Kim Jong-il

London, Feb. 17: Kim Jong-il celebrated his birthday in exuberant fashion yesterday, despite worsening food rations among his people and international condemnation of his nuclear ambitions.

Children?s dance displays, synchronised swimming, fireworks and Kim?s personal touch ? flower shows featuring the Kimjongilia, a form of magnolia specially bred to bloom early in his honour ? marked the 63 years of North Korea?s ?Dear Leader?.

An army dance ensemble performed a concert featuring numbers such as General on a Galloping White Horse and a female solo, I Do Not Know a Warmer Bosom.

Pyongyang?s central square ?turned into rising waves of dances when the participants presented more enthusiastic dances, waving the flags of the supreme commander?, said the official Korean Central News Agency.

?The Korean people unanimously revere leader Kim Jong-il as a brilliant commander,? it added.

The KCNA?s clear assertion that Kim?s personality cult is alive and well will come as a blow to those opponents who had hoped from recent leaks from inside the reclusive country that his power was heading for collapse.

Late last year, reports emerged that his official portrait was being taken down from some public buildings, while analysts have questioned how much longer even a totalitarian dictatorship such as his can survive in the face of economic crisis.