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Former South Korean president Kim Young-Sam dies at 87

He stated Kim is believed to have suffered from a extreme blood infection & acute heart failure before he died.

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Mr Kim was taken to hospital on Thursday with a high fever, and had been treated in recent years for stroke, angina and pneumonia.

North Korea warned Sunday of “merciless” attacks on South Korean border islands if Seoul stages live-fire drills near the maritime border on the fifth anniversary of Pyongyang’s deadly shelling attack.

During his road to the presidency, he laid the foundation for a peaceful power transfer in a country that had experienced several military coups.

He balked at the Clinton administration’s concept of putting a North Korean nuclear complicated in 1994. Kim said he feared such a strike would provoke a full-scale war. North Korea threatened to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and began removing spent fuel from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium.

They plan to “discuss details over high-level talks”, according to a South Korean government official quoted by local news agency Yonhap.

Kim’s popularity nosedived after a few of South Korea’s biggest companies collapsed during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, prompting the country to seek emergency aid through the global Monetary Fund. During his term he also saw his son arrested on charges of bribery and tax evasion, dealing a blow to his legacy as an anti-corruption fighter.

But a few months later, he broke with the ruling regime in protest of a constitutional revision and joined the opposition party, suffering hardships from the military rulers.

A leading figure in the pro-democracy movement, Kim was twice placed under house arrest for a total of two years in the early 1980s. Chun and Roh were later pardoned during a national unity campaign.

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Kim was elected to office in 1992, putting an end to more than three decades of military rule in South Korea.

South Korean soldiers