Workers denied access to North Korea
April 3, 2013 - 1:21PM
Sangwon Yoon
South Korean workers were denied access to an industrial park jointly run with North Korea for the first time since 2009, Park Soo Jin, a spokeswoman for South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
Contact is made daily with North Korea at 8am to allow South Korean workers to enter the Gaeseong industrial zone. On Wednesday, no response had been received as of 9.30 am, Ms Park said.
The development follows North Korea's announcement on Tuesday night that it intended to restart a nuclear reactor that was shut down in 2007 as part of a disarmament deal.
ALKANS
EU-mediated talks between Serbia and Kosovo end without deal
Talks between Serbia and Kosovo aimed at normalizing their relations have ended without an agreement. The result is likely to deal a tough blow to Serbia's European Union membership aspirations.
"The gap between the two sides is very narrow, but deep," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said early Wednesday in Brussels after mediating more than 12 hours of talks.
Ashton said the negotiations - the eighth between the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo - had been "the last time we will meet formally."
Seleka rebel convoy receives mixed reactions in CAR
Some people in the Central African Republic have applauded a cavalcade of Seleka rebels while others remain distrustful after looting by both sides.
The convoy of 40 men, led by Colonel Djouma Narkoyo, left the capital Bangui for Mbaiki, about 80km to the south, with a mission to find out what was going on in the region, where abuses were still being committed against civilians and where troops of the regular army Faca were scattered in the bush.
At Pissa, about 50km from the capital, the convoy stops. Local residents run away, wary of the armed men who toppled François Bozizé on March 24 after an offensive that began in December.
The rebels call them back. Colonel "Johnson", named for a one-time rebel leader in Liberia with whom he bears a passing resemblance, hands out money to children. He is swiftly surrounded by about 100 people calling out "Seleka, Seleka!" and hoping to be given some cash.
Colombia: Activist deaths and postponed peacetalks highlight struggle over land
Three advocates and leftist political organizers were killed across Colombia last month, as FARC and government negotiators announced an unscheduled recess in peace talks until late April.
By Sibylla Brodzinsky, Correspondent / April 2, 2013
At least two peasant leaders in Colombia have been murdered in the past several weeks, heightening concerns about the security of opposition figures and human rights defenders as the government and leftist rebels try to negotiate an end to the country’s nearly 50-year-old internal conflict.
The head of the Colombia office of the United Nations’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Todd Howland, said in a statement that he was “very concerned” about the murders and called on authorities to fully investigate the crimes.
Ermes Vidal, a victims’ rights leader who was fighting to recover the farm he was forced to flee in the northwestern province of Cordoba, disappeared on March 21 after receiving numerous death threats.
Gaza cease-fire unraveling amid renewed air attacks
By Edmund Sanders
JERUSALEM -- A 4-month-old cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip appeared to be collapsing early Wednesday after militants fired projectiles into southern Israel and the Israel Defense Forces responded with airstrikes against two targets in northern Gaza.
No injuries were reported in either attack.
The exchanges marked the first airstrike by Israel into Gaza since an eight-day offensive in November that led to the deaths of at least 168 Palestinians and six Israelis.
The militants' attack late Tuesday night, which might have been in response to the cancer death of a Palestinian prisoner that day, was the third time militants in Gaza have fired into Israel since November.
Questions swarm around synthetic biology's impact on Mother Nature
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Conservationists say it's high time to consider whether synthetic biology will solve some of the huge problems that beset endangered species, or bring new problems. It just might do both.
"Synthetic biology brings with it a powerful attraction, causing biology to veer towards engineering with its inherent approach of human problem solving," three experts on biodiversity and conservation say in this week's issue of PLOS Biology. "It may prove to be a cure for certain wicked problems. But we suggest that now is the time to consider whether synthetic biology may be a wicked solution, creating problems of its own, some of which may be undesirable or even unacceptable in the area of biodiversity conservation."
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