Seoul - North Korea has started assembling a Taepodong-2 missile for a test at a missile launch base on the communist state's east coast, South Korean news reports said Friday.

Special transporters brought several parts of a missile to the Musudan-ri base, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, quoting government sources. It is believed that the first and second stage of the missile are being readied for test-firing by the end of this month at the earliest.

Pyeongchang, South Korea - Three Russian stars have failed doping tests and the world championship opening ceremony fell victim to bad weather on a black Friday for the sport of biathlon.

The International Biathlon Union (IBU) said that Ekaterina Iourieva and Dmitri Yaroshenko each failed two tests at the World Cup season-opener in Ostersund, Sweden, in early December. Albina Akhatova submitted one positive sample there as IBU boss Anders Besseberg spoke of organized doping.

Seoul  - South Korea's central bank on Thursday cut interest rates for the sixth time in four months to 2 per cent, a new record low, as the country heads towards recession.

The Bank of Korea cut its base rate by 0.5 percentage points to 2 per cent.

Since October, the rate was slashed by 325 basis points, but bank Governor Lee Seong Tae did not rule out further cuts to counter the recession threatening the country for the first time in 11 years.

Seoul - Men unknowingly annoy women by proposing or professing their love in a way that they mean to be romantic but that ends up disappointing their partners.

A survey conducted by a South Korean wedding agency and released ahead of Valentine's Day, the prime season for proposals and grand romantic gestures, found that the first rule is never to assume.

The poll by the firm Duo of 89 men and 107 women found that a majority of the women chose diamond rings as the most favorable gift while a majority of the men falsely assumed that women want simply sweet words or a song of love.

The survey found, however, that none of the 107 female respondents wanted a song.

The second rule is not to be stingy.

Seoul - The family of a Japanese woman abducted to North Korea is to meet with a former North Korean spy in the hope that she can shed light on the fate of the kidnap victim, officials said Wednesday.

The meeting would take place soon, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan said after a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Hirofumi Nakasone in Seoul.

Former North Korean agent Kim Hyeon Hee, who now lives in South Korea, said she wanted to meet with the family of Yaeko Taguchi, more than 30 years after the Japanese woman was abducted by agents from the Stalinist state.

Kim was handed a death sentence in Seoul after the bombing of a South Korean passenger plane in 1987, but later pardoned. In the bombing, 115 people were killed.

Seoul  - The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, Yu Myung Hwan and Hirofumi Nakasone, Wednesday urged communist North Korea to stop its belligerent posturing to defuse international tensions.

The latest in Pyongyang's series of sharply worded threats had created new tension and was not helpful, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement after a meeting between Yu and Nakasone in Seoul.