Kim Jong-il turned 57 on Tuesday, and North Korea threw a huge birthday celebration for its leader, the last of the Stalinist dictators. The prime minister's congratulatory radio broadcast lauded Kim for giving absolute priority to building the army. "The Korean People's Army has grown to be a loyal and filial army of the party and an invincible army," gushed Kim Yong-nam with the kind of Communist hyperbole rarely heard these days. To the alarm of the rest of the world, the army is indeed growing, despite the fact that North Korea's economy is in shambles and half its people are starving to death.
Happy Birthday, Comrade
Kim Jong-il turned 57 on Tuesday, and North Korea threw a huge birthday celebration for its leader, the last of the Stalinist dictators. The prime minister's congratulatory radio broadcast lauded Kim for giving absolute priority to building the army. "The Korean People's Army has grown to be a loyal and filial army of the party and an invincible army," gushed Kim Yong-nam with the kind of Communist hyperbole rarely heard these days. To the alarm of the rest of the world, the army is indeed growing, despite the fact that North Korea's economy is in shambles and half its people are starving to death.
