Nobel Peace Prize winner in hospital

SEOUL - Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for seeking rapprochement with North Korea, is in hospital with a respiratory ailment for the second time in weeks, a spokesman said on Friday.

Kim, 81, is being treated for high blood pressure and pulmonary oedema, a potentially fatal but readily treatable disease where fluid develops in the lungs and prevents them from absorbing oxygen, the hospital spokesman said.

Kim, sometimes called Asia's Nelson Mandela, was a political prisoner who eventually became president, like the former South African leader. He survived several assassination attempts and was a key figure in South Korea's struggle for democracy.

He was elected South Korea's president in December 1997 and his victory marked the first time in the country's modern history that power had shifted from a ruling party president to a president from the opposition.

An unprecedented summit with Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in June 2000 paved the way for better relations on the divided peninsula and eventually led to the Nobel Prize for the South Korean leader.

Kim was in hospital for 12 days in August suffering pneumonia, the spokesman said. He was admitted again on Thursday.

- REUTERS