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Friday, January 7, 2011
Massive cruise liner docks in Cuba to much fanfare PAGE 6
JAL discontinues flight, Japanese tourists to Bali drop by 32 percent PAGE 8
(AP Photo/ Lee Hae-yrong, Yonhap)
South Korean Army’s 155 mm howitzers fire during a military drill near the demilitarized zone, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Chulwon, north of Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 3, 2011.
“Twilight” and Katy Perry among People’s Choice winners PAGE 12
N.Korea is calling for ‘unconditional’ talks with South Agence France Presse
SEOUL - North Korea offered “unconditional” talks with the South Wednesday, in its most conciliatory remarks since the nuclear-armed state sent tensions on the peninsula soaring by shelling a South Korean island. In an unusually cordial statement, carried by its KCNA agency, North Korea said the communist nation “courteously proposes having wide-ranging dialogue and negotiations.”
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Pyongyang is “ready to meet anyone anytime anywhere”, it said, calling for “unconditional and early opening of talks” a m o n g o ffi c i a l s w i t h “ r e a l power and responsibility.” The remarks were out of character
for the reclusive regime led by Kim Jong-il, which regularly issues diatribes condemning Seoul as a puppet of the warmongering US. But South Korean officials were dismissive of the comments.
“What’s more important is sincerity in North Korea’s attitude,” an unnamed official from Seoul’s unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, told Yonhap news agency. South Korea has regularly stressed that progress depends
on the North’s actions, rather than its words. As well as the artillery strike, Pyongyang has also heightened security fears by disclosing a uranium enrichment plant, which specialists say could be used to develop materials for atomic weapons, to visiting US nuclear experts. Washington echoed Seoul’s response, saying that the North had to take “useful steps” to show that its proposal was serious. Continued on page 6
Sightseeing bus crashes in northern India, 22 dead Associated Press Writer
LUCKNOW, India – A sightseeing bus overturned and plunged into a gorge, killing 22 Indian tourists and injuring 12 others who were visiting a hill town at the foot of the Himalayas in northern India, officials said Thursday. Among the 22 killed were 13 children, Uttarakhand state spokesman Mahendra Singh Tamta said. Four of 12 people hospitalized were in serious condition.
The private bus was one of eight hired to take Haridwar city traders on a picnic in Mussoorie, a popular tourist town surrounded by green hills and snowy mountain ranges about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the state capital, Dehradun. The bus was carrying 52 people back to Haridwar late Wednesday when it flipped over at a curve in the road and rolled down the gorge, landing upside down, Tamta said. Using ropes and a ladder to climb down into the gorge, local villagers
and government rescue officials worked for hours to bring the injured and the dead back up to the road. The driver, who initially fled the scene, was arrested Thursday, Tamta said. A witness told officials that several passengers had asked the driver to slow down before the accident, he said. Shops in Haridwar were closed Thursday as the city mourned the dead. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokheriyal visited the injured at Dehradun’s hospital and pledged to give each 50,000 rupees ($1,000).
He said the families of those killed would receive twice that amount. Mussoorie, also known as Queen of the Hills, sits at an altitude of 6,170 feet (1,880 meters). Road accidents are common in India, which has the world’s highest annual road death toll, according to the World Health Organization. More than 110,000 people die each year across the country in traffic accidents caused by speeding, bad roads, overcrowding and poor vehicle maintenance, according to police.