clinton says north korea has no friends left and must dismantle its nuclear program. while north korea fires back by saying it's no longer going to negotiate about it. in south africa violent clashes break out between police and township residents. tonight we look more closely at one of the causes. xenophobia, a deep-rooted anger against foreigners. >> we continue our new segment called "how they see it." tonight questions of torture at abu ghraib prison as reported by al jazeera english. and a story from down under on how a big earthquake last week has managed to bring australians and new zealanders closer together, literally. good evening. i'm martin savidge.

for months now, the united states has been lobbying hard for north korea to end its nuclear program. and as she has traveled throughout asia this week, secretary of state hillary clinton has pressed the point. the topic has been front and center at the gathering of 27 countries attending the asean regional conference in thailand. but north korea hasn't much appreciated what it's been hearing. in fact, an even nastier war of words has broken out between the two countries. that war of words between north korea and the united states over the nuclear impasse is our lead focus tonight. in the latest twist in the deteriorating relationship between the u.s. and north korea, north korea has announced it's pulling out of negotiations to end its nuclear program. >> translator: until america's deep-seated anti-north korea attitude ends, all of these problems will continue, and because of that, the six-party talks are also over. >> speaking with reporters at

the conclusion of this week's asian regional conference in thailand, the north korean delegate said strong-arming by the united states was to blame. >> translator: we are not against negotiations. we have never been against talking. but how can you talk when you have a knife at your back? >> just moments later, secretary clinton met with the press. again, she demanded that north korea honor its previous commitment to abandon its nuclear ambitions. >> we do not intend to reward the north for just returning to the table. we will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take. and we have no appetite for pursuing protracted negotiations that will only lead us right back to where we have already been. >> charles armstrong is a professor of korean studies at new york's columbia university. >> well, north korea at this time seems more determined than ever to go forward with its nuclear program. but it really seems to have to

do what's happening internally in north korea, the appearance of the illness of the great leader and the rise in the hard-liners on north korea's foreign policies. >> the tough talk between the two countries didn't end there. today north korea's foreign ministry released a statement attacking secretary clinton as "funny" and criticizing her appearance, comparing her to a retiree on a shopping trip. north korea's personal attack on mrs. clinton is seen by many as a response to this remark she made in india on monday. >> well, what we've seen is this constant demand for attention. and maybe it's the mother in me or the experience that i've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention. don't give it to them. >> this week's acrimony has left some wondering if the two countries will ever be able to resolve their differences diplomatically. >> if this continues, we could have a situation escalating out of control, which would be a

real disaster for the whole region of northeast asia. if both sides are able to come back to a negotiating point, then we might be able to resolve this peacefully, at least in the short term. >> vice president biden also has been on the road this week on an assignment that the kremlin no doubt is watching carefully. earlier this week, biden was in the former soviet republic of ukraine. today he visited another former soviet republic, georgia, which has been trying to get admitted to nato. a move the kremlin strongly opposes. today, biden spoke before the georgian parliament and offered reassurances about washington's recent overtures to russia. >> ladies and gentlemen, i know that some are concerned and i understand it that our efforts to reset relations with russia will come at the expense of georgia. let me be clear -- they have not, they will not, and they cannot.

we have more tonight on a story we have been watching close for you. the rapid advance of the h1n1 virus this afternoon. in britain, where the number of cases has doubled in the past week to an estimated 100,000, the government today launched a telephone hotline and a website to answer the public's questions about the disease. how much concern is there? well, the website is reportedly receiving 2,600 hits every second -- 9 million every hour -- and it briefly crashed. the disease has also spread to the middle east, and today arab health ministers meeting in cairo banned children, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses from attending the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to saudi arabia for fear of spreading the disease. and on another note from the middle east. a vivid example of how technology is sweeping the globe. the western or wailing wall, in jerusalem now has its own address on twitter. it will, as the associated press tells it, allow believers around the globe to have their prayers tweeted, printed out and placed between the wall's

2,000-year-old stones without leaving their armchairs. some are calling it a shortcut to god. speaking of twitter, you can tweet us your ideas about what we should talk about on tomorrow's "worldfocus" roundtable. whether it's afghanistan, iraq, swine flu, or something else, tell us what matters most to you. and, if you don't twitter, then you can go about it the old-fashioned way, send us an e-mail via our website. that's worldfocus.org. and now to south africa, where unhappiness about shoddy services led to unrest today. it happened in some of the townships near johannesburg. president jacob zuma warned them to respect the law. but an estimated one million families live in shacks without power and very limited plumbing. and many blame immigrants for taking jobs that might lead to a

better life. deutsche welle has our report. >> reporter: police used rubber bullets to drive protesters back in the small eastern town of balforu. hundreds of residents took to the streets. their anger was largely directed at initials but immigrants were also targeted. the police just imagined to rescue a group of somalis and ethiopians from the stone-throwers. the townships are home to south africa's poorest. many complain that after 15 years of anc rule, they're still waiting for improvements in their lives. >> there's no development. there's no job creation. >> translator: there are so many problems here that stem from poverty. our children are educated but unemployed. >> reporter: amid such pressures, immigrant workers quickly become scapegoats for the lack of employment possibilities. wednesday's xenophobic violence is a worrying reminder of last year's attack on zimbabwean

refugees that left more than 60 people dead. police have since bolted their presence in the townships. >> that's deutsche welle. which brings us to our signature story. a much deeper look at xenophobia at south africa. today's violence was actually just the latest incident in a series of attacks against immigrants in that country. among south africa's poor unemployed, the resentment runs deep against them. last summer, violence flared in other townships outside johannesburg. and by the time it was over, 100 people were dead and 200,000 displaced. our story, by correspondent martin seemungal, first aired earlier this year. >> reporter: it looks and sounds like theld days in south africa, the kind of anger once directed at the oppressive white government. >> we should kill them. and we're going to. they are should die. >> reporter: but this was just

last year, and the anger was directed at black people, fellow africans, from zimbabwe, nigeria, somalia and elsewhere, who have come from south africa hoping to find a better life. it was called xenophobic violence, fear of the foreigner. foreigners had their businesses destroyed, houses were torched. they were killed with guns and machetes. some were even set on fire, burned alive. the death of ernesto mawabi, a mozambican, shook the nation and shocked the world. within two weeks, the violence had spread across the country. it took a massive deployment of security forces to bring things under control. by the time it was over, 100 people were dead. an estimated 200,000 people were displaced. some took cover in police stations.

others found refuge in isolated camps. the kind of refugee camps you'd normally find in war-torn somalia, sudan or the congo. it started, we are told, in alexandria, a sprawling black township on the edge of johannesburg. >> a man came from this site. he was running and bleeding. and went over here and then he lost balance over here, and then he lost balance e e ed and then died over here. >> reporter: you saw this? >> yeah, i saw that. >> reporter: there has always been an undercurrent of anti-foreigner sentiment in this country, but the level of the attacks and the intensity of the violence is unprecedented, and there is a common theme here, that all occurred in south africa's poorest townships. alex, as it is called, is one of the poorest. this woman lived in alex her whole life. they take foreigners, they take jobs there. >> reporter: what do you think, is that true? >> yes. >> reporter: they take jobs? >> yes. >> reporter: which countries, zimbabwe? >> zimbabwe, nigeria.

especially zimbabwe. >> reporter: you'll hear the same story wherever you go, they are taking our jobs. and in south africa, it is a very big deal. this is a country of about 50 million people. official estimates put the unemployment rate at about 30%, but everyone knows it's really closer to 45%. add just over 5 million foreigners, many here illegally to the equation, all trying to make a living, too, and you've got a recipe for resentment and conflict. >> these are people who live in very poor neighborhoods who are competing for resources, and in situations like that, it's easy to scapegoat the foreigner, the stranger, the other. and that's precisely what happened. >> reporter: immigrants are prepared to work for less money. in many cases, they will get the job over a south african. shepherd, a teacher from

zimbabwe, has seen it happen before. >> mostly foreigners are hard working, and also on the side of education. >> reporter: shepherd is living in an overcrowded room at the methodist church, right in the middle of downtown johannesburg. yet he is a refugee. there are over 2,000 people here. they sleep on the floor or the stairwell rather than risk returning to the townships. >> i'm so scared. i don't even want to go anywhere. >> reporter: it has been nearly a year since the killings, but they're still too afraid, literally, to move. nobody in this group wants immigrants here. >> so he says they should be beaten up.

he said they should be. >> reporter: this woman speaks up and says she is married to one and defiantly tells the crowd that foreigners should not be attacked. that provokes angry words. she decides to leave. we are told she is lucky to have escaped. it has been quiet across the country for months, but the threat of more xenophobic violence is as real today as it was a year ago. for "worldfocus," i'm martin seemungel in alexandria township, south africa. >> for more about the unrest in south africa -- and the violence against immigrants -- we're joined once more by yaw nyarko. he is a professor of economics at new york university. welcome back. >> thank you. >> how bad is the situation would you describe in these townships in south africa? >> okay, so i think it's important first to say to your viewers that south africa is a very beautiful country. i mean, many of the cities, houses there, they look like california.

the townships are where large numbers of blacks live. it's a carryover from the apartheid days when everybody was put apart, if you will. and, yes, very crowded, problems with housing. the administration since '94 has built about 3 million, you know, structures for the blacks there. but still there are about 1 million people living in shacks, living on top of each other. no water, no electricity. yes, so, there are sections of it which are very, very bad. >> how does that translate into a hatred against immigrants? >> yes, so i think there you should understand that the unemployment rate in south africa is very high, and so the foreigners are being blamed for taking the jobs unfairly so but that's a huge part of the resentment, okay. >> that's a false perception? >> that's a false perception. there are relatively small numbers of them. 100,000 mozambicans.

100,000 zimbabweans, and there are bigger issues. when something as difficult as unemployment hits the country and they are trying to explain it away, they look for scapegoats. >> we are now 15 years since the end of apartheid. is there a sense of disillusionment amongst blacks in south africa towards the black government? >> well, i think the zuma administration, jacob zuma himself, is a very skillful politician. very, very charismatic and still very well loved. so a lot of the protests right now are actually in that city government, okay. and those that provide the services in the townships. so far, as far as i can tell, he still remains very, very popular in south africa. >> and has the economic progress in south africa been impacted by the global economic downturn? >> oh, yes. south africa has an automobile

industry, which is suffering. mining, the prices are almost all commodities have gone down, and that's had a big impact on the economy. but of all of the countries in africa, i think south africa has a good chance of seeing itself through it. >> yaw nyarko, a pleasure. >> thank you, too. tonight, we want to bring you another example of our new feature, "how they see it." the mistreatment of prisoners at abu ghraib has long since faded from the headlines here. but today, al jazeera english featured what it called an exclusive. an interview with a man it identified as a former detainee who says he witnessed torture there.

when you watch this report, think about its effect on how the united states is viewed around the world. al jazeera english told us it is being broadcast in more than 100 countries and more than 150 million households around the globe. mowsab jahsim reports. >> reporter: these are far more than disturbing images, they are memories. >> translator: the moment we arrived, a female soldier told us to take off our clothes. we were forced to be naked. it was winter. they dressed in orange jump suits. >> reporter: mahmoud, a television cameraman, was on his way to work when he was stopped here at a u.s. checkpoint. >> translator: we were wearing press badges. i had a satellite phone and a camera. the soldier called his base and then forced us to the ground and said you journalists are all terrorists. i said no, we're professional, we're human. but he handcuffed us and took us away. >> he was held in abu ghraib for over three months. he lived in fear and witnessed many cases of torture. >> translator: this detainee was tortured in front of my eyes, only three meters from my cell, tortured by dogs to confess to a

crime he never committed. >> reporter: mahmoud said the guards would deliberately abuse and intimidate prisoners in full view of other inmates, and he remembers one incident in particular. >> translator: he sp three days standing in that position. whenever he collapsed, they would force him up again and then he would fall again and so on. >> reporter: and he also remembers his tormenters. >> translator: the american female soldier, the one i heard has been convicted, would come to us. she would tell me go shower, and i would refuse. and then she would strip me of my clothes and poor freezing water on me. it was the middle of winter. it was so cold. and she would take pictures of me naked. >> reporter: he keeps a memento of his time in abu ghraib. >> this is the bracelet they gave me. i kept it, even after i was released. >> reporter: a physical reminder of a place he can never forget, and images that the world will not forget either.

the possible mistreatment of prisoners in afghanistan has also been in the news lately. a recent "new york times" report described how, seven years ago, investigators for the boston-based group physicians for human rights discovered what appeared to be a mass grave in northern afghanistan. these photographs were taken by that group. the bodies, they were told, were those of taliban fighters who had been rounded up by northern alliance forces shortly after the u.s. invasion in 2001 and stuffed into metal shipping containers for transport to a nearby prison. by the time they arrived, allegedly hundreds, perhaps thousands, were dead from suffocation. others were shot by guards, and their bodies dumped in this field. the episode received in media attention at the time, but was largely forgotten until earlier this month when "the new york times" ran a front-page article

reporting, bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode, according to government officials and human rights organizations. because the northern alliance forces that allegedly committed the act had been under the command of the general abdul rashid dostum, an ally of the u.s. and afghan president hamid karzai, who received support from the military and the cia. and a salon.com column yesterday reported allegations by some afghan detainees that american military personnel may have been present during the massacre. now, for more on all of this, we are joined by susannah sirkin, deputy director of physicians for human rights, the group that discovered the mass grave. thank you for joining us. president obama said recently on cnn that he has asked his security team to investigate the facts of this case. what do you think will be the results of that investigation? >> well, physicians for human rights certainly hopes that it will be a thorough investigation. ideally conducted by attorney general holder into what happened there and as well of the role of u.s. forces. >> "the new york times," as we

just said, was covering this story quite extensively. do you think that they have reported it accurately from what you know? >> a lot of "the times" story reported discovery of the site and initial investigations by physicians for human rice called rights as well as efforts called for all of these years for the investigation for years. but what we learned from "the times" is there were three separate federal investigations that were impeded by bush administration officials. >> these would have been attempts by someone in the u.s. government to look into the matter and it gets stopped by a higher authority? >> yes, that's what we learned from the story, that an fbi agent reported on allegations of the crimes that were committed in this incident at guantanamo, and that was stopped, as well as efforts by senior official at the national security council, who presented the u.s. war crimes ambassador from going up and investigating for the state department. >> and the mass gravesite itself, what do we know? how is it being preserved, if

the all? >> well, what's extremely disturbing for physicians for human rights is we had a colleague who saw a year ago when he was able to go up there holes in the ground and subsequently we were able to secure satellite imagery that shows earth moving equipment in 2006 on the site, apparently making holes in the ground and removing earth. we would like to know what happened with that. >> do you know who or what their intent was? >> no, and that's one of the reasons among many that reason a full investigation is required. we don't know who tampered with the evidence and we don't know where the earth was moved or what was in it. >> of course, the obama administration is dealing with a very complex issue going on in afghanistan. you have a war that's being waged. you have a humanitarian effort

at the same time. are you worried at all this could compromise the american position there? >> well, everyone knows in afghanistan about this atrocity. and what would be to obama's advantage is if we were able to show the afghan people and the american people and the world that we have a new policy, and that we will look at crimes like this, including accepting our own responsibility. >> susannah sirkin, thank you very much for speaking with us. >> thank you. one our item from that region tonight, american officials believe one of osama bin laden's sons was killed recently during a missile attack in pakistan. he apparently was not specifically targeted, but according to one american official, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. finally tonight,e ordinarily would not make light of a story about an earthquake. but happily last week's powerful quake off the coast of new zealand didn't cause any deaths or injuries and it really didn't even cause some damage either. abc australia filed about it rs

had us thinking more about carole king than elvis or jerry lee lewis. true, there was a whole lotta shakin' going on, but as she put it, the quake actually made the earth move under their feet. kerri richie reports. >> reporter: the earth moved for kiwis when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck. but the week on, they're dealing with the aftershock that their country moved closer to australia. >> that's a bit too close. you want to go further away. i wouldn't trust them australians. >> reporter: the quake was the largest to hit new zealand in almost 80 years. scientists say the tremors twisted the south island and shove the country's most wistfully fought point 40 centimeters nearer to australia. >> there's a lot of excitement about the fact that we're getting closer to australia. but we have been getting closer to australia for a long time. >> reporter: new zealand usually only moves about 3 1/2 centimeters in a year but in a matter of seconds, this quake

has shoved this tiny town 10 centimeters towards australia. the bluff down the south island moved 3 centimeters and down eden on the east coast has been nudged a centimeter. scientists say the tremor affeed the alpine fault, which lies 50 kilometers offshore and another big quake could occur at any time. >> on some parts of the alp, i felt the pressure's been increased and some part decreased. it's likely that the place where the pressure's been increased, that might rupture, a new rupture might start there. >> reporter: but new zealanders aren't too straight. some kiwis are excited about being nearer to their neighbors. >> i'm not bothered by that. they're not that bad. >> might not cost as much to get there now. >> reporter: so those more concerned take comfort in the fact there's still more than 2,000 kilometers of sea separating the two countries. kerri richie, abc news, aukland. >> a truly moving story. that's "worldfocus" for this thursday. a reminder to visit our website

at worldfocus.org. you can weigh in on the topics for tomorrow's roundtable. dan rather, by the way, will be joining us for that. i'm martin savidge in new york. as always, thank you for joining us. we will look for you back here again tomorrow and any time on the web. in the meantime, have a good night.

for thousands of years the desert in the shadows of the towering andes of northwestern peru has been