Editorial

Let Us Advance More Vigorously with Full Confidence and High Spirits

A year too overwhelming to fathom its immense significance and weight is proudly imprinting its annual ring upon the history of the homeland.

2025!

In the long course of history, a year can be considered a moment. However, there are meaningful years of eventful significance for a country and its people, and the value of such days and months cannot be measured by simple arithmetic.

The historic year 2025, of great significance in our cause and the advance and development of socialism—the time when we confidently made our first steps seems like only yesterday, yet we have already reached its final week.

The final year for implementing the five-year plan set forth by the 8th Congress of the Party; a meaningful year in which a turning point must be set on the path of all-round socialist development; the second year in which the bold and tenacious strides of the "20×10 Local Development Policy," established by our Party for the simultaneous and balanced development of local areas and the substantial improvement of the lives of all the people, will be stamped—

These were objectives too grand to be shouldered in a single year, yet it is our people who look back with pride on the path they have traversed, filled with the passion and joy of having executed the most enormous tasks most perfectly.

At the 13th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Party, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un solemnly declared that 2025 is indeed a historic year of transition that, with the dynamic advance of all-round development, confidently broke through the final line of the five-year plan and recharged the motive force for vigorously transitioning to a new stage.

Herein lies the great significance of our 2025, embroidered with miracles and events, elevating the long-envisioned ideals and dreams into tangible realities before our very eyes.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who set forth the direction of struggle for this year of epochal significance on the path of all-round socialist development, led from the forefront throughout the year, and guided the creation of dazzling transformations—his meaningful words are a proud summation of our 2025 and a noble proclamation of its profound meaning.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said as follows:

"We must not cease our struggle until the complete victory of socialism is achieved and the ideal of our people shines forth in reality, until the ultimate goal of our revolution is attained; we must continue to advance along the path of the continuing revolution."

The force that enables an object to move is called motive power. An object without motive power cannot avoid stagnation.

It is the magnitude of power, the driving force for advance.

No matter how vast a task is completed, if it ends merely with the consumption of accumulated strength, it can hardly be called meaningful.

The year in which we not only brilliantly fulfilled the goals set with the dynamic advance of all-round development but also recharged the motive force for vigorously transitioning to a new stage—precisely herein lies the profound meaning and priceless weight of our 2025.

On the hill of December, as the year draws to a close, all people of this planet are silently looking back on the path they have walked.

Korea's 2025 is truly heart-swelling and dazzling.

Transformations and events too astonishing and miraculous to be called merely the result of a year have unfolded upon this land.

2025 is the year in which meaningful progress was achieved not in just one sector or a specific field, but across the entirety of state affairs; the year in which, despite facing various challenges and difficulties, the major industrial sectors of the people's economy advanced energetically, the agricultural sector recorded a higher grain harvest than the previous year, and many important construction projects were splendidly completed, brilliantly fulfilling both this year's economic development goals and the five-year plan.

Even more miraculous is that all these creations and transformations were accomplished at an accelerated pace.

It is a noteworthy event of this year that the envisioned and idealized entities were realized within the same year they were started, to the extent that the term "commencement is completion" became commonplace.

The strange "Rakwon Po" (Paradise Port), true to its name, rose in a fishing village where only sand dunes were visible—in just over 190 days! The first tangible form of a modern local hospital with complex architectural processes soared in splendid form in Kangdong County—in just over 280 days!

Therefore, attending the completion ceremony of the Kangdong County Hospital and personally cutting the completion ribbon that day, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un powerfully declared that proclaiming completion in the same year of commencement is our standard speed of proceeding according to our ideal, and this sufficiently shows that the actual revitalization of the entire country is accelerating; that this is precisely our mettle, the speed of transformation and advance we intend to continue achieving at a high tide—the speed of Korea.

The times advance, and the revolution must continue boldly without a moment's stagnation or marking time.

The power to advance confidently from a scaled peak towards a higher goal—that is precisely the recharged motive force.

At this point, what is felt deeply once again is the wisdom of our Party's leadership, which guided the execution of the vast objectives for all-round socialist development not as a mere process of expending strength, but as a process of accumulating strength for bolder advance and leap, a process of recharging motive force.

The successful completion of the state economic development five-year plan, which would have been difficult to attain with ordinary resolve and methods of struggle, is the actual height we have scaled and also a new starting position for seizing even higher goals.

The proud achievements accomplished in all fields of the people's economy, including heavy and light industries and agriculture, together with the modernization projects and the strengthening of the technical infrastructure carried out in major sectors with an eye far into the future until exhaustion set in, are the reliable pillars guaranteeing greater leaps tomorrow.

Nothing is as valuable and precious as victory achieved by one's own strength. The reason our accomplishments, achieved by boldly overcoming all hardships and obstacles, are so precious is precisely because they are great products of self-reliance.

Everything in our own way, with our own strength, according to our own timetable!

The principle of self-reliance was a firm track that firmly guaranteed and powerfully supported our advance momentum amidst any unpredictable challenge.

2025, which has created transformations unknown to the world with our own strength, our own efforts, and our own wisdom, is a meaningful year that once again clearly demonstrated that self-reliance is indeed the most reliable guarantee for development and leap, and that firm belief in one's own strength is the powerful motive force for building a powerful country.

On the path of national development, no less precious than visible achievements and material wealth is the people's ideological and spiritual strength. Although its size cannot be expressed in numbers nor its intensity measured by instruments, in reality, the people's confidence and faith in the future are the most powerful motive force for national development.

2025, a year of events that lifted monumental markers of creation and transformation until the land grew heavy—what is the most unforgettable memory of this eventful year?

From the Hwasong area in the capital, where another new and uniquely stylish district soars towards the sky, to the Komdok area where decent dwelling houses for ordinary miners have sprung up, and to the blessed localities where local development policy projects have splendidly risen to contribute to the improvement of local people's lives—what indeed is overflowing fervently everywhere across the country?

It is the boundless gratitude towards our motherly Party. The more the changed new life and the enjoyed new civilization pierce the heart, the hotter becomes the passionate feeling of reverence towards the people's affectionate parent, who knows no bounds in devotion solely for the people, for the happiness of the entire people of the country, and sacrifices everything of his own completely.

The achievements we have made in 2025 are all so miraculous that they can only be called wonders. How much great power upheld each of these miracles, how intense were the aspirations and longings that supported them—2025 meticulously engraved this upon its pages.

How many were the great construction fronts sought and visited by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who imprinted the traces of love and devotion for the people everywhere across the homeland?

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who within just over ten days in February attended the commencement ceremonies for the Kangdong County Hospital and comprehensive service center, the largest-scale greenhouse farm and vegetable research center, the Rakwon County sea aquaculture business office, and the 4th phase 10,000-household dwelling house construction in the Hwasong area, inspiring the builders and making the breath of miracle creation pulsate powerfully throughout the country—

Was it not along the endless traces of road and devotion continued by our respected Comrade Kim Jong Un throughout the year, tirelessly visiting creation fronts for the people's happiness following the path for strengthening the country's defense capabilities, that the new map of miracles and transformations of 2025 was drawn?

The cheers of the people that shook heaven and earth at that meaningful moment of celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Party's founding, when the absolute dignity and irresistible power possessed only by our Party, state, and people were displayed before the world, were the people's boundless passion and eruption of tumultuous joy, looking up to and pouring out to the most great person in this world, the affectionate parent.

Right here, at the construction site of the Sinuiju Greenhouse Comprehensive Farm in the northwestern border region of the country, where a grand greenhouse group has revealed its实体, one's heart is once again searingly impressed with what the great power is that upheld the miraculous 2025.

It is a literal sea of greenhouses, vaster than all the large-scale greenhouse farms built in recent years combined. It is astonishing not only in scale. Different types of vegetable greenhouses, vegetable processing factories, storage facilities, as well as vegetable research centers and experimental cultivation greenhouses, modern dwelling houses and hotels, convenience service facilities—all rising at once, it is truly a vast and colossal construction front.

Standing here where such a grand construction project is progressing at maximum speed without a moment's stagnation or marking time, one can fully understand how our country's miraculous events that astonish the world are indeed occurring in multiple stages.

The conception itself was marvelous. This grand construction of erecting a vast greenhouse group was an unimaginably difficult and enormous undertaking. However, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who unhesitatingly resolved to provide a civilized and stable living environment for the people of the border region and powerfully promoted the greenhouse farm construction—

Thus, standing here, one can imprint with one's whole being, without any explanation or clarification, about the revolutionary Party spirit of the Workers' Party of Korea which serves the people selflessly, about its popular character.

As many as five times in a year—this is the historic record of the energetic on-the-spot guidance of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un imprinted upon the Sinuiju Greenhouse Comprehensive Farm construction site.

He came out to the island area in the chilling wind and personally dug the first shovel of construction; he visited amidst the blazing heat of midsummer and gave programmatic teachings so that the large-scale greenhouse farm on the banks of the Amnok River would splendidly rise as an idealized village of modern civilization.

In September and October, and also in November, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un sought and visited the Sinuiju Greenhouse Comprehensive Farm construction site.

The commander of the Paektusan Hero Youth Shock Brigade said that no explanation or agitation could be more powerful than that; every time our Marshal visited the construction site, explosive power erupted and miracles and feats surpassing imagination were created.

There is a story here about a youth shock brigade member and his mother. A youth who petitioned to join the shock brigade since the construction of the front street and distinguished himself as an innovator, who, receiving the warm expectation of the respected father Marshal, left the capital and rushed here again to the island area of the country's northwestern border, innovated day after day at the forefront of the ranks. When he, so unexpectedly, died at the site, his mother unhesitatingly left home and rushed to the construction site.

The son who so ardently longed for the day to report joy to the father Marshal; embracing even the heart of her son, who boiled with that single wish even in dreams and while walking, the woman settled at the construction site, finding good work for the youth shock brigade members on her own. Precisely because that is the path of being with her son today, precisely because that path is the one to realize her son's earnest wish as soon as possible, she, a woman who voluntarily stood at the era's front where the Party's conception blossoms into reality, even taking her son's share—

What fills the vast construction site is precisely such patriotic hearts, single-hearted loyalty and repayment.

There is one直观物 that tells of this. It is the same直观物 seen everywhere at the construction site where miracles and feats are created.

Making a calendar to know how many days are left until the day of pledge before the Party, and turning its pages while creating miracles and feats day after day—the soldier-builders and youth shock brigade members; where else could there be such heart-searing evidence to imprint what every moment of their lives is connected to, by what passionate single-mindedness the unprecedented large greenhouse group roars and rises?

The soaring spirit and passion of the builders, who rise like a mountain, choked with emotion at the passionate love and devotion of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un for the people and determined to uphold his conception and intention with death-defying practice—this is precisely the great power and asset that embraces the new miracle of Wihwado.

Our Party's policies are policies for the people, blueprints for prosperity for the endless happiness of the people!

On the path of making the Party's conception and intention blossom into brilliant reality lies our brighter future!

Our Party's resolve is science and truth!

The hearts of tens of millions of people pulsate powerfully with this iron-clad belief.

Our motherly Party has once again shouldered difficult and enormous tasks for the greater welfare and civilized new life of all the people of the country.

Why did the report on the 13th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Party, convened to conclude the major Party and state work of 2025 and to resolve a series of important issues arising, including preparations for the 9th Party Congress, so exhilarate the entire country with infinite passion?

The grand conception to transform the newly organized or the most backward farms among the tideland farms on the west coast into modern, civilized rural villages symbolizing the new appearance of rural development; the task to unfold an additional new front to transform even coal mining areas amidst the accelerating development of undertakings to eliminate the urban-rural gap in various aspects; the local development policy projects that will rise again in 20 cities and counties of the country in 2026...

Who could hold back tears before this?

Anyone born on this land bows their head in gratitude to the world of the motherly Party's passionate sincerity and devotion for the people.

If it is the path desired by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, we will go even to the ends of the earth!

This hundredfold multiplied faith of the people, this single-hearted loyalty of the people boiling like lava—this is the powerful force that will bring about greater victory and prosperity to our great country.

The enthusiastic appeal of the Party Central Committee, holding great pride and self-esteem of having elevated the past five years into a great pioneering period of all-round revival, to add further spur to the bold and offensive fighting spirit and advance vigorously to a new stage of transformation, is shaking the mountains and rivers.

Let us achieve greater victory and leap with our own strength, our own efforts, and our own wisdom.

Our advance is a leap to a new stage, a transition to a new phase of struggle.

Let us hold the banner of ideology higher.

The secret to having adorned another year, 2025, with grand achievements while advancing unwaveringly along our chosen path of development despite worldwide turmoil and changes, any challenges and obstructions, lies precisely in holding high the banner of ideology. On the road of future advance as well, when we consistently maintain and further deepen and develop our unique method of struggle and revolutionary method of creating miracles with the power of ideology, there will be no fortress we cannot capture.

Let us always remember that the greatest strength, the most certain superiority and reserve force we possess, is the extraordinary political consciousness and bold dedication of the entire people united and rallied in patriotism.

Let us not forget that the patriotic zeal of citizens who link their destiny with that of the homeland, hold their own sense of responsibility for the country's present and future, and strive towards the highest records in their work, regulates the speed and quality of all-round national development.

Following the proud course of 2025 to be engraved in the history of the homeland, we will continue to stamp the tenacious strides of a new march even more boldly and spiritedly.

Along with the 2025 of miracles and transformations, our revolution, having recharged a great motive force enabling vigorous transition to a new stage, will surge towards higher goals, a more dazzling future.

This is not hypothesis or prophecy; it is science and truth.

The great power we have amassed, the enormous motive force won through arduous and glorious struggle, convinces us of precisely that.

Pang Song Hwa

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Meaningful Revolutionary Anecdote Conveying the Peerless Great Man's Image of the Great General

Elevator of Love

One day in August 2009, when the Great General Kim Jong Il visited the newly built Potonggang Shop, it was evening, yet the stifling midday heat had not fully subsided. In the shop thick with the fragrance of fruit, apples and pears so delicious-looking that one's mouth watered overflowed on every counter, as if calling out to customers to come quickly.

Looking around the abundant fruit counters, the Great General Kim Jong Il was so pleased that we could now provide our people, who had suffered much, with tasty Korean fruits and Korean meat products, that he wore a bright smile throughout.

Our General Kim Jong Il, with a bright smile all over his face as if the fatigue of a forced march had melted away, looked around various counters, inquiring in detail about the prices and where they were produced.

Then the Great General Kim Jong Il, gauging the indoor temperature, approached the cashier and kindly asked if she wasn't cold serving here for a long time. The cashier replied to the fatherly General that while she did feel a bit chilly, it was alright.

Thereupon our General Kim Jong Il said that the officials had only thought about cooling the fruit but had not considered that people might feel cold, and spoke as follows:

"In everything, people are fundamental. The service personnel at the shop have to sell here all day long, so they must know to think about people's health first, before fruit. Goods are important, but people are more precious."

Worrying for the cashier's health as if for his own daughter's, he warmly told her that direct exposure to cold air is not good for health, and personally adjusted the direction vanes of the cooler upward.

Looking up at the affectionate figure of the General, not only the shop's service personnel but also the accompanying officials all felt their hearts swell with emotion.

Even a real father, could he be so considerate?

The officials had thought the cool air inside the shop was refreshing, but they had not given thought to those serving here all day long.

What may not seem significant to people becomes an issue that must not be overlooked or allowed for the fatherly General Kim Jong Il, who truly cares for the people.

The contemplation and heart's blood of the Great General Kim Jong Il, who pondered what more could be done to make the Potonggang Shop into a truly excellent service base beloved by the people, grew only hotter with time.

That day, having looked around even the second-floor processed meat counter, the fatherly General Kim Jong Il went down to the first floor and suddenly stopped. The Great General Kim Jong Il, looking over the stairs inside the shop again, asked if there was an elevator here.

Hearing the officials' answer that, as it was a two-story building, an elevator had not been envisaged from the design stage, he spoke in a stern tone:

"Since it is a shop for the people to use, an elevator must definitely be installed. For elderly people, going up and down to the second floor on foot would be strenuous. It might be alright for young people, but elderly people and women might feel inconvenience carrying purchased goods up and down the stairs. In whatever we do, we must know how to do things not merely promoting the people's convenience, but perfectly, without even slight inconvenience or gaps."

Comprehending the boundless sincerity of the affectionate father who thinks of the people, all the officials felt solemn in their hearts. Granting a splendid shop overflowing with all kinds of fruits and processed meat products was already tremendous, yet to think so deeply that even the slightest inconvenience should not be given to visiting people—where in the world is there another person like our General Kim Jong Il?

He earnestly instructed the officials to install an elevator and open the doors no matter how tight the schedule, and left the shop.

Our General Kim Jong Il was precisely such a person.

Our General Kim Jong Il, who rejoices as if having gained the whole world when the people rejoice, and who cannot rest, worrying over any inconvenience the people might feel—

The soldier-builders who received the order of the Great General Kim Jong Il waged a struggle without distinction between day and night and installed the elevator in just ten days.

Thus, along with the laughter of people going up and down by elevator, the door of love of the Potonggang Shop, which provides our fruits and our processed meat products to the citizens, opened wide.

An elevator going up and down just one floor!

Going up and down merely 28 steps—what kind of great burden is that to bestow such legendary love?

Later, while giving on-the-spot guidance to a certain unit, the Great General Kim Jong Il, upon receiving the report that the elevator installation at the Potonggang Shop was finished, said warmly that he was glad the people liked it and now his mind was at ease.

The Great General Kim Jong Il, who himself went up and down the shop's stairs yet made the people ride the elevator; our General Kim Jong Il, who himself walks the path of devotion for the people day and night, yet worried so much that even a staircase might be an inconvenience to the people—

It was our General Kim Jong Il's revolutionary view and view of the people that for the sake of the people, even stars from the sky must be plucked and flowers must bloom on stones.

The history of the homeland flowed, and the great path of endless prosperity opened wide, through the days and nights, days and months of love and devotion of the great affectionate parent, the Great General Kim Jong Il, who seated the people on the flower cushion of happiness and himself lived a life of forced march.

Staff Reporter

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Flower Baskets Presented to the Statues of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and the Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il

Flower Baskets from International Organization Missions in Our Country Presented with Sincerity

On the 12th, on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the passing of the Great General, flower baskets in the name of the United Nations Resident Coordinator Office and the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Population Fund, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Food Programme, and World Health Organization missions in our country were presented with sincerity to the statues of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and the Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il erected high on Mansu Hill.

On the ribbons of the flower baskets were inscribed the words: "The Great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il Are Always with Us" and "The Great His Excellency Kim Il Sung and His Excellency Kim Jong Il Will Live Forever."

[Korean Central News Agency]

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Imprinting the Sublime Intention in Our Hearts

Today as well, at the Kaeson Youth Park Pleasure Ground, a favorite of all our people, the sublime world of love of the Great General Kim Jong Il and the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who always cared to provide the people with a more abundant and civilized life, is fervently imbued.

Over ten years ago, in December, the Great General Kim Jong Il visited the Kaeson Youth Park Pleasure Ground, disregarding the cold wind of deep winter.

Hearing the officials' feedback that riding the rotating plates, which soar as if piercing the sky and roll down as if falling a thousand fathoms, completely relieves accumulated fatigue, our General Kim Jong Il was so pleased, as if envisioning the happy appearance of the people from their figures.

On that meaningful day, accompanying the fatherly General, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un visited this place, and in May the following year, embracing the General's love as it was, visited the pleasure ground again.

That day, he kindly asked which equipment the people liked more, etc., expressed expectation and confidence that the Kaeson Youth Park Pleasure Ground and officials of the relevant sector would fulfill their honorable mission and duty as true servants of the people, and even took a commemorative photo of love with them.

Even today, the officials and employees here, holding in their hearts the glorious days when they hosted the peerless great persons at their workplace, pour their devotion into each piece of equipment, each amusement device, fulfilling their responsibility and duty as servants of the people.

Text and Photo by Staff Reporter Joo Dae Hyok