It is said that mountains and rivers change in ten years.

The appearance of the DPRK has literally changed.

As a great golden age of construction has been ushered in, new modern streets and bases for cultural and leisure activities were built in different parts of the country and many factories and enterprises for the improvement of the people’s living standards were built or renovated.

Last year the DPRK people started the new year advance with unusual emotion.

Because they received the news that the respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un had a photo session with schoolchildren after seeing their New Year performance on January 1.

Seeing the benevolent image of Kim Jong Un, who smiled brightly with schoolchildren, the future of the country, in his embrace, the people were filled with fresh confidence and optimism.

The year 2024 witnessed a rapid development in the strengthening of the armed forces of the DPRK.

The respected General Secretary Kim Jong Un advanced important guidelines for bolstering up the armed forces, a guarantee for national defence, in the present world where confrontation between physical strength and physical strength decides fate, thereby further consolidating them into invincible forces.

On a visit to Kim Jong Il Military and Political University, the supreme temple of military education in the country, he said that the university should achieve greater success in education so that units of the entire army at all levels can be filled with competent and versatile commanders who have made the capacity and temperament of overpowering the enemy with ideological, spiritual, combat and moral superiority and tactical ascendancy part of their special and mental qualities. When he paid a congratulatory visit to Kim Il Sung Military University, he indicated important tasks and ways for radically developing the university’s instruction and edification onto a new, higher stage.

DPRK sportspersons glorified the year 2024 with unprecedented successes.

Women footballers under 20 and 17 won four trophies at the Asian and World Cups, demonstrating the extent to which women’s football of the country has developed.

The Korean players scored 25 goals in total and lifted the trophy by winning seven matches in succession at the 2024 FIFA U20 Women's World Cup and won the trophy by displaying their amazing abilities from the beginning to the end at the 2024 FIFA U17 Women's World Cup.

Many sports games took place at home in 2024, too.

Nearly 40 records broken

The Sunchon Limestone Mine and the Manpho August 2 Cement Factory conducted 200 000- and 100 000-cubic-metre blastings respectively.

The successful blastings have provided a sure guarantee for producing and supplying more cement to construction projects seething with the struggle for opening up a great golden age of construction.

After opening up a bright prospect of mass mining, the workers of the Sunchon Limestone Mine and the Manpho August 2 Cement Factory are now creating collective innovations in the conveying of ores with burning enthusiasm to glorify this year with proud labour achievements.

Many new medical books were brought out last year.

According to Ri Ryong Su, department chief of the Kim Man Yu Hospital, it is one of the important issues in maintaining health and enjoying a long life in good health to know well about active oxygen, the main cause of diseases, and improve dietary life and material and cultural life in the direction of controlling its generation in the body.

Book “Health and Longevity and Antioxidation” describes the relations between active oxygen and various diseases, diets that do not produce active oxygen, the methods of reducing active oxygen in daily life and others in plain language so that not only experts but also common readers can understand easily.

Israeli troops are expanding a barbarous military operation in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli defence minister said on January 1 that the military operation would be escalated in the Gaza Strip until the elimination of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), adding that a heavy blow unfamiliar for a long time would be dealt. 

After receiving a murderous order, the Israeli troops have committed massacres more frantically from the following morning.

The Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations censured Israel in an emergency open meeting of the UN Security Council on January 3. 

Referring to the horrible catastrophe that occurred in the Gaza Strip on the eve of the New Year, he said the Israeli troops attacked a medical service facility in the northern part of Gaza, killing many people and putting the facility in flames. 

Saying that this violation of international law, especially international humanitarian law, is filling people with consternation, he urged Israel to immediately stop all military adventures.