NORTH KOREA: North Korea took a respite yesterday from its nuclear showdown with the outside world to celebrate the 61st birthday of leader Kim Jong-il with effusive tributes to his "clairvoyant wisdom" and "matchless grit".
There was no sign of a public appearance by the reclusive Kim - the communist world's only hereditary ruler - and only oblique references to a four-month-old nuclear crisis that is Kim's main claim to international fame.
North Korea's official media said Kim was "a peerless patriot and a legendary great man" whose birthday - the biggest holiday of the world's most isolated country - was being marked by "multifarious functions ... in Syria, Jordan, Austria, Peru, Mexico and many other countries".
North Koreans made pilgrimages to the many monuments to Kim's late father, "eternal president" Kim Il-sung, and the country's million-strong army vowed loyalty, state media said.
The ruling communist party's Rodong Sinmun newspaper called Kim "a great architect of the prosperity of the country", adding an apparent reference to his economic and diplomatic troubles.
Kim "represents the death-defying will that no force on earth can defeat the people ready to die, the strong spirit that there is always a way out and the firm confidence that we remain unfazed even when a huge enemy force comes in attack on us", the daily said. - (Reuters)