100,000 SEE NORTH KOREA POWER SHOW

The government mobilised 100,000 North Koreans for the annual New Year's rally, which honours leader Kim Jong Il and reaffirms full public support for his rule in the year ahead.

Pumping their right fists in unison, they marched through Pyongyang's main Kim Il Sung plaza pledging their loyalty, some waving huge red flags as top officials watched from a viewing stand.

Kim Jong Il did not appear among them in footage broadcast by APTN. The 66-year-old leader has not shown up at a mass event since reportedly suffering a stroke in mid-August, even missing the country's milestone 60th anniversary in September.

But North Korean officials deny the reports of Kim's collapse. They say Kim has been busy touring farms, factories and military units across the country, with state-run media recording some two dozen trips since early October alone.

State media said Kim toured a newly-built power plant on the east coast and dropped in on newlyweds whose home is powered by the plant.

Many of the reports, photos and footage do not specify an exact location or date, and South Korean officials say they cannot confirm the visits with so little reliable information.

Still, foreign officials and analysts pore over each photo, frame and statements for clues to what's going on in the reclusive communist nation.

Kim kicked off the new year with soldiers, the Korean Central News Agency said - a change from his usual routine of paying tribute to workers at industrial sites or at the grave of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. The tank unit is North Korea's first; it once fell under his father's command and is considered the birthplace of North Korea's "songun" military policy, the report said.

In Seoul, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said it was the first time since 1995 the leader spent New Year's Day with the military - one of several moves he said demonstrate North Korea's renewed efforts to show the military's primacy.