North Korea executed a former senior official as punishment for the country’s botched currency reform, reports said today.

Reclusive North Korea is opening up to widespread international aid after devastating floods, and the main United Nations food agency said it would start distributing emergency food to thousands of victims.

Japan called for sanctions against North Korea in a UN resolution today that would condemn a series of missile launches by the reclusive communist nation and urge the immediate return to six-party talks on its nuclear programme.

The Bush administration says it will try to use diplomacy to deal with North Korea’s claim that it has produced enough plutonium for about six nuclear bombs.