North and South Korea yesterday held more talks aimed at restarting a reunion program for families separated by war 60 years ago, a move that could ease high tensions between the two sides.
However, after a day of intermittent talks in the North’s town of Kaesong, the two sides had not yet reached agreement on the venue for the reunions, Seoul’s unification ministry said.
“The two sides have been holding talks off and on, but they have not yet narrowed differences over the venue,” a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
The North, as part of a recent series of apparent peace overtures, had proposed restarting the program after a year-long break.
The two sides first met a week ago to try to make arrangements for the reunions, which are scheduled for next month at the jointly run Mount Kumgang resort on the North’s east coast.
However, they have been unable to agree on which building to use.
The South has demanded that its purpose-built reunion center at Mount Kumgang be used, while the North has reportedly failed to specify a venue at the resort.
North and South Korea are mainly at odds over a deadly warship sinking that Seoul blames on Pyongyang, but Kumgang, which had been a lucrative source of income for the cash-strapped North, is also a source of controversy.
DEAD HOUSEWIFE
The South banned its people from visiting the resort after a North Korean soldier shot dead a visiting Seoul housewife in 2008.
Seoul wants firm safety guarantees before resuming the tours. The North has seized or sealed off the South’s buildings at Kumgang in protest at the delay.
Analysts say the North appears to be trying to use the reunions issue to persuade the South to restart the tourism program.
The North said this week it would send two officials in charge of the Kumgang project to the latest talks on family reunions, but the South, in a message to the North on Thursday, said it would not do likewise.
“It looks like the North wants to discuss how to resume the tour programs by using the family reunion talks,” said one South Korean Red Cross official who declined to be named.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of