N. Korea's Kim opens sci-tech complex

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended the opening ceremony of a science technology complex on the first day of the new year, the North's state media said Saturday.

The "Sci-Tech Complex" opened Friday to help spread the latest science and technology developed by the North's ruling Workers' Party, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

"Going round the interior of the complex, (Kim) said this is a great center for all-people study and one for disseminating latest science and technology in which the party's plan has been materialized," the KNCA said in an English dispatch, monitored in Seoul. "He said meaningful words that the first gate to the New Year to greet the 7th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea has been opened with science."

The party plans to hold its first congress in more than three decades in May, during which Kim is widely expected to unveil new lines of policies and conduct a major reshuffle.

Kim, who enters his fifth year in power this year, could also seek to placate the military by reinstating demoted officials, according to a report by the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

The communist country appears determined to carry out additional nuclear tests as it continues to build tunnels at its nuclear test site, the report said.

"The threat of a nuclear or missile test currently has impact in itself, so it appears that (North Korea) will prepare for a nuclear or missile test and watch for the opportune moment while maintaining ambiguity," it said. (Yonhap)