NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, June 20, 2007

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NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, June 20, 2007

NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, June 20, 2007

I. NAPSNet

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. NAPSNet

1. US on Six Party Talks

Reuters (“U.S. SEES NORTH KOREA TALKS RESUMING EARLY JULY”, 2007-06-20) reported that six-party talks could resume in early July and be followed by a meeting of their foreign ministers, the top US nuclear envoy said. But US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill also said Pyongyang would first need to move on shutting down its nuclear reactor as agreed under a February 13 deal clinched at the last round of the six-party talks. “We don’t want to have the six-party talks before we’ve gotten going on shutting down the reactor,” Hill told reporters.

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2. ROK on Six Party Talks

Yonhap News (“SEOUL OPPOSES “HASTY” RESUMPTION OF N. KOREA NUCLEAR TALKS: FM SONG “, 2007-06-20) reported that Foreign Minister Song Min-soon Wednesday opposed any idea of hastily reopening the six-party talks on DPRK’s denuclearization. In a weekly briefing, Song said his country welcomed the release of the DPRK’s US$25 million from Macau’s Banco Delta Asia, “opening the way for the six-party talks to move forward.” But he said the talks should not reopen until significant progress is expected, noting that no date has been set for the resumption of the nuclear negotiations.

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3. Inter-Korean Economic Relations

Yonhap News (“FOUR S. KOREAN COMPANIES CANCEL CONTRACTS FOR LAND USE IN KAESONG “, 2007-06-20) reported that four RO Korean companies have canceled their contracts for the use of land at an inter-Korean industrial complex in the DPRK border city of Kaesong for unknown reasons, officials said. The cancellations come amid growing concerns about stalled negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, which critics fear might endanger, in the worst-case scenario, the status of the inter-Korean joint economic project, the brainchild of the unprecedented inter-Korean summit in 2000.

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4. DPRK Human Rights Abuses

Korea Times (“NK DEFECTORS TESTIFY BEFORE BRITISH OPPOSITION PARTY”, 2007-06-20) reported that two DPR Korean defectors testified before the British parliament about the life in DPR Korean gulags, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday, quoting Christian group officials. The meeting came after Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), the organizer of the event, issued a report accusing DPRK of human rights violations, including crimes against humanity. CSW is a UK-based human rights organization, which specializes in religious freedom. Ahn, who served as a prison guard in four DPR Korean detention camps from 1987 to 1994, is a key witness to the policies and practices of the camps. Having worked in the gulags, where the harshest form of political prison camps are found, Ahn described how prisoners are forced to labor until they die. “I can’t give you an exact number of political prisoners in North Korea, but I understand that there are about 200,000 prisoners in five camps,” Ahn said.

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5. PRC Gas Emissions

International Herald Tribune (“CHINA OVERTAKES U.S. IN GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS”, 2007-06-20) reported that the PRC overtook the US in 2006 as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas blamed for the bulk of global warming, a policy group that advises the Dutch government said. PRC produced 6,200 million tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and making cement last year, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said. That pushed it past the US, which produced 5,800 million tons of the gas, the agency said.

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6. PRC Food Safety Standards

International Herald Tribune (“CHINA PLEDGES TO BEEF UP FOOD-SAFETY STANDARDS”, 2007-06-20) reported that the PRC’s regulatory standards chief pledged to update and enhance enforcement of food-safety rules, as the country faces intense international pressure for exporting unsafe products from toothpaste to pet food ingredients. Chinese-made toothpaste has been rejected by several countries from Latin America to Asia while Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the industrial chemical melamine was blamed for dog and cat deaths in North America. Other products turned away by US inspectors include toxic monkfish, frozen eel and juice made with unsafe coloring additives. “China will speed up revisions to national and industry standards on farm produce and processed food products,” Liu Pingjun, chief of the National Standardization Management Commission, said in a statement.

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7. Sino-Japan Relations

Reuters (“CHINA’S HU HIGHLIGHTS HOPES FOR JAPAN TIES “, 2007-06-20) reported that PRC President Hu Jintao held out hopes for closer ties with Japan, state media reported. Long-standing strains between Tokyo and Beijing have eased since Shinzo Abe became Japan’s prime minister last year and visited China less than two weeks after taking office. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan in April, continuing what he called an “ice-thawing” improvement.”Developing long-term and stable neighborly friendship and cooperation between China and Japan is the shared popular will,” he said.

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8. Sino-US Relations

China Daily (“US, CHINA HOLD TALKS MEANT TO EASE TENSIONS”, 2007-06-20) reported that the second-ranking US diplomat welcomed his Chinese counterpart to the State Department on Wednesday for two days of talks meant to ease tensions and strengthen ties between the US and the PRC. The United States will push hard in this fourth session of the “US-China Senior Dialogue” for PRC cooperation in pressuring Iran over its nuclear program and in pressing Sudan to end violence in its Darfur region, analysts say. Beijing will be keen to ensure there is no change in US policy toward Taiwan. Their talks will cover a wide range of issues facing the two countries, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, including political, military and human rights matters, and “the critical problems facing both of us, like Darfur.”

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9. US-Japan Trade Relations

Yonhap News (“S. KOREA, U.S. TO BEGIN RENEGOTIATION OF FREE TRADE DEAL AMID CRITICISM “, 2007-06-20) reported that the RO Korean and US trade negotiators, having struck a free trade agreement in early April, will sit down again on Thursday to revise parts of the deal to improve the chances of it being approved by the US Congress. Critics in the ROK are slamming the renegotiations as kowtowing to US demands and giving unilateral advantages to American companies. The RO Korean government, which had previously said such revisions were impossible, is insisting on describing the renegotiation as “additional negotiation.” “It’s a painful reality because South Korea is forced by a one-sided demand from the U.S. to renegotiate parts of the current negotiation results,” Choi Won-mok, professor of law at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University wrote. In protest, about 10,000 RO Korean farmers took to the streets of the capital, demanding the government scrap the US free trade pact which they say will destroy their lives due to an influx of cheaper American farm goods.

(return to top) JoongAng Daily (“KOREA-U.S. TRADE PACT ATTRACTING AUTOMAKERS”, 2007-06-20) reported that The free trade pact between the ROK and the US is already impacting the automobile industry. Buyers visiting the first Global Transportech convention, held for three days ending today at CECO, the convention center in the machinery city of Changwon are hinting that chances of RO Korean companies becoming their suppliers will increase if the FTA is ratified. “We had China [and] India as our sourcing destination,” said Scott Low, who is responsible for the emerging market sourcing program at Ford, “but we decided to include Korea in the pool. Nothing is decided yet, but Korean parts will be more cost effective without the tariff, [which was] made possible by the FTA.” (return to top)

10. Japan Mission in Iraq

Bloomberg (“JAPAN’S UPPER HOUSE APPROVES TWO-YEAR EXTENSION OF IRAQ MISSION “, 2007-06-20) reported that Japan’s upper house of parliament passed legislation extending the deployment of the country’s Air Self-Defense Forces in Iraq for two years. The Iraq special measures law that enabled Japan to dispatch troops to Iraq from January 2004 was approved by the lower house on May 15 and extends the mission until July 2009. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo that he was “pleased” the bill had been approved.

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