The newspaper of North Korea's ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, has launched its own website as the communist state builds up an online presence.

It was unclear exactly when Rodong's homepage (http://www.rodong.rep.kp) went online, but it apparently opened in time for leader Kim Jong-Il's 69th birthday Wednesday.

Pyongyang also has an official propaganda website Uriminzokkiri (http://www.uriminzokkiri.com)

The North has recently revived the use of its Internet domain name .kp, an expert reported last month.

The name was assigned in 2007 and managed by a company based in Germany. But the domain and a handful of sites also managed by the company disappeared in the second half of last year for unknown reasons.

They have now been revived in a joint venture with a Thai telecoms company, Martyn Williams of IT research group IDG said in January.

In recent months, the North has also opened accounts on Twitter and YouTube but these were recently hacked by South Korean users who posted derogatory comments about the ruling regime.

The North also posted pictures on a Facebook site last year.

Despite the cyber propaganda campaigns, the communist state strictly limits its own people's access to outside information.

Rodong's new website has conventional content.

One story related how top communist party officials and National Defence Commission members heartily greeted Kim Jong-Il when he arrived for a celebratory dinner party Wednesday.

It also announced that the 92nd volume of Kim Il-Sung's writings and speeches has been published. The founding president died in 1994.

earlier related report
Japan, S. Korea urge UN to discuss North Korea
Tokyo (AFP) Feb 16, 2011 - Japan and South Korea's foreign ministers said Wednesday that the UN Security Council should take up the issue of North Korea's uranium enrichment programme with a view to possible punishment

Seiji Maehara of Japan and Kim Sung-hwan of South Korea told a news conference that the North must take concrete steps to give up its nuclear programmes as it had previously agreed.

"We confirmed that North Korea's uranium enrichment programme is a violation of a UN Security Council resolution and a joint statement under six party talks," Maehara said at the close of a meeting with Kim in Tokyo.

"We agreed that the international community's concerns over uranium enrichment should be taken up at an appropriate forum like the UN Security Council," Maehara said.

Tokyo and Seoul will work with Washington to persuade others to bring South Korea before the global body, Maehara said.

China opposes taking the issue to the Security Council.

Beijing wants six-party disarmament talks revived as part of a process to ease tensions on the peninsula. But the United States and Japan say Pyongyang must mend ties first with Seoul.

Kim said Seoul was keeping its door open for talks with Pyongyang but "the North must show its sincere attitude" to make progress in improving relations.

"We don't believe in holding talks for the sake of holding talks," Kim said.

North Korea showed off its new enrichment programme to visiting US experts in November.

It says the plant will be part of a peaceful nuclear power project, but experts say it could easily be reconfigured to produce material for atomic weapons.

The six-nation talks grouping China, the United States, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan, have been in stasis since December 2008.

The UN Security Council has ordered the North to shut down all atomic activities following two tests of plutonium bombs.

The tense ties between the two Koreas deteriorated further following the North's shelling of a South Korean island on November 23, which killed four people including two civilians and briefly raised fears of all-out war.