Phnom Penh - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday called on South-East Asian leaders to hold an emergency meeting to agree on a regional strategy to stem the spread of swine flu. "We need to have an emergency meeting of ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) to address this deadly disease as soon as possible," he told a graduation ceremony at the National Institute of Education in Phnom Penh.

The premier called on ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan to organize the meeting and invite health ministers from all member countries.

Seoul - South Korea recorded a record current account surplus in March as imports weakened more than the country's falling exports, the central bank said Wednesday. The surplus hit 6.65 billion dollars, nearly double the surplus seen in February of 3.56 billion dollars, the Bank of Korea said, adding that it expected another surplus this month as a decline in exports caused by the global economic crisis slows.

The March surplus was the biggest recorded for Asia's fourth-largest economy since the Bank of Korea started keeping such statistics in 1980.

Seoul - Shares finished nearly 3 per cent higher Wednesday on the Seoul stock exchange on bargain hunt

Seoul - Share

Seoul  - South Korean authorities were investigating a possible case of a swine-flu infection Tuesday.

An influenza infection was detected in a 51-year-old South Korean woman who returned from a trip to Mexico on the weekend, the Korean Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The centre was testing whether the woman contracted the mutated H1N1 virus, the strain identified in the swine-flu outbreak in Mexico, which may have cost up to 149 lives so far. Test results are expected in one or two days, the centre said.

Seoul - South Korea plans to double its stockpile of the antiviral Tamiflu and other influenza drugs, health officials said Monday, responding to the outbreak of the swine influenza (H1N1) in Mexico and the United States.

Currently, the state-run Korea Center for Disease Control holds enough reserves of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to treat up to 2.5 million people, around 5 per cent of the population, director Lee Jong Koo said.