Asian stocks up

Asian News: Asian stock markets rose Tuesday as tensions on the Korean peninsula eased a few notches.

Investors spent the previous day worried about possible North Korean retaliation against South Korean military drills on a frontline island that was shelled by the North last month. Instead, Pyongyang backed off threats to strike back and reportedly offered concessions on its nuclear program.Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average climbed 1.5 percent to 10,370.53 after the Bank of Japan kept monetary policy unchanged at the current super loose setting after a key survey last week showed deteriorating business sentiment.Japanese exporters climbed, with Sony Corp. up 2.7 percent and Canon Inc. adding 1.6 percent.Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 1.4 percent to 22,966.08. South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.8 percent to 2,037.09 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.8 percent at 4,771.90.China’s Shanghai Composite Index jumped 1.8 percent to 2,904.30. Markets in Taiwan, India, and Singapore also rose.In New York Monday, low trading volumes and a lack of economic reports kept stocks confined to a narrow range Monday. Indexes finished mixed and bond yields were barely changed.The Dow Jones industrial average fell 13.78, or 0.1 percent, to 11,478.13. The broader Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index rose 3.17, or 0.3 percent, to 1,247.08. The Nasdaq composite index gained 6.59, or 0.3 percent, to finish at 2,649.56.

Escalation of Korean tensions must be prevented: China

BEIJING: China’s foreign minister on Wednesday called for all parties involved in the Korean peninsula crisis to avoid actions that “inflame the situation”, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The comments came as the US and South Korean navies ended a major exercise in the Yellow Sea intended as a warning to North Korea following last week’s deadly artillery strike on the South — war games strongly opposed by China.

“The parties concerned should keep calm and exercise restraint, and work to bring the situation back onto the track of dialogue and negotiation,” the agency quoted Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as saying.

China had come under growing international pressure to step in forcefully to restrain the unpredictable regime in Pyongyang after the shelling, which left four people dead and led to increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Beijing has

Escalation of Korean tensions must be prevented: China

BEIJING: China’s foreign minister on Wednesday called for all parties involved in the Korean peninsula crisis to avoid actions that “inflame the situation”, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The comments came as the US and South Korean navies ended a major exercise in the Yellow Sea intended as a warning to North Korea following last week’s deadly artillery strike on the South — war games strongly opposed by China.

“The parties concerned should keep calm and exercise restraint, and work to bring the situation back onto the track of dialogue and negotiation,” the agency quoted Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as saying.

China had come under growing international pressure to step in forcefully to restrain the unpredictable regime in Pyongyang after the shelling, which left four people dead and led to increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Beijing has

Japan rebuffs China on 6-party N.Korea talks -Kyodo

TOKYO: Japan has told China that now is not the time to hold talks among the six countries cooperating to seek an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, Kyodo news service reported on Tuesday, citing Akitaka Saiki, Japan’s chief envoy to the six-party talks.

China said on Sunday it wanted emergency talks among the six parties to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula after the North’s shelling of a South Korean island.

The six parties are North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia . AGENCIES

US and South Korea Push Ahead With war Games

The sound of new artillery fire from North Korea just hours after the U.S. and South Korea launched a round of war games in Korean waters sent residents and journalists on a front-line island scrambling for cover Sunday.

None of the rounds landed on Yeonpyeong Island, military officials said, but the incident showed how tense and uncertain the situation remains along the Koreas’ disputed maritime border five days after a North Korean artillery attack decimated parts of the island and killed four South Koreans.

As the rhetoric from North Korea escalated, with new warnings of a “merciless” assault if further provoked, a top Chinese official made a last-minute visit to Seoul to confer with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Lee and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, a senior foreign policy adviser, discussed the North Korean attack and how to ease the tensions, according to Lee’s office. Dai also met with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, Choe Thae Bok, was due to visit Beijing starting Tuesday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said.

Washington and Seoul have urged China, North Korea’s main ally and biggest benefactor, to step in to defuse the situation amid fears of all-out war.

The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Their border is one of the world’s most heavily fortified, guarded by troops on both sides.

However, North Korea disputes the maritime border drawn by U.N. forces at the close of the war, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island — 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the South Korean port of Incheon but just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from the North Korean mainland — its territory.

The Koreas have fought three bloody naval skirmishes in the waters since 1999, as recently as a year ago. And eight months ago, a South Korean warship, which had been involved in one of those skirmishes, went down in an explosion, killing 46 sailors.

An international team of investigators concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank the ship. The two Koreas have remained locked in a standoff over that incident, with South Korea demanding a show of regret for the attack and North Korea denying any involvement.

Tuesday’s attack — on an island with a civilian population of 1,300 — marked a new level of hostility along the rivals’ disputed sea border. Two marines and two civilians were killed when the North rained artillery on Yeonpyeong Island in one of the worst assaults on South Korean territory since the Korean War.

The attack took place as North Korea carries out a delicate transfer of power from leader Kim Jong Il to a young, unproven son in what many see as the heir’s bid to win the military’s loyalty. It also may reflect Pyongyang’s frustration that it has been unable to force a resumption of stalled international talks on receiving aid in return for nuclear disarmament.

The attack also laid bare weaknesses in South Korea’s defenses against North Korea.

North Korea said Saturday that civilian deaths were “regrettable,” but blamed South Korea for staging military drills in the waters against Pyongyang’s warnings that it would consider such exercises a provocation.

Meanwhile, North Korea mounted surface-to-air SA-2 missiles on launch pads on a west coast base and aimed at South Koreean fighter jets flying near the western sea border, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified South Korean government source.

South Korea’s military said it couldn’t confirm the deployments. An official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North already deploys anti-ship missiles on its west coast bases.

The previously planned joint war games that U.S. and South Korea launched Sunday were sure to heighten the tensions.

Washington insists that the drills involving the nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier are routine and were planned well before last Tuesday’s attack.

The exercises kicked off Sunday morning when ships from both countries entered the exercise zone, an official with South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

However, a spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea said U.S. ships were still steaming toward the area and that the drills would not officially begin until later in the day.

North Korea has expressed outrage over the Yellow Sea drills involving a U.S. nuclear-powered supercarrier, and issued a fresh warning Sunday.

“We will launch merciless counter-military strikes against any provocative moves that infringe upon our country’s territorial waters,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Sunday’s burst of artillery fire in North Korea appeared to be the second in as many days.

Officials were investigating the exact location of Sunday’s artillery fire, an official with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

Asian stocks witness mixed trend

Asian stock markets turned in a mixed performance Thursday.
China and Korean markets remained up while bears ruled Hong Kong and Japan. Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific Index shed 0.9 percent; Nikkei Index lost 1.75 points. Topix Index shed 2.5 percent. On the contrary, Shanghai Composite Index added 1.42 percent.

Asian stocks witness mixed trend

Asian stock markets turned in a mixed performance Thursday.
China and Korean markets remained up while bears ruled Hong Kong and Japan. Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific Index shed 0.9 percent; Nikkei Index lost 1.75 points. Topix Index shed 2.5 percent. On the contrary, Shanghai Composite Index added 1.42 percent.

North Korea threatens nuclear ‘holy war’ if attacked

BEIJING: North Korea would answer any attack on it with a nuclear ‘holy war,’ the country’s ambassador to Cuba said, according to official Chinese media, while the North’s leader Kim Jong-il appeared to be visiting China.

The ambassador Kwon Sung-chol made the remarks on Friday at a ceremony marking 50 years of diplomatic ties between North Korea and Cuba, the same day that Pyongyang said it was open to returning to nuclear disarmament negotiations.

“If Washington and Seoul try to create a conflict on the Korean peninsula, we will respond with a holy war on the basis of our nuclear deterrent forces,” Kwon said, according to China’s Xinhua news agency on Saturday, in a story datelined Havana.

“Our government will strive for the denuclearization of the peninsula and the establishment of a lasting peace as the beginning of the reunification process of the two

N.Korea tells Carter wants to resume nuclear talks

SEOUL: North Korea’s number two leader has told former US President Jimmy Carter that the reclusive state is committed to denuclearising the peninsula and resuming six-way talks, the North’s state news agency said on Friday.

Carter left the North on Friday morning, KCNA said. The Carter Center in a statement from the former president said that he was leaving Pyongyang with an American who had been convicted of illegally entering the country.

“Kim Yong Nam expressed the will of the DPRK government for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the resumption of the six-party talks,” KCNA said, referring to the meeting of the North’s number two with Carter.

Carter’s visit took place amid heightened tensions on the peninsula after the torpedoing in March of a South Korean warship, which Seoul blames on the North and which prompted Washington to announce

NKorea threatens nuclear response to war games

SEOUL: North Korea Saturday threatened to respond with nuclear weapons to a major US-South Korean naval exercise starting this weekend, saying it was ready for a retaliatory sacred war.

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NKorea threatens nuclear response to war games

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