Instead of Launching a Missile, North Korea Throws a Party<br />SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea marked its government’s 69th anniversary not with another missile test, as many had feared,<br />but with a gala party for the scientists involved in carrying out the country’s most powerful nuclear test yet last week, the state-run news media reported on Sunday.<br />On their way from the country’s underground nuclear test site in northeast North Korea to Pyongyang, the technicians had been<br />cheered by people who poured out to see them passing by, the country’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.<br />Mr. Kim’s government called it “a merciless sledgehammer blow to the U. S. imperialists.”<br />Outside officials and analysts had feared that the country would commemorate the birthday of its government on<br />Saturday by conducting another weapons test, possibly launching another intercontinental ballistic missile.<br />During the banquet on Saturday, Mr. Kim spurred his engineers to make “redoubled efforts, not slackening the spirit displayed<br />by them in bringing the great auspicious event of the national history,” the North Korean news agency said.<br />“He put forward the tasks for the scientists and technicians in the field of defense science to conduct scientific researches for<br />bolstering up the nuclear deterrence of self-defense in the drive to attain the final goal of completing the state nuclear force<br />The country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, celebrated the national holiday on Saturday by bringing his nuclear scientists<br />and engineers to Pyongyang, the capital, and holding a banquet.
