NAPSNet Daily Report 26 August, 2010
Contents in this Issue:
1. Sino-DPRK Relations
Reuters (Jeremy Laurence and Brett Cole, “KIM JONG-IL MAKES SURPRISE CHINA VISIT: SOURCES”, Seoul, 2010/08/27) reported that DPRK leader Kim Jong-il is visiting the PRC possibly with his son and heir apparent, ROK government sources said. “Kim Jong-il is traveling through China by train, but we have no information as to whether his son is accompanying him,” a presidential source told Reuters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100826/wl_nm/us_korea_north
2. Food Aid for DPRK
Yonhap (Sam Kim, “UN WFP FEEDING FEWER N. KOREAN CHILDREN AS DONATION SHRINKS: DIRECTOR”, Seoul, 2010/08/26) reported that the World Food Program is struggling to keep its project of feeding malnourished children in the DPRK from shrinking, its director for the communist state said in an interview on Thursday. Torben Due, who represents the WFP office in Pyongyang, said his organization set out to raise US$500 million two years ago to provide basic nutrition for DPRK children. In reality, what the WFP ended up with was $100 million. “We had to reduce (our program) because we could see we would not get the money. We had to design a program small and realistic in terms of what we would be able to do,” he said.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2010/08/26/92/0401000000AEN20100826008400315F.HTML
3. Japan on Nuclear Disarmament
Kyodo (“HIROSHIMA MAYOR OFFERS TO HOST 2011 DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE”, Manila, 2010/08/26) reported that Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba on Thursday offered his city as the venue for a conference planned for next year by various governments on nuclear disarmament. ”Holding such a conference in Hiroshima would add to its significance. Those who attend the conference will gain a heightened sense of urgency,” Akiba told a gathering in Manila organized by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. Akiba said the conference will mark the start of ”the conclusion of an international treaty banning nuclear weapons in time to eliminate those weapons by 2020,” as targeted by the group he leads called Mayors for Peace.
https://www.opensource.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_0_200_203_121123_43/content/Display/JPP20100826147003#index=32&searchKey=1058688&rpp=10
4. Japan’s Nuclear Exports
Nikkei (“WITH EXPORTS AT STAKE, JAPAN PUSHES NUCLEAR POWER IN VIETNAM”, Hanoi, 2010/08/26) reported that Japan is going all-out to market its nuclear power plants to Vietnam, seeing a successful outcome as crucial to future exports in the field. Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Masayuki Naoshima met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Wednesday, in addition to senior officials of the nation’s Communist Party, to urge Vietnam to place orders with Japanese companies for two planned nuclear reactors.
5. PRC Environment
Xinhua (“CHINA PLANTS GREEN BELT TO STOP DESERTS MERGING”, Beijing, 2010/08/26) reported that the PRC has just kicked off an ambitious project to plant a green belt between the country’s third and fourth largest deserts to stop them converging, said a forestry official in northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Thursday. “It’s the first time in China that a green belt is being planted between two deserts. The project is expected to take five years to plant a 202-km long and 5- to 15-km wide stripe of vegetation between Badain Jaran Desert and Tengger Desert,” said Wang Xiaodong, a forestry official in Araxan League.
http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2010-08/26/content_20801344.htm