North Korean cabinet officials and economic leaders are stepping up efforts to normalize coal production.
On the front page of the ruling party’s mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, on Monday, it was reported that the cabinet, serving as the nation’s economic command center, is intensifying its strategic planning and leadership to enhance coal mine productivity.
The newspaper noted that officials in the light industry and local sectors recognize the critical importance of strengthening the coal industry, considering it essential for implementing this year’s party directives and fostering robust economic growth across all sectors.
In a feature titled, There Is No Difference Between Your Work and Mine, the paper highlighted how staff from the Central Statistics Bureau are lending their support to the coal industry, viewed as the frontline of self-reliant economic development. Under party guidance, these officials are concentrating their efforts on addressing the real-world production challenges faced by the mines.
Page 2 covered the inauguration of newly built public and production facilities at Dapsang Farm in Unsan County. It also reported on a housewarming celebration at Honam Farm, organized by the Pyongyang City Rural Management Committee.
The third page featured a letter addressed to Party General Secretary Kim Jong Un from a delegation of Korean social scientists based in Japan. The group pledged to achieve more valuable scientific research outcomes that will help strengthen the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan as an organization truly prioritizing compatriots, and to firmly usher in a new era of prosperity for the Korean movement in Japan.
Page 4 spotlighted Dr. Ri Sang Sop, former director of the National Academy of Sciences, who played an instrumental role in developing coal gasification technology. The paper stated that the party has upheld Comrade Ri’s patriotic actions as a model for the entire nation to follow, and has graciously awarded his family the Socialist Patriotic Sacrifice Medal.
Page 5 explained that an integrated production system is essentially an information network in which all production-related activities are comprehensively planned, managed, and controlled by computers. It urged the setting of ambitious goals for implementing such systems, driven by a resolute commitment to create the modernized, digitized factories envisioned by the party.
An opinion piece on page 6, titled, Europe’s Self-Inflicted Security Instability, criticized the European Union (EU), asserting that Europe’s economic and military crisis stems from an anachronistic delusion of toppling Russia. It argued that the pan-European political community’s rhetoric about continental security can only be interpreted as originating from an outdated, exclusionary fantasy of overthrowing Russia.