Seoul - North Korea accepted a proposal to meet Friday with the US-led UN Command on reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang agreed Thursday to the proposal for the meeting of generals from both sides after consultations between officers of North Korea and the UN force at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom, the South Korean-based UN Command said.

Seoul  - Shares surged 3.3 per cen

Seoul - South Korea's industry output logged its sharpest drop on record, pushing South-East Asia's fourth largest economy further towards a deep recession.

Output in the mining and manufacturing sectors fell by 25.5 per cent year-on-year in January, after dropping 18.7 per cent in December, the statistics office in Seoul said. It was the sharpest drop since 1970, when such data was first compiled.

Seoul - High-ranking officials of the North Korean army and the United Nations Command (UNC) in South Korea met Monday as tension on the Korean peninsula mounted.

North Korea asked for the meeting, held at the heavily fortified border village Panmunjom, the US-led UNC said, making it the first meeting between the two sides in almost seven years.

Over the weekend, the communist country's state-controlled media accused US troops stationed in the South of "provocations" along the demilitarized puffer zone between the two Koreas.

Seoul  - North Korea said Tuesday that it was preparing to launch a satellite on a domestically produced rocket after weeks of intelligence reports that said it was instead readying a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

A date for the launch was not given in the statement by the Korea Space Technology Committee published by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Seoul - North Korea has deployed medium-range ballistic missiles that could reach the US Pacific territory of Guam, a South Korean military report said Monday.

The newly developed missiles could carry a 650-kilogram warhead 3,000 kilometres, the Defence Ministry said in its so-called White Paper security assessment of North Korea.

With that range, the missiles could reach Japan, the northern tip of Australia and large parts of China, India and Russia.