Seoul
—Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao held talks in North
Korea Sunday at the start of a top-level visit
likely to test Pyongyang’s willingness to return
to nuclear disarmament talks it quit earlier
this year.
Leader Kim Jong-Il made a rare airport
appearance to host a red-carpet welcome for Wen,
TV footage showed, in an apparent sign of
Pyongyang’s eagerness to improve ties with its
closest diplomatic and economic ally.
Srinagar—Back in
Kashmir after a week-long tour of the United
States, Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman,
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has termed the appointment
of an envoy on Kashmir by the Organization of
Islamic Conference as a ‘substantial
achievement.
Padang,
Indonesia—Rescuers held out scant hope of
finding more Indonesian quake survivors on
Sunday, leaving clean-up teams the grim task of
retriev-ing the decaying bodies of thousands of
victims from the rubble. The military and medics
pushed deeper into rural areas where whole
villages have been buried by landslides, and
more international rescue teams arrived with
sniffer dogs and specialist equipment.
Bangalore,
India—Hundreds of thousands of people in
southern India were evacuated after torrential
rains and floods swept away homes, leaving at
least 207 people dead, officials said on Sunday.
The death toll in the state of Karnataka stood
at 170, while 37 people were killed in
neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, authorities said.
IRISH voters’ approval of the European Union’s
Lisbon Treaty keeps alive the EU’s hopes of
implementing reforms which it considers vital to
increasing its global influence. Irish approval
at the second time of asking was important for
the bloc because the treaty streamlines EU
decision-making, which has been unwieldy since
10 countries joined in 2004 and two more in
2007.
