TORONTO, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Canada will formally oppose international efforts by the world’s major economies to impose a global bank tax as the current government favors lower taxes, Canada’s National Post newspaper reported on Friday.

The report, citing unnamed government sources, said Canada’s move could potentially cause a major split among Group of 20 leaders at a summit in Toronto in June and thwart efforts to impose uniform financial regulations after the recession.

A spokesman for Canada’s finance ministry declined to confirm details of the report.

The newspaper, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the plan, said senior Canadian officials would soon make a public response following recent public musings on the issue by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Brown put forward the idea of a global tax on financial transactions at a G20 meeting last year and recently said he was working internationally to agree on a global bank levy.

The newspaper quoted one unnamed source as saying Canada will oppose any such tax, adding it would run counter to the Conservative government’s reputation for lower taxes.

“The government wants it known that a deal on a bank tax isn’t going to happen,” it quoted the source as saying.

Canada is co-head of the G20 this year with South Korea, and the report said Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty want to use their influence as host of the next G20 meeting to kill the proposal.

Recently in Davos, Switzerland, Harper distanced himself from hard-liners in the bank reform debate, warning against excessive regulation of the financial sector.

“Canada … believes that financial sector regulation must have the right purposes and must not be excessive … Canada will not go down the path of excessive, arbitrary or punitive regulation of its financial sector,” Harper said.

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(Reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson; Editing by James Dalgleish) ((jeffrey.hodgson@thomsonreuters.com; Tel: 416 941 8099; Reuters Messaging: jeffrey.hodgson.reuters.com@reuters.net)  )

The North's "nuclear deterrent for self-defense will remain as ever and grow more powerful ... as long as the U.S. nuclear threat and hostile policy persist," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Friday in a dispatch from Pyongyang.

The North's "dismantlement of its nuclear weapons can never happen ... unless the hostile policy towards the (North) is rolled back and the nuclear threat to it removed."

The North claims it was compelled to develop atomic bombs to cope with U.S. nuclear threats. The U.S., which denies making any such threats against the North, has called on the North to return to the disarmament talks that also involve South Korea, Russia and Japan.

KCNA's comments came amid diplomatic efforts to jump-start stalled disarmament talks.

North Korean envoy Kim Kye Gwan plans to attend a seminar in San Francisco before heading to New York to meet with Washington's lead nuclear negotiator Sung Kim either late this month or next month, the South Korean cable news network YTN reported Friday, citing an unidentified source in Beijing.

Kim was in Beijing earlier this month for talks with his Chinese counterpart on resuming the nuclear talks, and his aide met with U.S. Embassy officials in Beijing to coordinate Kim's trip to the U.S., YTN reported.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on Friday denied the report and reiterated that the U.S. has no current plans to meet with North Koreans officials.

"There are no plans right now for North Korean officials to come to the United States, nor for U.S. officials to meet with them," Crowley told reporters.

Officials from the U.S. and North Korea last met one-on-one in December, when President Barack Obama's special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, visited Pyongyang. The bilateral talks were the first since Obama took office.

The newly designated "naval firing zones" are effective Saturday through Monday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday. The JCS, however, said there was no immediate signs of particular movement of North Korean troops.

Last month, North Korea fired artillery shells near its disputed western sea border, prompting the South Koreans to fire warning shots. No injuries or damage were reported.

The North has since deployed dozens of multiple rocket launchers in major bases along its west coast, Yonhap news agency reported, citing a Defense Ministry report submitted to the legislature.

The Defense Ministry said it could not immediately confirm the report.

Despite the North's move, South Korea said it will deliver anti-flu hand sanitizers worth 1 billion won (US$861,000) to the North on Tuesday, according to the Unification Ministry.

South Korea already sent swine flu medicine to the North in December after North Korea acknowledged an outbreak of the disease.