North Korea has started its new propaganda campaign with Twitter with its new twitter account. Many video clips are being posted into You Tube 21st century propaganda by North Korea. The regime began with micro blogging under a heading @uriminzok which has many posts.
The followers of blog includes anti-Seoul and anti US statements which is kept secretive. The site has been blocked by South Korea due to some unwanted statements. The peninsula tensions have raised suddenly since the month of May when US and South Korea had a multinational investigation.
The You Tube videos which are loaded shows praises for the leader Kim Jong-il and not accepting his role over the sinking. The second joint exercise from Monday will be staged by US and South Korean militarizes.A week after Seoul is competed the annual exercise will come into action. There may be further provocations by the North Korea say the US officials. The heir of Kim-Jong-il will be handed over to his youngest son feel many political observers.
The 65th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s detained opposition leader, is being recognised by supporters both at home and abroad.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US President Barack Obama and the UK have marked the occasion by reiterating calls for the Nobel laureate’s release.
Members of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy plan to plant about 20,000 saplings around Burma.
Ms Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades in some form of detention.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, she is one of the world’s best known political prisoners, and is currently under house arrest in Burma’s former capital, Rangoon.
A flotilla of ships sailing towards Gaza with aid and activists on board has left Cyprus and will reach its destination on Monday, organisers say.
But Israel says it will stop the boats, calling the campaign a “provocation intended to delegitimise Israel”.
The Palestinian territory has been under an Israeli and Egyptian economic blockade for almost three years, with only limited humanitarian aid allowed.
The activists, from the Free Gaza Movement, want to break the blockade.
The UN sanctions on Iran were proposed last year itself by US and its allies, but the same could not be passed due to reservations by Russia and China. Now Russia is seemingly worried about the danger of Iran becoming nuclear capable. Hence it has indicated to US about the change of mind, and this may pave the way for stronger UN sanctions against Iran in the coming months. That spells trouble for the Middle east region as a whole.
The people of Greece are voting in a snap general election that is likely to see the governing Conservatives lose their grip on power.
Opinion polls put the opposition Socialists led by George Papandreou ahead of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis’ New Democracy party.
Mr Karamanlis was only half way into his four-year term when he called the election in early September.
He said he wanted a new mandate to tackle Greece’s economic problems.
However, the government has been hit by a series of corruption scandals and Mr Karamanlis’ opponents say he has failed to fulfil promises to clean up public office and to modernise the country
The British media carried detailed report on the letter by Pakistani ex-Nuclear chief A Q Khan, wherein he has outlined the proliferation of nuclear secrets by his team to Iran, Syria, North Korea and also China. The report in fact vindicates the stand of India that Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism and it needs to immediately act on eliminating all the terrorist network inside the country.
With US already suffering a bad defeat at the hands of islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would be all the more important for US and Europe to immediately work on cleaning up the Pakistani army set up. Any further delay could cost the US and Europe, and the world, substantially in the future, as nuclear weapons could get into the hands of terrorists.
The age old divide and rule policy of Europe and US may not work anymore.
Hungarians are taking to the street in thousands. Thousands of ethnic Hungarians have demonstrated in Slovakia, to protest against a new law that limits the use of minority languages there. Only Slovak can now be used in public offices, and in institutions like schools and hospitals. Slovakia says the move is in accord with European standards, but protestors argue it breaks international laws. The Hungarian government says it has turned to international human rights organisations for help. The Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers are due to meet next week, to try to defuse worsening relations. More than half a million ethnic Hungarians live in Slovakia, who regard the new law as the latest in a series of crackdowns by the Slovak government against their culture.
North Korea reforming? Looks impossible but that is what US would like us to believe now. North Korea has sent “good signals” that it wants to restart dialogue with the US over its nuclear programme, a US politician has said.
Governor Bill Richardson’s comments came after rare talks in his state of New Mexico with North Korean envoys. Mr Richardson said he had detected a “lessening of tension” since former US President Bill Clinton’s recent visit to Pyongyang. But he said North Korea still refused to return to multilateral talks.
In a statement after the talks in Sante Fe, Mr Richardson said the delegation had indicated North Korea was “ready for a new dialogue with the United States regarding the nuclear issue”. He said the recent visit by Mr Clinton to North Korea, to secure to the release of two US journalists, had “helped thaw relations”.
Pyongyang had “obviously used the journalists as a bargaining chip” and was now seeking a “gesture” in return, Mr Richardson said. “The North Koreans are sending good signals, that they’re ready to talk directly to the United States,” he said. “I detected for the first time a lessening of tension, some positive vibration”.
An FBI officer has appeared before a court in the Indian city of Mumbai to testify on last November’s attacks which killed more than 170 people. The witness was an FBI electronics engineer and forensic expert.
He told the special prison court that he had examined a satellite phone and three global positioning systems recovered after the attacks. It was the first time that a witness from outside India had testified in the Mumbai attack case. The agent said that the data recovered showed a number of maps, including one sent from off the coast of Pakistan.
“This route starts in the ocean near the Gulf of Karachi and it goes to Mumbai. The route was stored by the user,” the FBI agent said, under conditions of anonymity.
But, none of this might move Pakistan as they are already seem to be under the influence of the Fundamentalist forces
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels have called for an investigation into the overseas arrest and subsequent repatriation of their new leader. But, I am not sure who is going to listen to this demand. At least, not the SriLankan Government.
The government announced on Friday that Selvarasa Pathmanathan had been returned from an Asian nation. Some reports suggested he had been arrested in Thailand, but the rebels say he was abducted in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
The Tigers urged the international community to ensure his safety. “We call upon the international community to become involved in this matter in order to assure the safety and security of Mr Pathmanathan according to international standards, and to facilitate access to legal representation,” their statement said.
