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Tuesday,
June 10, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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 N. Korea admits to N-arms driveSeoul, June 9 North Korea admitted publicly for the first time today that it was seeking nuclear weapons and blamed a “hostile” US policy for forcing it to develop a deterrent. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun delivers a speech in the Lower House in Tokyo on Monday. Roh told Japan's Parliament that Seoul would not tolerate the possession of nuclear weapons by North Korea, but stressed that the problem must be resolved peacefully. —Reuters photo Bangladesh invites PM for summit meeting Japan pledges $1 bn to Lanka
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Democrats flay Bush over Iraq Mount Pleasant (Iowa), June 9 “I never thought I’d hear this question raised in my lifetime again, but the question really now is ‘what did the President know and when did he know it?’’, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, referring to the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, told mediapersons yesterday at a fundraiser for Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. “The President’s credibility is in question,” he said. Three other Democratic contenders attended the function — Florida Senator Bob Graham, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman and Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Mr Graham said the Bush Administration had engaged in a “pattern of deception and deceit.” “I hope that we’ll find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because the failure to do so will be an enormous blow to our credibility abroad and among the people of America,” he said. “We put our valiant men and women in harm’s way ... under what appears to have been, at least, less information than the American people deserved,” he said. Mr Lieberman, one of the co-sponsors of the resolution authorising the war, said there had been reason to believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. “Very serious questions are being raised now about whether our intelligence community had it right, whether the administration was over-stating the case,” he said.
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N. Korea admits to N-arms drive Seoul, June 9 Since the nuclear crisis erupted eight months ago, North Korea has often referred to its possession of a powerful
physical deterrent. But Pyongyang has carefully avoided admitting in public to either seeking or possessing
nuclear weapons.“We have no other option but to have a nuclear deterrence if the
USA keeps its hostile policy and continues its nuclear threat towards the DPRK (North Korea),” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said today. Pyongyang regularly accuses Washington of planning a pre-emptive strike on the Stalinist state. The KCNA commentary stopped short of saying Pyongyang has already developed nuclear weapons, though North Korea has confessed as much in private, according to Washington. The nuclear crisis was triggered in October last year when US assistant secretary of state James Kelly travelled to Pyongyang to confront the regime with evidence it was engaged in a clandestine nuclear weapons programme. North Korea confessed outright to running the programme based on highly enriched uranium and said it had a right to nuclear deterrence. Pyongyang blamed a “hostile” US policy characterised by US President George W. Bush’s designation of North Korea as part of an “axis of evil.” US officials, however, assert that the programme predates the Bush administration by several years.
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Bangladesh invites PM for summit meeting Dhaka, June 9 “Our Prime Minister has already extended invitation to the Indian Prime Minister. We hope Mr Vajpayee will visit Bangladesh, contribute to establishment of peace in the region and develop our bilateral relations,” Foreign Minister Morshed Khan told reporters here last night. Expecting a positive response to the invitation, officials of both the countries have already started working for holding the meeting between the two Prime Ministers. The Joint Economic Commission meeting at the level of Foreign Ministers, which will meet here next month, will discuss the planned summit, Mr Khan said. Stressing the importance of summit-level meeting between the heads of the two governments, Mr Khan said: “It is essential to improve relations between the two close neighbours by resolving disputes”. Asked about the timing of the meet, he said: “It might take place any time”.
PTI |
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Japan pledges $1 bn to Lanka Tokyo, June 9 “I am pleased to announce that Japan is prepared to extend up to one billion US dollars to Sri Lanka over the next three years, while reviewing and monitoring carefully the progress made in the ongoing peace process,” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told the conference.
AFP |
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Pak woman claims to be 150 Islamabad, June 9 She still remembers how her forefathers fought against the Sikhs, it said. The hospital where she is now admitted also substantiates her claim, the paper said. About her age in the hospital records, a senior doctor said, “We have no other option but to write what the patient’s attendants say.
UNI |
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‘Bollywood’
enters Oxford Dictionary London, June 9 |
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Mount Pleasant (Iowa), June 9
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