Seoul - North Korea celebrated its 50th anniversary with a grand military parade featuring banners hailing long life for the country's late founder, Kim Il-sung. Dominating Kim Il-sung square was a giant portrait of the "Great Leader", who died of a heart attack in 1994, and banners were hung in the square reading: "Long Live the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung", North Korean television footage showed.
Thousands of soldiers marched by as Kim's son and successor, Mr Kim Jong-il, somberly reviewed the parade from a balcony, occasionally waving or returning a salute. North Korea was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding as a communist state, following the ouster of Japanese colonial rule at the end of the second World War.