Former South Korean president Kim Young-sam dies at 87

Seoul

KIM Young-sam, the former president of South Korea who replaced the last of the country's military leaders, purged politicised generals and introduced a landmark reform aimed at transparency in financial transactions, died on Sunday. He was 87.

Mr Kim, who was president from 1993 to 1998, died of septicemia and heart failure, said Oh Byung-hee, chief of Seoul National University Hospital, where Mr Kim was admitted with a fever on Friday. He had been treated for a series of strokes and pneumonia in recent years.