving a date for the event.

Performers at the concert -- which featured numbers like "The Korean Nation Is the Best" and "We Love Thee, Socialism" -- represented "the indomitable heroic spirit of the army and people of the DPRK (North Korea) dashing ahead like the wind toward the eminence of a thriving nation," it added.

North Korea in 1967 banned the celebration of traditional Korean holidays as vestiges of feudalism. A holiday to mark Lunar New Year's Day was restored in 1989 and was expanded to a three-day break in 2003.

The news agency reported a festive mood in Pyongyang, with residents dining out and visiting theatres, the zoo or a funfair.

"Working people and school youth and children had folk games and sports and amusement games, conspicuously decorating the capital city on the Lunar New Year's Day," it said.

An "endless stream" of people flocked to the statue of founding president Kim Il-Sung, late father of the current leader, to lay floral baskets, it said.