JAPAN, S. KOREA, US TO HOLD TALKS ON N. KOREA
TOKYO: Top nuclear negotiators from Japan, South Korea and the United States will meet next week in Tokyo to discuss North Korea, the Japanese foreign ministry said on Thursday.

They will confirm close cooperation to address North Korean issues, it said that as Tokyo and Seoul remain entangled in a still-fresh territorial dispute. US special representative for North Korea policy Glyn Davies, Seoul’s Lim Sung-Nam, envoy for the six-nation denuclearization forum, and Japanese senior official Shinsuke Sugiyama will meet on Wednesday, an official statement said.

CHINA BLOGGERS EXPOSE MORE CORRUPTION
BEIJING: Chinese officials have launched a probe after microbloggers said that they had uncovered another allegedly corrupt leader who owns millions of dollars worth of property, state press said on Thursday. Southern Guangzhou city will investigate urban management official Cai Bin, 56, who has 21 homes valued at $6.4 million. Cai, who earns about 10,000 yuan a month, failed to report all his holdings as required by the state, the report said. The scandal emerged after web users began posting pictures of Cai’s properties, some of which are luxury homes, onto the Sina Weibo social networking site. Chinese government officials are widely considered to be corrupt among Chinese, who have recently been raising pressure on them by posting accusations on popular social networking websites.

FREED PUSSY RIOT MEMBER VOWS MORE PROTESTS
WASHINGTON, D.C.: A member of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot freed unexpectedly from prison on Wednesday vowed defiantly that the group’s protest actions would continue.

“We are not finished, nor are we going to end our political protest,” Yekaterina Samutsevich told CNN. Samutsevich, 30, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing illegally at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February. Calls to free the women, who were given two-year prison sentences, came in from world figures from Madonna to Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, but Samutsevich’s release was a big surprise. AFP