Delegates to North Korean disarmament talks said yesterday they were approaching the final stages of discussions, but that a resolution to the dispute over the communist nation's nuclear weapons program lay ultimately in its own hands.
Envoys from the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia were reviewing the latest draft of principles crafted by host China meant to move the stalled negotiations forward. However, the heads of delegations did not have a group meeting, the US Embassy said, making it unlikely that a conclusion to negotiations was imminent.
Negotiators agreed to meet again today, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It did not give any details.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top US envoy, said earlier Wednesday that agreeing to the text is something North Korea is "going to decide on their own. They're not going to listen to pressure from me."
"In a very real sense, [North Korea] really does stand at a crossroads and they can look forward to a brighter future, a more secure future, a more prosperous future," Hill said. "But they really can't do it with nuclear weapons. They've really got to get off that."
Hill said Tuesday evening that the talks could break off without an agreement, giving time for the sides to return to their capitals for more consultation before the six nations convene again.
It wasn't clear when the talks -- now lasting three times longer than three previous rounds -- would end. Hill said Tuesday it may be a matter of days.
He held one-on-one talks Wednesday with several delegations, but not the North Koreans, the US Embassy said.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS