TOKYO - A MAN who confessed to the stabbing death of a former health official sent an e-mail, published on Monday in Japanese newspapers, that accuses the ministry of killing his childhood pet dog.

In the e-mail, which Takeshi Koizumi apparently sent to several media outlets before turning himself in, he says he was not seeking revenge for the Health Ministry's mishandling of millions of pension records - a motive that police had initially put forward and say they are still pursuing.

SEOUL - NORTH Korea on Monday defiantly rejected a United Nations resolution condemning its human rights record as a political ploy to stifle its socialist system.

'The DPRK (North Korea) resolutely rejects the resolution,' a foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement published by the North's official news agency KCNA.

SEOUL - SOUTH Korea and China on Monday opened military hotlines to help prevent clashes in the Yellow Sea, officials said.

The lines opened between the two countries' navy and air force command headquarters, the defence ministry said. South Korea said it became the only nation to have such arrangements with China.