The South-North Korean industrial complex that has become a chip in a high-stakes game of military brinkmanship on the Korean peninsula was closed Friday for a scheduled holiday, officials said.

The 53,000 North Koreans who work at the 123 South Korean companies in the Kaesong joint industrial zone, 10 kilometers (six miles) inside the North, took the day off, the South's Unification Ministry spokeswoman said.

The United States said it was taking "all necessary precautions" after North Korea rang fresh alarms in an escalating crisis by moving a medium-range missile Thursday to its east coast.

Seoul's defense minister Kim Kwan-Jin said the missile could reach a "considerable distance" but not the U.S. mainland, telling lawmakers it "could be aimed at test-firing or military drills".

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned the attack on an Afghanistan courthouse by Taliban forces that left more than 40 people dead.

In an unanimous statement, the 15-member panel said it "condemned in the strongest terms" Wednesday's attack in the remote western province of Farah.

The Chadian government on Thursday strongly denied accusations by ousted Central African leader Francois Bozize that it had helped the Seleka rebels who overthrew his regime 10 days ago.

"The former president (Bozize) has engaged in a series of very serious accusations which the Chadian government categorically denies," the government said in a statement.

Rescuers on Thursday searched for some 20 people still missing in the Argentine city of La Plata after 57 were killed in a violent storm and heavy flooding.

Most of the victims were found Wednesday after a second day of record rainfall in Buenos Aires and nearby La Plata, where flooding submerged cars and sent people scrambling to rooftops for safety.

NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday strongly condemned a Taliban attack on a courthouse in Afghanistan which left more than 40 people dead and stressed its continued support for Kabul.

"I strongly condemn yesterday's brutal attack on the courthouse in Farah Province," Rasmussen said in a statement issued from NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Nelson Mandela is showing "continuous improvement" in hospital where he is being treated for pneumonia, the South African president said on Thursday.

"Madiba is stable and we are thankful that he is responding well to treatment and that he is much better," President Jacob Zuma said after visiting the ailing anti-apartheid hero in hospital, referring to the 94-year-old by his clan name.

Turkey insisted Thursday the political climate was ripe to end the dispute over the decades-old division of Cyprus, as part of Ankara's renewed push to join the European Union.

"The (February) election of Mr.(Nicos) Anastasiades as the new president of the new Greek Cypriot administration itself is a great opportunity because he was the leading supporter of the Annan plan back in 2004 which would resolve the Cyprus problem, which would reunite the island," Turkey's European Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis told Agence France Presse in Vilnius.

Four police officers and an ex-rebel leader were killed in clashes in central Mozambique on Thursday, a local official said, amid renewed tensions between the government and its former civil war foes.

Members of the former rebel group Renamo attacked a police command post in the town of Muxungue, district administrator Arnaldo Major told Agence France Presse.

Russia on Thursday strongly condemned North Korea's actions in the intensifying standoff with South Korea and the United States, saying Pyongyang was showing a "categorically unacceptable" contempt of U.N. resolutions.

"For Russia, Pyongyang's neglect of U.N. resolutions (on nuclear non-proliferation) is categorically unacceptable," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.