SEOUL

North Korea on Wednesday ruled out new talks on its nuclear ambitions unless Washington meets unspecified conditions, in a setback to efforts to resolve the stand-off. A fourth round of the stalled six-nation talks will take place only when the United States agrees to its demands, the Stalinist state said.

Reports of the imminent death of the print media may be premature, or even dead wrong, as ”tabloid fever” has gripped the industry in a trend that is gaining speed, a media conference was told on Tuesday. One of the pioneers, Le Matin, a modest Swiss Francophone daily, went tabloid in September 2001. The heavyweights soon began lining up to follow.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il wears a pair of platform shoes to boost his height, a South Korean newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Dong-a Ilbo published a rare photograph of Kim wearing a pair of shoes with heels about 10-12cm high.

North Korean officials have denied reports that the communist regime is preparing to conduct a nuclear test, a Czech delegation said on Wednesday following a visit to Pyongyang this week. However, North Korea is still reluctant to return to six-way talks aimed at winding down its nuclear programme.

South Korea hoped for a favourable response from rival North Korea on Seoul’s latest push to get the North back into six-nation negotiations on nuclear disarmament, but there were signs that the atmosphere was souring on the second day of reconciliation talks on Tuesday.

A United States envoy confirmed on Wednesday that North Korea has begun preparations for a nuclear test as the Stalinist state claimed it has taken a key step towards the manufacture of more atomic bombs. North Korea is believed to have as many as eight nuclear weapons, according to estimates, but has not tested one so far.

Gun-wielding robots could soon be patrolling the world’s most heavily fortified border under a plan by South Korea’s Defence Ministry to bolster its frontier with the North. Plans call for the robots to be installed on the 250-kilometre-long border by 2011.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila asked South Korea on Thursday to boost its investment in his mineral-rich but war-ravaged country, officials said. Kabila arrived in Seoul on Wednesday from Tokyo, where he made a similar call for investment.

Protesters burned Japanese flags in Seoul on Wednesday as South Korea’s foreign affairs minister denounced Japan for stepping up its claim to disputed islets under Seoul’s control. Minister of Foreign Affairs Ban Ki-Moon condemned the move as ”deplorable”, while his ministry said the Tokyo government must take full blame for all consequences.

North Korea has threatened to conduct a long-range missile test and demanded an apology from the United States for labelling the country an ”outpost of tyranny”. The threat, reported by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, quoted the officials as saying there is ”now no binding force” for its missile test moratorium pledged in 1999.

The suicide of a South Korean movie star who hanged herself after succumbing to depression illustrates a tragic trend in South Korea where more people than ever before are killing themselves. Lee Eun-Joo (24) was found dead inside the walk-in closet of her bedroom in the southern suburbs of Seoul on Tuesday.

North Korea marked the 63rd birthday of leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday with feasts of pheasant and venison for the capital’s elite — and a healthy side order of propaganda — amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula over the communist state’s nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea publicly admitted on Thursday for the first time that the country has nuclear weapons, and said it wouldn’t return to six-nation talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. North Korea’s ”nuclear weapons will remain [a] nuclear deterrent for self-defence under any circumstances,” the country’s foreign ministry said.

NHN Corporation, the operator of South Korea’s leading internet search engine Naver, has launched a new desktop search tool designed to crush competition from United States rivals. The new service allows computer users to find files on their hard drives as well as on the internet using free software launched from an icon on the task bar of Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

A South Korean gorged for 24 days on fast food to warn his countrymen about its health consequences, mimicking the United States box office-hit documentary Super Size Me about the ill effects of a man’s month-long binge on McDonald’s fare. Yoon Kwang-yong is now in rehab therapy to lose weight and lower his liver fat.

South Korea launched a crackdown on Thursday on the sex industry as a new law targeting brothel owners, prostitutes and their clients went into force. About 3 000 policemen raided red-light districts in Seoul and other major cities, hauling in 138 violators, including sex workers, brothel owners and customers, the National Police Agency said.

Three South Korean dog-meat lovers were facing a  000 lawsuit after cooking and eating their employer’s pedigree dog, a news report said on Friday. The men, all in their 50s and employed at a car-hire firm, killed and served up the dog in a traditional Korean soup dish during the employer’s absence from the company parking lot where the animal was tethered, Yonhap news agency reported.

Sudan’s foreign minister said on Monday he was optimistic about striking a peace deal within three months to end atrocities in Darfur and again rejected United States charges of genocide in the region. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said his government and rebel groups would ”very soon” resume the African Union-brokered peace talks.

North Korea said a large explosion several days ago was a planned demolition for a hydro-electric project, the BBC reported on Monday. North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun said the blast was intentional following a request for information from British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell, who is visiting Pyongyang.

A woman believed to be the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il died of a heart attack earlier this month after a long battle with breast cancer, South Korean news reports said on Monday. Secret funeral services have been held in Pyongyang for Kim’s second wife, Ko Yong-Hui (51) who died on August 13 after returning home from Paris where she received cancer treatment.

While the international community has been quick to help victims of a deadly train explosion, millions of hungry North Koreans remain in desperate need of foreign aid donations, a United Nations World Food Programme official said on Thursday. North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since the mid-1990s.

South Korea’s Food and Drug Administration on Thursday banned cheeky Valentine’s Day chocolates shaped like genitals or couples making love, and in India, Hindu nationalists who claim they are fighting against Western cultural influence have threatened to shave young lovers’ heads and beat them if they exchange Valentine’s Day cards and gifts.

Despite massive culling of chicken and ducks, a highly contagious bird flu continues to spread in South Korea with new cases confirmed and more suspected cases reported on Wednesday. Authorities have ordered the killing of all chickens and ducks within 3km of all affected farms.

One year after the North Korea nuclear crisis erupted, analysts expecting an early end to north-east Asia’s latest geo-political nightmare are thin on the ground. North Korea’s latest claims this week that it was making atomic bombs after reprocessing 8 000 spent nuclear fuel rods met with considerable scepticism.

Three years ago, Hong Suk-Chon was banished from television after he revealed he was gay. This week, the 32-year-old entertainer will reappear on a television soap with three top South Korean actors, playing an openly gay designer, in a sign that South Korea is slowly opening up to homosexuality.

The death toll from the devastating Typhoon Maemi that swept through South Korea last weekend has risen to 113 with 14 others still unaccounted for, officials said. Damage estimates snowballed to -billion dollars from earlier estimates of -billion.

The South Korean government is set to release more than -billion in emergency funds on Monday as the toll of dead and missing from a devastating weekend typhoon rose to 115. Typhoon Maemi, with winds of up to 215kph, is the most powerful storm on record to hit South Korea.

North Korea celebrated its 55th anniversary as a communist state on Tuesday with patriotic songs, nationalist rhetoric and a troops-only military parade bereft of military hardware, easing tensions over its threats to conduct a nuclear test.