Seoul  - North Korea said Friday that it had begun work to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor because the United States had failed to keep promises it made in nuclear talks.

The reactor, which North Korea shut down last year as part of those talks, can supply plutonium that can be used to make nuclear bombs.

Seoul - North Korea said Friday it wanted to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor as disarmament talks stalled.

The controversial reactor's restart was under preparation, the official South Korean Yonhap news agency quoted a North Korean official as saying.

Foreign ministry official Hyon Hak-Bong said during energy aid talks in the border truce village Panmunjom that Pyongyang was making "thorough preparations" to restore nuclear facilities.

"You may say we have already started work to restore them," he added.

Seoul - North Korea was scheduled to hold talks Friday with South Korea on outstanding oil shipments and economic aid promised to it for dismantling its nuclear programme.

The one-day meeting is to take place in Panmunjom, a village in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said Thursday.

Seoul - Five Chinese military doctors who were sent to North Korea last month to treat its leader, Kim Jong Il, remain in the country, strengthening suspicion that his recovery is proceeding slowly, a South Korean newspaper reported Wednesday.

North Korea might also want to keep the physicians in the country to prevent information from leaking out about Kim's health, JoongAng Ilbo said, citing intelligence officials.

The South Korean intelligence agency has said Kim, 66, suffered a stroke in mid-August and underwent brain surgery.

Whether the Chinese doctors who remain in North Korea - all neurosurgeons - performed the operation was not known, JoongAng Ilbo said.

Tokyo, Sept. 17 : North Korea has tested the engine mechanism for an intercontinental missile that might be able to hit major cities on the U. S.

An account published Tuesday in the South Korean press and reported by the Washington Post said that Jane’s Defense Weekly had identified the location of the previously unknown missile launch site as being on the west coast of North Korea.

Commercial satellite images revealed that the facility has a mobile launch pad and a 10-story tower that would support the North''s largest ballistic missiles,

London, Sept. 15 : With North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly suffering a second stroke, which has left him debilitated, unconfirmed rumors coming out of Pyong Yang suggest that a battle for succession has begun.

According to The Times, talk in Asia is turning to the odd cast of characters who may succeed him.

The inner workings of the Kim dynasty suggest that wives, concubines, blood brothers and old comrades are rising and falling with increasing regularity and drama.

One son is a confirmed gambler, another is rumored to be effeminate and practically nothing is known about the third.