EAST ASIA

NORTH KOREA AGREES TO RESUME NUCLEAR TALKS

In a diplomatic breakthrough, the Bush administration said yesterday it had wooed North Korea back to negotiations on the Koreans’ nuclear weapons program, though a date had not been set for reopening the long-stalled talks.

In New York, China’s U.N. ambassador said six-nation talks were likely to resume in the next few weeks in Beijing. Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters the talks were the best way to resolve the nuclear standoff and said he was hopeful progress would be made.

The negotiations, in which America and four other countries want to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, have been dormant for a year despite the North’s promise to meet again last September. The turnabout followed a stream of North Korean invective directed at the Bush administration – but also came after a Pentagon threat to try to punish North Korea in the U.N. Security Council was withdrawn. The threat is not off the table, though. Taking the dispute to the council “is an option we always reserve for when we think it’s appropriate,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters on Capitol Hill.

– Associated Press

AFRICA

BUSH PLEDGES TO WORK WITH BLAIR ON DEBT RELIEF FOR AFRICA

WASHINGTON – President Bush pledged yesterday to work with Prime Minister Blair to forgive the debt of developing African nations and defended the American stance on global warming that is at odds with many of America’s allies.

“In terms of climate change, I’ve always said it’s a serious long-term issue that needs to be dealt with,” Mr. Bush said. But he fell far short of Mr. Blair’s call for specific action, saying, “We want to know more about it.”

Bush has long opposed the 1997 Kyoto treaty ratified by 140 nations but not America.

Standing alongside Mr. Blair, Mr. Bush also for the first time addressed a 2002 memo to the prime minister from a top British intelligence official suggesting that America had bent intelligence to justify a decision to invade Iraq and had sought British cooperation. “There’s nothing farther from the truth,” Mr. Bush said. “Both of us didn’t want to use our military. It was our last option.”

– Associated Press

CENTRAL ASIA

BOMBING SIGNALS AL QAEDA EFFORTS TO DESTABILIZE ELECTIONS

KABUL, Afghanistan – A mosque suicide bombing and an attempt to down an American aircraft signaled the start of attempts by Al Qaeda and the Taliban to destabilize legislative elections, the presidential spokesman said yesterday.

The warning by President Karzai’s spokesman, Jawed Ludin, of efforts to derail the September 18 elections follows a surge in violence, with more than 200 suspected rebels killed in three months, according to American and Afghan officials.

Mr. Ludin said a June 1 suicide bombing at a mosque in the southern city of Kandahar that killed 20 people and the attempt to shoot down an American aircraft with a shoulder-launched missile on the same day were aimed “to create maximum effect … maximum shock among the people.”

“The remnants of the Taliban, Al Qaeda elements … have chosen this time to obviously set a plot in motion,” he said. “They may have gathered all their resources.”

The governor of Kandahar said the suicide attacker was an Arab Al Qaeda member and cited an intelligence report indicating teams from the terror network had entered Afghanistan to launch attacks.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL EUROPE

LEGISLATORS ELECT OPPOSITION CANDIDATE AS PRESIDENT

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Legislators narrowly elected a center-right opposition candidate as Hungary’s new president yesterday in a setback for the governing coalition, which is already trailing in polls for 2006 parliamentary elections.

A former chief justice who headed the Constitutional Court when it made decisions crucial to the transition to democracy after communism, Laszlo Solyom, won the vote 185-182. He defeated Parliamentary Speaker Katalin Szili, nominated by the Socialist Party which leads the government coalition.

“The result is an unequivocal loss of prestige for the coalition,” a political analyst, Gyorgy Bence, said. Government parties already are trailing behind the main center-right opposition group, Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union, in the polls and face an uphill struggle before parliamentary elections set for May 2006.

During a brief speech in parliament, Mr. Solyom emphasized the conciliatory nature of his office. “My constitutional responsibility is to represent the unity of the nation and to express the unity of the elected representatives,” he said. After his speech, he told reporters he intended to be a “passive, strict president who speaks little.”

– Associated Press