W O R L D

Military, uncle to share power with Kim’s heir
Beijing, December 21
North Korea will shift to collective rule from a strongman dictatorship after last week’s death of Kim Jong-il, although his untested young son will be at the head of the ruling coterie.

Kim Jong-un shakes hands with generals after paying his respects to his father Kim Jong-il, lying in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang. — Reuters

111 killed in Syria’s ‘bloodiest day’
Beirut, December 21
Syrian forces killed 111 people ahead of the start of a mission to monitor President Bashar al-Assad’s implementation of an Arab League peace plan, activists said on Wednesday, and France branded the killings an “unprecedented massacre”.

Villagers in China win rare compromise
Beijing, December 21
Southern Chinese authorities have given in to key demands of protesting villagers after a nearly two-week standoff with the police, agreeing in a rare compromise to release detainees and return some confiscated land to farmers.

Residents of the Wukan village stand next to a poster showing local man Xue Jinbo, who died in police custody, during a town meeting. — Reuters

Dubious distinction
US brands Delhi’s Nehru Place market piracy hub
Washington, December 21
An official US report has identified Nehru Place in New Delhi among the top 30 notorious IT markets of the world, dealing in goods and services infringing on the intellectual property rights (IPR).

Word games
Text, lies & videotape: People likely to lie when texting!
Los Angeles, December 21
People are more likely to lie when texting and most honest in video chats, says a new study. Researchers at University of British Columbia have found that people are more likely to lie via text compared to face-to-face communications, video-conferencing or audio chat, the 'Los Angeles Times' reported.

 

 

Military, uncle to share power with Kim’s heir
Untested Kim Jong-un to head the ruling coterie

Beijing, December 21
North Korea will shift to collective rule from a strongman dictatorship after last week’s death of Kim Jong-il, although his untested young son will be at the head of the ruling coterie, a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.

The source added that the military, which is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, has pledged allegiance to the untested Kim Jong-un, who takes over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since it was founded after World War-II.

The source declined to be identified but has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the North’s first nuclear test in 2006 before it took place.

The comments are the first signal that North Korea is following a course that many analysts have anticipated, it will be governed by a group of people for the first time since it was founded in 1948. Both Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung were all-powerful, authoritarian rulers of the isolated state.

The situation in North Korea appeared stable after the military gave its backing to Kim Jong-un, the source said. “It’s very unlikely,” the source said when asked about the possibility of a military coup. “The military has pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-un.”

North Korea’s collective leadership will include Kim Jong-un, his uncle and the military, the source said. Jang Song-thaek, 65, brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il and the younger Kim’s uncle, is seen as the power behind the throne along with his wife Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il’s sister. So too is Ri Yong-ho, the rising star of the North’s military and currently its seniormost general.

The younger Kim, who is in his late 20s, has his own supporters, but is not strong enough to consolidate power, analysts said. “I know that he’s been able to build a group of supporters around himself who are of his generation,” said Koh Yu-hwan, president of the Korean Association of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“So it is not entirely elders in their 70s, plus some like Jang in their 60s, who are backing him. These young backers will be emerging fairly soon.” “Considering the tradition of strongarm rule by his father and grandfather, things can’t be easy for him,” he said. — Reuters

111 killed in Syria’s ‘bloodiest day’

eirut, December 21
Syrian forces killed 111 people ahead of the start of a mission to monitor President Bashar al-Assad’s implementation of an Arab League peace plan, activists said on Wednesday, and France branded the killings an “unprecedented massacre”.

Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 111 civilians and activists were killed in addition to over 100 casualties among army deserters in Idlib province, turning Tuesday into the “bloodiest day of the Syrian revolution”.

“There was a massacre of an unprecedented scale in Syria on Tuesday,” said French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero. “It is urgent that the U.N. Security Council issues a firm resolution that calls for an end to the repression.”

The main opposition Syrian National Council demanded international action to protect civilians. The escalating death toll in nine months of popular unrest has raised the spectre of civil war in Syria with Assad, 46, still trying to stamp out protests with troops and tanks despite international sanctions imposed to push him onto a reform path.

Idlib, a northwestern province bordering Turkey, has been a hotbed of protest during the revolt, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world this year, and has also seen escalating attacks by armed insurgents against his forces.

The Observatory said rebels had damaged or destroyed 17 military vehicles in Idlib since Sunday and killed 14 members of the security forces on Tuesday in an ambush in the southern province of Deraa, where anti-Assad protests began in March.

Events in Syria are hard to verify because authorities have banned most independent reporting. But Tuesday’s bloodshed brought the death toll reported by activists in the last 48 hours to over 200.

The main opposition Syrian National Council said 250 people had been killed on Monday and Tuesday in “bloody massacres”, and that the Arab League and United Nations must protect civilians. It demanded “an emergency U.N. Security Council session to discuss the (Assad) regime’s massacres in Jabal al-Zawiyah, Idlib and Homs, in particular” and called for “safe zones” to be set up under international protection.

It also said those regions should be declared disaster areas and urged the International Red Crescent and other relief organisations to provide humanitarian aid.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said on Tuesday that an advance observer team would go to Syria on Thursday to prepare the way for 150 monitors due to arrive by end-December. Syria stalled for weeks before signing a protocol on Monday to admit the monitors, who will check its compliance with the plan mandating an end to violence, withdrawal of troops from the streets, release of prisoners and dialogue with the opposition. — Reuters

Gilani: US must guarantee Pak’s sovereignty

Islamabad, December 21
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today said the US must guarantee Pakistan’s sovereignty and ensure that there is no unilateral action like the raid that killed Osama bin Laden under the new terms of engagement that will define bilateral relations in future.

Gilani made the remarks while addressing a meeting of Afghan and Pakistani parliamentarians at the Prime Minister’s House.

Pakistan wanted to take up three issues with the US that will be part of the “rules of future engagements” between both countries.

Besides guaranteeing Pakistan’s sovereignty and ensuring that there are no unilateral actions, the US must share “credible and actionable information” so that Pakistan can take action against militants, Gilani said.

Gilani further said US drone attacks, which cause collateral damage, “must be stopped as these were grossly detrimental to the government’s efforts to isolate the terrorists from local population”.

The premier ordered a sweeping review of Pakistan’s relations with the US aafter a cross-border NATO air strike. The government has sought recommendations from top diplomats and a parliamentary panel so that new terms of engagement with the US can be formulated. — PTI

Villagers in China win rare compromise

Beijing, December 21
Southern Chinese authorities have given in to key demands of protesting villagers after a nearly two-week standoff with the police, agreeing in a rare compromise to release detainees and return some confiscated land to farmers.

Guangdong’s deputy Communist Party secretary Zhu Mingguo told Wukan village protest leader Yang Semao today that four villagers being held by the police would be released over the next few days, Yang told The Associated Press. “So now we are cautiously optimistic,” Yang said.

The significance of the authorities’ unusual concession in Wukan depends on how the details are played out, but it could affect the way other protests are handled, particularly in the corner of coastal southern China that has seen periodic unrest over the last few years. To Wukan’s northeast, the coastal town of Haimen saw a second day of protests today over a planned coal-fired power plant.

Conflicts over land disputes and other issues in much of Guangdong province have been intense because the area is among China’s most economically developed, pushing up land prices.

Underscoring the government’s concerns about public discontent, China’s security czar Zhou Yongkang met today with law and order officials and told them to improve the resolution of social conflicts and promote fair and honest law enforcement, state media reported.

In Wukan, Zhu, the provincial official, also told Yang and another village representative that the government would buy back 66 acres (27 hectares) of farmland that had been sold to a developer and return the land to the villagers, Yang said. — AP

Dubious distinction
US brands Delhi’s Nehru Place market piracy hub

Washington, December 21
An official US report has identified Nehru Place in New Delhi among the top 30 notorious IT markets of the world, dealing in goods and services infringing on the intellectual property rights (IPR).

“Nehru Place is, reportedly, one of the many markets in major cities throughout India that are known for dealing in large volumes of pirated software, pirated optical media containing movies and music, and counterfeit goods,” said the report released by the US Trade Representative.

The Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets report identifies more than 30 markets that typify the problem of marketplaces that deal in goods and services that infringe on the IPR and help to sustain global piracy and counterfeiting. The results identify examples of both Internet and physical marketplaces that have been the subject of enforcement action connected with counterfeiting and piracy, or that may merit further investigation for possible IPR infringements.

The announcement concludes the review process launched on September 22.

“Piracys continue to present a serious challenge to the innovation and creativity that is essential to support American jobs,” said US trade representative Ron Kirk. — PTI

Word games
Text, lies & videotape: People likely to lie when texting!

Los Angeles, December 21
People are more likely to lie when texting and most honest in video chats, says a new study. Researchers at University of British Columbia have found that people are more likely to lie via text compared to face-to-face communications, video-conferencing or audio chat, the 'Los Angeles Times' reported.

They have based their findings on an assessment after an experiment involving 140 students who were grouped into pairs and asked to engage in a role-playing game. One student took on role of a stockbroker, the other student played a buyer.

The researchers told the "stockbroker" that the stock they had to sell would lose 50 per cent of its value in one week. They also gave the "stockbroker" a financial incentive to sell as much of the bad stock to the "buyer" as possible.

The study found that the stockbrokers were most likely to engage in duplicitous behaviour -- either lying about quality of the stock, or not mentioning how bad it was -- if they conducted the buy or sell conversation via text message.

The dishonesty generally revolved around lying about the quality of the stock or simply not mentioning how good or bad it was.

Surprisingly, the stockbrokers were most honest about the stock if the conversation occurred through video. In the honesty stakes, video beat face to face conversations and also audio chat. The researchers said the dishonest behaviour was largely caused by the "lean media" nature of texting.

But the big surprise for researchers came from the buyers' side. When they asked buyers how angry they were that the stockbroker had lied to them, the researchers found buyers were more furious if they had been lied to via text than if they had been lied to in a face-to-face conversation.

"There is some instant rapport-building, and some quick trust that happens when you talk to someone face to face,” Prof Ronald Cenfetelli at University of British Columbia, who co-authored the study, was quoted as saying. — PTI