SEOUL, Apr 17: South Korea has expressed support for the UN Security Council decision to tighten sanctions on North Korea for its botched rocket launch, and called for Pyongyang to refrain from further provocations.
The UN Security Council yesterday ordered tightened sanctions on the communist North over its rocket launch last week and warned of new action if the isolated state stages a nuclear test.
Seoul’s foreign ministry, in a statement released late yesterday, said it supported the move and urged the North to “stop provocations that could threaten peace and security of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia.”
“The North should clearly realise that the international community” had adopted “a resolute and unified stance on its (rocket) launch,” it said, and also called for Pyongyang to honour existing UN resolutions.
The impoverished but nuclear-armed North, led by its new young ruler Kim Jong-Un, Friday launched what it claimed was a satellite-carrying rocket to mark the centenary of the birth of its late founding president, Kim Il-Sung.
Countries including the US and the South view it as a disguised long-range ballistic missile test banned under UN resolutions.
The launch—staged amid widespread international condemnation—failed when the rocket exploded two minutes after blast-off.
The 15-member UN Security Council—including the North’s closest ally China and nuclear-armed Pakistan—“strongly condemned” the launch in a statement which highlighted “grave security concerns” in Asia.
The council ordered new “entities and items” to be added within two weeks to the sanctions committee list created after North Korea staged nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. Both were staged one to three months after missile tests.
It also ordered the sanctions committee to revise the individuals and North Korean firms subject to asset freezes under the international measures.
North Korea has not issued yet an official response to the new UN actions. (AGENCIES)

BEIJING, Apr 17: China has endorsed the strongly worded UN Security Council statement condemning the botched rocket launch by its close ally North Korea and called for more dialogue and consultations.
The UN Security Council statement was a result of consultations by all members of the body and reflects the basic consensus of the international community, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Liu Weimin said.
“It has been proven that dialogue and consultations are the only correct way to solve problems,” Liu said in a statement.
His remarks came after the 15-nation UN body issued a presidential statement stating that North Korea’s failed April 13 rocket launch has raised “grave security concerns” and demanded that Pyongyang fully comply with relevant Security Council resolutions.
Liu said China participated in the Security Council consultations in a responsible and constructive way and it believes that the Council should make “more efforts to promote dialogue and maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.
The Chinese government believes it is in the common interest of all relevant parties to resume the six-party talks and continue to make efforts to denuclearise the peninsula, he said.
“China is willing to keep in close touch with all parties concerned to push the six-party talks forward and make unswerving efforts to realise long-lasting peace on the peninsula,” state-run Xinhua quoted him as saying.
Analysts said Beijing’s endorsement of the resolution indicates China was not pleased with the North Korean government’s decision to go ahead with the satellite launch, jeopardising its recent agreement with US to get 21000 tonnes food aid.
Washington has cancelled that agreement following the missile launch to put a satellite into orbit, which failed midway.
Chinese officials also indicated that Beijing was trying to prevail on the North Korean government to not go for the much speculated nuclear test to compensate for the failed launch of the satellite. (PTI)

SALMON, IDAHO, Apr 17: A welder’s torch ignited a small fire on the roof of a building at nuclear research laboratory in Idaho on Monday, prompting an evacuation, but no one was hurt and no radioactive material was involved, lab officials said.
Nearly 100 employees were cleared from the building, part of a complex that includes facilities housing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory, the US Energy Department’s leading facility for nuclear reactor technology.
The fire damaged 0.4 square meter of the roof and was extinguished about 2-1/2 hours after smoke was first detected, the lab said in a statement yesterday.
No radioactive material was affected or involved in the fire, and there was no release of radiation, the lab said.
The complex of buildings where the fire erupted sits near the edge of the sprawling 890-square-mile lab site in the high desert of eastern Idaho, about 61 km fr om the city of Idaho Falls.
In November 2011, 16 Idaho lab workers in an adjacent building were exposed to radiation during an accident that occurred while they were preparing to remove an old plutonium fuel cell from a decommissioned reactor.
The building whose roof caught fire yesterday houses research laboratories but no spent fuel or radioactive waste, lab spokeswoman Misty Benjamin told Reuters.
Several thousand employees and contractors work at the Idaho National Laboratory, the US Energy Department’s leading facility for nuclear reactor technology. (Agencies)

BODE, NEPAL, Apr 17: Pressing his palms together, Jujubhai Basan Shrestha raises his hands, acknowledging greetings from the cheering crowd of devotees and onlookers.
Sporting a white turban, the 31-year-old sits on a chair as a man inserts a 33 cm metal skewer through his tongue in a centuries-old ritual in this poor settlement, 12 km east of Kathmandu.
The scene at the weekend, on the second day of Nepal’s New Year, was unique to Bode, a sleepy village of 8,000 people from the devout Newar community, who are thought to have been the early settlers of the saucer-like Kathmandu valley.
A crowd of thousands jostled for a glimpse as young dancers twirled in the dust of vermillion powder, beating cymbals and banging drums in a frenzied performance.
‘This is to keep our culture alive,’ said Shrestha, who teaches fine arts in a local school and spoke to Reuters before the ritual started. Behind him, his wife sat on a bed and painted the eyes of their three-month-old son with kohl paste.
‘Performance of this ritual saves the inhabitants of Bode from disasters like earthquake, severe drought and famine.’
Some medical experts say tongue piercing may result in big gaps between front teeth or complications like infections.
But Shrestha, who had his tongue pierced for the fourth time on Saturday, said his motivation came from his faith and he had not experienced any problems so far.
‘I always wanted to marry before I started piercing my tongue,’ Shrestha said. ‘Now I have a wife as well as a son. The god fulfils your wishes.’
MYTH AND FAITH
The origin of the ritual lies with tales of a devil that harassed the residents of Bode more than 1,600 years ago.
Legend has it that a religious scholar captured the evil spirit through his tantra, or the knowledge of ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts, keeping him in custody for several days.
The spirit was freed after he had his tongue pierced in punishment and swore to protect the villagers from disasters. The ritual is believed to have been repeated every year since.
In preparation, Shrestha abstained from sex for two days and fasted for 48 hours. On Saturday, he shaved his head.
The ritual was performed in front of a small temple of the elephant god, Ganesh, worshipped for good luck.
‘There is no pain, no scar and no bleeding, although it looks chilling,’ said Krishna Chandra Baga, the man who inserted the metal rod through Shrestha’s tongue.
‘This is due to the divine power. Otherwise how can this be possible,’ said Baga, who had his own tongue pierced 12 times.
In Bode, women in red saris with thin streaks of crimson red powder in their hairlines threw auspicious offerings of rice and flowers at Shrestha, who went round the village for over two hours before the metal rod was pulled out.
The scene wowed tourists.
‘It is scary but very impressive,’ said Sophie, a 31-year-old French tourist from Paris. ‘You have to be very strong in your mind to do this. I would be really scared.’
(agencies)

WASHINGTON, Apr 17: Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney leads President Barack Obama by two points in the first national daily tracking poll in run up to November presidential elections.
While Romney is supported by 47 per cent of national registered voters, Obama has backing 45 per cent in the inaugural Gallup Daily tracking results from April 11-15. However, this comes within the three per cent margin of error.
Notably, 65-year-old Romney is yet to be formally declared the Republican presidential nominee.
Gallup said this initial report is based on interviews with 2,265 registered voters, and highlights the potential closeness of this year’s race, with Romney and Obama essentially in a statistical tie.
Gallup’s previous general election trial heat, from a national poll conducted March 25-26, showed Obama with a slight 49 per cent to 45 per cent lead over Romney.
However, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, Obama leads Romney by three per cent nationally, although the average doesn’t take into account the latest Gallup numbers. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Apr 17: Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney today asked President Barack Obama to “start packing”, showing confidence that he would be able to defeat the incumbent in the November presidential elections.
“Well, start packing. That’s what I’d like to say,” 65-year-old Romney told ABC News in an interview when asked what his message to the US President was.
“Obviously we have a very different view. The President, I’m sure wants another four years, but the first few didn’t go so well,” he said.
Romney said Obama’s policies have not helped the American people. “They have not helped get jobs, they have not helped raise incomes and they’ve added trillions of dollars of debt.”
“He has guided America in the wrong direction, and it’s time for us to return to the principles of freedom and opportunity that got this nation where it is today,” he said.
His wife, Ann Romney, also had a message for Obama. “I believe it’s Mitt’s time. It’s our turn now,” she said.
“We don’t divide America based upon success and wealth and other dimensions of that nature. We’re one nation under God. This is a time when people of different backgrounds and different experiences need to come together. I happen to believe that I’m by far the best qualified in this race between myself and President Obama,” Romney said.
He alleged that Obama would try to divert the attention of Americans.
“The president is going to try and do everything possible to divert from the attention being focused upon his record as president and the failure of his economic policies. So he’s going to try to make this campaign about the fact that I’ve been successful, that I’ve made a lot of money,” he said. (PTI)

CANBERRA, Apr 17: Australia will start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this year and expects all international forces there to be playing a supporting role for Afghan forces by mid-2013, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today.
Gillard will take her timetable for Australia’s troop to withdraw a year earlier than planned to a NATO conference on Afghanistan in Chicago in May.
‘I am now confident that Chicago will recognise mid-2013 as a key milestone in the international strategy,’ Gillard said in a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
‘A crucial point when the international forces will be able to move to a supporting role across all of Afghanistan.’
All foreign combat troops are due to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and Australia had been expected to withdraw then too.
But US President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders are expected to define more clearly Western withdrawal plans at the Chicago conference and outline measures to ensure Afghanistan does not collapse into civil war when foreign troops go home.
Gillard rejected suggestions the faster timetable was being driven by Obama and his desire to have withdrawal plans finalised before the November US presidential election, saying it was reliant on progress agreed by Afghan and international forces.
A major assault in Kabul by the Taliban this week has raised questions about whether Afghan forces will be able to control security after foreign troops withdraw.
Gillard said she expected President Hamid Karzai to make an announcement on the transition in the coming months, and that it would take twelve to eighteen months to complete the pull-out.
Australia would argue at the Chicago summit for broad and substantial international support in Afghanistan, Gillard said.
‘I will go to Chicago prepared for Australia to pay our fair share. Australia will also be prepared to provide niche training to the Afghan national security forces after 2014,’ she said.
More than 10 years after the Taliban government was toppled following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. administration appears settled on a steady withdrawal of most of its troops by the end of 2014, leaving only a small US force to advise Afghan forces and conduct targeted strikes against militants.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing a difficult re-election campaign, has announced he would pull French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013.
US forces number about 90,000 among the 130,000-strong NATO-led force. France has 3,600 troops in Afghanistan and Britain 9,500. Australia has about 1,550.
With 32 Australian soldiers killed and hundreds wounded, the Australian government is under mounting pressure to withdraw troops, and faces an expected election next year which Gillard is forecast to lose. (agencies)