STALEMATE: Longtime disputes over Japan's colonial-era oppression and North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens remain unresolved
Two days of talks between Japanese and North Korean officials in Beijing ended on Friday without agreement on the North's demands for compensation for colonial-era oppression, or answers to Tokyo's questions about the abduction of its citizens by Pyongyang's spies.

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More than 500 relatives from the divided Koreas were to meet yesterday for the first time after five decades of separation, as another round of family reunions begin amid growing reconciliation between the two Cold War rivals.

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Waging war for the cause of freedom can be justified but not in the case of Tibet's dream of autonomy from China, the Dalai Lama said at a US university on Friday.

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LESS FIGHT, MORE RELIEF: President Pervez Musharraf decided to put off purchasing 80 fighter jets in order to provide more relief to the victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake
Pakistan will postpone the purchase of F-16 fighter jets from the US in order to provide more relief to victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake, President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday.

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Japan rebuffed Washington's demands on Friday that Tokyo ease its terms for lifting a ban on US beef imports, imposed two years ago due to fears of mad cow disease.

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Military police detained 14 children being cared for by one of the country's largest children's charities after they attacked each other with Samurai swords, injuring a 10 year-old- boy and briefly terrorizing a provincial town, authorities said yesterday.

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A press freedom group on Friday asked US President George W. Bush to intercede on behalf of China's jailed journalists and dissidents.

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DUE PROCESS: Six US Marines were taken into custody by the US embassy in Manila for allegedly raping a woman, prompting calls to put an end to the joint military exercises
The Philippine government has vowed that justice will be served in the case of a Filipino woman who was allegedly raped by six US Marines earlier this week, a senior government official said yesterday.

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Anti-goverment protests spread from the capital to other parts of Ethiopia on Friday, leaving four people dead and 11 wounded, state-run television reported, as the prime minister vowed to prosecute opposition officials after a week of bloody clashes between demonstrators and police.

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South Africa's former deputy president Jacob Zuma and two French arms companies were formally indicted on a corruption charge on Friday in preparation for a potentially explosive trial set to begin on July 31.

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Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, facing the threat of an election soon, saw his minority Liberal government's approval rating fall sharply this week despite being cleared in a major political funding scandal, according to a new poll.

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Authorities searched for a death row inmate who slipped off his handcuffs, changed into street clothes and bluffed his way out of jail by flashing a fake ID badge with a photo of himself.

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DISASTER: The dead have long-since been buried, but friends and families are not satisfied that the government has done enough to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy
More than 10 months after a nightclub fire in Buenos Aires claimed 194 lives, the victims' relatives are still seeking punishment for those they hold responsible. Every month, they march through the city: to make their demands heard, and to keep people from forgetting.

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■ North Korea
Tourist visits suspended
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