Briefly

NORTH KOREA

N. Koreans celebrate Kim Il-sung's birthday

PYONGYANG | The flags are up, and the streets of North Korea’s capital are lined with flowers as the nation prepares to celebrate the biggest holiday of the year: the birthday of the late President Kim Il-sung.

April 15 is called the “Day of the Sun” in honor of the man who founded North Korea in 1948 and maintains godlike status in the country now led by his son, Kim Jong-il.

It’s a time for North Koreans to relax with friends and family. But it’s also an occasion to rally national pride as the country undergoes a sensitive leadership transition and tensions with the outside world persist.

North Koreans are arriving in droves to lay bouquets at the towering bronze statue of Kim Il-sung in central Pyongyang.

CHINA

Police clash with civilians at Tibetan monastery

BEIJING | Police encircled a Buddhist monastery in a Tibetan area of southwestern China when tensions sparked by the self-immolation of a monk last month escalated into clashes, exiled Tibetans and activists said on Thursday, citing sources in the area.

The standoff prompted the leader of Tibet's government-in-exile in northern India to say that monks at the Kirti Monastery, the focus of the conflict, could be in danger.

Hundreds of ethnic Tibetan people in Aba county, Sichuan province, gathered at the Kirti Monastery on Tuesday trying to stop authorities from moving out monks for government-mandated “re-education,” the International Campaign for Tibet said in an emailed statement.

That prompted armed police to lock down the monastery with as many as 2,500 monks inside, the organization said.

A 21-year-old Tibetan monk burned himself to death on March 16 in Aba, an overwhelmingly ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province that erupted in defiance against Chinese Communist Party control three years ago.

His act echoed protests that gripped Tibetan areas of China in March 2008, when Buddhist monks and other Tibetan people loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama, their traditional religious leader, confronted police and troops across the region.

The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said police began to force their way through the crowds on Tuesday, beating some protesters and using police dogs on the crowd.

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