Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n; KJU) chaired a meeting on the DPRK’s disaster prevention programs at the 25 April House of Culture on 4 and 5 September (Sunday and Monday). The meeting was held for “the comprehensive building of a counter-crisis capability to prevent various trypes of disasters threatening the prosperity of the state and wellbeing of the people.”
Among those coming to the platform of the meeting were DPRK Premier Kim Tok Hun (Kim Tok-hun), Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Secretary for Organizational Affairs Jo Yong Won (Cho Yo’ng-wo’n), WPK Secretary for Military Affairs Pak Jong Chon (Pak Cho’ng-ch’o’n), WPK Secretary for Propaganda and Agitation (Publicity and Information) Ri Il Hwan (Ri Il-hwan), WPK Central Auditing Commission Chairman Kim Jae Ryong (Kim Ch’ae-ryong), Korean People’s Army [KPA] General Political Bureau Director Jong Kyong Thaek (Cho’ng Kyo’ng-t’aek), Minister of Public Security Pak Su Il (Pak Su-il), WPK Secretary for Economic Affairs Jon Hyon Chol (Cho’n Hyo’n-ch’o’l) and DPRK Vice Premier and State Planning Commission Chairman Pak Jong Gun (Pak Cho’ng-kun). Attending the meeting were a variety of Central Committee Department Directors and senior cadres, senior KPA personnel from the Ministry of National Defense, chief secretaries and guidance cadres of provincial party committees, leading officials and chief functionaries of DPRK Cabinet ministries and commissions, leading officials of Public Security departments and prosecutors’ offices and cadres and functionaries from city, county and primary party committees.
KJU delivered a speech in which he said that “the work for boosting the capability to prevent disaster is an important work for defending the prosperity and development of the state and safeguarding the people’s lives and an important revolutionary task to be prioritized for the rising generations, to say nothing of our generation.” He detailed the “plan of the Party Central Committee for building the national crisis response capability.” KJU stressed that “nothing is more precious for our Party and state regarding the people-first principle as the main political ideal than the people’s lives and safety.” He “indicated the detailed tasks and ways for putting the state’s disaster prevention capability onto a new level in the shortest period.”
DPRK Premier Kim Tok Hun delivered a report which was followed by speakers. According to state media, “the meeting served as an important occasion in awakening and arousing the entire Party, the whole country and all the people out in the struggle for preventing disasters to carry out the state’s far=sighted plan and in remarkably improving the national crisis response capability.”