Talks with US could resume in weeks

Opp leader shaves head to protest minister

SEOUL, Sept 16, (AP): North Korea said Monday that diplomatic talks with the United States could resume in a “few weeks,” but that it will not consider abandoning its nuclear weapons unless external threats are fully removed.

A statement Monday attributed to a North Korean foreign ministry official said potential upcoming working-level talks would be decisive in determining the fate of the country’s diplomacy with Washington. It called for unspecified US security and economic concessions, saying the discussions of North Korea’s denuclearization will only be possible when “threats and hurdles endangering our system security and obstructing our development are clearly removed beyond all doubt.”

“Whether the DPRK-US negotiations will be a window for chance or an occasion to precipitate crisis is entirely up to the US,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Negotiations have stalled since a February summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, collapsed over disagreements over sanctions relief in exchange for disarmament measures.

The North has since expressed its displeasure through belligerent rhetoric and a flurry of short-range weapons tests that experts see as an attempt to dial up pressure on the US and South Korea and build leverage ahead of talks.

In a meeting with senior aides on Monday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who lobbied hard to set up the first meeting between Kim and Trump in June last year, said workinglevel negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang would resume “soon,” but didn’t offer specifics, including when or where.

North Korea has cut off virtually all diplomatic activity with the South amid the stalemate in nuclear negotiations while demanding that Seoul break away from Washington and restart inter-Korean economic projects held back by USled sanctions against the North.

“Our government will serve whatever

3 held over attack on temple:

Pakistani police say they have arrested three people after a mob of angry Muslims ransacked a Hindu temple over the weekend and damaged a school and several homes belonging to the minority community in the southwestern town of Ghotki. role and do whatever it can to stabilize peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said.

Last Monday, North Korean First Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said that the North is willing to resume nuclear diplomacy in late September but that Washington must come to the negotiating table with acceptable new proposals. She said if the proposals don’t satisfy North Korea, dealings between the two countries may end.

Choe’s offer for talks came hours before Kim supervised a testing-firing of what state media has described as a “super-large” multiple rocket launcher system. It was one of four new shortrange weapons systems the North unveiled in recent weeks that experts say could potentially expand the country’s ability to strike targets throughout South Korea, including US bases there.

Meanwhile, the leader of South Korea’s biggest opposition party on Monday became the latest politician to shave their heads to protest President Moon Jae-in’s appointment of a key political ally as justice minister despite allegations of academic fraud and financial crimes surrounding his family.

The controversy surrounding Cho Kuk, a law professor and Moon’s former secretary for civil affairs, has stained the president’s reformist image and caused a slide in his approval ratings.

Amid ceaseless camera clicks, an official from the conservative Liberty Korea Party shaved off party chairman Hwang Kyo-ahn’s hair in front of Seoul’s presidential palace, where Hwang called for Moon to sack Cho as justice minister.

Female lawmakers Park In-sook of the LKP and independent Lee Un-ju also shaved their heads in past weeks calling for Cho’s dismissal.

“This is my warning to President Moon Jae-in: Do not go against the will of the people any further,” said the buzz-cut Hwang, who served as prime minister for former conservative president Park Geun-hye before she was ousted from office and imprisoned in March 2017 over a corruption scandal.

“This is my ultimatum to Cho Kuk: Step down voluntarily from your post

The attack followed accusations that a Hindu school principal had insulted the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

District police chief Jamil Ahmed said Monday the principal, Notan Lal, is being investigated on blasphemy charges. Ahmed says Lal has denied the charges.

In this Sept 8, photo, Catholic churchgoers attend a Mass in Bangkok, Thailand. The Vatican said on Sept 13, Pope Francis will visit Thailand and Japan on Nov

19-26. (AP)

and receive an investigation from prosecutors,” Hwang added, receiving applause from LKP lawmakers, who were planning to protest in front of the Blue House until midnight.

The protest came hours after state prosecutors requested a warrant to formally arrest a relative of Cho, who was detained on Saturday over suspicions of fraud, embezzlement and attempting to destroy evidence linked to his management of a private equity fund financed by Cho’s family.

There are also allegations that Cho’s daughter received special treatment in her admissions to a top university in Seoul and a medical school in Busan, which struck a nerve in a country where teenagers toil in hyper-competitive school environments because graduating from elite universities is seen as crucial to career prospects.

Prosecutors also have indicted Cho’s wife, Chung Kyung-shim, on suspicions of manipulating an award issued to her daughter from a university in the southern city of Yeongju where she works as a professor.

Cho, who for years built an image as a reform-minded anti-elitist, denied legal wrongdoing during an intense 11-hour news conference with reporters and a hearing to lawmakers earlier this month.

Moon appointed Cho as justice minister last week, saying it would set a “bad precedent” if he withdraws a ministerial nominee based on unproven allegations.

The controversy surrounding Cho has cut into the approval ratings of Moon, who also faces pressure over a decaying job market, an uphill trade war with Japan and a fragile diplomacy with nuclear-armed North Korea that is beginning to show signs of falling apart.

In a poll of some 1,000 South Korean adults by Gallup Korea released earlier this month, about 49% of the respondents said they disapproved of Moon’s performance in state affairs, compared to 44% who thought he was doing a good job. Nearly 60% of the respondents opposed Cho as justice minister. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Blasphemy carries the death penalty under the law in Muslim-majority Pakistan. (AP)

India searches for 35 tourists:

Indian navy divers on Monday joined a massive search for 35 Indian tourists missing after a double-decker sightseeing boat capsized in a flooded river in southern India, drowning at least 12 people.

Andhra Pradesh state Home Minister M. Sucharitha said authorities closed the sluice gates of a river barrage to prevent those missing from being swept into the Bay of Bengal. Twenty-six people were rescued after the accident on Sunday.

About 300 rescuers from the state police and the National Disaster Relief Force resumed the search operation Monday morning after an overnight halt. (AP)

Pakistan ‘violated’ ceasefire:

India accused Pakistan of violating ceasefire agreement more than 2,050 times this year and killing 21 Indians.

In a statement, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said “we have highlighted our concerns at unprovoked ceasefire violations by Pakistan forces, including in support of cross border terrorist infiltration, and targeting of Indian civilians and border posts by them.

This year they have resorted to more than 2,050 unprovoked ceasefire violations in which 21 Indians died.” (KUNA)