N. Korean lawmakers rubber-stamp Kim Jong Il's re-election

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament re-elected Kim Jong Il the communist country's leader Wednesday and endorsed Pyongyang's decision to "increase its nuclear deterrent," spurring orchestrated celebrations by dancing housewives and loyal soldiers.

The bespectacled Kim, 61, nodded nonchalantly from a platform as 670 legislators stood in unison, wildly clapped their hands and shouted hurrays to voice unanimous support for his new five-year term as chairman of the North's highest governing body, the National Defense Commission.

Tens of thousands of olive-clad soldiers stood in neat lines at a Pyongyang rally as a speaker called for increased "battle readiness against American imperialists."

The festivities, carefully choreographed by the Stalinist regime, came as Kim upped the stakes in negotiations with the United States and other countries over the North's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea says it will give up its program only if Washington guarantees the Pyongyang regime's security by signing a nonaggression treaty and providing badly needed economic aid.

The United States insists that North Korea first scrap its nuclear program.

As Kim watched, the Supreme People's Assembly adopted a statement backing a recent government announcement to "keep and strengthen its nuclear deterrent force as a just self-defensive means to repel U.S. pre-emptive nuclear attacks," the North's official news agency KCNA said.

The parliament then "decided to take relevant measures," KCNA said without elaborating.

Representatives from the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia met in Beijing last week to discuss ways to end the nearly year-old nuclear crisis, which started when American officials said the North admitted having a nuclear program in violation of international agreements.

After the Beijing meeting, China, North Korea's only remaining major ally, said all six countries agreed to continue talking.

But the North later said it no longer had "interest or expectations" for future talks and would build up its nuclear capabilities.

It was unclear whether North Korea intended to boycott the talks or simply escalated its rhetoric to elicit U.S. concessions. The North also has been careful in describing its nuclear capabilities, saying it has a "nuclear deterrent force" but not elaborating.

Some U.S. officials believe North Korea may have one or two atomic bombs and could build several more in months.

North Korea's envoy to the Beijing talks warned that the reclusive state might test a nuclear device to prove its capabilities, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

When North Korea enters a crucial negotiation or engages in a confrontation with the outside world, its leaders orchestrate huge rallies and other public outpourings of loyalty for Kim.

On Wednesday, cars mounted with loudspeakers ran through the streets announcing that parliament re-elected Kim chairman of the defense commission overseeing the country's 1.1 million armed forces -- the world's fifth-largest military. By constitution, that is the highest post in the government.

Kim, who rules his impoverished 22 million people with a personality cult inherited from his late father, President Kim Il Sung, believes his regime's survival depends on how profitably he plays his nuclear card, experts say.

President Bush has labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran.

The parliament also appointed Pak Pong Ju, minister of chemical industries, to replace Hong Song Nam as premier. That indicates North Korea may boost efforts to produce goods for its impoverished people, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said, according to the South Korean national news agency Yonhap.

Six economic-related ministers were replaced in the 37-member Cabinet, but Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun was retained.