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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| North Korea to close land border | North Korea to close land border |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| North Korea has announced that it will close the land border with South Korea from 1 December. | North Korea has announced that it will close the land border with South Korea from 1 December. |
| The official Korean Central News Agency made the announcement on Wednesday. | The official Korean Central News Agency made the announcement on Wednesday. |
| North Korea's army has told the South "to strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages through the Military Demarcation Line", it said. | North Korea's army has told the South "to strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages through the Military Demarcation Line", it said. |
| The decision had been taken because "reckless confrontation" from South Korea was "beyond the danger level", according to the agency. | |
| The KCNA report added: "The South Korean puppet authorities should never forget that the present inter-Korean relations are at the crucial crossroads of existence and total severance." | |
| South Korean officials said they were checking the Wednesday's announcement, which follows months of frosty relations. | |
| South Korea has funded the Kaesong industrial complex just over the border in the North, and a ban on border crossings would make it very difficult for the plant to continue operating. | South Korea has funded the Kaesong industrial complex just over the border in the North, and a ban on border crossings would make it very difficult for the plant to continue operating. |
| Some 30,000 North Koreans workers are employed by South Korean companies at the complex. | Some 30,000 North Koreans workers are employed by South Korean companies at the complex. |
| Relations between the states have become increasingly strained since February when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul, pledging to get tough with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme. | |
| Last month North Korea threatened to reduce the South to rubble unless it stopped activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets attached to balloons into the communist state. | |
| The latest escalation in tension comes amid speculation that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il may have suffered from a serious stroke, though the North has insisted he is in good health and still firmly in charge. |