CHINA: Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il arrived unannounced in Beijing yesterday. He went straight into talks on his nuclear weapons ambitions after Washington urged China to push to end the crisis.
Mr Kim, whose special train drew into Beijing after an overnight journey from Pyongyang, will be in China for up to four days. His entourage included 40 high-level ruling party, state and military officials.
He met President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao for lunch in the high-walled leaders' compound and for talks dominated by the nuclear crisis and the North's economic and food problems.
Solving the nuclear issue is key to unlocking outside aid to the ailing and isolated North Korean economy, including from China, the North's closest friend.
Mr Kim's trip, cloaked in the secrecy that traditionally surrounds his rare overseas journeys, comes less than a week after US Vice-President Dick Cheney warned that time was running out to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions that has gripped north Asia since late 2002.