World briefs 7/14/02

U.S. pays N. Korea to search for MIA remains

SEOUL, South Korea -- A U.S. government representative handed a bundle of cash to a North Korean colonel across the world's most heavily armed border to help finance searches for the remains of American soldiers missing in action from the Korean War, officials said Saturday.

The transaction was part of an agreement reached last month in Bangkok between U.S. and North Korean officials.

Kim refused to divulge the amount of cash delivered.

South Korean news reports had earlier said the United States agreed to pay North Korea at least $3 million for three 30-day searches this year that will begin in North Korea on July 20.

Berlin's Love Parade attendance down

BERLIN -- Downtown Berlin's main park was transformed Saturday into a sea of gyrating techno fans, blowing whistles and dancing ecstatically to booming beats as the German capital's Love Parade hit the streets for its 14th year.

Throngs of scantily clad revelers crowded around 45 techno floats as they made their way from the edges of the Tiergarten park toward the Victory Column, the center point of the daylong event.

Still, police estimated the turnout at no more than 400,000 people -- just half last year's attendance and far short of the record 1.5 million who came in 1999. Organizers couldn't immediately be reached for an estimate.

-- From wire reports