YONHAP NEWS

NORTH KOREA THIS WEEK NO. 484 (January 24, 2008)

   *** NEWS IN BRIEF (Part 1)

Pyongyang to build 100,000 houses by 2012
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Pyongyang is planning to build as many as 100,000 new houses by 2012, the centennial birth anniversary of North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung and the target year to become Kangsong Taeguk (a great, prosperous and powerful country), a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan said on Jan. 18.

   The Choson Sinbo, the organ of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, quoted Kim Hyong-gil, vice director of the municipal general construction bureau, as saying that the bureau made such a "bold" plan proper to its calling and job in line with the joint editorial of this year's New Year.

   The New Year's joint editorial, an annual policy guideline in the North, said, "The construction sector should push ahead with the building of Pyongyang, the capital of revolution, in such a bold way as it built Kwangbok and Tongil streets (in the capital in 1980s)."
Kim, who was a member of guiding the construction of Kwangbok street, recalled that at that time the workers overcame all kinds of difficulties and hardship, reciting militant phrases like "Let's all live and fight heroically," and "If the party decides, we carry out."
Kim also said the bureau will arrange water and sewage in the capital, and a postal network along with modernizing more than 70 places in the capital including the Okryu Restuarant, the Central Zoo, the Taedong Riverside, Yanggakdo Pleasure Park and the Ryukyong Hotel.
However, Kim did not say whether it means the resumption of construction of the 105-story Ryukyong Hotel, which was stopped in 1989 due to the lack of capital.

   Meanwhile, Pyongyang, which said in early 2007 that it would provide 10,000 houses for the year, reportedly modernized and repaired scores of buildings last year.


-------------------

North Koreans must overcome food shortage this year: state-run media
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- The people of North Korea must combine their efforts to overcome a food shortage this year, the country's state-run broadcaster said on Jan. 18, hinting at an ongoing lack of food in the country.

   Earlier, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that the North's crop yields decreased 7 percent in 2007 from a year earlier to some 3.8 million tons.

   "At the moment, there is no more pressing an issue than the resolution of the food problem of the people," said the North's state-run Korean Central Broadcasting TV Station, monitored in Seoul, underscoring the country's grave food shortage.

   The station also highlighted a need to introduce advanced agricultural technologies and expand the farming of beans and other mass-harvested produce.

   It also called for normalizing the operations of livestock and fish farms, as well as fruit farms.

   Millions of North Koreans are believed to have died during the so-called "march under trials" in the mid-1990s, when the communist nation was hit by economic hardships following severe drought and then flooding.

   Last year, the FAO said the number of undernourished people in the impoverished North has more than doubled in the past decade.


-------------------

North Korean leader visits computer program exhibition: report
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il recently visited a computer program exhibition and called for further development of the country's computer technology and education, the North's official news agency reported on Jan. 22.

   Kim checked "computer programs displayed at the 18th national program contest and exhibition" and expressed "great satisfaction" over the achievement of the nation's scientists and technicians, the (North) Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

   The report failed to mention the date and the location of the exhibition, but it may have been held in Pyongyang at the same place a computer software exhibition was held late last year.

   "It is of weighty importance to develop the programming technology as required by the age of science and technology and the age of computer," Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA. He also set "highly important tasks" that will serve as guidelines for further developing the country's programming technology, it said.

   He also called on the country's educational institutions to conduct effective computer education for students from their early years.

   During the visit, the leader was accompanied by secretaries of the Workers' Party such as Choe Thae-bok and Kim Ki-nam, as well as department directors Ri Kwang-ho and Jang Song-thaek, the KCNA said.

   North Korea has emphasized science and technology as a means of boosting its sagging economy since 2000 when the leader, in his New Year's message, named the field along with ideology and the gun as the "three pillars" for building a powerful nation.

  (END)