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.