Month: January 2010

Seoul, January 29: South Korea’s President Lee Myung-Bak has expressed willingness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, despite this week’s shelling by the communist state which raised tensions on the peninsula.

“I’m always ready to meet with Chairman Kim Jong-Il,” Lee said in an interview yesterday in Davos, where he attended an economic forum.

His office released a transcript today.

“However, if we meet, we have to engage in fruitful dialogue and hold enough discussions on the North Korean nuclear issue,” Lee said.

New Delhi, Janaury 29: It is hard to tell whether their accuracy is lost in the translation or not but it is always amusing to read the way China frames its public pronouncements on Tibet in general and the Dalai Lama in particular.

As the long-stalled talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s special envoys begin, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu has one piece of advice for the 75-year-old Tibetan leader: “We hope the Dalai Lama will cherish this opportunity and respond positively to the requests of the central government.”

Melbourne, January 29: Australia, the home of cricket legend Don Bradman, singing sensation Kylie Minougue, is also the land of world’s top sinners, a new study has claimed.

Envy is the biggest weakness of people down under in a study of the seven sins – lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

A team of British researchers number-crunched the global differences in the deadly sins and found, when you add up the wrongdoings, Australia is at the top, according to BBC’s Focus magazine.

Washington, January 29: In a bid to reach out to South Asian and Arab communities, the US will increase engagement, dialogue, coordination and enhance information sharing with faith-and community-based groups.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Thursday met with leaders from Muslim, Sikh, South Asian and Arab communities, described as ‘key partners in homeland security that contribute to many different parts of American life and exemplify the diversity that is a hallmark of our country.’

Davos, January 29: Former US president Bill Clinton called for more help for earthquake-ravaged Haiti on Thursday, telling world leaders and business experts at the World Economic Forum that the impoverished Caribbean nation is determined to escape its troubled past.

“This is an opportunity to re-imagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be,” Clinton, a UN special envoy to Haiti, told this influential gathering of business and political leaders at the Swiss resort of Davos.

Brussels, January 29: The nominee to become the EU’s top justice official slammed on Thursday the quick introduction of body scanners at airports, saying the devices could invade travellers’ privacy.

“I am convinced that body scanners have a considerable privacy-invasive potential. Their usefulness is still to be proven,” said Viviane Reding, who is currently EU telecoms commissioner but in line to take over the justice post.

Washington, January 29: A hacker broke into 49 House Web sites of both political parties overnight to post a crude attack on President Barack Obama.

Spokesman Jeff Ventura in the chief administrative office said on Thursday the sites that were hit were managed by a third-party vendor. In contrast, most lawmakers’ Web sites are managed by House technicians.

Ventura says the vendor was performing an update and for a brief moment let its guard down. That was long enough to allow the hacker to penetrate the sites.

Washington, January 29: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday said Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not interested in peace talks or the reconciliation efforts of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“I do not expect Mullah Omar and those people to be at all interested in this. In fact, they’ve made it very clear that they’re not,” Hillary told CNN.

“I think there are many members of the Taliban who will see this chance to re-enter society under these very stringent conditions to be attractive enough to test,” she said.

Washington, January 29: US Vice President Joe Biden says that Washington will increase investment in its nuclear arsenal and infrastructure in the country’s new budget.

In an opinion piece appeared in The Wall Street Journal’s website on Thursday, Biden said that the administration will propose USD 7 billion to maintain US nuclear weapons stockpile, which would be USD 600 million more than Congress approved last year.