North Korean military parade marks 55th anniversary of ruling party

KCNA report did not mention 42 South Korean civic and dissident leaders who traveled to the North on Monday to take part in the anniversary celebrations. North Korean television footage seen in South Korea showed column after column of people, dressed in brightly colored Korean costumes, carrying flower baskets in front of a giant statue of the country's late founding leader, Kim Il Sung. Kim Il Sung died of heart failure in 1994 at age 82. His son, Kim Jong Il, officially took power in 1998.

North Korea's 1.1 million-member military is the backbone of the Stalinist country's political system. In a nation of 22 million, the North's military reportedly consumes up to a quarter of the country's meager annual earnings. On the eve of the anniversary, thousands of people turned out at a plaza in the center of the North's capital, Pyongyang, and danced around holding hands with each other, KCNA said. The KCNA report did not say how many soldiers took part in the military parade Tuesday nor whether missiles and other weapons were on display. In order not to hurt thawing relations with the North, South Korea canceled or scaled back military parades and other programs that marked the 50th anniversary of the June 1950 outbreak of the Korean War.

Cold War tensions between the two Koreas have eased significantly since their leaders met for the first time in June and agreed to work toward reconciliation and unification. The Korean Peninsula was divided into the communist North and the pro-Western South in 1945. They fought a three-year war in the early 1950s.

(AP)