KUALA LUMPUR: Japan and North Korea got off to a rough start in high-profile talks yesterday but agreed to keep talking about the two key issues of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme and Japanese citizens abducted decades ago.
The two-day talks, the first full-scale negotiations between Tokyo and the reclusive communist state in two years, come as international pressure mounts on Pyongyang to scrap a nuclear arms programme it has pursued in violation of a 1994 agreement. - (Reuters)
Nigeria not to allow death by stoning
LAGOS: Nigeria said yesterday it would never allow the implementation of a series of Islamic sharia law death-by-stoning verdicts, in an apparent bid to reassure beauty queens threatening to boycott this year's Miss World pageant.
Junior Foreign Minister. Dubem Onyia singled out the case of Amina Lawal Kurami, a 31-year-old Muslim woman whose sentencing to death by stoning for adultery sparked worldwide outrage. - (Reuters)
Victory for Tokyo anti-traffic lobby
TOKYO: Anti-traffic campaigners in Tokyo won a landmark legal victory yesterday when a court awarded them $593,000 for illnesses caused by exhaust fumes.
Rejecting the authorities' claims that the capital had overcome its pollution problem, the Tokyo district court ordered both city and central governments to pay between $24,000 and $224,000 compensation to seven asthma sufferers. - (Reuters)
Zambia will not accept GM food
ZAMBIA: Zambia set a controversial precedent for developing countries yesterday by confirming that it would not accept genetically modified relief food despite the threat of famine.
The government said that concerns about the impact on health and the environment made the food too risky to be distributed to an estimated three million hungry people.
Leading environmental and development groups said Zambia deserved credit for asserting its sovereignty against pressure from US aid agencies and biotechnology companies to accept GM maize. - (Reuters)
Harris nominated for Best Actor
LONDON: Irish actor Richard Harris is in the running for a posthumous film prize at an awards ceremony in London on Wednesday which will also feature an honour for the late Beatles star George Harrison.
Harris, who died aged 72 last Friday, is one of five nominees for Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards for his role as a King Lear-like gangland boss in Liverpool drama My Kingdom. - (Reuters)
Ryder says she was rehearsing for part
LOS ANGELES: The film actress Winona Ryder told a Saks Fifth Avenue security manager that she was rehearsing for a role as a shoplifter when she was apprehended for taking clothes from the store. She explained that a director had suggested shoplifting as a way to prepare for the part.
The security manager at the Beverly Hills store, Kenneth Evans, was cross-examined yesterday about his claim that Ms Ryder had admitted shoplifting. His evidence appeared to come as a surprise to the defence.
Mr Evans told the court that Ms Ryder was polite and helpful when confronted with the alleged theft.
He said he spoke to her before calling the police. - (Guardian Service)