North and South hold fruitless 22-minute talks

North and South Korea held brief and acrimonious talks over a cross-border industrial estate amid rising tensions following Pyongyang's controversial missile launch. The feuding parties failed to reach an understanding.Rare talks between North and South Korea ended without agreement late Tuesday after Pyongyang made tough new demands about the operations of a joint industrial estate on its territory, officials said.The talks, the first since a conservative government took office in Seoul almost 14 months ago, were delayed some 12 hours by procedural wrangles and lasted just 22 minutes when they finally got underway.Cross-border relations are at their worst in a decade after South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak abandoned his predecessors' policy of providing almost unconditional aid to the communist state.Regional tensions are also rising after the North's purported satellite launch on April 5, widely seen overseas as a disguised missile test.The North, angry at UN censure of the launch, has announced it is quitting nuclear disarmament talks and restarting its atomic weapons programme. It has  expelled US and UN nuclear inspectors.Each side presented written demands during the talks at the Kaesong joint industrial estate just north of the heavily fortified border, said Seoul's unification ministry, which handles cross-border ties.A ministry spokesman said Pyongyang told Seoul it would consider ending "benefits" for South Korean companies at Kaesong, including low wages for the North Korean employees.The North also demanded a review of wages and contracts at the estate and said it would charge land use fees there from next year.