North Korean ruler Kim Jong-Un has reportedly given copies of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" to his top officials, urging them to study it as a leadership skills manual. Kim handed out translations of the German dictator's manifesto to select officials at the time of his birthday in January, reported New Focus International, an online news portal run by North Korean defectors. The report, sourced to an unnamed North Korean official working in China, was picked up by all major South Korean newspapers on Wednesday.

SEOUL, June 19 (Yonhap) -- A 16th-century war diary kept by famous Korean naval hero Yi Sun-sin and archives of South Korea's Saemaul (New Community) Movement in the 1970s have been added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, officials said Wednesday. The designation brings the total number of South Korea's heritage items on the UNESCO list to 11. The list also recognizes the importance of "Hunminjeongeum," the original manuscript of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet.

By Lee Chi-dong WASHINGTON, June 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top nuclear envoy, Cho Tae-yong, urged North Korea Tuesday to take "actions" to assure that it is serious about denuclearization as he began a three-day trip to Washington for consultations on ways to deal with Pyongyang. "North Korea should show its will for a real denuclearization through actions," Cho, who serves as South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, told reporters upon arriving.

SEOUL, June 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Tuesday congratulated moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani on winning Iran's presidential election, expressing hope for improving relations between the two nations. Rowhani won the Iranian poll on Friday with a landslide victory against conservative hardliners and will succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The South Korean government "congratulates Hassan Rowhani on being elected as the new president after winning extensive support from the Iranian people," Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said.