SEOUL: Reclusive North Korea, which rattled regional security with a threat to hold a second nuclear test, said on Saturday it would not hold talks with its wealthy South Korean neighbour because it "defiled" Pyongyang's dignity. The North a day earlier dismissed an overture from the United States for discussions, saying it was useless to talk to the Obama administration because its "hostile policy" left it no choice but to bolster its nuclear deterrent. The United States sent Stephen Bosworth, its envoy for North Korea, to Asia this week to rein in the secretive communist state after it raised tension with a defiant rocket launch a month ago and then threatened to step up its nuclear weapons programme."There is no room for talks with the South Korea government group who publicly defiles the name of our republic and denies our entity," the North's KCNA news agency quoted a spokesman with its reunification committee as saying.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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