Seoul: In a departure from the stand taken by the United States, China has advocated continued deliveries of energy aid to North Korea despite Pyongyang’s refusal to allow nuclear inspections, South Korean media reported Wednesday.

Disarmament talks in Beijing ended in deadlock last week over the issue of North Korea’s rejection of a compromise on procedures to verify its disablement of its main nuclear facility.

US officials have said that five nations engaged in talks with North Korea that are aimed at dismantling its nuclear programmes - the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - agreed to delay delivery of energy aid to the communist state after the negotiations broke down.

But South Korean media reported Wednesday that China has denied having agreed to the delay.

“The delivery of energy aid for North Korea was promised in return for the disabling of North Korea’s nuclear programme by Pyongyang,” Seoul-based SBS TV quoted a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

In a deal signed last year with the five nations, North Korea agreed to disable its Yongbyon nuclear facility, 100 kilometres north of Seoul, in return for the energy aid. It is in the process of disabling the facility.

China has taken the stance that energy aid is one thing and verification of nuclear activities is another matter, SBS said.

The Russian government also said last week that it had not agreed to suspend the heavy fuel oil shipments.

About 395,000 tons of heavy oil, valued at 155 million dollars, remain undelivered to North Korea out of a total of 1 million tons promised to the communist state by the other nations taking part in the talks.

South Korean experts estimated that this undelivered oil could generate up to 2.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, representing more than 10 per cent of the North Korea’s total power-generation capacity.

A diplomatic source in Seoul said the undelivered oil was placing serious pressure on North Korea as it was drastically short of energy supplies. (dpa)

The Daily Times quoted a private TV channel as saying that Zardari also discussed with the UN secretary general last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and the rising tensions between India and Pakistan.

The state-run APP news agency said in a brief report that Zardari and Ban Ki-moon discussed “the regional situation”, but did not elaborate.

Last week, Moon said: “Such violence (in Mumbai) is totally unacceptable.”

Zardari on the other hand has maintained that the terror strike was the work of non-state actors.

In an interview to CNN’s Larry King Live on Tuesday, he sought to reassure India and the world that he and his civilian government was not part or privy to the terror attack on Mumbai, and they wanted peace with India.

He insisted the terror attack was the work of “stateless actors who are holding hostage the whole world.”

“So, we should all rise above it. I expect the Indian democracy which is senior, which is an older democracy, mature democracy, I expect them to rise above this pain and the loss that they have had and come together with us to fight terrorism in the region,” Zardari said.

He has also said that sabre rattling by India will not have an effect on Pakistan, and added that there is no question of meeting New Delhi’s demand for the handing over of 20 suspect terrorists that it has listed. (ANI)

In the wake of last week’’s deadly Mumbai terror attacks, Abdullah has said the UN Security Council should plan out a course of action.

“Our leaders feel that we should present our issue before the world and raise this issue in the Security Council. Around 30 people of different nationalities have been killed in this attack. Nationals of Japan, America, Britain and Israel have been also killed. So, we all should knock the doors of the Security Council and the United Nations,” Abdullah told reporters after filing the nomination for state assembly polls from Hazratbal constituency in Srinagar on Monday.

“We should call for a united action against terrorism because India cannot fight alone. The government of Pakistan is new and they are weak. It looks as if they have little power,” he added.

Abdullah further said the Mumbai attacks were a setback but would not derail the peace talks.

“As Kabul embassy blast did affect our relationship, I think Mumbai blast will also derail the relations. But, I think the talks will continue and the window remain open for dialogue,” he added. (ANI)

Ban, who was in Doha, Qatar to attend the crucial international trade talks, told reporters Friday that there could be no justification to the terrorist attack in Mumbai that has claimed 148 lives. “No cause or grievance can justify indiscriminate attacks against civilians, and the perpetrators must be brought swiftly to justice,” Ban said in his opening remarks at a press conference in Doha. A transcript of the press briefing was made available by his office in New York. This is for the second time since the Mumbai terror strikes began that the secretary general has issued a strongly worded statement against the horrific terrorist attack, which many compare to 9/11. “I send my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and the wounded, and express my solidarity with the people and government of India,” Ban said. A day earlier, the Security Council had issued a statement condemning the attacks in Mumbai and had urged the international community to help India to bring the perpetrators to book. The Security Council resolution was issued following day-long telephonic consultations among its 15 members.

Beijing police were conducting the probe into Huang Guangyu, the 39-year-old founder of Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings and China’s second richest man, the news agency said, giving no further details.

A Chinese financial magazine on Sunday said Huang was taken in last week for questioning over wild fluctuations in the price of a company controlled by his brother.

Shares in Gome on the Hong Kong stock exchange have been suspended since Monday, although the company has not disclosed Huang’s whereabouts.

With assets of 18.4 billion yuan (2.7 billion dollars), Huang was ranked as number two on a list of China’s richest people issued by US magazine Forbes in October.

In 2006, Forbes ranked him as the nation’s richest man with 2.3 billion dollars in assets.

The cost of one-year bank loans will fall to 5.58 percent from 6.66 percent, while the benchmark one-year deposit rate falls to 2.52 percent from 3.60 percent, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said.

The cut in interest rates takes effect on Thursday, the central bank said on its website. The cut in the lending rate was the biggest since October 1997.

The PBOC said the easing was meant to ensure sufficient liquidity in the banking system to ensure growth.

The central bank also cut interest rates on Oct. 29, Oct. 8 and Sept. 15.

The PBOC is also lowering banks’ required reserves. The requirement for big banks will decrease by 1 percentage point, while that for smaller banks will be cut by 2 percentage points, effective Dec. 5.

The five biggest banks will have to hold 16.0 percent of their deposits in reserve at the PBOC, down from 17.0 percent. The requirement for other lenders drops to 14.0 percent from 16.0 percent.

A record 775,000 candidates registered for the civil service examination in China this year — 130,000 more than last year.

Thirty years after the launch of the country’s economic reforms, the public sector remains a haven of stability at a time when millions of workers across China face being laid off amid the global economic crisis.

“We are all worried about the situation and we wonder if we will be able to find work,” explained Ye Liu, a broadcasting student from Fudan University in Shanghai who is among half of her class taking the exam on November 30.

Already around 800,000 people who graduated in 2008 remain out of work, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Next year, eight million more graduates will enter the market just as the slowdown could see China’s economic growth plummet to its lowest in a decade.

“I always thought that I could easily find a job, but with the crisis everything has changed,” said Fu Jiawen, an intern at the human resources department of a multinational company, who is also taking the exam.

“At least the civil service is not impacted by the vagaries of the economic situation.”

China established the civil service entrance examination was established in 1994, but it was not always so popular. In 2000, for example, only 40,000 students tried their luck.

Now even private sector employees have started to study again, aiming for one of the 13,500 positions available.

“I went through piles of work, never-ending overtime,” said 28-year-old Chu Yajie, explaining her unhappiness with a three-year career at an advertising agency.

“I’ve had enough. The civil service can provide me with a daily lump of reasonable work and a stable salary.”

Much sought-after jobs in the customs department pay young recruits a monthly salary of between 3,700 and 4,500 yuan (660 dollars), compared to an average of 2,500 yuan in Shanghai for young graduates in the private sector.

For less popular jobs such as a position at the prison management bureau, the salary is around 2,000 yuan.

The trend to look for a stable government job rather than something in the private sector also appears to be being guided by graduates’ parents, including Chu’s.

Professor Yu Hai, of Fudan’s School of Social Development and Public Policy, said parental influence was crucial in the increasing popularity of civil service jobs.

“Young people have studied thanks to the support of their parents and they always pay a lot of attention to what they advise them to do,” Yu said.

“And what parents want for their children is security and stability.”

In a country where the civil service is very strong and the communist authorities maintain firm rule, a position in the public sector is also synonymous with power.

Students also like the exam for its transparency — copies are anonymous and corrected twice — in the same way tests in imperial China opened up the civil service to everyone hundreds of years ago.

However Yu pointed out that in reality, after the written exam, there is an oral test that he said was “far less impartial”.

“The admission process overall is actually not that transparent.”

Soldiers opened fire on the home of Guinea Bissau President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira in the early hours of Sunday morning, less than two days after the results of a recent parliamentary election were announced, reports said.

However, it appeared by Sunday morning that the apparent coup attempt had failed as calm returned to the capital Bissau. It was not clear how many people died in the fighting, although some reports suggested at least two had been killed.

Ban called on the armed forces not to further destabilize the country and for an end to the cycle of “instability and disrespect for the democratic institutions.”

“This violent action which comes so soon after the people of Guinea-Bissau, in legislative elections on 16 November, had massively manifested their desire for peaceful democratic governance, could have a devastating impact on the county’s fragile stability,” he said.

Lien and Hu will meet at the Delfines Hotel in Lima, where Hu is staying, at 10:45 am Friday (1545 GMT), cable TV channel TVBS reported, quoting an unnamed Chinese source as confirming the meeting.

The Lien-Hu meeting will be open to the press, TVBS said.

Although Lien has met Hu in Beijing four times since 2005, the Lien-Hu meeting Friday will be closely watched by the world media as Lien is the highest-level Taiwan delegate to the APEC summit since the meeting was launched in 1993.

China has barred Taiwan’s president from the summit, allowing Taipei to send only an economic official to the meeting as Beijing still regards Taiwan as China’s breakaway province awaiting unification with the motherland.

But as Taipei-Beijing ties are fast improving since the May 20 inauguration of President Ma Ying-jeou, China approved Taiwan’s sending Lien Chan to the November 22-23 APEC summit.

The high-tech Aegis destroyer Choukai of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force failed to shoot down the test missile aimed at mimicking an intermediate-range North Korean ballistic missile attack, with a Standard Missile-3 interceptor.

This was the second test-launch after another destroyer Kongo conducted the test last December.

Choukai launched the interceptor in space over Hawaii early Thursday after detecting the mock missile with a radar.

The Aegis destroyer was to be deployed at a Sasebo base in southern Japanese province of Nagasaki by the end of the year, according to Jiji Press. (dpa)

In an interview with state news agency the CM Punjab pointed out that an amount of US$ 1.25 million has already been allocated for the Support Fund.

Chief Minister further said that the objective behind setting up Support Fund is to strengthen Punjab Government’s relationship with the Chinese investors, entrepreneurs and industrialists.

The CM was on a 5-day visit to China to draw the support of Chinese enterprises for investments to establish joint ventures with their Pakistani counterparts in areas of construction of housing schemes, infrastructure, power generation, public-private joint ventures in industrial sector, road network, bring modern drip irrigation technology for the promotion of agriculture sector and excavate of iron ore and coal deposits.

He also exchanged views with Chinese side in setting up power generating units, as he observed that the load shedding and shortage of power is adversely hampering economic and trade activities in his province.

Shahbaz Sharif held very successful meetings in this regard during his two day stay in Beijing and signed Protocols and a number of Memorandum of Understandings (MoU) before leaving on the second leg of his visit to Shanghai.

In the presence of Punjab Chief Minister a MoU on cooperation in generating hydel electricity was signed with a Chinese company that would not only bring an investment of $ 200 million but also establish a power station on Tunsa Barrage with a generating capacity of 120 MW.

Giving further salient features of the Fund, Shahbaz Sharif said that it could be used to provide support to Chinese Companies prospecting Punjab’s market in jointly financing the feasibility studies and business plans, act as a vehicle for Punjab Government’s participation in joint ventures and also equity participation with Chinese enterprises.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told New York’s Council on Foreign Relations on Friday that China could send troops because there was a global consensus that Afghanistan is the “the front line” in the battle against terrorism?

“I think we’ve got to, we’ve got to look at that as a possibility for the future,” Brown said in answer to an audience question on the possibility of a Chinese deployment.

However, in a statement seen Tuesday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Web site, spokesman Qin Gang said there had been no change to Beijing’s approach to Afghanistan — or to its policy of sending forces abroad only under United Nations Security Council mandates.

The issue of China sending troops to Afghanistan “simply doesn’t exist,” Qin said.

As one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members, China has grown increasingly active in the body’s peacekeeping efforts, having deployed more than 10,000 troops, mainly from engineering companies, to U.N. missions from Cambodia to Haiti to Sudan.

In contrast, the 41-nation coalition helping maintain Afghan security operates under NATO command. Britain has 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, mainly in the violent southern province of Helmand. The U.S. has a total of around 32,000 troops in the country.

In the face of an increasingly deadly insurgency, NATO has called for additional forces — a demand supported by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

China might seem like a natural to send troops to Afghanistan because the countries share a narrow border tucked deep into the Karakorum Mountains. Beijing helped ferry arms to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s and says it is threatened by radical independence groups among its Uighur Turkic Muslim minority whom it says are trained and commanded from outside its borders.

In his statement, Qin also said China remained committed to supporting Afghanistan’s peace, stability, and development — a reference to Chinese aid to the country that ranges from building hospitals to donating computers for government offices.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average tumbled 456.87 points, or 5.25 per cent, to close at 8,238.64, a two-week low.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also down 37.7 points, or 4.31 per cent, to 837.53.

Exporters were hurt by the stronger yen as it shaves off Japanese firms’ earnings overseas.

On currency markets at midday (0300 GMT), the dollar traded at 95.63-68 yen, down from Wednesday’s 5 pm quote of 97.94-97 yen.

The euro was quoted at 1.2462-67 dollars, down from Wednesday’s 5 pm quote of 1.2603-06 dollars, and at 119.19-24 yen, down from 123.46-50 yen. (dpa)

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Tuesday that New Delhi had not taken into account “historical facts”. “We deeply regret the Indian side’s remarks that take no regard of the historical facts,” Qin said.

“China and India have never officially settled demarcation of borders, and China’s stance on the eastern section of China-India borders is consistent and clear-cut,” Qin said at a regular bi-weekly news briefing.

“The current Chinese government, as well as previous ones, has never recognised the illegal ‘McMahon Line’, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Qin as saying.

“India knows this,” Qin said.

Earlier Indian External affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India.

“The Chinese side is fully aware that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India,” Mukherjee said during his visit to the hilly state before few days.

“People of Arunachal Pradesh regularly elect two representatives to the Lok Sabha and there is an elected state assembly carrying out the responsibility of administration like any of other 27 states. The question of parting company of Arunachal or any of its part does not arise,” Mukherjee said on the occasion of the 8th Buddha Mahotsava at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

“It will be a historic visit,” a Costa Rican Foreign Ministry official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Central America has traditionally favoured Taiwan, but Costa Rica switched recognition to China in June 2007, after 63 years of ties with Taipei. Only 23 countries recognize Taiwan, and half of them are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The bilateral agenda between China and Costa Rica includes talks towards a free-trade agreement.

China has granted Costa Rica millions of dollars in financial cooperation, buying bonds from the Central American country and promising to build a modern football stadium in San Jose.

Taiwan has said that it accepts its allies recognizing China if they also maintain diplomatic ties with Taipei. But China, which sees Taiwan as its breakaway province, insists that foreign countries must first cut ties with Taiwan before they can open diplomatic relations with Beijing. (dpa)

The deaths were the first reported so far from the 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit Qinghai province on Monday, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of the city of Golmud. The quake shook buildings hundreds of kilometers away and sent people fleeing into the streets.

The five workers died in the provincial capital of Xining, 615 kilometers from the epicenter, when a workshop they were building collapsed, local news agency said. One other victim was hospitalised in critical condition, it added.

“We deeply regret the Indian side’’s remarks that take no regard of the historical facts. China and India have never officially settled demarcation of borders, and China’’s stance on the eastern section of China-India borders is consistent and clear-cut,” spokesman Qin Gang said at a press conference on Tuesday.

“ The current Chinese Government, as well as the previous ones, has never recognized the illegal McMahon Line,” the spokesman said while replying to a question by the official Xinhua news agency.

Mukherjee, who was visiting a 400-year old monastery in Tawang in Arunachal, said on Saturday that China was “fully aware” that the state is an integral part of India. China had earlier claimed Tawang on the plea that it is the birth place of the sixth Dalai Lama before changing its stance to demand the whole of Arunachal Pradesh.

“China is often making claims on Arunachal Pradesh, but Arunachal Pradesh has a special place in our heart,” Mukherjee said.

“People of Arunachal Pradesh regularly elect two representatives to the Lok Sabha and there is an elected state assembly carrying out the responsibility of administration like any of other 27 states. The question of parting company of Arunachal or any of its part does not arise,” he said. (ANI)

Japan held 853.02 billion dollars in foreign securities and 102.05 billion dollars in foreign currency deposits at the end of October.

Foreign reserves shrank as Japan’s euro-based assets declined as the currency’s value fell against the dollar, amid spreading fear over the global financial crisis, Japanese media said.

The nation had 6.51 billion dollars of the deposits in foreign central banks and the Basle-based Bank for International Settlements, 21.67 billion dollars in Japanese banks and 73.86 billion dollars in foreign financial institutions.

Gold reserves came to 17.98 billion dollars.

Japan held 1.42 billion dollars in IMF reserve positions and 2.91 billion dollars in IMF special drawing rights.

Other reserve assets came to 345 million dollars in October.

Japan’s foreign exchange reserves consist mainly of securities and deposits denominated in foreign currencies, IMF reserve positions and special drawing rights, and gold. (dpa)

“China is satisfied with its cooperation with Australia in repatriating crime suspects, deterring illegal immigrants, fighting terrorism and conducting law-enforcement training,” Zhou said while meeting Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland.

Zhou, one of the nine-member Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, oversees China’s judicial and law-enforcement sector.

Zhou said the unprecedented growth of China-Australia politicaland economic ties as well as the increase of people-to-people exchange posed new issues for bilateral judicial and law-enforcement cooperation.

Zhou said, “China would like to work more closely with Australia on public security, judicial practices, and security, among others, in a bid to ensure the bilateral social stability.”

McClelland said China’s out-of-court mediation was worth studying and learning from.

Australia would like to make joint efforts with China to continuously innovate the ways of bilateral judicial and law-enforcement cooperation and create a good social environment for the growth of bilateral ties, McClelland said.

Zhou also briefed McClelland on China’s legal system, which Zhou hailed promoted the country’s economic and social development, enabled the Chinese people to enjoy unprecedented freedom and rights.

On Saturday afternoon, Zhou left Sydney, the second leg of his Australia tour, for the capital city of Canberra.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average surged 537.62 points, or 6.27 per cent, to close at 9,114.6. The index had lost 5 per cent Friday. The Tokyo market was closed Monday for a national holiday.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues also gained 43.58 points, or 5.02 per cent, to 910.7.

On currency markets at midday (0300 GMT), the dollar rose to 98.80-85 yen from Friday’s 5 pm quote of 97.00-02 yen.

The euro was quoted at 1.2585-90 dollars, down from Friday’s 5 pm quote of 1.2702-03 dollars, and at 124.39-44 yen, up from 123.21-25 yen.