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SEOUL: South and North Korea will hold talks
next week on ways to deliver energy aid to the communist country as
compensation for its promised nuclear shutdown, officials said
Wednesday. The two-day meeting will start on Monday at the North’s
Mount Kumgang resort, the South’s foreign ministry said. The
working group on energy is one of five working groups that resulted
from the February nuclear disarmament agreement. The group last met
at the truce village of Panmunjom in August. South Korea plans to
host the next round by the end of October. The energy-starved
communist country has asked for fuel oil and help to patch up its
decrepit power plants in return for shutting down its nuclear
facilities.
--AFP
TOKYO: Police were hunting
Wednesday for a man accused of stabbing to death a seven-year-old
girl found in front of her grandparents’ home, in the latest crime
against children to shock Japan. Yuzuki Unose was found Tuesday
evening lying face down with stab wounds to her back and abdomen
outside her grandparents’ home in a suburb of the western city of
Kobe. Her mother called an ambulance but the girl died less than two
hours after being admitted to a hospital, a police spokesman said.
The girl “told the ambulance crew on her way to the hospital that
she was stabbed by an adult male,” a fire department official said
separately. Yuzuki was playing with her younger sister and friends
in a nearby park after school before she was found, Jiji Press
reported.
--AFP
TOKYO: A Japanese special
envoy arrived in Iran Wednesday and called for the release of a
Japanese student who was kidnapped by bandits in the restive
southeast of the country. Itsunori Onodera, the senior vice foreign
minister, plans to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki and other officials to call for continued efforts to free
23-year-old Satoshi Nakamura. Nakamura had been traveling alone in
southeastern Iran after teaching Japanese and English in Nepal with
a volunteer group. He was kidnapped on October 8 as he headed from
his hotel for the ancient mud-built citadel of Bam, which was one of
Iran’s main tourist draws until it was destroyed in a 2003
earthquake that killed 31,000 people. A trickle of foreign tourists
is still visiting the area, despite warnings from governments about
the risks of travel in the region.
--AFP
SYDNEY: Australian Prime
Minister John Howard’s hopes for a fifth term got a boost
Wednesday when an opinion poll showed most voters trust him on the
economic issues regarded as a key election battleground. The
Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper came as Howard and
his Labor Party rival Kevin Rudd temporarily suspended
electioneering to attend the funeral of a soldier killed by a
roadside bomb in Afghanistan. The poll showed that while Howard’s
conservative coalition continued to trail Labor 56 percent to 44,
more voters felt the prime minister was best equipped to handle
economic management and national security. It had the coalition
leading Labor 53 percent to 29 on the economy and 49 percent to 26
on national security.
--AFP
BRUSSELS, Belgium:
Philippine Ambassador to Belgium Cristina G. Ortega convened a
meeting with the Filipino community on October 9, 2007, to assess
the recent observance of the Philippine National day and to choose
the organizing Committee Chair for the 2008 in Belgium (COFAB) was
chosen by acclamation as Chair for the next year’s celebration.
The June 10 celebration was considered the best-attended Filipino
community gathering in Belgium and it raised the highest amount of
funds for charity projects. Close to 4,000 Filipinos, Belgians and
Europeans witnessed the whole day event.
--AFP
MOSCOW: President Vladimir
Putin will remain Russia’s “national leader” even after
stepping down after March 2008 presidential elections, the speaker
of parliament said Wednesday. “Vladimir Putin will remain national
leader—regardless of the post that he holds,” wrote Boris
Gryzlov, the speaker and head of the ruling United Russia party, in
the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta. Putin is required by
the constitution to step down as president after having served two
consecutive terms. But the long front-page article was one of the
clearest indications yet that Putin will retain power in some form
when his second term expires next year.
--AFP
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