But it wasn’t all a sombre affair. Pictures released by North Korea’s state media also showed the adoring crowd clapping and cheering Kim as he waved back from his seat, flanked by male officials in suits and military uniform.The event – the first National Mothers’ Meeting in 11 years – was put on amid a fall in the isolationist state’s birth rate, which has evidently prompted concern among the DPRK’s (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) top officials.Addressing the audience as ‘Dear Mothers’, Kim told them ‘we are confronted with a host of social tasks that our mothers should join to tackle’.