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.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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