Kim Jong Il remembered

PYONGYANG (AP):

Army trucks loaded with artillery rolled by the memorial palace for North Korea's late leaders as Kim Jong Un presided over a military birthday commemoration for his father Thursday.

Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack in December, and North Koreans marked what would have been his 70th birthday by remembering him and showing support for his young son and successor.

Across Pyongyang, they bowed before Kim Jong Il's portrait and laid single blossoms in his honour on the holiday now called 'Day of the Shining Star'.

The Kim Jong Un ode Footsteps reverberated across the capital city all day, emphasising the son's inheritance of the family legacy bequeathed to him by father and grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.

The Kims have ruled North Korea since its inception in 1948 following the division of the Korean peninsula into the communist-backed north and the US-allied south. Kim Il Sung remains the country's "eternal president" even after his death in 1994.

The transition to a third-generation Kim comes at a delicate time for North Korea, which struggles with a chronic food shortage and faces pressure to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme.