Protest surge over U.S. beef imports

Thousands of angry protesters have clashed with riot police in Seoul in ongoing protests over the South Korean government's removal of a ban on US beef imports. Saturday's wave of protests coincided with a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Seoul.

Rice's visit to South Korea came one day after Pyongyang destroyed the cooling tower at its main nuclear facility.

But the long-running nuclear issue in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula has been of less public concern in the south than Seoul's agreement to lift the ban on US beef imports as a way to restore strained ties with Washington.

According to police, around 13,000 people gathered in the capital for demonstrations throughout Saturday.

In the evening, protesters clashed with riot police, who used water cannons and fire extinguishers to disperse the crowd.

The police had set up barricades, using buses to prevent the demonstrators from marching toward the presidential office.

The visiting US secretary of state insisted that US beef was safe to eat and urged South Koreans to accept their government's decision to lift the ban.

Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of state U.S., said, "We are cooperating closely, and we'll continue to closely cooperate on the concerns of the Korean population about beef. I want to assure everyone that American beef is safe."

US beef had been banned from South Korea for most of the past four and a half years, since the first case of mad cow disease in the US was discovered in late 2003.

Seoul resumed US beef imports only after American producers agreed to limit meat shipments to cattle younger than 30 months, thought to be less susceptible to the disease.

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has welcomed the DPRK's demolition of a cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear facility. But she also called for a complete denuclearisation and transparency. While visiting Seoul, Rice said Pyongyang has not responded to US allegations of proliferating nuclear technology and enriching uranium for weapons.

Condoleezza Rice said, "I expect that the North will live up to the obligation that it's undertaken to take those concerns seriously and to address them and so at the end of this let me just emphasize again, at the end of this, we have to have the abandonment of all programmes, weapons and materials."