Seoul  - North Korea informed an international shipping organization that it intends to launch a satellite at the beginning of April, South Korean media reported Thursday.

The International Maritime Organization was told that the carrier rocket of the Kwangmyongson-2 satellite would be fired between April 4 and 8, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing intelligence sources.

Pyongyang, Mar. 9 : North Korea has warned that it is "fully combat ready" to retaliate against any attempt to thwart off its planned satellite launch.

"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," said the statement, carried by Pyongyang''s official Korean Central News Agency.

With the US and South Korea moving tens of thousands of troops along with its border, N Korea condemned the move as preparations for an invasion, the Daily Express reported.

Seoul  - North Korean voters returned leader Kim Jong Il to the Stalinist state's rubber-stamp parliament with 100 per cent support, the country's state-run media said Monday.

In the unsurprising result, 100 per cent of the voters of constituency 333 supported Kim in Sunday's election, the Korean Central News Agency said.

All voters "renewed their unshakable determination to devotedly safeguard Kim Jong," KCNA said.

Further details about the composition of the 12th Supreme People's Council were not released.

Pyongyang/Seoul - Communist North Korea went to the polls on Sunday in elections for the Supreme People's Assembly.

According to state-controlled media, more than 71 per cent of eligible voters had already cast their vote by lunchtime.

Elections in the communist north of the peninsula are a formality, with only candidates approved by the military regime allowed on the ballot paper, all of whom in the past have received 100 per cent approval, according to North Korean media.

Seoul  - South Korea on Friday condemned North Korea for "a military threat" and "an inhumane act," a day after Pyongyang said it could not guarantee the safety of South Korean civilian aircraft flying in or near its airspace.

"A military threat to the normal operations of civil airplanes not only violates international rules but is also an inhumane act that can never be justified," the Unification Ministry in Seoul said.