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
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS