video transcript

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: North Koreans held a mass rally on Saturday to pledge to carry out the tasks set by their leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year editorial. A video filmed by the North's official media KCNA for Reuters showed Kim Il-sung Square packed with thousands of residents and soldiers in Pyongyang for the mass rally, but the leader Kim wasn't seen during the rally. People stood under banners reading "Hurray for our comrade Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of our party and people", while listening to speeches in the cold. In a previous public address, Kim gave a speech through national broadcaster KRT on new year's day. This appeared to take the place of the previous policy setting new year editorial his father, Kim Jong-il, used to publish in leading state newspapers. The young Kim took over power in the reclusive state after his father died in 2011. In that rare TV address, Kim called for an end to confrontation between the two Korea, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, and more efforts to become an economic power. The New Year address was the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader after the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un's grandfather. Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda in editorials in state newspapers instead.