World in brief: Doctor confirms Kim’s stroke

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il did suffer a stroke but is improving, a Paris doctor told a French newspaper as the reclusive country’s state-run media issued a dispatch today saying Kim recently toured chicken farms and collectives in the countryside.

Neurosurgeon Francois-Xavier Roux of Sainte-Anne hospital in Paris told Le Figaro newspaper that Kim suffered a stroke but did not undergo surgery as was widely reported. He said Kim’s condition is improving.

Roux’s account is the first eyewitness observation of the autocratic leader publicly available since Kim reportedly fell ill.

South Korean and U.S. officials say the 66-year-old leader suffered a stroke in August and underwent surgery. His failure to appear at a September military parade celebrating North Korea’s 60th anniversary had sparked speculation about his health.

MELBOURNE, Australia

Teen with knives shot dead by cops

Police in the southern Australian city of Melbourne fatally shot a 15-year-old boy in a skate park after officers said he threatened them with knives.

Police said the teen, Tyler Cassidy of Melbourne, continued to approach them Thursday night even after they fired warning shots and twice hit him with pepper spray. Several officers fired at him, hitting him in the chest. He died at the scene.

“He was irrational. He was yelling and screaming and, as far as we can tell, armed with two knives at that stage,” Cartwright told reporters.

The situation was a tragedy, but police acted appropriately, Cartwright said.

MEXICO CITY

Women’s advocate wins rights award

A women’s rights activist who first drew attention to the slayings of young women in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez was named the winner of Mexico’s National Human Rights Award on Thursday.

Activist Esther Chavez has been working with battered and mistreated women in Ciudad Juarez since the 1990s, when she launched a campaign to make the world pay attention to the deaths of mostly poor murder victims.

“Her brave work in denouncing the crimes was key to awakening society, authorities, public opinion and the entire world to the cases of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez,” President Felipe Calderon said as he presented the award.

More than 100 mostly young women were strangled and their bodies dumped in the desert or vacant lots in Ciudad Juarez starting in 1993. The killings appeared to taper off by early 2005, but many of the victims’ relatives say they doubt the real culprits have been caught.