Seoul - Shares continued to surge Wednesday on the Seoul stock exchange led by gains in the bank and car sector. South Korea's currency jumped against the dollar.

Seoul - The population of North Korea is facing a year of privation due to the ongoing food crisis in the country, according to a report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported Monday.

Around 40 per cent of the population or around 8.7 million people - primarily children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and the elderly - may require urgent aid, the report said, adding that the coming months may see a serious food shortages due to a deficit in cereals.

Seoul  - Shares ra

Seoul - North Korea made plain Saturday it will not recognise Japan as a participant in the next round of international talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

"We will neither treat Japan as a party to the talks nor deal with it even if it impudently appears in the conference room," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.

The spokesman accused Japan of failing to fulfill its obligations within the six-party talks which also include The United States, South Korea, Russia and China.

Seoul - Shares surged more than 2 per cent Friday on the Seoul stock exchange on s

Seoul - In the face of the global financial crisis South Korean currency reserves have fallen to their lowest level in almost four years, the country's central bank reported on Wednesday.

The Bank of Korea said its foreign reserves, gold and other currency shrank between October and November by 11.7 billion dollars, to 200.5 billion dollars, for the eighth consecutive monthly drop.

The depletion was mainly a result of using foreign reserves to shore up domestic banks during the current market turbulence and lack of interbank liquidity.