Top envoys from North Korea declined to meet South Korea's pleas to set a date for returning to international nuclear disarmament talks but returned home yesterday with a pledge of food aid and accords to foster family reunions and other cooperation across their tense border.
During Cabinet-level reconciliation talks that ended on Thursday, the two Koreas agreed to a series of reconciliation meetings in coming months. But the nuclear impasse continued, with the North lashing out anew at US President George W. Bush for meeting a prominent North Korean defector, saying it was counterproductive in efforts to resume nuclear talks.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il raised hopes last week when he told a visiting South Korean minister of a possible return to the table as early as next month, if the North gets appropriate respect from the US.
The South tried to get the North to commit to that timeframe, but got no "definite answer" this week, said Kim Chun-shick, a spokesman for the South's delegation. However, both sides agreed to resolve the nuclear dispute peacefully.
"The South and the North have agreed to take real measures for peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue through dialogue, as the atmosphere is created, with the ultimate goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the South's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said.
Washington has dismissed Kim Jong-il's recent comments, saying Pyongyang needs to set a firm date to return to the negotiations and talk substantively about giving up its nuclear program.
The talks' failure to make concrete progress on the nuclear issue drew criticism yesterday from South Korea's conservative media, which called on the government to consider its continued aid to the North in light of Pyongyang's refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons.
"North Korea, in reality, has not taken one step forward from the stance that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il elucidated recently in Pyongyang," the main Chosun Ilbo daily wrote in an editorial.
Three rounds of talks have failed to yield notable progress, but Washington has insisted the nuclear dispute be resolved in that forum and spurned the North's requests for direct talks.
North Korea boasted in February that it had atomic weapons, and has moved in recent months to potentially harvest more radioactive material to add to a supply believed enough for a half-dozen bombs.
The North's propaganda machine launched another tirade on Thursday at the US, criticizing Bush for hosting Kang Chol Hwan, a North Korean defector now working as a journalist in South Korea who has written a memoir detailing a decade of abuses he suffered at a North Korean prison camp. The North's Korean Central News Agency said the meeting was "an act of throwing a wet blanket on the efforts to resume" the nuclear talks.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and