- SEOUL (Reuters) - Stalinist
North Korea staged its first general election in more than five years on
Sunday to fill seats in the rubber-stamp legislature, the Supreme People's
Assembly.
-
- North Korean television showed footage of voters -- many
with rows of shiny medals -- leaving ballot stations and people dancing
in circles in town squares.
-
- Citizens were "participating in the election...to
devote themselves to the sacred struggle to consolidate the people's power
as firm as a rock and demonstrate the dignity and might of the DPRK through
the current election," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
-
- It said that 85.68 percent of registered voters had cast
their ballots by midday.
-
- Also on Sunday, North Korea said it was still ready for
six-way talks to resolve a crisis over its nuclear ambitions, but it would
have no dialogue with a U.S. arms control envoy after his sharp criticism
of the country and its leader.
-
- On Thursday Undersecretary of State John Bolton referred
to life in North Korea as a "hellish nightmare", saying leader
Kim Jong-il lived like royalty while keeping hundreds of thousands of his
people in prison camps and millions more in poverty.
-
- North Korea and the United States said on Friday they
had agreed to hold six-way talks on the nuclear standoff. China, Japan,
Russia and South Korea will also attend.
-
- The prospect of fresh talks follow months of tension
after Washington's announcement last October that Pyongyang had admitted
to pursuing a covert nuclear weapons programme.
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