Win boosts electricity
Reuters, Beijing
North Korea's triumph in the women's Under 20 world championship not only sparked rejoicing in Pyongyang, it even boosted electricity production in the capital city, the North's state news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday.The North Koreans thrashed China's Steel Rosebuds, the pre-match favourites, 5-0 in a rainstorm in Moscow on Sunday to win their country's first FIFA world championship crown. "I was greatly excited to hear the news that our girls won the world championship," Ri Chol-su, a worker at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Complex, told KCNA. "This encouraged us to achieve an unprecedented high boost in the electricity production today. "We believe this signal victory represents the spirit of Korea. We workers will step up the building of a great prosperous powerful nation in the same spirit displayed by them." Years of diplomatic isolation and central economic planning have left North Korea chronically short of energy. The contribution made to the victory by the hardline Communist country's secretive leader Kim Jong-il was not forgotten either.
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