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birthday, but made no public comments before leaving the lavish event.
• Flanked by generals and senior government officials, Kim stood in a high viewing area well above and away from the sea of onlookers who cheered and held up colorful placards in unison as the troops filed passed. North Korea watchers had hoped the young leader might address the crowd to shed some light on the isolated and secretive nation's politics or diplomatic goals.
• The military parade in Kim Il Sung Square featured mostly reserve troops and did not include displays of the kind of heavy artillery, tanks and missiles that the North rolled out in July to commemorate the armistice that ended hostilities on the Korean Peninsula in 1953.
• Kim made no remarks at the July parade, either.
• The North has recently shown an increasing willingness to engage in talks with South Korea, including efforts to reopen a joint industrial complex and allow reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, but it has also taken something of a hard-line with the United States.
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• AMSTERDAM (AP) -- The Van Gogh Museum says it has identified a long-lost Vincent Van Gogh painting that spent years in a Norwegian attic believed to be by another painter. It is the first full-size canvas by the Dutch master discovered since 1928.
• "Sunset at Montmajour" depicts trees, bushes and sky, painted with Van Gogh's familiar thick brush strokes. It can be dated to the exact day it was painted because Vincent described it in a letter to his brother, Theo, and said he painted it the previous day -- July 4, 1888.
• He said the painting was done "on a stony heath where small twisted oaks grow."
• Museum experts said the painting was authenticated by letters, style and the physical materials used, and they had traced its history.
• Museum director Axel Rueger described the discovery as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" at an unveiling ceremony.
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