SEOUL

North Korean authorities have indicated flooding may have left up to 300 000 people homeless, a United Nations aid-agency spokesperson said on Wednesday. North Korea said hundreds were dead or missing. Meanwhile, at least 38 more people died overnight in flood-hit Bangladesh.

The second South Korean hostage shot dead by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan was identified on Tuesday as Shim Sung-min (29) a former IT firm employee who did volunteer work to help the poor. Afghan authorities recovered his blood-stained body dumped south-west of Kabul.

Manchester United will tour South Africa in 2008 after admitting that Africa and Asia, rather than the United States, are the regions where their fan-base is most fanatical. The Premiership champions, currently in Asia on a four-leg pre-season tour, were due to land in Macau on Saturday after wowing fans in Tokyo and Seoul.

A North Korean diplomat confirmed on Sunday that his country had shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor after receiving an initial shipment of oil aid and said that United Nations inspectors would start to verify the closure later in the day. Kim Myong Gil also raised hope for further progress on disarmament.

A South Korean local government has stopped awarding prizes to big-spending barflies in the second setback this month for the country’s hard-drinking culture. The Goesan county government had faced criticism over its ”Drinking Culture Prize”, rewarding county employees who boosted the local economy.

A group of 12 workers, including three South Koreans and eight Filipinos, were kidnapped on Thursday by armed mili tants in Nigeria, the South Korean foreign ministry said. Rich in oil reserves, the Niger Delta area has been at the centre of a long confrontation between the Nigerian government and a militant group.

South Korea on Friday announced it would resume food aid to North Korea and the two sides agreed to restart family reunions, following their first high-level meeting since the North’s nuclear test. The two nations also announced a series of other steps to improve relations chilled by the North’s missile launches last July and an atomic test last October.

Singing soldiers and flower shows marked the birthday of the man dubbed North Korea’s ”invincible brilliant commander” by state media, as regional powers wondered whether he would abide by a nuclear deal. The communist world’s first dynastic leader, Kim Jong-il (65) is the unchallenged head of the reclusive state whose economy has fallen deeper into poverty.

North Korea said on Friday it will maintain its war mobilisation posture against feared United States attacks, despite this week’s deal aimed at dismantling its nuclear-weapons programmes. A senior official also praised the country’s nuclear weapons, just days after the North agreed in principle to give them up.

North Korea on Saturday dismissed speculation it was helping Iran develop its atomic programmes, insisting it was behaving as a responsible nuclear state. ”In a bid to mislead public opinion, some Western media recently spread the rumour that [North Korea] is cooperating with Iran in nuclear development,” the KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson as saying.

A South Korean worker was shot and wounded in an armed robbery in Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region, but the injury was not life-threatening, officials said on Wednesday. The worker from Hyundai Heavy Industries was shot in the thigh when 16 gunmen approached the vessel he was traveling on with nine others.

Gunmen who kidnapped nine South Korean workers in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta have contacted the South Korean government, an official in Seoul said on Thursday, but their motives were still unclear. The gunmen, armed with dynamite, invaded Daewoo Engineering and Construction’s riverside base on the outskirts of the southern Bayelsa state capital Yenagoa on Wednesday.

South Korean officials said on Friday activity had been spotted near a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea but there was no evidence to suggest Pyongyang was about to test another atomic device. ABC News had earlier quoted a United States defence official as saying that North Korea appeared to have made preparations for a second nuclear test.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun, the public face of the reclusive communist regime, has died aged 77, official media said on Wednesday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il sent a wreath on Wednesday to Paek’s bier, ”expressing deep condolences over his death”, the Korean Central News Agency reported.

North Korea took a break from its hit parade of rousing songs praising the communist revolution to have a Mozart moment in Pyongyang. The reclusive state, where performances are more likely to include titles like Let’s Support our Supreme Commander with Arms staged a concert of Mozart’s works, the official KCNA news agency reported.

Incoming United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged patience over talks to end North Korea’s nuclear-weapons programme. The latest round of six-country negotiations ended last week in Beijing but failed to make progress, with Pyongyang and Washington blaming each other for the impasse.

North Korea has relied on the wise leadership of Kim Jong-Il to make sure there have been no outbreaks of Aids in the reclusive country, its official media reported on Friday. North Korean media, which often gives glowing reports of Kim offering expert guidance on subjects as varied as cobbling shoes and irrigating fields, said its Dear Leader has been deeply concerned about Aids.

South Korean engraver Kim Young-sik looks in the mirror every morning and sees the reflection of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. As his bouffant-combed hairline recedes, the 56-year-old resident of Seoul is a dead ringer for the rarely seen North Korean of big hair, spectacles and platform shoes fame.

North Korea launched five short-range missiles during military exercises last week, a news report said on Monday. The missiles presumably had ranges between 10 and 50km, said Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest circulation newspaper, quoting an unnamed official.

North Korea denounced United Nations sanctions on Tuesday as a declaration of war, while across the border in Seoul an official said there were signs the reclusive Communist state may be preparing for a second nuclear test. Pyongyang said it had withstood international pressure before and so was hardly likely to yield now that it had become ”a nuclear weapons state”.

United States spy satellites have detected suspicious activity near North Korea’s nuclear test site that may signal preparations for another detonation, US television networks have reported. US officials said they could not be certain what the North Koreans were doing, but the activity could be preparations for a second nuclear blast.

More than 800 North Koreans are dead or missing after major rain storms and flooding that damaged homes and farmland, a pro-North newspaper published in Japan reported from Pyongyang on Monday. Three major storms drenched North Korea in July, washing away crops and raising the possibility of famine in a reclusive country that already battles chronic food shortages.