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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS