Asia-Pacific News
North Korea's nuclear disclosure gets cautious welcome
By Deutsche Presse-Agentur Jun 26, 2008, 20:41 GMT
A composite image showing a cooling tower (R) at North Korea\'s main nuclear site in Yongbyon, that will be demolished. EPA/YONHAP
North Korea's long-awaited disclosures about its nuclear programme received a cautious welcome around the world on Thursday, with the US acting immediately to ease sanctions and South Korea calling it an 'important starting point' towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
Pyongyang turned over the disclosure documents to the Chinese government in Beijing, in keeping with China's key role as a mediator in the six-party talks that led to Thursday's disclosure.
Notes of caution came from the United States and South Korea that the steps toward dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme must be closely monitored and confirmed.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan said his country needed to be 'convinced' that Pyongyang's disclosure 'will lead to the complete dismantling of the communist state's nuclear programme.'
US President George W Bush said he was under 'no illusions' about the nature of the Stalinist state, but he lifted some sanctions against North Korea and asked Congress to remove the country from the list of state sponsors terrorism.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean, said the disclosure represented 'progress' toward the 'verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner.'
In Tokyo, the Japanese government moved quickly to reassure its citizens that North Korea's likely removal from the US terrorism blacklist would not negatively affect its ongoing efforts on the issue of its abducted citizens.
The US had rebuffed Japanese demands to tie resolving the abductions to the nuclear deal, but on Thursday, Bush said the US would 'never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans.'
In China, North Korea's disclosure was seen as holding 'great symbolic significance,' said a Chinese government expert.
'This is a pivotal step on the process of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which makes a sound atmosphere for the further talks,' said Zhang Liangui from the Central Party School of China's ruling Communist Party.
On Friday, television crews from the other five nations in the talks - the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - are to film the destruction of the Yongbyon cooling tower, another gesture of Pyongyang's serious intent. Sung Kim, the US State Department's top official on Korean affairs, was also expected to witness the event.
While the plant has been under de-construction for months, removal of the tower with the world watching was a significant step, Zhang said.
Other sanctions related to human rights abuses in North Korea and for its nuclear detonation in October 2006 will remain in place, Bush said.
So far, North Korea has only conceded that it had a plutonium- based nuclear programme, but Washington suspects it has also had a limited effort to enrich uranium for nuclear weapon fuel.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Jesus' mom Maria told a fib when she proclaimed: 'It's a miracle!'
Of course that whore would say such a thing. At a time when people were generally not educated nor informed they could be beguiled into believing anything. So the story went and was recorded as such.
Here we had a newly wed couple Joseph and Maria who hadn't even consummated the marriage, and Maria still ended up pregnant. She thought up a quick thing to say and here thus came that claim.
Meanwhile Jesus' mom Maria had been a busy body with the male population in her village.
A better statement about her would be: 'That she was the town's bike.' A British saying I believe which basically means that every man and boy in town had a ride on her.
And the fable about Jesus dying and than rising from the death is as true as the fable that America sent men to the moon.
The immediate question arises if they went before why haven't they gone since?
The answer is because even with todays technology they still can't go. They hope to send an unmanned craft to the moon around 2017 and a manned one by 2020.
It was a political move by the Americans back in the 1960s to make such a outlandish claim because in fact they were losing the space race to the Russians who were the first to send a satellite and than a cosmonaut into space.
That America is dying as we speak...a slow..death. Politically, economically, spiritually, and yes even militarily.
Politically, America will NEVER recover from the depths that the last few US governments have put America in. It NO longer has NOR will it ever again have ANY credibility in its foreign policy. Unless....
If America pushes for denuclearisation of North Korea and Iran, it will ONLY get some credibility back if it also begins pushing for denuclearisation of Israel.
Economically, America is currently in a free fall down the slippery slopes of Wall Street hell.
Just look at their stock markets and their real estate markets. Less tourists and business people visit America. Investments are down and so are retail sales. And consumer confidence? There isn't much of that either.
Spiritually Americans lack hope and don't believe in anything let alone their 'God.'
Militarily they have difficulty recruiting enough new qualified people to reinforce their neo-colonialist armies. The ones they already have are incredibly under stress and don't cope very well when back in a 'non war' society.
Death is certainly coming for America, and it was its own doing.
page: 1
spfoolJun 27th, 2008 - 02:56:06
Does this mean that N. Korea is no longer in the 'axis of evil'? Too, bad, because I know that we are just iching to attack them. This could delay Aramgeddon a bit, and we need to bring it on. I suggest that the government not act impulsively, and that we keep them on our hit list, so we can be ready to annihilate them if we deem it necessary, even after we take care of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, to name just a few other enemy rogue nations. How do we know just what to believe? I was taught not to trust Asians, or Irishmen either, or native Americans, Blacks, Russians, anyone from the middle east, or Frenchmen, for that matter. And above all, diplomacy just does not work, so we shouldn't even begin to talk to enemy. Dear God, what is a true believer supposed to do now? Has the Commander in Chief actually turned into a traitorous cut n' run appeaser of total evilness? Please send us more guidance, some signs from heaven; show us your intent for the infidel mortals who are not born again Christians, so we will know what to do with them during the pending final battle with the all evil.
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