North Korea vowed today to uphold Kim Jong Il’s son as “supreme commander” as the campaign to install the young man as the next leader of the socialist nation gained pace one week after his father’s death.

Brides in white gowns and Japanese kimonos joined grooms in black suits and red ties today for the Unification Church’s biggest mass wedding in a decade – a spectacle said to involve 40,000 people around the world.

The Rev Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, known as the Moonies, was among 14 people injured in a helicopter crash in South Korea, fire officials said today.

THE Vatican yesterday expressed deep concern over a possible new scandal set off by an African archbishop who announced he was championing the cause of married priests in the Roman Catholic Church.