Kim Jong-un proclaimed new 'supreme leader'

AFP - North Korea Thursday staged a massive memorial service for late leader Kim Jong-Il attended by tens of thousands, and declared his untested young son and successor the supreme party and military chief.

"Respected comrade Kim Jong-Un is the supreme leader of our party and the military who inherited Kim Jong-Il's spirit, leadership, personality, morality and fortitude," said ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-Nam.

Addressing a vast crowd filling a wintry Pyongyang square, he praised the late Kim for contributing to "global peace and stability of the 21st century".

Jong-Un, clad in a black overcoat, headed the platform. The official news agency also described him as "supreme leader of the party, state and army".

The service in Kim Il-Sung Square, named after the communist country's founder and father of the late Kim, will end 13 days of mourning following Kim Jong-Il's death on December 17 from a heart attack at the age of 69.

The country observed three minutes of silence nationwide at noon (0300 GMT), punctuated by the horns of ships and railway engine whistles.

The service follows Wednesday's pomp-filled funeral which analysts said was designed to bolster the image of Kim Jong-Un, who is in his late 20s and emerged from obscurity only in the past couple of years.

The son inherits a daunting in-tray, including severe food shortages, a crumbling economy, acute power shortages and a nuclear programme which has alienated the West.

UN agencies have said six million people -- a quarter of the population -- urgently need food aid.

"The great heart of comrade Kim Jong-Il has ceased to beat... such an unexpected and early departure from us is the biggest and the most unimaginable loss to our party and the revolution," Kim Yong-Nam told the crowd, his voice throbbing with emotion.

The North would "transform the sorrow into strength and courage 1,000 times greater under the leadership of comrade Kim Jong-Un and will march firmly along the path of Songun taught by great leader Kim Jong-Il".

The Songun military-first policy prioritises the welfare of the 1.2 million-strong armed forces over civilians.

Another speaker, Kim Jong-Gak, pledged the military's loyalty to the youthful new leader, who has been named a general but has not served in the armed forces.

"Our people's military will serve comrade Kim Jong-Un at the head of our revolutionary troops and will continue to maintain and complete the Songun accomplishments of great leader Kim Jong-Il," he said.

Recalling that the late leader had ordered the military to serve General Kim Jong-Un well, he said all troops "will become a wall to protect" him.

Kim Jong-Gak is in charge of military administration and organisation.

Next to the new leader on the rostrum was military chief Ri Yong-Ho. Also in the line-up were Kim Jong-Gak, Kim Yong-Nam, senior ruling party officials Kim Ki-Man and Choe Thae-Bok, and defence minister Kim Yong-Chun.

It was not immediately clear if the new leader's uncle Jang Song-Thaek was also on the rostrum. Analysts expect him to enjoy an influential role as adviser to the young Kim.

The service ended with an artillery salute.

Since the elder Kim died, the North's propaganda machine has been heaping fulsome praise on both him and Jong-Un, who has already been declared the "great successor".

Jong-Un was at the forefront of Wednesday's three-hour funeral procession which brought tens of thousands of shivering soldiers and civilians onto the snowbound streets of Pyongyang, many weeping or beating the frozen ground.

He walked bareheaded and gloveless alongside the hearse bearing his father's body as it left and returned to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.

Jong-Un's highly visible presence was in contrast to the 1994 funeral of Kim Il-Sung, when Kim Jong-Il did not follow his father's motorcade, Baek Seung-Joo of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses in South Korea pointed out.

Ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun Wednesday stressed the late Kim's achievements in giving his country dignity as a country "that manufactured and launched artificial satellites and accessed nukes".

PYONGYANG, A CAPITAL IN MOURNING Soldiers weep openly as the hearse carrying the body of North Korea's late leader Kim Jong-il crawls its way along the snowy streets of Pyongyang. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Pyongyang's central square and surrounding streets to pay tribute to the 69-year-old "dear leader" on the twelfth day of mourning. Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, walks beside the funeral car. The little-known scion of the Kim dynasty, who is thought to be in his late 20s, is to succeed his father as head of state. A limousine carrying a huge portrait of a smiling Kim Jong-il leads the funeral cortege. Kim Jong-il's coffin is wrapped in the flag of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, which his late father Kim Il-sung founded at the age of 14. Ranks of olive green-clad soldiers line up in front of Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where Kim's body had lain in state. The secretive state's powerful military has rallied behind the "great successor", Kim Jong-un. Mourners wail as the funeral cortege passes by. Analysts say it is not clear whether the images broadcast by North Korean state television were live or recorded.