North Korean officials arrived in Seoul yesterday to discuss economic issues with their South Korean counterparts amid Pyongyang's refusal to accept international demands that it give up its nuclear weapons.
At high-level meetings last month, officials from the two Koreas agreed in Seoul to a series of reconciliation moves but failed to set a date for a resumption of international talks on the North's nuclear ambitions. The North's delegation, headed by Choe Yong-gon, vice-minister of Construction and Building Materials Industries, will be in Seoul through Tuesday to discuss restoring transport links across the two Koreas' heavily fortified border among other issues.
The North's request for 450,000 tonnes of rice aid to feed its impoverished population is also expected to be on the agenda. The economic talks were last held in June 2004.
"Let's cooperate with new forces from a new angle," Choe said upon meeting South Korea's Vice Finance Minister Bahk Byong-won, who heads the Seoul delegation.
Contacts between the Koreas resumed in May following a 10-month freeze after the North was angered by mass defections of its citizens to the South.
The economic talks between the Koreas are the tenth such discussions since a landmark 2000 summit between leaders of the countries. The two Koreas remain technically at war since a 1953 ceasefire, not a peace treaty, ended the Korean War, but South Korea has reached out to its communist rival in recent years in the belief that engagement will encourage reform.
In the past five years, the Koreas have opened a joint economic zone just north of their border that combines cheap North Korean labor with South Korean know-how and marketing. Trade between the two Koreas is increasing and totaled US$690 million last year.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS