W O R L D

Mishra’s visit successful: USA
Washington, May 13
Describing the meetings between the US officials and India’s National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra last week as “very successful”, the USA has said a wide variety of subjects, including enhanced cooperation in high technology and commerce, figured prominently during the discussions.

North Korea nullifies nuclear pact Seoul, May 13 Ditching its last legal obligation to keep itself free of nuclear weapons, North Korea said today that a 1992 agreement with South Korea not to deploy nuclear arms on the Korean peninsula was “a dead document”.
North and South (front) Korean soldiers stand guard at the Panmunjom truce village on the North-South border on Tuesday. North Korea blamed the US on Tuesday for scuppering a pact that was intended to keep the divided peninsula free of nuclear weapons and said it would boost its defences "to destroy aggressors at a single stroke". — Reuters photo

Pervez may quit army office
Islamabad, May 13
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged that he must choose between being the head of the military and head of state, but the timing is up to him and his decision can be years away, a government minister insisted today.

Mishra’s visit successful: USA
T.V. Parasuram

Washington, May 13
Describing the meetings between the US officials and India’s National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra last week as “very successful”, the USA has said a wide variety of subjects, including enhanced cooperation in high technology and commerce, figured prominently during the discussions.

“It did cover a wide variety of subjects, including India’s keen interest in pressing forward with high technology, commerce and civil nuclear cooperation”, US State Department spokesman Phil Reeker said yesterday.

“These were areas that were, as you recall, first outlined by President George Bush and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in November 2001, and they are areas where we have taken a number of steps”, Mr Reeker said, adding “I would just point you to the fact that we are going to hold the first session of the High Technology Cooperation Group in June”.

The group, he said, will meet both in India and the USA.

The civil nuclear cooperation will be within the framework of US dual-use policies, he said.

Referring to US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s visits to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said in both Pakistan and India, Mr Armitage discussed the expanding bilateral relationship that the USA has with each country and commended both governments on their renewed efforts begun last month by Prime Minister Vajpayee’s speech in Srinagar and followed by Prime Minister Jamali’s telephone call that “began a process to resolve their differences.”

Mr Reeker said “as you know, the USA has a continuing interest in strong relationships with each of the countries in the region and in promoting peace and stability”.

“And as we have said many times before, and Deputy Secretary Armitage underscored during his visit, peace in the region, whether it is in Afghanistan or whether it is between India and Pakistan or whether in Nepal or in Sri Lanka, will be achieved through the efforts of the governments and people of South Asia, and the USA is ready to assist South Asians in their efforts, as they may request,” he added. PTI

North Korea nullifies nuclear pact

Seoul, May 13
Ditching its last legal obligation to keep itself free of nuclear weapons, North Korea said today that a 1992 agreement with South Korea not to deploy nuclear arms on the Korean peninsula was “a dead document”.

The announcement, initially made last night in Korean and then repeated today in English, came as US President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun planned to meet this week in Washington to discuss North Korea’s nuclear programmes.

US officials say North Korea told them last month that it already possessed nuclear weapons. In the past week, North Korea has said it has built “a deterrent force” to protect itself from what it calls a pre-emptive US nuclear attack.

“The inter-Korean declaration on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula was thus reduced to a dead document due to the US vicious hostile policy to stifle the DPRK with nukes,” North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, said.

The DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

The two Koreas signed the agreement in January, 1992, pledging not to develop or deploy nuclear weapons on the divided peninsula.

Meanwhile, North Korea is believed to have exported $ 580 million worth of missiles to Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates in 2001, the US military said today.

The US Government also believes that North Korea traded in narcotics and counterfeit dollars, the military official in Seoul said on condition of anonymity.

NEW YORK: Communist North Korea has no choice but to give up its nuclear ambitions if the isolated and impoverished state wants to join the global society, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said. AP/Reuters

Pervez may quit army office

Islamabad, May 13
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged that he must choose between being the head of the military and head of state, but the timing is up to him and his decision can be years away, a government minister insisted today.

Hardline Islamic opposition politicians, who have a powerful voice in Parliament, have paralysed the legislature in a bid to force Musharraf’s hand on this issue.

“President Musharraf has said he knows two offices cannot be held at the same time, and he will leave, but the timing is up to him. He has five years,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said.

Musharraf was made President for five years in a referendum held last year.

“President Musharraf ... Agrees that he cannot keep two offices. But a decision on when he leaves the army will take time,” the minister said. “He cannot give a date for that.”

A six-party Islamic alliance that forms one of the largest opposition blocks in the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, has refused to allow any legislation to be tabled, has refused to vote, and has disrupted proceedings by shouting down speakers. AP

Doctor dies of SARS

Hong Kong, May 13
Tse Yuen-man, the first front-line doctor to die in Hong Kong’s battle against SARS, was buried with state honours today.

He died early today in the intensive care unit of Tuen Mun Hospital, where she contracted SARS while treating patients.

Tse Yuen-man was Hong Kong’s first front-line doctor killed by SARS, said hospital spokeswoman Irene Lau. The doctor’s death has brought Hong Kong’s SARS toll to 219. The doctor caught SARS as she scrambled without gloves on to treat a patient alongside nurse Lau Wing-Kai, who died last month and was buried with honours after a funeral attended by top officials. AP

Bhopal gas tragedy victims end fast

Washington, May 13
Two women survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy and longtime activists have ended their 12-day fast strike by sipping juice at the Gandhi statue in front of the Indian Embassy here amid a demonstration by NRIs and US activists demanding justice.

Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas-affected Women Stationery Workers Association, a trade union that is a member of the Global Day of Action against Corporate Crime, yesterday said “justice delayed is justice denied.” PTI

GLOBAL MONITOR

French stuntman Alain Robert, who calls himself "Spiderman", climbs the outside of the Lloyds building in Central London, on Tuesday. Robert, who has climbed some of the world's tallest structures, always with bare hands, climbed to the top of the 84m-high building on Tuesday before being escorted away by the police after his return to ground. — Reuters

WOMAN HITS SONS TO DEATH
WASHINGTON: A Texas mother, who the police say admitted bashing her children’s heads in with rocks, is being held on capital murder and aggravated assault charges, media reports said. Sheriff deputies in Smith County Texas arrested Deanna Laney (38) of New Chapel Hill, Texas, early Saturday after she called authorities to report the crime. Bodies of her two eldest sons, Joshua Keith Laney (8) and Luke Allen Laney (6) were found in the front yard of the house. DPA

ARUNDHATI’S BOOK IS 20TH AMONG THE TOP
LONDON: Arundhati Roy has bagged yet another literary distinction by being voted among the top 50 greatest women writers of all time for her Booker Prize winning title ‘’The God of Small Things.’’ Her book, placed at 20th position, has been rated above the likes of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and two of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. UNI

BABY NAMED SADDAM SARS
HONG KONG: A couple in China has named their baby son Saddam SARS to mark the two important events taking place at the time of his birth, a news report said on Tuesday. The boy was born on March 20, the day the Iraq war broke out and at a time when alarm over the SARS outbreak was spreading across China. DPA

PAK YOUTHS TEAR BILLBOARD POSTERS
PESHAWAR: Islamist youths tore down 30 billboard posters of women in Pakistan’s deeply conservative north-west city of Peshawar on Tuesday, declaring a fresh drive against obscenity. Shabab-e-Milli, the youth wing of Jamaat-i-Islami, issued a one-week ultimatum to the north-west frontier province government to remove all advertising billboards featuring women. AFP