They shouted “manse!”, or “live forever!”, while clasping their hands in the air or waving pink flowers as they passed before Mr Kim and other top officials on a leaders’ platform.
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Under the organizational reshuffle, the number of presidium members of the political bureau of the party’s central committee rose from three to five.
She is reportedly the deputy director of the Workers’ Party and handles top priorities on behalf of North Korea’s propaganda department.
During the congress, Kim sported a western-style suit and tie – a look also favoured on occasion by Kim Il-Sung, while Kim Jong-Il always opted for a so-called “Mao suit” buttoned to the neck for formal events.
Although North Korea maintained that it will remain committed to its nuclear program, officials said they won’t use those weapons unless they are faced with nuclear threat. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans celebrated the country’s newly completed ruling-party congress with a massive civilian parade featuring floats bearing patriotic slogans and marchers with flags and pompoms. South Korea, which runs several intelligence organizations mainly tasked with spying on the North, has a mixed record.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, is seen with North Korean general Ri Yong Gil in this undated photo from the Korean Central News Agency.
Relations between the Koreas have been at a low since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, which also brought tougher United Nations sanctions backed by lone major ally China, which disapproves of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.
North Korean officials periodically disappear from the public eye only to emerge months later, usually after rumors and reports of their execution.
If the leader’s new title and sartorial choices harked back to a previous era, so in one sense did the entire congress, which sealed a comeback – engineered by Kim Jong-Un – for a ruling party that had ceded significant political power to the military during his father’s rule.
Cheong Seong-Chang, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said there was less top-level personnel reshuffling at the congress than expected, which he said speaks to the stability of Kim Jong Un’s power base.
Foreign media are in Pyongyang to cover the tightly-controlled gathering of the national congress, the first such gathering for the Workers’ party in 36 years.
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Asserting that China-DPRK friendship was personally forged and carefully fostered by the two countries’ leaderships of the older generation, Xi said that the traditional friendship was a treasure of both sides.
