by Park Chan-Kyong

SEOUL - North Korea Wednesday marked its biggest holiday in festive mood, state media said, despite international tensions over Pyongyang's rocket launch and its vow to restart a nuclear weapons programme.

The Day of the Sun, the anniversary of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung, brings extra rations of food and drink in the communist state, where millions go hungry due to shortages.

Tens of thousands queued for admission to Kim Il-Sung's birthplace in Pyongyang as an international art festival and an exhibition of Kimilsungia hybrid orchids named after the late leader opened in the capital.

State TV aired documentaries, movies and special programmes dedicated to the memory of Kim Il-Sung, who died in 1994 but remains "eternal president" inside his mausoleum.

In addition to extra rations North Koreans get two days' holiday, while children receive sweets as "gifts" from the leader.

State media called for unshakeable loyalty to Kim Jong-Il, crediting him with what it called a successful satellite launch earlier this month in defiance of international pressure.

The communist party daily Rodong Sinmun praised his "incomparable courage and boldness" and termed the launch a "historic victory".

'(North Koreans) must follow and uphold faithfully the General's thoughts and ideas and his leadership,' it said in an editorial entitled "Succeed the Great Leader Kim Il-Sung's feats and let our socialist fatherland shine eternally as the People's Paradise".

Rodong called for all-out efforts to meet the national goal of achieving a strong and prosperous nation by 2012, the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-Sung's birth.

On the eve of the anniversary people held various celebratory gatherings and visited the mausoleum where the elder Kim's embalmed body lies in state.

At a national meeting on Tuesday the de facto head of state Kim Yong-Nam accused the South and the United States of seeking to attack the North as tensions mounted over the rocket launch and nuclear standoff.

Should they ignite a war, the North would "mete out a merciless punishment to the provocateurs and accomplish the historic cause of national reunification", he was quoted by the North's official news agency as saying.

The North says its rocket launched a peaceful communications satellite, while the United States and its allies saw it as a disguised long-range missile test.

The UN Security Council Monday condemned the launch and vowed to tighten enforcement of sanctions imposed after the North's 2006 missile and nuclear tests.

In response Pyongyang announced Tuesday it would boycott six-national nuclear disarmament talks and would reopen the plants at Yongbyon, which produced weapons-grade plutonium.