SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Monday it would delay its return to nuclear talks until Sept. 12, blaming the decision on U.S. military exercises with South Korea and Washington's appointment of a special envoy on human rights.
Delegates to six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up nuclear development took a recess this month after failing to agree on a statement of basic principles. They were to meet again this week.
Russia apologizes for delaying flight for visiting U.S. senators
KIEV, Ukraine - Russia apologized Monday for keeping two U.S. senators waiting for three hours in a Russian airport after border guards expressed concerns about letting the U.S. military flight depart without an inspection of the plane.
Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., arrived in the Ukrainian capital later than expected after the delay in Russia's Ural Mountains city of Perm on Sunday night.
Both the Russians and Americans moved to draw a line under the incident, which officials said was unlikely to provoke a serious uproar in relations.
Arson may be to blame in Paris fire, city's housing official says
PARIS - The fire that killed 17 people in a crowded Paris apartment building was likely caused by an "outside element," a city hall official said, raising the possibility of arson.
Jean-Yves Mano, the top housing official for Paris, said in an interview published Monday in the newspaper 20 Minutes that the building's layout - especially its cramped staircase - was also to blame.
"It's not yet official, but if there hadn't been an intervention from an outside element, it wouldn't have burned," Mano was quoted as saying. He did not elaborate.
Pit bullterriers, other dogs banned in Canadian province after attacks
TORONTO - Ontario on Monday became the first province in Canada to ban the pit bullterrier in the wake of vicious attacks by the dogs, but defiant owners have already challenged the law.
The measure makes it illegal to breed pit bullterriers or bring the dogs into the province. Those already in Ontario will be allowed to stay on a restricted basis, provided they're sterilized and leashed and muzzled in public.
The law forbids Staffordshire bullterriers, American Staffordshire terriers, American pit bullterriers and any other dog with "an appearance and physical characteristics substantially similar to any of those dogs."
In the United States, pit bullterriers bans are in place in Denver, Miami and Cincinnati.
Afghanistan's opium production mostly unchanged, despite efforts
KABUL, Afghanistan - Bumper growing conditions meant that Afghanistan's opium production remained almost unchanged this year even though a crackdown on poppy farming cut the land under cultivation by 21 percent, the U.N. antidrug chief said Monday.
Antonio Maria Costa warned it could take another 20 years to eradicate opium from the impoverished country - despite the recent injection of hundreds of millions in foreign aid to fight the world's biggest drug industry.
