North Korea gives Japan details of abductions

North Korea has informed a Japanese fact-finding mission investigating the kidnapping of more than a dozen people decades ago that one of them, a woman North Korea's spies abducted when she was just 13, committed suicide at a mental hospital in 1993, a Japanese official said today.

The announcement offered grisly details to an already bizarre chapter of Asia’s Cold War history that has been unfolding since Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met for an unprecedented summit on September 17.