By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - With figure skaters, strange weather patterns, a fresh missile threat and ageing cadres praising a "peerlessly great man," North Korea celebrated leader Kim Jong-il's 67th birthday on Monday.
While the North basked in festivities, regional powers were on edge over a possible North Korean missile launch while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on her first overseas visit since taking office, flew to Asia where reclusive Pyongyang will be high on her agenda.
North Korea, which reports say has been readying its longest-range Taepodong-2 missile for a test, said in its official media it has the right to fire the rocket, which is supposed to be able to hit Alaska but has never successfully flown.
"One will come to know later what will be launched in the DPRK (North Korea)," its official KCNA news agency said.
North Korea says the long-range missile is a cornerstone of its peaceful space programme, although experts say it is for military purposes.
In recent weeks, North Korea's angry rhetoric has increased sharply, including a threat to destroy the wealthy South in anger at the hardline policies of its President Lee Myung-bak.
South Korean officials also suspect the North could soon test-fire short-range missiles, aiming to put pressure on Lee to resume massive aid and to get the Obama administration's attention.
On Friday, Clinton offered North Korea a peace treaty, normal ties and aid if it eliminated its nuclear arms programme. There has been no response yet from Pyongyang.
She was scheduled to arrive in Japan on Monday on a trip that also takes her to Indonesia, South Korea and China.
SPECULATION OVER SUCCESSOR
Kim's health problems have set off fresh speculation over who might succeed him as leader of Asia's only communist dynasty and one of the world's most isolated states, whose efforts to become a nuclear weapons power mean it is never far from the international community's list of major concerns.
Kim, who took power after his father and state founder Kim Il-sung died in 1994, has vexed the world for years with his pursuit of nuclear arms and the constant threat of sending his one million-strong army across the border that has divided the Korean peninsula for over half a century.
He has also led his country deeper into poverty and, in the late 1990s, a famine estimated to have killed about 1 million of the then 22 million population.
Kim, thought to have suffered a stroke in August and believed to be plagued by chronic illness, has relied heavily on military threats, with some success, to squeeze concessions from regional powers to help keep his ravaged economy afloat.
Deified at home as the "Dear Leader," most North Korean official media reports were not about regional tensions but celebrations marking "the most auspicious day of the nation."
In North Korea, Kim's birthday means festivals with singing soldiers, dancing in the street, a few extra handfuls of rice for workers and sweets for children.
This year, synchronised swimmers and figure skaters performed and a national meeting was held at which the North's nominal number two leader, Kim Yong-nam, said: "The history of humankind has never known such a peerlessly great man as Kim Jong-il."
It is not unusual for Kim to miss the public birthday celebrations. But his absence in the past year from events he usually attends raised concern about his health, his grip on power and who might be making decisions about the North's nuclear arms programmes.
Kim appears to have recovered although his trademark paunch presses less clearly on his mud-grey jumpsuits, the bouffant hair has thinned and he appears to have given up wearing platform shoes -- with speculation in the South that, post-stroke, these are harder for him to balance in.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Nick Macfie and Dean Yates)
