China

Koreans to meet with Russia before talks

Russia will be host to talks between North Korea and South Korea this week in preparation for larger negotiations about the North’s suspected nuclear weapons program, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying Sunday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said from Beijing that the talks in Moscow would begin Tuesday, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The report did not say which Korean officials would take part.

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said he was unaware of the plan.

Losyukov was in China to discuss the particulars of six-nation talks expected later this month in Beijing. The negotiations will include Russia, Japan, China, the United States and the two Koreas.

Those talks are aimed at defusing a 10-month standoff about U.S. allegations that Pyongyang is trying to develop nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 agreement.

New Hampshire

Parish welcomes return of elected gay bishop

The Rev. Gene Robinson returned Sunday to his home church to the hugs and handshakes of hundreds of parishioners and led the blessing there for the first time since becoming the first openly gay Episcopalian confirmed as a bishop.

Dressed in street clothes, he sat in a pew in the middle of the congregation for the morning service at St. Paul’s Church, Concord.

“New Hampshire has never looked so good,” said Robinson, who returned Saturday evening from the Episcopal convention in Minneapolis, where his election as bishop was confirmed.

The Episcopal General Convention on Tuesday confirmed Robinson as bishop-elect of the Diocese of New Hampshire. The group also gave its affirmation to same-sex blessing ceremonies. The Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

Kuwait City

U.N. says repatriation of Iraqi refugees delayed

The voluntary repatriation of more than 200 Iraqi refugees in Saudi Arabia was postponed Sunday for logistical reasons, a U.N. official said.

Earlier Sunday, the head of the Rafha refugee camp in northern Saudi Arabia, Brig. Gen. Khalid bin Fahd Al-Wasseifer, said in a statement that 240 refugees had started their trip home.

They were bound for Kuwait from where they would cross into southern Iraq, Al-Wasseifer said. The refugees are from southern Iraq and have lived in the kingdom since the 1990-91 Gulf crisis.

But an official of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in Riyadh told The Associated Press that his organization had agreed with the Saudi authorities and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq “to postpone the departure for few days … to make sure that all procedures are in place for receiving them” in Iraq.