EAST ASIA

MINISTER SAYS NORTH KOREA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS

UNITED NATIONS – North Korea has turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons to serve as a deterrent against a possible nuclear strike by America, a North Korean minister said yesterday.

Warning that the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula “is snowballing,” Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon blamed America for intensifying threats to attack the communist nation and destroying the basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Without specifying what kinds or the number of weapons it has, Mr. Choe said North Korea has been left with “no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent” because of American policies that he claimed were designed to “eliminate the DPRK by force while designating it as part of an ‘axis of evil’ and a target of pre-emptive nuclear strikes.”

When asked if the fuel had been turned into actual weapons, not just weapons grade material, Mr. Choe said: “We declared that we weaponized this.”

In Washington, a State Department official noted that the administration has long believed North Korea has at least one or two nuclear weapons. The official, who asked not to be identified, also said the North Koreans have made conflicting statements about how far along their weapons development programs have come.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

PAKISTAN ARRESTS FOUR MORE TERROR SUSPECTS

KARACHI, Pakistan – Security forces following up on a raid that killed a top Al Qaeda fugitive arrested four more suspected extremists yesterday, and Pakistan’s president predicted the investigation would lead to more high-profile militants.

President Musharraf lauded the killing of Amjad Hussain Farooqi, who died in a four-hour gunbattle Sunday after vowing never to surrender. Farooqi was wanted for his alleged role in the 2002 beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and in two assassination attempts on the Pakistani president in December 2003. Three other Pakistanis, one of them an Islamic cleric, were arrested in the raid.

“We eliminated one of the very major sources of terrorist attacks. He was not only involved on attacks on me but also on attacks elsewhere in the country. So a very big terrorist has been eliminated,” Mr. Musharraf told reporters in the Netherlands while traveling home from New York.

“Together with him there have been some other arrests and we will get a lot of useful information leading to further arrests and eliminations, I am very sure,” Mr. Musharraf added. He did not identify those who had been captured.

– Associated Press

TAJ MAHAL CELEBRATES 350TH BIRTHDAY

NEW DELHI – The Taj Mahal, the monument to loss and love, celebrated its 350th birthday quietly yesterday amid fears that too much noise might damage its marble minarets.

A muted ceremony involving the release of colored balloons and a flock of whites doves above the city of Agra,125 miles south of Delhi, was all that marked the occasion.

India’s Supreme Court banned anything more rowdy after sound vibrations from a concert by the Greek musician Yanni were accused of harming the Taj in 1996.

Officials had planned a six-month “cultural extravaganza,” including a performance by the great sitar player Ravi Shankar. However, after much bickering between state and local governments they settled for a more lowkey affair.

Only 100 children watched yesterday’s celebration at the Agra Fort a mile away from the Taj Mahal’s white dome that rises from the banks of the Yamuna River.

India’s president, APJ Kalam, did not attend because of a “mix-up” over the date. Even the historians could not agree on whether India’s most popular tourist attraction, with about 3 million visitors each year, was really 350 years old. Several eminent Indian historians claim that the Taj Mahal, commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to commemorate his favorite wife, Mumtaz, was completed as early as 1643 or 1644.

– The Daily Telegraph

EASTERN EUROPE

PUTIN SUBMITS POLITICAL OVERHAUL TO PARLIAMENT

MOSCOW – President Putin put sweeping political changes in motion yesterday, sending to Russia’s Parliament a bill on eliminating the popular election of regional governors and district Parliament races.

Mr. Putin has explained the proposal is a necessary response to the Beslain school hostage seizure and other terror attacks, saying a strong federal government is needed to fend off threats. His opponents describe the reform as a deadly blow to Russia’s fledgling democracy.

The motion would abolish popular elections of regional governors, who instead would be nominated by the president and confirmed by local legislatures – a move critics said would further strengthen an authoritarian streak in Kremlin policy. Also under the bill, all elections to Parliament would be by party lists.

Mr. Putin told a Cabinet session yesterday that he would submit the bill to the lower house, the State Duma, later in the day. With the Kremlin-directed United Russia party having more than 300 seats in the 450-seat Duma, the house is expected to quickly rubber-stamp the proposal.

Duma Deputy Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said yesterday that the house would “immediately start working on the bill,” which he said was a “timely and necessary” measure to strengthen the government, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

– Associated Press

PERSIAN GULF

DEADLY ACCIDENT IN DUBAI’S AIRPORT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – A crane smashed into a wall during construction of an unfinished terminal at Dubai’s airport yesterday, and witnesses reported at least eight workers were killed.

Workers said they saw up to 40 injured people being taken away, but the toll could not be immediately confirmed. Airport spokeswoman Lavina Dixit Chatterjee issued a lower toll, saying five workers were killed and 12 were injured.

Two Dubai hospitals said they had received a total of 22 injured workers, including nine in serious condition.

At least eight people were killed at the scene and some died in the hospital, said an official of the building consortium Al-Naboodah Laing O’Rourke, the main contractor at the site. A senior official from Aeroports de Paris International, the French company appointed as the initial design consultant for the Terminal 3 expansion, said the accident occurred when a crane carrying a metal girder smashed into steel reinforcements supporting a concrete wall.

The girders fell as far as 60 feet onto workers below, said Marc Noyelle, chairman of the company’s engineering arm. Between 150 and 200 men were said to have been on the site at the time. “The wall fell down, and we all ran to help, but there wasn’t anything we could do,” said worker Daljinder Singh. “Rescue teams were very late in coming. It took them maybe one hour to arrive.”

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

BRITISH CONFECTIONERS TO PHASE OUT KING-SIZE CANDY

LONDON – Confectionery companies have agreed to phase out many king-size chocolate bars as part of the campaign against obesity. Production of the larger versions of Mars, Snickers, Crunchie, and Boost bars, weighing up to 3.5oz, will cease next year.

The concession is part of the food and drinks industry’s efforts to convince the Government that tough new laws on issues such as labeling, advertising to children, and school vending machines are unnecessary.

A Department of Health White Paper is expected to set out proposals later this year. It follows the House of Commons Health Select Committee’s warnings in May that Britain is facing an obesity “epidemic” and accusations that food companies aggressively market and advertise sweet and fatty junk foods to children.

Britain has the fastest growing obesity problem in the world, with the number of overweight children growing twice as quickly as in America, according to the British Heart Foundation.

The Food and Drink Federation will publish its Manifesto for Food and Health today, setting out the industry’s position in the debate. On portion sizes, one of seven key policy areas discussed in the document, members have committed themselves to “exploring new approaches for individual portion sizes to help reduce over-consumption.”

– The Daily Telegraph