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N. Korea places priority on arms in the year 2000

TOKYO: North Korea on Saturday said it would make "great advances" in the year 2000, placing priority on arms, ideology and technology.

Joint editorials in all major North Korean newspapers said the nation would "step up" its advances in the new year, and noted that "ideology, arms and science and technology are the three major pillars for the building of a powerful nation."

"To attach great importance to arms is a strategic line that should always be held fast to as long as imperialism remains and the revolution goes on," the editorials, quoted by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said.

"It is the most important state affair to which top priority should be given by all units."

"All people should keep themselves in an alert and mobilised posture and accelerate production and construction with a rifle in one hand and a hammer or sickle in the other," the editorials added.

Technologically, the secretive Stalinist state appeared to have made it into the new millennium unscathed.

Japanese media quoted South Korean defence ministry officials as saying they had detected no millennium bug-related problems affecting the North Korean military.-Reuters