|
NAQOURA, Lebanon: The Lebanese Hezbollah group on Wednesday handed over two black coffins believed to contain the remains of two captured Israeli soldiers. The coffins were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross before being driven across the Naqoura border into Israel as the first step of the prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah. "Today we hand over Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev," Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa said at the Naqura border crossing, and thus confirming the deaths of the two Israeli soldiers captured two years ago, whose conditions have been theretofore unknown.
-- Xinhua
PHNOM PENH: Thailand has stationed around 200 troops at the border area with Cambodia over a land dispute around the Preah Vihear Temple, according to the provincial authority of Preah Vihear Wednesday. The Cambodian side insisted that the Thai force entered its territory, while the Thai side denied such. Both forces were in armed situation. Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said Tuesday night that 170 troops and Thai civilians crossed into the Cambodian territory, but couldn't say how many civilians were among them.
-- Xinhua
SEOUL: South Korea on Wednesday said its ban on tours to a North Korean resort will stay in force until Pyongyang gives firm safety guarantees, following the shooting of a holidaymaker which shocked the nation. "The tourism at Mount Kumgang cannot resume . . . unless we secure a firm guarantee of the safety of tourists," said President Lee Myung Bak, who called on Friday's killing intolerable and demanded a joint probe into it. Mount Kumgang earns the impoverished North tens of millions of dollars a year.
-- AFP
WASHINGTON: A senior US diplomat will attend international nuclear talks with Iran on Saturday, marking a shift in US policy on negotiations with Tehran, Undersecretary of State William Burns said. Burns will attend the weekend meeting in Geneva between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Tehran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. The United States has no official contact with Iran and until now has refused to even participate in preliminary discussions with Iranian officials unless Tehran suspends its nuclear enrichment activities.
-- AFP
CARACAS: Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels have rejected peace talks with the government of President Alvaro Uribe, according to a letter shown on Venezuelan television on Tuesday. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by their Spanish acronym FARC, instead demanded to meet with leftist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, according to the letter broadcast on Telesur. "Uribe is not programmed by the gringos [Americans] for peace or an exchange [of hostages for prisoners]," said the letter dated June 26.
-- AFP
|
