Briefly

South Korea

North Korea rejects proposal to end nuclear crisis

North Korea on Monday rejected a U.S.-backed proposal on ending a crisis about its nuclear weapons development, and it warned that Washington’s “strategy of delaying talks” would only prompt the communist government to accelerate the program.

The North’s main state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said it was rejecting the U.S. offer because it required North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and did not promise “simultaneous” security assurances from the United States. North Korea has long sought a treaty promising that the United States will never invade.

Officials did not divulge details of the plan, but news reports said it broadly seeks the verifiable dismantling of the North’s atomic weapons program along with security assurances for Pyongyang.

Early today, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said his government was committed to resolving the crisis “peacefully through dialogue.”

New Jersey

Bear hunt completed with 328 confirmed kills

New Jersey’s first bear hunt in 33 years, prompted by rising numbers of run-ins with humans, ended with hunters taking about 10 percent of the state’s estimated bear population.

The six-day hunt ended Saturday evening with 328 confirmed kills — 209 females and 119 males, state Division of Fish and Wildlife Director Martin McHugh said. Sixteen of them had been tagged as nuisance bears.

Wildlife officials initially had hoped the state’s bear population, estimated at about 3,200, would be reduced by up to 500 bears, but McHugh said the hunt “went as we expected it would go.”

The hunt, which took place over 1,500 square miles in northern and western New Jersey, was intended to stem the rising tide of complaints about the animals breaking into suburban homes, raiding trash cans, killing livestock and walking on roads.

Senegal

Report: Illegal ivory sales unabated in African nations

Nearly 9,000 pounds of illegal ivory is on sale in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal, three countries singled out for failing to regulate a trade that’s fueling poaching and threatening the survival of elephants, wildlife advocacy groups said in a new report.

The three nations — which have nearly wiped out their own elephant populations — have virtually ignored a worldwide ban on ivory trade and their flourishing illegal markets are “driving elephant poaching” in West and Central Africa, according to a joint report released today by TRAFFIC, an organization which monitors trade in endangered species, and the World Wildlife Fund, an international conservation group.

Most of the illegal ivory comes from Congo, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Gabon — countries the report said comprised “Africa’s most troubled region for elephant conservation.”

In 1980, there were 1.2 million African and Asian elephants in the world. A decade later, that population had been halved. Elephant numbers have stabilized since, with 500,000 elephants in Africa and fewer than 50,000 in Asia.