NEWS,14.07.2013

Kenya raises price of petrol, diesel

Kenya's energy regulator raised retail prices for petrol and diesel on Sunday due to rising global oil prices and a weaker local currency, while decreasing the price of kerosene.

Fuel prices have a big impact on the rate of inflation in the east African economy. The rate rose to 4.91% in June from 4.05% a month earlier.

The economy heavily depends on diesel for transport, power generation and agriculture. Kerosene is used in many households for lighting and cooking.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) reviews domestic energy prices every month, with adjustments made depending on fluctuations in international energy prices and foreign exchange fluctuations.

The cost of importing super petrol and diesel in June rose, while that of kerosene fell, while at the same time the Kenyan shilling weakened to 85.65 per dollar from 84.30 per dollar in the previous month the ERC said in a statement.

The regulator raised the maximum price of a litre of super petrol in Nairobi by 1.34 shillings to 109.52 shillings, and increased the price of diesel by 3.70 shillings to 102.86 shillings per litre.

The price of kerosene will fall by 2.03 shillings to 79.49 shillings, the commission said.

The new prices will take effect on July 15, and will be in force for a month.

Hollande rules out shale gas exploration

French President Francois Hollande ruled out exploration for shale gas during his presidency on Sunday, dousing hopes that a ban on hydraulic fracturing could be reviewed following a legal challenge by a US firm.
France's top court said this week it will examine the challenge to the ban by Schuepbach Energy, which held two exploration permits that were cancelled when the law was passed in 2011.
Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg stirred debate when he suggested creating a state-backed company to examine exploration techniques. But he was promptly overruled by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
"As long as I am president, there will be no exploration for shale gas in France," Hollande told France 2 TV in a live interview after Bastille Day celebrations.
The International Energy Agency has named France as a European country with some of the most plentiful underground reserves of shale gas.
But Hollande's government, which comprises members of the Greens Party, has kept in place the 2011 ban and said it should remain in effect due to concerns that hydraulic fracturing can pollute underground water sources.
Scheupbach Energy challenged the ban in the local court of Cergy-Pontoise near Paris, which forwarded the case to France's highest administrative court, which then passed it on to the Constitutional Council.
"The debate on shale gas has gone on for too long," Hollande said.

EU to probe German energy law - report

The European Union plans an investigation into Germany's renewable energy law due to concerns that exemptions for some firms from charges levied on power users breaches competition rules, a German magazine reported on Sunday.
Without citing sources, Der Spiegel weekly said lawyers in Brussels had looked at the law which provides a framework for Germany's push to renewable energy, and that Commissioner Joaquin Almunia had concluded it may breach EU rules.
The Commission would open proceedings on Wednesday, it said.
The officials criticised exemptions made for energy intensive companies in Germany, reported the magazine, adding this may lead to companies having to pay millions of euros in back payments.
A spokesman for the Commission declined to comment on the report.
The EU said in March it would investigating power grid charge exemptions which have been granted to big steel, chemicals, glass, cement and building materials companies.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has set out ambitious goals for Germany to wean itself off fossil fuels, phase out nuclear power and switch to renewable energy sources but it is costly.
Households are paying for subsidies to renewable energy producers and have been hit by sharp increases in the last few years. Yet fears that German industry will become uncompetitive if it has to pay too much for energy has led to exemptions from these charges for many firms.
The debate about the cost of the energy transition and energy prices could become an issue in the September election.
Merkel has said she intends to rein in renewable subsidies and reduce the costs of the green revolution on consumers if she is re-elected in September.

Wind of austerity chills turbine industry

Wearing face masks and wielding sanders, two workers smooth the surface of a massive fan for a wind turbine at the Gamesa factory in Aoiz, a town in Navarre, northern Spain.
But in hard times, it will be winds in Finland, not Spain, that make the finished product spin.
Last year, the plant delivered a wind turbine park to Malaga in southern Spain and another to Burgos, in the north, said factory manager Javier Trapiella.
"Now we don't produce for Spain," he added.
"It has all stopped."
For green energy producers, Spain has changed from a paradise with generous public support to a markedly less agreeable home.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government is imposing an austerity regime to plug an accumulated energy sector deficit of €26bn ($34bn).
On Friday, the horizon darkened further with the approval of reforms cutting annual state aid for renewable energies by more than €1bn.
The change is enough to place at risk huge strides in the Spanish wind energy industry.
Spain ranks as number four globally in terms of installed wind energy but has dropped to seventh place in terms of new projects, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.
"For Spain, wind energy has really been an energy revolution. In 20 years we have gone from producing zero kilowatts to producing 20% of national demand today," said Heikki Willstedt Mesa, director of energy policy at the Spanish Wind Energy Association.
In the fourth largest economy of the eurozone, wind is often the main source of electricity.
"Unfortunately, since 2009 the government has slowed the development of wind energy in Spain with various regulatory measures," he said.
Cuts in state aid of 35%, removing subsidies for new turbines since the start of 2013, and then the latest changes announced on Friday: the sector has been hit hard and manufacturers are the first to feel the pain.
In February, French group Alstom closed two factories in Spain and laid off 373 employees.
"The economic crisis and the absence of a stable regulatory framework have slowed domestic demand," the group said, stressing the lack of activity in its Spanish sites.
Spain's Gamesa, which is among the industry's world leaders, gave the same reasons as it laid off 606 of its 4,800 staff in Spain and closed two blade factories in recent months.
Gamesa notably pointed to the "regulatory uncertainty" , the persistent economic crisis and financial problems in the sector, especially in southern Europe.
Making a wind turbine is almost a work of craftsmanship, said Gamesa's Trapiella. "You need good hands," he said. The fibreglass and carbon fibre blades measure 62.5 metres (205 feet) and weigh 15 tonnes each.
When finished they will leave by truck overnight for the port of Bilbao to be shipped by sea to Finland. About 40 blades are scheduled for delivery by February.
"If 90% of our sales were in Spain 10 years ago, it is the exact opposite today with 90% of sales coming from abroad," said Jose Antonio Cortajarena, Gamesa's corporate managing director.
"We are in more than 50 countries," he said, citing Mexico, Brazil and India as key markets.
"Even if our corporate headquarters are in Spain, the risk, our dependance on the Spanish market, is limited."
The Spanish Wind Energy Association is not so reassured.
"We have destroyed 25 jobs a day in the wind energy sector since the start of the year and the industry is on the borderline, it cannot take any more cuts," it said.
The industry has already suffered heavily.
"Of the 43 000 jobs we had in the wind industry in 2009, there are only 23 000 left, said Sergio de Otto, secretary general of the business group Fundacion Renovables (Renewables Foundation).

Snowden could cause 'more damage'

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Sunday marked three weeks stuck in an airport transit lounge since he arrived in Russia, as a supporter warned the fugitive possessed even more secrets that could damage the US government.

Snowden, wanted by the United States for revealing sensational details of its surveillance operations, flew into Russia from Hong Kong on 23 June and has languished ever since in the transit zone in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Breaking cover for the first time since he arrived, Snowden told a group of activists on Friday that he was applying for asylum in Russia until he could travel on to Latin America.

But Russian officials have yet to confirm receiving such an application which, if approved, would risk further straining Russia's already tense relations with the United States.

Meanwhile, the journalist first who published Snowden's revelations based on the sweeping US surveillance programmes said he possesses data that could prove far more "damaging" to the US government.

Glenn Greenwald told Argentina's La Nacion paper that Snowden, aged 30, had chosen not to release this information.

Damaging information

Russian President Vladimir Putin had said last week that Snowden could claim asylum in Russia only if he stopped harming US interests, a remark that prompted the fugitive to withdraw a previous application for asylum in Russia.

"Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States," Greenwald told the paper.

"But that's not his goal," said Greenwald.

Russia was still waiting on Sunday for the promised request for asylum from Snowden, who had said that application would be made on Friday. It was not clear whether the hold-up was simply due to the weekend.

The head of Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS) Konstantin Romodanovsky said on Saturday that "there is for the moment no application from E Snowden". If one was made, it would be examined "according to normal legal procedures", he added.

"For the moment, we do not know anything" about an asylum application, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency.

Human rights in the transit lounge

The United States wants the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor returned to them to face trial over the leaks. Moscow has so far rejected that demand, saying it has no extradition treaty with Washington.

Washington has reacted sharply to the possibility that Moscow might offer Snowden a safe harbour.

"We would urge the Russian government to afford human rights organisations the ability to do their work in Russia throughout Russia, not just at the Moscow transit lounge," White House spokesperson Jay Carney said.

"Providing a propaganda platform for Mr Snowden runs counter to the Russian government's previous declarations of Russia's neutrality," he added.

US President Barack Obama spoke to Putin by telephone on Friday on issues including the Snowden affair, the Kremlin and White House both said, but no further details were forthcoming.

The United States has already rebuked China for allowing Snowden to leave for Russia from Hong Kong.

Asylum offers from the left

At his meeting with activists, Snowden vowed he did not want to harm the United States but it was not clear however whether this meant he was prepared to stop leaking intelligence in order to stay in Russia.

The leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have all offered Snowden asylum, but Snowden said that Western governments would prevent him from travelling to the region.

A summit of the Latin American Mercosur trade bloc issued a statement on Friday reaffirming the right to asylum and rejecting "any attempt at pressure, harassment or criminalisation by a state or third parties".

The bloc, meeting in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, denounced four European countries that denied airspace to a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales back from Moscow earlier this month.

They apparently suspected that Snowden was on board.

Mercosur leaders said they would recall their ambassadors from Spain, France, Italy and Portugal for consultations in protest at the incident.

In a statement, they rejected "any attempt at pressure, harassment or criminalisation by a state or third parties" in response to a decision to grant asylum.

Flight attendants praised for heroism

Before Asiana Flight 214 crash-landed in San Francisco, the last time the Korean airlines' flight attendants made news it was over an effort by their union earlier this year to get the dress code updated so female attendants could wear trousers.

Now, with half of the 12-person cabin crew having suffered injuries in the accident and the remaining attendants receiving praise for displaying heroism during the emergency evacuation, the focus has shifted from their uniform looks to their heroic actions.
In the 6 July crash three members of the crew were ejected from the planes sheared off tail section while still strapped in their seats. Those who were able, meanwhile, oversaw the emergency evacuation of nearly 300 passengers using knives to slash seatbelts, slinging axes to free two colleagues trapped by malfunctioning slides, fighting flames and bringing out frightened children.
'Muscle memory'
"I wasn't really thinking, but my body started carrying out the steps needed for an evacuation," head attendant Lee Yoon-hye, 40, said during a news conference on Sunday night before federal safety investigators instructed the airlines not to let the crew discuss the accident.
"I was only thinking about rescuing the next passenger."
Such conduct has given a measure of pride to members of a profession who often are recognised only for their appearance and customer service skills.
"In the face of tremendous adversity and obstacles, they did their job and evacuated an entire wide-bodied aircraft in a very short period of time," said Veda Shook, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants and an Alaska Airlines flight attendant.
"It's such a shining reflection, not just of the crew, but of the importance of flight attendants in their roles as first responders," Shook said.
Along with training in first aid and firefighting, flight attendants every year are required to practice the moves needed to get passengers off a plane in 90 seconds or less, Shook said.
They go through timed trials, practicing skills that include shouting over pandemonium and engine noise, communicating with people frozen in fear and opening jammed doors and windows, she said. The goal is to make performing these tasks automatic.
"We have the muscle memory," Shook said.
It's a significant departure from the days when flight attendants were always women and known as stewardesses or air hostesses. In that era decades ago, members of the cabin crew weren't expected to play much of a role in emergencies.
Laura Brentlinger, who spent 31 years as a United Airlines flight attendant, recalled having no idea how much danger everyone was in during one of her first emergency landings in 1972. She didn't realise the severity of the situation until it was over and she saw the pilot's face.
"In those days, it was like pat you on the head, just go back and keep the people nice and smile. That's how far we've come, thank the Lord," Brentlinger said. "We were just little Barbie dolls back there."
Roles expanded
The role of flight attendants in the US expanded significantly in 1989 after Air Ontario Flight 1363 crashed after taking off in Canada. An investigation revealed that a flight attendant had seen ice on a wing but did not speak up, assuming the pilots knew and would not welcome the information from her.
Since then, FAA rules have required that cabin crew members be incorporated into the communications system known as "crew resource management" that empowers all airline personnel to voice concerns to the cockpit even if it means challenging senior pilots.
The philosophy also authorises flight attendants to order emergency evacuations.
Hearing that the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 told the flight attendants to delay an evacuation for 90 seconds after the crash landing in San Francisco, giving the order only after a flight attendant spotted flames outside, made Brentlinger wonder whether Asiana Airline's attendants have the same authority.
"I'm sure they have a very different hierarchy and can't do anything without the pilot's permission," she said. "There is no doubt in my mind I would have evacuated that aircraft immediately."
'After the dust settles'
Brentlinger said her heart aches when she thinks about what Asiana's flight attendants are going through now and are likely to go through in the months to come.
She was aboard a 747 that lost a cargo door at 6 600 metres, sucking nine passengers to their deaths over the Pacific Ocean in 1989.
After the disaster aboard United Flight 811, Brentlinger said she suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and was unable to get back on a plane for more than four years.
Handling the emergency itself was "the easiest part of the whole process... because you train for it and you just do it", she said.
She went on to say that "after the dust settles, so to speak" and one tries to get on with life, "it's horrific, at least it was for me".
The Flight 214 cabin crew consisted of 11 women and one man, ranging in age from 21 to 42, according to the airline.
Spokesperson Lee Hyomin said Asiana is not sharing information on emergency training hours of its flight attendants because the National Transportation Safety Board asked it not to share any information related to the accident while it's being investigated.
Rigorous training
Jean Carmela Lim, 32, a Sydney-based travel consultant, spent a year working as an Asiana flight attendant eight years ago and posted pictures from her experience on her travel blog, Holy Smithereens, this week. She recalls her weeks-long safety training as rigorous.
"We needed to be able to swim while dragging another human - dead weight - in one hand, and hoist ourselves and the dead weight onto the safety raft," Lim said.
The appearance standards were almost as demanding. Lim, who was 23 when she applied for the job, initially was told she was too old. During the interview, she was required to wear a short skirt without stockings.
Flight attendant school included sessions on hair, makeup and comportment. During flights, the cabin manager inspected the attendants to make sure they were wearing the right colour of nail polish and had their aprons properly ironed.
Lim said that appearance is important, but seeing pictures of Flight 214's attendants outside the burned-out aircraft in skirts made her hope their union prevails on the pants issue.
"If there's evidence that wearing a skirt will enable you to save more lives than wearing pants, then by all means keep them in skirts," she said. "If I'm trapped in a burning aircraft , I doubt I'll notice if the cabin crew saving me had lipstick on her teeth or had a tuft of hair out of place."

NEWS,10.07.2013

Surge in growth for online mobile ads

Global spending on mobile internet ads surged 82.8% to $8.9bn in 2012, an industry survey showed this week.
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) said the figures highlight "a strong positive growth story taking place across mobile advertising formats".
"Mobile is coming into its own as a powerhouse advertising medium," the IAB's Anna Bager said.
"The massive and continuing acceleration of mobile's international impact provides new and exciting frontiers for content and communication."
More than half of spending was for search ads, or paid ads linked to web search queries; display ads accounted for 38.7% and messaging ads 8.5%, the IAB said.
The survey said the Asia-Pacific region accounted for some 40.2% of revenues, compared to 39.8% for North America and 16.9% for Western Europe,
A key factor for mobile advertising growth is the adoption of advanced fourth-generation mobile networks, which encourage people to spend more time using the internet on mobile devices.
A separate report last month by the research firm eMarketer said Google captured more than half of the mobile Internet advertising revenues worldwide last year and is expected to boost its share in 2013, and that Facebook's share is growing rapidly

Pentagon - WikiLeaks a journalistic site

The US military viewed anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks as a news gathering operation before Private First Class Bradley Manning leaked a trove of classified files to it, a Harvard professor testified at Manning's court-martial on Wednesday.
Yochai Benkler, a Harvard University law professor and expert on media law, testified for the defence that a 2008 Defence Department report on WikiLeaks had said that a US enemy could theoretically use the site to gather information.
But the Pentagon report, which had been based on publicly available material, said there was no sign that that had happened, said Benkler, the co-director of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society.
The Pentagon report came out before Manning, 25, is alleged to have leaked more than 700 000 classified files, combat videos and State Department cables while serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.
Benkler is the 10th witness called by chief defence lawyer David Coombs since he started his case on Monday. Coombs has not divulged a customary list of witnesses, but Benkler could be the last called by the defence.
The 21 charges against Manning include espionage, computer fraud and, most seriously, aiding the enemy by disclosing material that could be used by the al-Qaeda extremist network.
Manning, a native of Crescent, Oklahoma, could face life in prison without parole if convicted of aiding the enemy.
In other testimony, a specialist at the Centre for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said in a sworn statement that the centre had not recommended changes, such as in training or tactics, because of the WikiLeaks disclosures.
The centre, which focuses on adapting operations to changing conditions, also had not been requested to do so, said the witness, whose name was not disclosed.
The defence has sought to portray Manning as a naive but well-intentioned soldier who wanted to show Americans the reality of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Defence lawyers also have contended that much of the material Manning is charged with leaking had been available from public sources before the WikiLeaks disclosure.
The prosecution rested last week after five weeks of testimony, some in closed session. The trial is scheduled to end by 23 August.

Snowden not afraid, no regrets

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is not afraid and has no regrets about his revelations of US espionage activities, the reporter who first published the secret documents said Wednesday.
Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist for Britain's Guardian newspaper, also said in an interview with AFP that Venezuela seems like a "logical" asylum destination for Snowden.
"He's anxious about the next step... but feels really good about the debate he provoked," said Greenwald.
"I hadn't spoken to him in two weeks since he got out of Hong Kong until Saturday, when I spoke to him and then again yesterday Tuesday," he added.
"He's very calm, without any fear and definitely happy about the choices that he made," said the journalist, who lives in Rio de Janeiro.
Currently stranded in Moscow, Snowden has applied for asylum in more than two dozen countries in a bid to evade US espionage charges over his disclosure of US initiatives to gather Internet and phone data.
The 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor has gained a sympathetic ear from some leftist Latin American countries. Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have all offered him asylum.
Greenwald said he did not know which country would eventually accept the US fugitive, but suggested Venezuela was the most likely.
"I didn't spend any time talking about his asylum plans. I don't really know what he's planning on doing in terms of that," the 46-year-old US blogger said.
"To me, Venezuela seems like the most logical choice because it's bigger and stronger than the other two countries that offered asylum and will be able to protect him," he added.
I use encryption
On Tuesday, the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website said that Snowden had not yet formally accepted asylum in Venezuela as was claimed by a top Russian lawmaker in a Twitter posting that was later deleted.
Pro-Kremlin lawmaker Alexei Pushkov sparked confusion when he tweeted on Tuesday that Snowden had agreed to an offer from Caracas. He deleted the posting after about 30 minutes.
Greenwald spends much of his time in Brazil, where he lives with a Brazilian partner who was unable to join him permanently in America due to legal restrictions.
New York-born and Florida-raised, he specialised in litigating constitutional and civil rights cases before shifting in 2005 towards blogging, book-writing and what he calls "adversarial journalism".
In four best-selling books, most recently With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful, he has sought to expose threats to freedom of information.
He entered journalism through his own blog, Unclaimed Territory. He later wrote for Salon.com before contributing to The Guardian in August 2012.
Greenwald said he had many more stories to write based on Snowden's documents.
"I just wrote with O Globo three stories about massive [US] spying first in Brazil and then Latin America," he noted.
"There's a lot more stories like that, big stories about what the NSA is doing inside the United States. These stories take time, but there's a lot more coming."
He said he is fully aware that the US government is keeping him under close surveillance.
"I always assume that I'm being monitored and when I use computers or anything like that, I make sure I use encryption and I'm very careful," he said.
Even though some US politicians have called for Greenwald's arrest on grounds his reporting amounted to a "crime", he insisted: "I have never been directly threatened".
Asked whether he viewed Snowden as more than a source, Greenwald replied: "He is a source, but I have been very clear about the fact that I have a lot of admiration for what he did, a lot of respect.
"I think what he did was heroic. I care about him as a person and hope for the best for him."

Mudslide from flood buries dozens in China

Flooding in western China, the worst in 50 years for some areas, has triggered a landslide that buried up to 40 people and destroyed a high-profile memorial to a devastating 2008 earthquake.

There was no immediate word on the chances of survival for the 30 to 40 people buried in the city of Dujiangyan, but rescue workers with search dogs had rushed to the area, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Mudslides and flooding are common in China's mountainous areas, killing hundreds of people every year. Deforestation has led to soil erosion and made some parts of China prone to mudslides after strong rains.
In nearby Beichuan county, flooding destroyed buildings and destroyed exhibits at a memorial for the earthquake five years ago in Sichuan province that left 90 000 people dead or missing.
The quake left the Beichuan county seat unliveable. The town was abandoned and 27 square kilometers of ruins was turned into a memorial and museum.
The flooding also caused the collapse of an almost 50-year-old bridge in a neighboring county, sending six vehicles into the raging waters and leaving 12 people missing.
Since Sunday, flooding in Sichuan has affected 360 000 people, damaging or destroying 300 homes, and forcing at least 6 100 emergency evacuations, state media reported.

NEWS,06.07.2013

Two Koreas hold talks on joint zone

North and South Korea started rare talks Saturday on re-opening a joint industrial zone seen as the last remaining symbol of cross-border reconciliation.
The talks delayed by nearly two hours - follow months of friction and threats of war by Pyongyang after its February nuclear test attracted tougher UN sanctions, further squeezing its struggling economy.
Kaesong was the most high-profile casualty of the elevated tensions on the Korean peninsula but neither side has declared the complex officially closed, instead referring to a temporary shut down.
Both nations say they want to reopen the Seoul-funded industrial zone on the North Korean side of the border but blame each other for its suspension.
"We will do our best to have this meeting result in greater trust and co-operation between the two sides", South Korea's chief delegate, Suh Ho, told reporters in Seoul early Saturday before leaving for Panmunjom.
"Three months have passed since Kaesong came to a halt and damages and difficulties facing businesses are growing", the senior unification ministry official said.
Pyongyang, citing military tensions and the South's hostility toward the North, in April withdrew its 53 000 workers from the 123 Seoul-owned factories at the Kaesong park.
Until then the industrial park a valuable source of hard currency for the impoverished North  had proved remarkably resilient to the regular upheavals in inter-Korean relations.
Technical problems delayed the start of the talks at the border truce village of Panmunjom on Saturday as telephone lines to the South needed repairs, the unification ministry in Seoul said.
Want to work
Seoul is expected to call for a written guarantee aimed at preventing a recurrence of the unilateral shut down, a demand which the North would find it hard to accept as it would amount to Pyongyang swallowing its pride and accepting full responsibility for the suspension.
On the agenda are issues of checking on mothballed factory facilities and equipment, moving finished products and raw materials held up at Kaesong to the South and the reopening of the zone.
At an access road to Panmunjom, Suh encountered a group of businessmen with plants in Kaesong. They carried banners expressing hope that the talks would be successful. One read: "We want to work again. Restart Kaesong."
The meeting comes after a surprise move on Wednesday from North Korea, which restored a cross-border hotline and promised to let South Korean businessmen visit the estate and check on their closed factories.
Representatives of the South Korean companies in the zone have repeatedly urged the two sides to open talks to revive the moribund industrial park. The South wants its businessmen to be able to bring back finished goods and raw materials.
But some firms have threatened to withdraw from Kaesong, complaining they have fallen victim to political bickering between the two rivals.
The South's unification ministry responded cautiously by saying it would try to seek internationally accepted safeguards to develop Kaesong as a politically neutral zone.
"We have clarified our position many times that Kaesong must be developed as an area that follows international standards and where common sense prevails," unification ministry spokesperson Kim Hyung-Suk said.
Opposition parties in Seoul urged South Korean negotiators to exercise flexibility in Saturday's talks.
After repeatedly threatening Seoul and Washington with conventional and nuclear attack, Pyongyang has appeared in recent weeks to want to move towards dialogue.
Analysts say North Korea is mindful of a US demand that it improve ties with Seoul before there can be any talks with Washington.
After plans for high-level talks last month on the future of the Kaesong estate collapsed over a protocol dispute, Pyongyang proposed direct, high-level dialogue with the US.

Nicaragua, Venezuela OK Snowden asylum

The presidents of Nicaragua and Venezuela offered Friday to grant asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one day after leftist South American leaders gathered to denounce the rerouting of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane over Europe amid reports that the American was aboard.

Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua made their offers during separate speeches in their home countries Friday afternoon. Snowden, who is being sought by the United States, has asked for asylum in numerous countries, including Nicaragua and Venezuela.
"As head of state, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden so that he can live in the homeland" of independence leader Simon Bolivar and the late President Hugo Chavez without "persecution from the empire," Maduro said, referring to the United States.
Chavez often engaged in similar defiance, criticizing US-style capitalism and policies. In a 2006 speech to the UN General Assembly of world leaders, Chavez called President George W Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulphur after the US president's address. He also accused Washington of plotting against him, expelled several diplomats and drug-enforcement agents and threatened to stop sending oil to the US.
Maduro made the offer during a speech marking the anniversary of Venezuela's independence. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions to Venezuela's offer. He added that several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of "dignity".
But his critics said Maduro's decision is nothing but an attempt to veil the current undignified conditions of Venezuela, including one of the world's highest inflation rates and a shortage of basic products like toilet paper.
"The asylum doesn't fix the economic disaster, the record inflation, an upcoming devaluation [of the currency], and the rising crime rate," Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said in his Twitter account. Maduro beat Capriles in April's presidential election, but Capriles has not recognised defeat and has called it an electoral fraud.
Asked earlier this week about the possibility that any countries in the region would offer Snowden asylum, Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank, said that he thought Ortega would be careful not to damage his country's relationship with the US.
"Ortega has been tremendously successful at exploiting both the Alba relationship and the US relationship," Thale said, referring to the Alba leftist trade bloc that provides Nicaragua with petroleum subsidies. Although Ortega is publicly seen as anti-American, "Nicaragua and the US cooperate very closely on drug interdiction and the US and Nicaraguan militaries work very closely, too," Thale said before the asylum offer was made.
If circumstances allow
Ortega said Friday he was willing to make Maduro's same offer "if circumstances allow it," although he didn't say what the right circumstances would be when he spoke during a speech in Managua.
He said the Nicaraguan embassy in Moscow received Snowden's application for asylum and that it is studying the request.
"We have the sovereign right to help a person who felt remorse after finding out how the United States was using technology to spy on the whole world, and especially its European allies," Ortega said.
The offers came one day after Maduro joined other leftist South American presidents Thursday in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to rally behind Morales and denounce the incident involving the plane.
Spain on Friday said it had been warned along with other European countries that Snowden, a former US intelligence worker, was aboard the Bolivian presidential plane, an acknowledgement that the manhunt for the fugitive leaker had something to do with the plane's unexpected diversion to Austria.
It is unclear whether the United States warned Madrid about the Bolivian president's plane. U.S. officials will not detail their conversations with European countries, except to say that they have stated the U.S.'s general position that it wants Snowden back.
President Barack Obama has publicly displayed a relaxed attitude toward Snowden's movements, saying last month that he wouldn't be "scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker."
But the drama surrounding the flight of Morales, whose plane was abruptly rerouted to Vienna after apparently being denied permission to fly over France, suggests that pressure is being applied behind the scenes.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told Spanish National Television that "they told us that the information was clear, that he was inside."
He did not identify who "they" were and declined to say whether he had been in contact with the U.S. But he said that European countries' decisions were based on the tip. France has since sent a letter of apology to the Bolivian government.
Meanwhile, secret-spilling website WikiLeaks said that Snowden, who is still believed to be stuck in a Moscow airport's transit area, had put in asylum applications to six new countries. He had already sought asylum from more than 20 countries. Many have turned him down.
Wikileaks said in a message posted to Twitter on Friday that it wouldn't be identifying the countries involved "due to attempted US interference."
Icelandic lawmakers introduced a proposal in Parliament on Thursday to grant immediate citizenship to Snowden, but the idea received minimal support.
Galeano reported from Managua, Nicaragua. 

US stocks rise on solid jobs report

\US stocks Friday opened higher following a better-than-expected US jobs report, even as US Treasury yields spiked.
Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 73.57 (0.49%) to 15 062.12.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 7.61 (0.47%) to 1 623.02, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 16.81 (0.49%) to 3 460.48.
Analysts expected low volumes Friday with many investors off for the long July 4 Independence Day holiday. US markets were closed Thursday.
Friday's gains came after the Labor Department reported that 195 000 jobs were added in June, above the 166 000 analyst estimate. The unemployment rate held steady at 7.6%.
Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare called the jobs report "stronger than expected, but not undeniably strong." He cited some less propitious details in the report, such as a rise in the number of discouraged workers compared with a year ago.
The rise also came in the wake of Thursday's strong gains in European markets after European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi said that ECB monetary policy would remain accommodative for "as long as necessary."
Despite the gains, spiking US Treasury yields were a source of concern. The 10-year Treasury rose to 2.70% compared with 2.50% Wednesday. The yield on the 30-year bond rose to 3.65% from 3.50%.

 

Oil dips as supply concerns ease

Oil slipped from a two-week high above $106 a barrel on Thursday after Egypt's armed forces toppled its president, easing concerns over the threat of supply disruption in the Middle East.
The Suez canal, a vital waterway for oil shipments, was not affected by the unrest, but analysts said real and threatened supply disruptions in the Middle East, which pumps a third of the world's oil, and in other regions would support prices.
"It is too early to say that the situation has calmed down, but the safe operation of the Suez, which is in the interest of both Persian Gulf countries and oil-consuming nations, seems to be guaranteed," Tamas Varga, an analyst at oil brokers PVM, said.
Brent crude fell 82c to $104.94 a barrel by lunchtime on Thursday after rising as high as $106.03 on Wednesday.
US crude slipped 48c to $100.76, falling from a 14-month peak of $102.18 earlier.
Besides the perceived risks to Middle East supply due to tension in Egypt, disruption to exports in Libya and Iraq and relatively scarce supply of Russian crude into the Mediterranean have tightened physical oil flows.
"It is still too early to sound the all-clear," said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.
"Supply risks are likely to lend continued support to oil prices."
In addition to concerns about Middle East supplies, the US benchmark received a boost when a weekly inventory report showed stockpiles fell by more than 10 million barrels, the biggest drop for the time of year since 2000.