Free Republic

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North and South Korea agreed Friday to hold high-level military talks to ease tensions between the nations, divided by the world's most heavily fortified border and embroiled in a standoff over the North's nuclear weapons development. The agreement came at the end of four days of Cabinet-level meetings. "South and North agreed to hold a military official meeting soon to ease military tension on the Korean peninsula," the two countries said in a joint statement. It gave no details of the planned talks. The Koreas held talks between their defense ministers in September 2000 but...

AFGHANISTAN'S former Taliban rulers rebuffed more than 30 US requests to expel Osama bin Laden starting in 1996 and ending a few months before the September 11 attacks in 2001, newly classified official documents revealed today. During a long list of official contacts summarised by the declassified State Department document, Taliban leader Mullah Omar expressed interest in a confidential dialogue with Washington over the al-Qaeda mastermind. He also suggested bin Laden be tried by a panel of Islamic scholars or that his movements be monitored by the Organisation of Islamic conferences or the United Nations. The documents show that most...

Syria rejects Israel talks offer Assad has said he is ready to resume negotiations with Israel Syria has dismissed an Israeli proposal to invite President Bashar al-Assad to Jerusalem for peace talks. The offer came from Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who said he was inviting Mr Assad for serious negotiations. It was made after Mr Assad said in newspaper interviews that he was ready to resume talks with Israel. But Syrian Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban said the Israeli proposal was not a serious answer to Mr Assad's peace overtures. "We need a serious response... A serious response is to say...

<p>ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said history had been made with a deal to resume talks with India, and termed it a good beginning in a bid to resolve their dispute over Kashmir.</p> <p>"History has been made," Musharraf told a news conference Tuesday. "This is a beginning. This statement is not an end in itself, obviously, but a good beginning has been made."</p>

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Talks on ending the North Korean nuclear standoff were in limbo Monday with North Korea blaming the impasse on Washington's demand for disarmament and South Korea saying it was unlikely a new round of negotiations would get off the ground this month. Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese diplomats reportedly were to meet in Moscow to discuss a compromise solution that first freezes North Korea's atomic programs then rolls them back. The United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas have been trying to arrange six-nation talks for months in an effort to persuade North Korea...

Iraq faces ethnic conflict on new front after crisis talks fail By Harry de Quetteville in Baghdad (Filed: 03/01/2004) The north of Iraq was threatened by ethnic conflict yesterday as crisis talks between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk failed to prevent continuing bloodshed in the divided city. At least one man was killed after a demonstration by ethnic Arabs and Turkmen culminated in an exchange of gunfire with Kirkuk's mostly Kurdish police. The march followed a similar clash on Wednesday when five people died. Events of the past week threaten to open up trouble on a new front in...

Critics: Dean-backed tax-cut program is like Bush's By David Gram The Associated Press MONTPELIER -- Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean criticizes President Bush for giving unneeded tax breaks, but as Vermont governor, he supported a program critics say did much the same for corporations. The Vermont Economic Progress Council, which Dean signed into law in 1998 to provide tax credits to businesses promising to expand, has approved more than $80 million in such credits, according to a report by the state auditor. Companies had claimed about $25 million of those credits by the end of the 2001 tax year. Both...

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi says that North Korea has agreed to take part in a second round of negotiations on its nuclear programme. Mr Wang, who made the statement following a two-day visit to North Korea, said the negotiations will continue at an unspecified date early next year. The first round of talks failed in August. Participating in the talks are China, North Korea, South Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell called on North Korea to follow Libya's example and end the development of weapons of mass destruction....

S Korea crisis talks on bird flu Bird farmers fear bankruptcy South Korean ministers have held an emergency meeting to discuss how to contain an outbreak of bird flu, which has previously proved fatal in humans. Since the virus was discovered at a farm 80km (50 miles) south of Seoul last week, more than 200,000 chickens and ducks have been culled. The meeting took place as another farm was found to be infected. However, there is no proof yet that the South Korean strain of the Avian flu can infect human beings.A variant of the virus killed seven people in...

<p>SACRAMENTO – Only a week after forging a bipartisan agreement to eliminate the state deficit and restrict future spending, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved aggressively on his own, invoking emergency powers to protect public-safety funds.</p> <p>While some called it a bold move to head off a pending crisis, Democrats say the Republican governor's decision has also bought him political complications on longer-term issues like next year's budget.</p>

Six-nation talks on North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program are likely to be deferred from mid-December to next February. US officials said yesterday the delay was caused by the communist nation's reluctance to agree to nuclear inspectors -- one of Washington's key demands. The officials said preparations for the talks were not going well. Mid-December was flagged as the likely date for a second meeting after North Korea, the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia met in Beijing in August for initial discussions. But interim diplomacy is failing to settle a final communique for the meeting that incorporates Washington's...

CHICAGO - (KRT) - On the eve of Terri Schiavo's 40th birthday, an independent guardian appointed at the behest of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush revealed Tuesday that secret talks to hammer out an agreement in the long-running dispute involving the brain-damaged woman broke down over the weekend. In his 38-page report to Bush, guardian Jay Wolfson, a University of South Florida professor and expert on health-care finances, said his behind-the-scenes efforts resulted in a "platform of understanding" that Schiavo's husband and parents - and the governor - tentatively agreed to before negotiations collapsed Sunday. Bob Schindler, Schiavo's father, said his...

<p>BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Prospects for a European Union constitution are clouded going into talks Friday in Italy, with members deeply divided over the text and over the flaunting of EU fiscal rules by France and Germany.</p> <p>Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, whose country now holds the rotating EU presidency, tried to put an optimistic face on the two-day session in Naples, Italy.</p>

US and Iran in secret peace talks Jason Burke and Dan de Luce in Tehran Sunday October 5, 2003 The Observer Secret 'back-door' diplomacy involving some of the Middle East's most influential figures has led to unexpected signals of a rapprochement between America and Iran despite angry public rhetoric on both sides. Tensions between Washington and Tehran remain high, particularly over the question of Iran's nuclear programme and alleged attempts to destabilise the US occupation in Iraq, but a tentative dialogue has been established. One go-between has been King Abdullah II of Jordan, who visited Tehran shortly before meeting President...

=====Washington===== U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) fields a question during a press briefing at the White House, September 22, 2003. Rice spoke about President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s trip to New York tomorrow, where he will address the United Nations (news - web sites) General Assembly on the situation in Iraq (news - web sites). REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) listens to Iraqi Minister of Electricity Ayham Sameraei (R) as he speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House, September 22, 2003....

Employing his Hollywood celebrity, Arnold Schwarzenegger took his campaign to the talk shows of two of his famous friends Wednesday as he engaged Howard Stern and Larry King in discussions of his personality, entertainment and politics. His appearances on Stern's morning radio show and King's evening TV show followed a session Monday on Oprah Winfrey's daytime TV program. In completing that three-bagger on the American talk circuit, Schwarzenegger — a personal friend of all three hosts who has been a frequent guest on all three shows — returned to the familiar territory of celebrity talk, where he has long promoted...

Crisis talks as poor nations stand firm Time to avert a collapse is fast running out Larry Elliott and Charlotte Denny in Cancun Saturday September 13, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Britain gave warning last night that time was running out for the global trade summit in Cancun as negotiators prepared for a weekend of crisis talks to save the meeting from collapse. Margaret Beckett, the environment secretary, said the standoff between rich and poor nations had to be resolved quickly to secure a deal by tomorrow night's deadline. The United States and European Union urged developing countries to compromise after...

So long, Jack Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard dropped one on the Bush administration this week by quitting his job as special envoy on North Korea to join the liberal Brookings Institution, days before the next round of talks on the North Korean nuclear dispute. The implicit message in the abrupt departure was that Mr. Pritchard disagreed with the current policy. The special envoy was viewed within the administration as a "Clintonista" who favored the former president's appeasement approach to North Korea. He even went on the now-infamous October 2000 visit to North Korea by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright,...

<p>JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas announced late Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority was ending all talks with representatives of the militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas, both of which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 18 and injured more than 130.</p>

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA (Talon News) -- North Korea has launched a vigorous war of words against the United States and Japan while seeking to foster closer ties with Russia and China, in an apparent bid to damage unity among the powers in advance of September's talks. In doing so, North Korea once again reserved its harshest words for U.S. Undersecretary of State Bolton, who initially provoked the nation's wrath when he called life in North Korea a "hellish nightmare" and called Kim Jong-il a "tyrannical dictator." The White House has since defended Bolton, voicing its overall agreement with his statements....