offering a glimpse of economic strains within the sanctions-hit nation. Supreme Leader Kim took centre stage with a speech to start the Workers' Party congress, a gathering that directs state efforts on everything from house building to war planning. Held just once every five years, the days-long congress offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a nation where even mundane details are shrouded in secrecy. "Today, our party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people's standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible," Kim said in his opening speech. "This requires us to wage a more active and persistent struggle without allowing even a moment's standstill or stagnation." For decades, nuclear weapons and military prowess came before everything else in North Korea, even as food stocks dried up and famine took hold. But since assuming power in 2011, Kim has stressed the need to also fortify the impoverished nation's economy. At the last party congress in 2021, Kim made an extremely rare admission that mistakes had been made in "almost all areas" of economic development. Analysts believe such language is designed to head off public discontent stirred by food shortages, military spending, and North Korea's continued support for Russia's war effort in Ukraine. Kim said North Korea had overcome its "worst difficulties" in the last five years, and was now entering a new stage of "optimism and confidence in the future".

North Korea's economy has for years languished under heavy Western sanctions that aim to choke off funding for its nuclear weapons programme. But Pyongyang refuses to surrender its atomic arsenal. Kim has already declared this year's congress will unveil the next phase in the nation's nuclear weapons programme. (Bssnews)