North Korea sets date for parliament session

North Korea's parliament will hold its annual meeting on April 9, state media announced Saturday.

The Korean Central News Agency gave no more details of the upcoming session. The rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly normally meets once a year to endorse bills put forward by the ruling communist party.

Leader Kim Jong-Il attended last year's session, which re-elected him to the country's most powerful post, chairman of the National Defence Commission.

Legislators will meet this year as diplomatic efforts intensify to bring the North back to six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations, which it quit last April.