Showing posts with label Posted by Kelsey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Posted by Kelsey. Show all posts
Thursday, March 14, 2013
N. Korea scraps peace pacts after new UN sanctions
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14 March 2013 3:05 PM GMT
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07/03/2013 - North Korea
N. Korea scraps peace pacts after new UN sanctions
Pyongyang ratcheted up its aggressive rhetoric on Thursday, cancelling its non-aggression pacts with South Korea after the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test.
The U.N. Security Council responded swiftly to North Korea’s latest nuclear test by punishing the reclusive regime Thursday with tough, new sanctions targeting its economy and leadership, despite Pyongyang’s threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.
The penalties came in a unanimous resolution drafted by the U.S. along with China, which is North Korea’s main benefactor. Beijing said the focus now should be to “defuse the tensions” by restarting negotiations.
The resolution sent a powerful message to North Korea’s new young leader, Kim Jong Un, that the international community condemns his defiance of Security Council bans on nuclear and ballistic tests and is prepared to take even tougher action if he continues flouting international obligations.
“Taken together, these sanctions will bite, and bite hard,” U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said. “They increase North Korea’s isolation and raise the cost to North Korea’s leaders of defying the international community.”
The new sanctions came in response to North Korea’s underground nuclear test on Feb. 12 and were the fourth set imposed by the U.N. since the country’s first test in 2006. They are aimed at reining in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development by requiring all countries to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to the programs.
North Korea kept up its warlike rhetoric Friday after the U.N. vote, issuing a statement saying it was canceling a hotline and a nonaggression pact with rival South Korea.
North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, the country’s arm for dealing with cross-border affairs with Seoul, said it will retaliate with “crushing strikes” if enemies intrude into its territory “even an inch and fire even a single shell.” It also said it was voiding past nuclear disarmament agreements between North and South Korea.
South and North Korea agreed in a 1992 joint declaration not to produce, test or use nuclear weapons. North Korea has since conducted three nuclear tests.
The resolution also targets North Korea’s ruling elite by banning all nations from exporting expensive jewelry, yachts, luxury automobiles and race cars to the North. It also imposes new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.
The success of the sanctions could depend on how well they are enforced by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.
Tensions with North Korea have escalated since Pyongyang launched a rocket in December and conducted last month’s nuclear test _ the first since Kim took charge. Many countries, especially in the region, had hoped he would steer the country toward engagement and resolution of the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs. Instead, the North has escalated its threats.
Immediately before the Security Council vote, a spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for “a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” because Washington is “set to light a fuse for a nuclear war.”
The statement was carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
In the capital of Pyongyang, Army Gen. Kang Pyo Yong told a crowd of tens of thousands that North Korea is ready to fire long-range nuclear-armed missiles at Washington, which “will be engulfed in a sea of fire.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. is “fully capable” of defending itself against a North Korea ballistic missile attack.
Experts doubt that the North has mastered how to mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland United States.
The North Korean statement appeared to be the most specific open threat of a nuclear strike by any country against another. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the threat “absurd” and suicidal.
North Korea also has threatened to scrap the cease-fire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. It has a formidable array of artillery near enough to the Demilitarized Zone to strike South Korean and American forces with little warning.
The top U.S. envoy on North Korea, Glyn Davies, cautioned Pyongyang not to miscalculate, saying the U.S. will take necessary steps to defend itself and its allies, including South Korea, where it bases more than 30,000 U.S. forces.
“We take all North Korean threats seriously enough to ensure that we have the correct defense posture to deal with any contingencies that might arise,” Davies told reporters.
Rice said “the entire world stands united in our commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and in our demand that North Korea comply with its international obligations.”
China’s U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong said the resolution reflects the determination of the international community to prevent nuclear proliferation, but he stressed that its adoption “is not enough.”
“The top priority now is to defuse the tensions, bring down heat ... bring the situation back on the track of diplomacy, on negotiations,” Li said.
The resolution stresses the Security Council’s commitment “to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution” to North Korea’s nuclear program and urges a resumption of the long-stalled six-party talks involving both Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.
South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Kim Sook said North Korea’s threats and inflammatory statements will be dealt with “resolutely.”
“North Korea must wake up from its delusion of becoming a ... nuclear weapons state and make the right choice,” he said. “It can either take the right path toward a bright future and prosperity, or it can take a bad road toward further and deeper isolation and eventual self-destruction.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin also warned that “new threats or trying to build up the military muscle in the region ... might be taking us away from the need to resume six-party talks,” which he added must be an international priority of all countries.
In addition to the sanctions, the resolution bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests “or any other provocation,” and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It condemns all of North Korea’s ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.
It strengthens inspections of suspicious cargo heading to and from the country, calls on states to step up “vigilance” of possible illegal activity by North Korean diplomats.
To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.
The resolution identifies three individuals, one corporation and one organization that will be added to the U.N. sanctions list. The targets include top officials at a company that is the country’s primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment, and a national organization responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.
S Korea-US joint drills escalate tensions with North
New joint military drills between South Korea and the US kicked off Monday, escalating tensions with North Korea. In response, Pyongyang condemned the joint exercises as a provocative invasion and said it was scrapping the 1953 armistice.
South Korea and the United States launched joint drills Monday involving thousands of troops, defying North Korea's apocalyptic threat to repudiate the 60-year-old Korean War armistice in retaliation.
The start of the two-week "Key Resolve" exercise follows a week of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, with North Korea also threatening nuclear war over UN sanctions adopted after its third atomic test last month.
Pyongyang has condemned the annual joint manoeuvres as a provocative invasion rehearsal and announced that -- effective Monday -- it was scrapping the 1953 armistice and voiding non-aggression treaties signed with the South.
The South's Unification Ministry confirmed that the North appeared to have carried through on another promise to cut a telephone hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul.
"The North did not answer our call this morning," a ministry spokeswoman said.
The hotline was installed in 1971 and the North has severed it on five occasions in the past -- most recently in 2010.
In a dispatch late Monday from its official news agency KCNA, North Korea restated its view that the armistice, "which has existed for form's sake, would be completely invalid from March 11".
The US-South Korean wargames are "bringing the dark clouds of a nuclear war to hang over the Korean peninsula", KCNA added, while vowing that North Korea's armed forces were ready for an "all-out action".
Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North's ruling communist party, said that with "the ceasefire agreement blown apart... no one can predict what will happen from now on".
Voiding the armistice theoretically paves the way for a resumption of hostilities, as the two Koreas never signed a formal peace treaty and remain technically at war.
"The North is giving the impression it wants to put things back to where they were 60 years ago," said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
Experts point out that North Korea has declared the ceasefire dead or obsolete nearly a dozen times in the past 20 years.
On the last occasion in 2009, the North specifically said it would no longer guarantee the safety of US or South Korean naval vessels operating near the disputed maritime border.
The sinking of a South Korean naval corvette and the shelling of a South Korean island near the border followed in 2010.
Sabre-rattling and displays of brinkmanship are nothing new in the region, but there are concerns that the current situation is so volatile that one accidental step could escalate into serious confrontation and conflict.
Having issued so many dire warnings, the North will feel obliged to take some provocative action, observers say. Yang predicted short-range missile tests or an incursion across the sea.
South Korea and the United States launched joint drills Monday involving thousands of troops, defying North Korea's apocalyptic threat to repudiate the 60-year-old Korean War armistice in retaliation.
The start of the two-week "Key Resolve" exercise follows a week of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, with North Korea also threatening nuclear war over UN sanctions adopted after its third atomic test last month.
Pyongyang has condemned the annual joint manoeuvres as a provocative invasion rehearsal and announced that -- effective Monday -- it was scrapping the 1953 armistice and voiding non-aggression treaties signed with the South.
The South's Unification Ministry confirmed that the North appeared to have carried through on another promise to cut a telephone hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul.
"The North did not answer our call this morning," a ministry spokeswoman said.
The hotline was installed in 1971 and the North has severed it on five occasions in the past -- most recently in 2010.
In a dispatch late Monday from its official news agency KCNA, North Korea restated its view that the armistice, "which has existed for form's sake, would be completely invalid from March 11".
The US-South Korean wargames are "bringing the dark clouds of a nuclear war to hang over the Korean peninsula", KCNA added, while vowing that North Korea's armed forces were ready for an "all-out action".
Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North's ruling communist party, said that with "the ceasefire agreement blown apart... no one can predict what will happen from now on".
Voiding the armistice theoretically paves the way for a resumption of hostilities, as the two Koreas never signed a formal peace treaty and remain technically at war.
"The North is giving the impression it wants to put things back to where they were 60 years ago," said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
Experts point out that North Korea has declared the ceasefire dead or obsolete nearly a dozen times in the past 20 years.
On the last occasion in 2009, the North specifically said it would no longer guarantee the safety of US or South Korean naval vessels operating near the disputed maritime border.
The sinking of a South Korean naval corvette and the shelling of a South Korean island near the border followed in 2010.
Sabre-rattling and displays of brinkmanship are nothing new in the region, but there are concerns that the current situation is so volatile that one accidental step could escalate into serious confrontation and conflict.
Having issued so many dire warnings, the North will feel obliged to take some provocative action, observers say. Yang predicted short-range missile tests or an incursion across the sea.
US imposes new sanctions as N. Korea threatens war
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un stepped up rhetoric against South Korea on Tuesday, threatening to “wipe out” the border islands of Baengnyeong, as the US imposed new sanctions on Pyongyang amid escalating tensions.
North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un threatened to "wipe out" a South Korean island as Pyongyang came under new economic and diplomatic fire Tuesday from US sanctions and UN charges of gross rights abuses.
Military tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen to their highest level for years, with the communist state under the youthful Kim threatening nuclear war in response to UN sanctions imposed after its third atomic test last month.
It has also announced its unilateral shredding of the 60-year-old Korean War armistice and non-aggression pacts with Seoul in protest at a joint South Korean-US military exercise that began Monday.
While most of these statements have been dismissed as rhetorical bluster, the latest threat to the border island of Baengnyeong, which has around 5,000 civilian residents, appears credible and carries the weight of precedent.
In 2010, the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan was sunk in the area of Baengnyeong with the loss of 46 lives, and later that year North Korea shelled the nearby island of Yeonpyeong, killing four people.
On a visit Monday to frontline artillery units, Kim Jong-Un briefed officers on plans for turning Baengnyeong into "a sea of flames".
"Once an order is issued, you should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes and thus clearly show them what a real war is like," Kim was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency.
Priority targets included radar posts, Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, 130mm multiple rocket stations and 150mm self-propelled howitzer batteries, Kim said.
An administrative official on Baengnyeong, Kim Young-Gu, said civilian emergency shelters on the island had been fully stocked and all village councils put on high alert.
"It's not like there's a mass exodus of panicked islanders to the mainland. But to be honest with you, we're a bit scared," he told AFP by telephone.
The disputed sea border off the west coast was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.
Residents on a number of frontline islands have reportedly taken to sleeping in their clothes in preparation for a night-time alert.
The crisis represents an early test for South Korea's new President Park Geun-Hye, who was sworn in only two weeks ago, while analysts worry about just how far the inexperienced Kim Jong-Un is willing to go.
In Seoul, Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said the North Korean leader's frontline visits were aimed at exerting "psychological pressure" on South Korea.
Kim said the North had already begun a series of naval drills using submarines and was expected to launch full-scale military manoeuvres in the coming days.
"If the North provokes us, we will respond in ways that will cause them more harm," he said.
In a move likely to provoke a fresh round of furious rhetoric from Pyongyang, the United States on Monday slapped sanctions on North Korea's primary foreign exchange bank and four senior officials.
The United States will "continue to work with allies and partners to tighten national and international sanctions to impede North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes", US national security advisor Tom Donilon said in New York.
Past sanctions have failed to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme, but the international community hopes measures targeting financial lifelines can slow down the process and curb proliferation.
The US measures come on top of financial sanctions imposed last week by the UN Security Council including China, North Korea's economic and diplomatic patron.
While Donilon labelled the recent threats emanating from Pyongyang as "hyperbolic", he stressed the United States would use the "full range of our capabilities" to protect the US and its allies such as South Korea.
Pyongyang also came under attack on another front at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea laid out a litany of abuses and crimes against humanity.
Rights violations in North Korea "have reached a critical mass", Marzuki Darusman told the council, citing public food deprivation, torture and arbitrary detention.
He also highlighted concerns about a network of political prison camps believed to hold at least 200,000 people, including detainees who were born in captivity because entire families are thought to have been sent there.
He called for an international commission of inquiry into the human rights record of North Korea, which has repeatedly refused to cooperate with past UN investigators.
North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un threatened to "wipe out" a South Korean island as Pyongyang came under new economic and diplomatic fire Tuesday from US sanctions and UN charges of gross rights abuses.
Military tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen to their highest level for years, with the communist state under the youthful Kim threatening nuclear war in response to UN sanctions imposed after its third atomic test last month.
It has also announced its unilateral shredding of the 60-year-old Korean War armistice and non-aggression pacts with Seoul in protest at a joint South Korean-US military exercise that began Monday.
While most of these statements have been dismissed as rhetorical bluster, the latest threat to the border island of Baengnyeong, which has around 5,000 civilian residents, appears credible and carries the weight of precedent.
In 2010, the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan was sunk in the area of Baengnyeong with the loss of 46 lives, and later that year North Korea shelled the nearby island of Yeonpyeong, killing four people.
On a visit Monday to frontline artillery units, Kim Jong-Un briefed officers on plans for turning Baengnyeong into "a sea of flames".
"Once an order is issued, you should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes and thus clearly show them what a real war is like," Kim was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency.
Priority targets included radar posts, Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, 130mm multiple rocket stations and 150mm self-propelled howitzer batteries, Kim said.
An administrative official on Baengnyeong, Kim Young-Gu, said civilian emergency shelters on the island had been fully stocked and all village councils put on high alert.
"It's not like there's a mass exodus of panicked islanders to the mainland. But to be honest with you, we're a bit scared," he told AFP by telephone.
The disputed sea border off the west coast was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.
Residents on a number of frontline islands have reportedly taken to sleeping in their clothes in preparation for a night-time alert.
The crisis represents an early test for South Korea's new President Park Geun-Hye, who was sworn in only two weeks ago, while analysts worry about just how far the inexperienced Kim Jong-Un is willing to go.
In Seoul, Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said the North Korean leader's frontline visits were aimed at exerting "psychological pressure" on South Korea.
Kim said the North had already begun a series of naval drills using submarines and was expected to launch full-scale military manoeuvres in the coming days.
"If the North provokes us, we will respond in ways that will cause them more harm," he said.
In a move likely to provoke a fresh round of furious rhetoric from Pyongyang, the United States on Monday slapped sanctions on North Korea's primary foreign exchange bank and four senior officials.
The United States will "continue to work with allies and partners to tighten national and international sanctions to impede North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes", US national security advisor Tom Donilon said in New York.
Past sanctions have failed to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme, but the international community hopes measures targeting financial lifelines can slow down the process and curb proliferation.
The US measures come on top of financial sanctions imposed last week by the UN Security Council including China, North Korea's economic and diplomatic patron.
While Donilon labelled the recent threats emanating from Pyongyang as "hyperbolic", he stressed the United States would use the "full range of our capabilities" to protect the US and its allies such as South Korea.
Pyongyang also came under attack on another front at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea laid out a litany of abuses and crimes against humanity.
Rights violations in North Korea "have reached a critical mass", Marzuki Darusman told the council, citing public food deprivation, torture and arbitrary detention.
He also highlighted concerns about a network of political prison camps believed to hold at least 200,000 people, including detainees who were born in captivity because entire families are thought to have been sent there.
He called for an international commission of inquiry into the human rights record of North Korea, which has repeatedly refused to cooperate with past UN investigators.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Armenian president wins re-election in disputed vote
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian claimed re-election victory on Tuesday, with official results handing him over 58 percent of the vote. But main rival Raffi Hovannisian insisted he was the real winner and called on Sarkisian to concede defeat.
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has won re-election with over 58 percent of the vote, official results published Tuesday showed, as his main rival cried foul.
The Central Election Commission said that tallies from all voting precincts, following Monday's election, showed former foreign minister Raffi Hovannisian trailing in a distant second place with 36.75 percent of votes cast.
But Hovannisian insisted he was the real winner and called on Sarkisian to concede defeat, despite the official results which gave him 58.64 percent of the votes.
Referring to himself, Hovannisian said: "Our people deserve a de jure elected president."
Hovannisian's camp has alleged a range of sometimes bizarre electoral violations, including the use of "vanishing ink" to allow multiple voting and "caravans" of taxis and buses to take pro-government voters to the polls.
However Eduard Sharmazanov, spokesman for Sarkisian's ruling Republican Party, said exit polls showed the president "was the only favourite" and called the vote "the best in the history of independent Armenia", rejecting allegations of fraud.
Police also dismissed the allegations as an "obvious fiction".
Voter turnout was 60 percent in the polls seen as a crucial democratic test for the former Soviet state.
A Gallup exit poll had also found Sarkisian, president since 2008, set for re-election to another five-year term.
The five other candidates were said to be scoring in single digits.
Former prime minister Hrant Bagratian was on course for three percent, as was the Soviet-era dissident Paruyr Hayrikyan, according to the exit poll.
The outcome had become predictable back in December when the highly popular leader of the Prosperous Armenia party -- super-rich former arm-wrestling champion Gagik Tsarukian -- said he was out of the race and Armenia's first post-Soviet president Levon Ter-Petrosian said he was too old for the country's top job.
The election was clouded both by the lack of strong opposition to the incumbent, and a mysterious assassination attempt against Hayrikyan last month.
The authorities were hoping for a peaceful process that would improve the country's chances of European integration.
The vote that brought Sarkisian to power in 2008 ended in clashes in which 10 people died.
Hovannisian said the election marked "the most crucial day in our country's modern history" but denounced irregularities in voters' lists and voting procedures.
"These were shameful elections with a huge number of violations. The results of the exit poll do not show reality but what the authorities wanted," Hovannisian's spokesman Hovsep Khurshudian told AFP.
He vowed that Hovannisian's supporters would stage a protest on Tuesday evening.
International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have monitored voting and are set to give their verdict on Tuesday.
Sarkisian, 59, is a veteran of the 1990s war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh and derives much of his popularity from a tough can-do militaristic image.
Hovannisian, 54, was born in the United States and practised law in Los Angeles before moving to Armenia following its devastating December 1988 earthquake.
All the candidates made populist promises to fight poverty and unemployment.
The World Bank estimates that 36 percent of Armenians live below the poverty line, while economic hardship and unemployment have driven nearly a million Armenians out of the country over the past two decades.
But campaigning has also focused on Armenia's long-running disputes with neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan.
No final peace deal has been reached with Azerbaijan over the Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani region of Nagorny Karabakh as the risk of a new conflict remains palpable.
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has won re-election with over 58 percent of the vote, official results published Tuesday showed, as his main rival cried foul.
The Central Election Commission said that tallies from all voting precincts, following Monday's election, showed former foreign minister Raffi Hovannisian trailing in a distant second place with 36.75 percent of votes cast.
But Hovannisian insisted he was the real winner and called on Sarkisian to concede defeat, despite the official results which gave him 58.64 percent of the votes.
Referring to himself, Hovannisian said: "Our people deserve a de jure elected president."
Hovannisian's camp has alleged a range of sometimes bizarre electoral violations, including the use of "vanishing ink" to allow multiple voting and "caravans" of taxis and buses to take pro-government voters to the polls.
However Eduard Sharmazanov, spokesman for Sarkisian's ruling Republican Party, said exit polls showed the president "was the only favourite" and called the vote "the best in the history of independent Armenia", rejecting allegations of fraud.
Police also dismissed the allegations as an "obvious fiction".
Voter turnout was 60 percent in the polls seen as a crucial democratic test for the former Soviet state.
A Gallup exit poll had also found Sarkisian, president since 2008, set for re-election to another five-year term.
The five other candidates were said to be scoring in single digits.
Former prime minister Hrant Bagratian was on course for three percent, as was the Soviet-era dissident Paruyr Hayrikyan, according to the exit poll.
The outcome had become predictable back in December when the highly popular leader of the Prosperous Armenia party -- super-rich former arm-wrestling champion Gagik Tsarukian -- said he was out of the race and Armenia's first post-Soviet president Levon Ter-Petrosian said he was too old for the country's top job.
The election was clouded both by the lack of strong opposition to the incumbent, and a mysterious assassination attempt against Hayrikyan last month.
The authorities were hoping for a peaceful process that would improve the country's chances of European integration.
The vote that brought Sarkisian to power in 2008 ended in clashes in which 10 people died.
Hovannisian said the election marked "the most crucial day in our country's modern history" but denounced irregularities in voters' lists and voting procedures.
"These were shameful elections with a huge number of violations. The results of the exit poll do not show reality but what the authorities wanted," Hovannisian's spokesman Hovsep Khurshudian told AFP.
He vowed that Hovannisian's supporters would stage a protest on Tuesday evening.
International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have monitored voting and are set to give their verdict on Tuesday.
Sarkisian, 59, is a veteran of the 1990s war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh and derives much of his popularity from a tough can-do militaristic image.
Hovannisian, 54, was born in the United States and practised law in Los Angeles before moving to Armenia following its devastating December 1988 earthquake.
All the candidates made populist promises to fight poverty and unemployment.
The World Bank estimates that 36 percent of Armenians live below the poverty line, while economic hardship and unemployment have driven nearly a million Armenians out of the country over the past two decades.
But campaigning has also focused on Armenia's long-running disputes with neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan.
No final peace deal has been reached with Azerbaijan over the Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani region of Nagorny Karabakh as the risk of a new conflict remains palpable.
Deadly explosion hits crowded market in southern India
Two bombs rigged up to bicycles exploded in a bustling market-place in India’s southern city of Hyderabad on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and injuring dozens of others.
Two bombs placed on bicycles exploded in a crowded market-place in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday, and the federal home minister said at least 11 people were killed and 50 wounded.
All major cities in the country were placed on high alert, television channels said, adding that as many as 15 people may have been killed in the explosions.
Hyderabad is a major IT centre in India, only second to Bangalore. Microsoft and Google have major centres in the city.
“Both blasts took place within a radius of 150 metres,” federal Home (Interior) Minister Sushil Shinde told reporters, adding the explosives were placed on bicycles parked in the crowded marketplace. “Eight people died at one place, three at the other.”
The explosions come less than two weeks after India hanged a Kashmiri man for a militant attack on the country’s parliament in 2001 that had sparked violent clashes.
Witnesses told Reuters they heard at least two explosions in the Dilsukh Nagar area of Hyderabad just after dusk but there could have been more.
TV showed debris and body parts strewn on the street in the area, a crowded neighbourhood of cinema halls, shops, restaurants and a fruit and vegetable market.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it a “dastardly attack”.
“I appeal to the public to remain calm and maintain peace,” he said in a Twitter message.
In July 2011, three near-simultaneous blasts ripped through India’s financial capital, Mumbai. At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in the blasts set off by Muslim militants, authorities said.
Last year, four small explosions occurred in quick succession in a busy shopping area of the western Indian city of Pune.
Two bombs placed on bicycles exploded in a crowded market-place in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday, and the federal home minister said at least 11 people were killed and 50 wounded.
All major cities in the country were placed on high alert, television channels said, adding that as many as 15 people may have been killed in the explosions.
Hyderabad is a major IT centre in India, only second to Bangalore. Microsoft and Google have major centres in the city.
“Both blasts took place within a radius of 150 metres,” federal Home (Interior) Minister Sushil Shinde told reporters, adding the explosives were placed on bicycles parked in the crowded marketplace. “Eight people died at one place, three at the other.”
The explosions come less than two weeks after India hanged a Kashmiri man for a militant attack on the country’s parliament in 2001 that had sparked violent clashes.
Witnesses told Reuters they heard at least two explosions in the Dilsukh Nagar area of Hyderabad just after dusk but there could have been more.
TV showed debris and body parts strewn on the street in the area, a crowded neighbourhood of cinema halls, shops, restaurants and a fruit and vegetable market.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it a “dastardly attack”.
“I appeal to the public to remain calm and maintain peace,” he said in a Twitter message.
In July 2011, three near-simultaneous blasts ripped through India’s financial capital, Mumbai. At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in the blasts set off by Muslim militants, authorities said.
Last year, four small explosions occurred in quick succession in a busy shopping area of the western Indian city of Pune.
South Korea swears in first female president
Park Geun-Hye was sworn in as South Korea's first female president on Monday, continuing a controversial legacy founded by her father, Park Chung-Hee, who became president in a 1961 military coup. He was later assassinated.
Park Geun-Hye was sworn in as South Korea's first female president Monday, capping a political career founded in privilege and personal tragedy.
Unlike her predecessors, she already knows the presidential Blue House well, having lived there as a child and served there after her mother's murder as first lady to her later-assassinated father.
Park was just nine years old when her father, Park Chung-Hee, came to power in 1961 in a military coup that set the stage for 18 years of authoritarian rule.
Her presidential victory was, in some ways, a referendum on the legacy of her father whose name still triggers polarised emotions in many South Koreans.
Admired for dragging the war-torn nation out of poverty, but reviled in some quarters for his repression of dissent, his shadow loomed large over Park's election campaign last December.
In an effort at reconciliation, Park publicly acknowledged the excesses of her father's regime during her campaign and apologised to the families of its victims.
Park was attending graduate school in France in 1974 when she was called back to Seoul after her mother was killed by a pro-North Korean gunman aiming for her father.
She left the presidential palace after her father was shot dead by his spy chief in 1979 and began her political career in 1998 as a lawmaker in her home town.
Park, 61, never married and has no children -- a fact she used to gain traction with voters tired of nepotism and corruption scandals surrounding their first families.
"I will earn the trust of the people by ensuring that our government remains clean, transparent and competent," she said in her inauguration speech, in which she also invoked the past image of a more caring, compassionate Korea.
"Reviving that spirit once again and building a society flowing with responsibility and consideration for others will allow us to be confident that a new era of happiness that all of us dream of is truly within our reach," she said.
The nurturing, maternal political image is at odds with that pushed by her critics, of an aloof aristocrat they call the "ice queen".
But even dissenters acknowledge her strengths as a campaigner that helped her party secure strong results in local and national polls in 2004, 2006 and this year, earning her another royal moniker as the "queen of elections".
And despite her privileged upbringing, Park has demonstrated a tough streak.
In 2006 an attacker at an election event where she was speaking slashed her face with a knife, leaving a wound that needed 60 stitches.
She will face numerous challenges when she begins her five-year term on Monday, not least dealing with a North Korea that triggered global outrage by conducting a nuclear test just weeks before her inauguration.
Even before Park won her party's presidential nomination last August the state-run Korean Central News Agency had attacked her candidacy, warning that "a dictator's bloodline cannot change away from its viciousness".
Park has signalled a break from outgoing President Lee Myung-Bak's hard line on Pyongyang, and even held out the possibility of an eventual summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un.
But she will be restricted by conservative forces in her party as well as an international community intent on punishing North Korea.
The North's February 12 nuclear test is almost certain to draw toughened UN sanctions -- a move likely to anger Pyongyang and further heighten tension on the peninsula.
While Park's election as South Korea's first woman president marks a major breakthrough in a male-dominated country, not everyone sees her victory as paving the way for greater women's rights.
Kim Eun-Ju, executive director of the Centre for Korean Women and Politics, believes Park is a female political leader "only in biological terms".
"For the past 15 years, Park has shown little visible effort to help women in politics or anywhere else as a policymaker," Kim told AFP.
Park Geun-Hye was sworn in as South Korea's first female president Monday, capping a political career founded in privilege and personal tragedy.
Unlike her predecessors, she already knows the presidential Blue House well, having lived there as a child and served there after her mother's murder as first lady to her later-assassinated father.
Park was just nine years old when her father, Park Chung-Hee, came to power in 1961 in a military coup that set the stage for 18 years of authoritarian rule.
Her presidential victory was, in some ways, a referendum on the legacy of her father whose name still triggers polarised emotions in many South Koreans.
Admired for dragging the war-torn nation out of poverty, but reviled in some quarters for his repression of dissent, his shadow loomed large over Park's election campaign last December.
In an effort at reconciliation, Park publicly acknowledged the excesses of her father's regime during her campaign and apologised to the families of its victims.
Park was attending graduate school in France in 1974 when she was called back to Seoul after her mother was killed by a pro-North Korean gunman aiming for her father.
She left the presidential palace after her father was shot dead by his spy chief in 1979 and began her political career in 1998 as a lawmaker in her home town.
Park, 61, never married and has no children -- a fact she used to gain traction with voters tired of nepotism and corruption scandals surrounding their first families.
"I will earn the trust of the people by ensuring that our government remains clean, transparent and competent," she said in her inauguration speech, in which she also invoked the past image of a more caring, compassionate Korea.
"Reviving that spirit once again and building a society flowing with responsibility and consideration for others will allow us to be confident that a new era of happiness that all of us dream of is truly within our reach," she said.
The nurturing, maternal political image is at odds with that pushed by her critics, of an aloof aristocrat they call the "ice queen".
But even dissenters acknowledge her strengths as a campaigner that helped her party secure strong results in local and national polls in 2004, 2006 and this year, earning her another royal moniker as the "queen of elections".
And despite her privileged upbringing, Park has demonstrated a tough streak.
In 2006 an attacker at an election event where she was speaking slashed her face with a knife, leaving a wound that needed 60 stitches.
She will face numerous challenges when she begins her five-year term on Monday, not least dealing with a North Korea that triggered global outrage by conducting a nuclear test just weeks before her inauguration.
Even before Park won her party's presidential nomination last August the state-run Korean Central News Agency had attacked her candidacy, warning that "a dictator's bloodline cannot change away from its viciousness".
Park has signalled a break from outgoing President Lee Myung-Bak's hard line on Pyongyang, and even held out the possibility of an eventual summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un.
But she will be restricted by conservative forces in her party as well as an international community intent on punishing North Korea.
The North's February 12 nuclear test is almost certain to draw toughened UN sanctions -- a move likely to anger Pyongyang and further heighten tension on the peninsula.
While Park's election as South Korea's first woman president marks a major breakthrough in a male-dominated country, not everyone sees her victory as paving the way for greater women's rights.
Kim Eun-Ju, executive director of the Centre for Korean Women and Politics, believes Park is a female political leader "only in biological terms".
"For the past 15 years, Park has shown little visible effort to help women in politics or anywhere else as a policymaker," Kim told AFP.
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