N. Korea stages Arirang mass games

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PYONGYANG, Aug. 10 Kyodo -
North Korea's Arirang mass games opened Monday in the capital Pyongyang, with
about 100,000 people, ranging from schoolchildren to professional artists,
taking part in the gymnastics and artistic spectacle.
The mass games are scheduled to be held at the city's May Day Stadium for five
days a week through late September, a period that coincides with the country's
so-called ''150-day campaign'' aimed at revitalizing the economy.
This year, performers on the stadium floor were accompanied by a massive number
of background card-turners creating some images of the 150-day campaign for the
first time.
In the campaign, which will run through Sept. 16, North Korea plans to lift the
economy by developing four key sectors: power generation, coal, steel and
metal, and railway transport.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and other top officials of the country were not
present at Monday's performance.
Students holding colorful boards, who occupied stadium seats opposite the
spectators, also created an image that calls for making North Korea a strong
and prosperous nation by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of the
nation's late founder Kim Il Sung.
Created in 2002, the mass games have been staged every year since 2005 except
for 2006 when they were cancelled due to severe flooding in the country. In
2007, the mass games were registered in the Guinness World Records as the
world's biggest mass games.
==Kyodo