Shots fired outside UN building

UNITED NATIONS -- A man believed to have been born in North Korea emptied a seven-shot pistol in front of U.N. headquarters Thursday, hitting several offices but injuring no one in an apparent protest against the communist nation's leader.\nThe gunman, who threw leaflets criticizing the North's government, was identified as Steve Kim, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Des Plaines, Ill. FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said Kim was born in 1945 and that agents were trying to confirm he was born in North Korea.\nThe shooting occurred at 1:10 p.m. as the Security Council was meeting on Iraq and Secretary-General Kofi Annan was holding talks with the Cypriot leaders in his office on the 38th floor.\nU.S. Secret Service agents protecting visiting Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides apprehended Kim in the compound just outside the building.\n"The first people to reach this individual were U.S. secret service personnel," U.N. security chief Michael McCann said. The agents were assisted moments later by members of a State Department protective detail also on site as well as U.N. security.\nMargolin, of the FBI, said Kim was expected to be arraigned in federal court in Manhattan for violation of the protection of foreign officials act although specific charges have yet to be determined. The protect act is a federal law that establishes protections for visiting dignitaries.\nThe shots, fired from a Smith & Wesson pistol, hit a women's restroom on the 18th and an American Express office on the 20th floor of the U.N. Secretariat building. McCann said several shots narrowly missed U.N. employees inside the building.\nKim, wearing a blue shirt and brown pants, entered the U.N. compound by jumping over a poorly guarded fence surrounding U.N. headquarters. He walked up to the building, shot seven times in the air and then dropped the pistol on the ground, witnesses and security officials said.\nHe then tossed out a stack of leaflets from a small black bag before he put his hands up against a wall and awaited capture.\nThe leaflets, found by reporters near the scene, were handwritten in English with many misspellings and were addressed to "all people who love freedom and justice."\n"In a shinning and civilized 21st century, most people in the world enjoying peace and freedom. North Korea however is groaning under the weight of starvation and dictatorial suppression. They don't have even the most basic of human rights since all things body and spirit plants and plows belong to one named greatest general Kim Jong Il," it said.\nIt was signed: "A citizen of UN, Steve Kim, Oct. 2, 2002."\nPresident Bush has accused North Korea of being part of an "axis of evil." The communist country has been in an economic crisis since the collapse of its main benefactor, the Soviet Union, almost 11 years ago. The peak of the crisis occurred in 1996-97 when, according to some experts, as many as 2 million people starved to death.\nKim was questioned by U.S. law enforcement authorities before being transferred to FBI custody and taken out of U.N. headquarters 90 minutes after the shooting.