NKorea spent $700 mln on military tests: reports

SEOUL (AFP) – Impoverished North Korea has spent an estimated 700 million dollars this year on nuclear and missile tests, enough to solve its food shortage for at least two years, according to South Korean news reports.

The figure includes the estimated 43 million dollar cost of test-firing five Scud and two Rodong missiles Saturday, according to unidentified government officials quoted by Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

The latest tests, staged on the US Independence Day holiday, were seen as a show of defiance to Washington as it seeks tough enforcement of UN sanctions aimed at shutting down the communist state's nuclear and missile programmes.

Officials quoted by Chosun estimated it cost 300 million dollars to launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile on April 5, and another 10 million to launch 10 short-range missiles in recent weeks.

In addition, they estimated the May 25 underground nuclear test -- the country's second since 2006 -- cost between 300-400 million dollars.

JoongAng Ilbo gave similar figures. Neither paper gave the methodology for the cost calculation.

Chosun quoted an unidentified official as saying the North could have bought one million tons of rice on the international market for 300 million dollars.

"This amount of rice could have solved the North's food shortage for about a year," the official was quoted as saying.

The United Nations World Food Programme has said that according to a study last year, nearly nine million North Koreans -- more than a third of the country's 24 million people -- are estimated to need food aid.

Saturday's launches were the biggest salvo of ballistic weaponry since the North fired a Taepodong-2 and six smaller missiles in 2006, also on July 4 US time.

US Vice President Joseph Biden on Sunday dismissed the launches as "like almost attention-seeking behaviour" and said the focus was on further isolating Pyongyang.

"We have succeeded in uniting the most important and critical countries to North Korea on a common path of further isolating North Korea," he told ABC television, referring to Russia and China.

These have been traditionally resistant to tough sanctions on Pyongyang but backed the latest measures approved on June 12.

US and South Korean officials believe ailing leader Kim Jong-Il, 67, is staging a show of strength to bolster his authority as he tries to put in place a succession plan involving his youngest son Jong-Un.

Speaking on CBS television Sunday, the top US military commander fretted about the "unpredictability" of the regime.

"I'm very comfortable with our defensive posture, that we can protect our interests, our people and our territories," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen said.

"What I am increasingly concerned about is just the belligerence and the unpredictability of the North Korean leadership," Admiral Mullen said.

Suicide attack outside NATO base in Kandahar

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A suicide car bomber struck early Monday outside the main NATO base in southern Afghanistan, killing two civilians and wounding 14 other people, as U.S. Marines pressed a major anti-Taliban offensive in a neighboring province.

The bomber blew himself up near the gates of Kandahar Airfield, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the top military commander for southern Afghanistan.

Those wounded included 12 civilians and two Afghan soldiers, Zazai said. Initially police said four soldiers were wounded.

The attack came as thousands of U.S. Marines in neighboring Helmand province mounted a major offensive against the Taliban. Over the weekend, insurgent attacks killed three British soldiers in the province, a militant stronghold and hub of the vast Afghan drugs trade.

It wasn't clear if the British casualties had been involved in the Marine operation. A total of 174 British personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001, when U.S.-led forces first entered the country to oust the hardline Taliban regime.

The Islamist militia has bounced back and now has effective control of large chunks of the volatile south and east of the country, undermining Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. This August, Afghanistan is due to hold its second presidential elections since the Taliban's ouster.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Helmand offensive is "the first significant one" since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to try to reverse the militant gains.

"We've made some advances early. But I suspect it's going to be tough for a while," Mullen told CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

The admiral described the goal of the Marines' push as not just driving out the Taliban from areas they control, but securing the area to allow the Afghan government to operate.

"We've got to move to a point where there's security ... so that the Afghan people can get goods and services consistently from their government," Mullen said.

Obama's administration expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008 but still half as many as are now in Iraq.

In the country's east, meanwhile, 16 Afghan mine clearers were freed late Sunday, a day after being kidnapped by unknown gunmen as they traveled between Paktia and Khost provinces, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Police is still searching for about 10 people responsible for the kidnapping, but no arrests have been made so far, the statement said.

Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, and the increase in violence amid a thriving Taliban insurgency has slowed clearance work. Some 50 people are killed and maimed by mines every month.

S.Korean president donates $26 mln to charity

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, who rose from childhood poverty to the top office, has donated 33.1 billion won (26 million dollars) -- most of his personal fortune -- to a fund for needy students.

"Today is a wonderful and joyous day," Lee said in a statement after handing over more than 80 percent of his total wealth to a foundation in observance of an election campaign pledge.

Lee, who worked part-time at manual jobs to put himself through school and university, said he would never forget the people -- mostly poor themselves -- "who offered a hand to a poor boy during those trying times."

"And I know that the best way for me to pay back such kindness is to give back to society what I earned," he said.

Presidential officials described the donation as "unprecedented in the history of politics."

Lee, 67, is a former construction executive and the first South Korean president from a business background.

He said the scholarship foundation reflects his long-time hope that his wealth should be used to help "those who really need it."

"I am glad that today I am able to keep the promise," he added, saying his wife and four children supported his decision.

"Without the miraculous achievements made by the people of this great country, a boy from a devastatingly poor family would have never become its president."

Since he took office in February 2008, Lee -- an elder with a Presbyterian church -- has also donated his monthly presidential salary of 14 million won to low-income households.

He said he hoped Monday's gift would kick-start a donation campaign by others: "I yearn for this country to be a country where we care for one another."

Song Jeong-Ho, a lawyer who will head the foundation, said it would offer about 90 million won every month based on its income from the donated assets.

"The president's donation embodies his firm belief that no one should be prevented from learning because of money and that poverty should not be handed down generation after generation," Song said.

The announcement follows a survey by Lee's office, which showed that about 70 percent of respondents think the conservative leader has adopted policies favouring high-income earners and conglomerates.

The presidential office believes Lee's centrist pragmatic policies "had not been explained well," Park Heong-Joon, senior presidential secretary for public affairs, told reporters.

Official: Nuclear agreement expected from summit

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW – Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev end a seven-year hiatus in U.S.-Russian summitry on Monday, with each declaring his determination to further cut nuclear arsenals and repair a badly damaged relationship.

Both sides appear to want to use progress on arms control as a pathway to possible agreement on trickier issues, including Iran and Georgia, the tiny former Soviet republic. Those difficulties and others have soured a promising linkage in the first years after the Cold War and pushed ties between Moscow and Washington to depths unseen in more than two decades.

In advance of Obama's departure Sunday, a White House official told reporters the presidents expect to announce progress on negotiations that could lead to a treaty to replace the START I agreement, which expires Dec. 5.

On Monday, a senior U.S. official said Obama and Medvedev were prepared to sign an agreement lowering both the number of warheads and delivery vehicles. The official would not reveal specific numbers. All agree that months of tough bargaining lay ahead before a full treaty is ready.

The United States still is trying to persuade the Russians to join Washington in developing a missile defense system, the official said, but Moscow so far is balking. The Kremlin first wants the U.S. to scrap its plans for such a system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Russians are insisting, for now, that the American missile defense program be scrapped before implementation of any replacement for START.

More broadly, the U.S. wants to use the summit to overhaul the U.S.-Russian relationship.

"It's not, in our view, a zero-sum game, that if it's two points for Russia it's negative two for us, but there are ways that we can cooperate to advance our interests and, at the same time, do things with the Russians that are good for them as well," Obama's top assistant on Russia, Michael McFaul, said in a pre-summit briefing.

Medvedev said in an Internet address that the two powers "need new, common, mutually beneficial projects in business, science and culture. He added, "I hope that this sincere desire to open a new chapter in Russian-American cooperation will be brought into fruition."

Besides plans to sign an agreement on a START I replacement, the Russians have said they will agree to allow the United States use of their territory and air space to move munitions and arms to U.S. and NATO forces fighting Taliban Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. The Kremlin announced the deal days before the summit as a sweetener for Obama.

Those deals were to be announced at an Obama-Medvedev news conference Monday afternoon after the leaders' scheduled four-hour meeting.

There had been a hardening on both sides over the U.S. missile defense shield and those differences could eventually stall a final agreement on a replacement START deal.

On Friday, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the current prime minister and former president, said the Kremlin would not negotiate a replacement to START I unless Obama clarified plans for the defense system to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The U.S. contends it's designed to protect U.S. allies in Europe from a potential nuclear attack by Iran. The Russians see it as a way of weakening their offensive nuclear strike potential. Obama has been cool to the program, which former President George W. Bush pushed hard.

"The whole issue of missile defense from my perspective is focused on defense of Europe," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Obviously, the Russians see it differently. So I think we're going to have to work our way through that."

The White House said Sunday that if an agreement comes too late for Senate ratification by Dec. 5, it would look for ways to enforce some aspects on an executive level while waiting for ratification.

Obama's schedule include an hourlong meeting with Putin on Tuesday. Protocol does not demand he visit the prime minister.

"Prime Minister Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia, and I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction," Obama said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.

Most analysts see Putin as still holding the real reins of power in Russia. Obama said in the interview, "I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new."

Putin responded quickly. "We don't know how to stand so awkwardly with our legs apart," he said in televised remarks. "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future."

One of the most difficult issues expected in the Putin meeting is his fierce anger at neighboring Georgia. Last August, he sent soldiers, tanks and warplanes to crush the Georgian military after Georgia's leader sought to retake a breakaway region that wants to reunite with Russia.

Putin appears dead set on re-establishing Russia's power and sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics. At the same time, NATO has expanded eastward to include some of those countries. The alliance also is working with Georgia and Ukraine, another former republic, on possible membership in NATO.

In an interesting scheduling twist, Obama also is to see former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who negotiated an end of the Cold War with former President Ronald Reagan. There's also to be a second Medvedev meeting after Obama speaks to new graduates of the New Economic School. It remains unclear if the Russian leaders, who control all television outlets, will allow national broadcast of the speech.

The White House bills the address as the third of four this year on his vision of a new world order. The first was during his visit to the Czech Republic when he laid out a security agenda and concern about nuclear proliferation. After that, he went to Egypt to reach over the heads of leaders of Muslim countries as he sought to improve the U.S. image with the people of the Islamic world.

The last of the foreign policy addresses was planned for Ghana, the final stop on this Obama trip.

The president does face a major challenge in convincing the Russian people that he genuinely wants to use his office for the betterment of the world even as he seeks to promote a U.S. agenda. He is not well-known to the Russians and most polls show a distrust of the American leader. He certainly enjoys none of the vast popularity lavished on him in Europe and many other places.

China state media says 140 killed in riots in west

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – Violence in the capital of China's volatile Xinjiang region killed 140 people and injured 828, an official said Monday, following rioting by members of a Muslim ethnic group and a police crackdown on their demonstrations.

The official toll makes the unrest the deadliest single incident of unrest in Xinjiang in recent decades.

The violence in Urumqi apparently happened after a peaceful protest Sunday of about 1,000 to 3,000 people spun out of control, with rioters overturning barricades, attacking vehicles and houses, and clashing with police.

Uigher exile groups said the violence started only after police began violently cracking down on the peaceful protest.

Wu Nong, director of the news office of the Xinjiang provincial government, said more than 260 vehicles were attacked or set on fire and 203 houses were damaged. He said 140 people were killed and 828 injured in the violence.

The official Xinhua News Agency also said 140 people died and that the death toll "was still climbing."

Tensions between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese are never far from the surface in Xinjiang, China's vast Central Asian buffer province, where militant Uighurs have waged sporadic, violent separatist campaign. The overwhelming majority of Urumqi's 2.3 million people are Han Chinese.

State television aired footage that showed protesters attacking and kicking people on the ground. Other people sat dazed with blood pouring down their faces.

Mobile phone service provided by at least one company was cut Monday to stop people from organizing further action in Xinjiang.

The protest started Sunday with demonstrators demanding a probe into a fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese workers at a southern China factory last month. Accounts differed over what happened next in Urumqi, but the violence seemed to have started when a crowd of protesters — who started out peaceful — refused to disperse.

Uigher exile groups said the violence started when Chinese security forces cracked down on the peaceful protest.

"We are extremely saddened by the heavy-handed use of force by the Chinese security forces against the peaceful demonstrators," said Alim Seytoff, vice president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association.

"We ask the international community to condemn China's killing of innocent Uihgurs. This is a very dark day in the history of the Uighur people," he said.

The association, led by a former businesswoman now living in America, Rebiya Kadeer, estimated that 1,000 to 3,000 people took part in the protest.

Iranian clerical group says vote result "invalid"

By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) – A pro-reform Iranian clerical group said on Sunday the outcome of last month's presidential vote was "invalid," even though Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has upheld the result.

In a sign of a deepening rift among Shi'ite clerics, the Assembly of Qom Seminary Scholars and Researchers also called for the release of Iranians arrested in protests after the hardline president was declared winner of the June 12 vote.

"Other candidates' complaints and strong evidence of vote-rigging were ignored ... peaceful protests by Iranians were violently oppressed ... dozens of Iranians were killed and hundreds were illegally arrested," said a statement published on the Assembly's website. "The outcome is invalid."

Qom is Iran's center of Shi'ite learning, about 80 miles south of Tehran. The assembly has little political influence but its statement is a significant act of defiance since Qom is the power base of the clerical establishment.

It follows calls by hardliners for leaders of the protests, in which at least 20 people were killed, to be put on trial.

The demonstrations were the most striking display of dissent in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution and the elite Revolutionary Guards on Sunday accused opposition leaders of "trying to overthrow the Islamic establishment."

"We had forecast a velvet revolution. But it was neutralized by our vigilance," the official IRNA news agency quoted General Yadollah Javani as saying.

Iran's police chief said on Wednesday 1,032 people had been detained during the protests in Tehran but most had been freed. Human Rights activists say as many as 2,000 people, including opposition leaders, professors, journalists and students, may be still be held across the country.

JOURNALIST FREED

On Sunday Iran said it had released a Greek journalist covering the election for the Washington Times, while British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said one of two British embassy employees detained in Iran would be freed later in the day.

The Foreign Ministry said later Tehran had told them the employee had been released but that it had yet to make contact.

European Union countries had summoned Iran's envoys to their capitals in protest at the arrests and Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, welcomed the reported release.

"This is a constructive step in agreement with what had been discussed in the contact we have had in recent days," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on his blog, noting one employee remained under arrest which was unacceptable to the EU.

Iranian officials deny the election was rigged, saying it was the "healthiest" since the 1979 revolution. They have clamped down on the protests, but opponents say they will not give up.

While some clerics, such as Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah Yazdi, are aligned with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at least two grand ayatollahs, dissident Hossein Ali Montazeri and moderate Yusof Saanei, had already criticized the authorities.

"With all these problems, how can the result be recognized as legitimate? How can the next government be recognized as legitimate," the Qom assembly statement said.

Two losing moderate candidates, Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, have also said the result is illegitimate.

"A government which lacks people's backing does not have legitimacy ... Our fight will continue," Karoubi said in a statement published on his website on Sunday.

The hardline Kayhan newspaper said in an editorial: "Mousavi and his supporters are dangerous opposition for the establishment."

Hossein Shariatmadari, a top aide to Khamenei, called on Saturday for Mousavi and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami to be tried for committing "terrible crimes.

Iran accuses foreign powers, especially Britain and the United States, of inciting the anti-government protests to carry out a "velvet" revolution to undermine the Islamic Republic.

Tehran had arrested nine local British embassy staff but seven of them were later released.

On Friday, hardline cleric Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council that certified the election result, said the detained British embassy staffers had confessed and would face trial for inciting street protests.

In response to the detentions, EU countries summoned Iranian envoys and have pledged a strong, collective response to any Iranian harassment of staff at European embassies.

SKorea says NKorean missiles can hit key targets

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – The ballistic missiles that North Korea test-fired this weekend were likely capable of striking key government and military facilities in South Korea, a defense official said Sunday, amid growing concerns over Pyongyang's firepower.

North Korean state media did not mention the launches but boasted that the country's military could impose "merciless punishment" on those who provoke it.

Pyongyang launched seven missiles into waters off its east coast Saturday in a show of force that defied U.N. resolutions and drew international condemnation.

The missiles appear to have traveled about 250 miles (400 kilometers), meaning they could have reached almost any point in South Korea, an official at the South Korean Defense Ministry said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

The official said the exact details of the launches were still under investigation.

The launches on U.S. Independence Day appeared to be a poke at Washington as it moves to enforce U.N. as well as its own sanctions against the isolated regime for its May 25 nuclear test.

North and South Korea, which fought a 1950-53 war, still face off across the world's most heavily fortified border. The United States, South Korea's key ally, has 28,500 troops stationed in the country as a deterrent.

The North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary that "our revolutionary forces have grown up today as the strong army that can impose merciless punishment against those who offend us," crediting the country's "military first" policy.

The commentary was carried Sunday by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Last month, the North threatened a "thousand-fold" military retaliation against the U.S. and its allies if provoked.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has been devoting much of the country's scarce resources to his 1.2 million-member military under the policy.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency — citing a government source it did not identify — reported that five of the seven ballistic missiles landed in one area, indicating their accuracy has improved.

Yonhap said two of the seven missiles launched are believed to be variants of Rodong missiles while the rest are believed to be upgraded versions of Scud-C missiles.

The modified Scud-C versions have a range of up to 370 miles (600 kilometers), which could hit most of South Korea. Rodong missiles, meanwhile, have a range of up to 800 miles (1,300 kilometers), putting most parts of Japan within striking distance.

Yonhap said, however, that the range of the Rodong missiles launched Saturday had been reduced apparently to improve accuracy.

The agency also said the North is believed to have deployed 200 to 300 Scud missiles and 200 Rodong missiles, with many of the Scud missiles positioned near the border with South Korea and capable of reaching the Seoul metropolitan area within four to six minutes. Yonhap said some experts thought the North had 500 to 600 Scuds.

Another South Korean Defense Ministry official said no signs of additional missile launches had been detected, but more were possible given North Korea warned ships to stay away from the area through July 10. He also spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

The North has engaged in a series of acts this year widely seen as provocative. It fired a long-range rocket it said was a satellite in early April, and in late May it carried out its second underground nuclear test following the first in late 2006.

Australia and Sweden were the latest countries to criticize the launches.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, while calling the firings a "provocative act," also told the Nine Network in an interview Sunday that it is "important not to overreact."

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose government assumed the rotating European Union presidency on July 1, called the launches "a conscious political provocation" and said the EU must support U.N. sanctions "in a robust way."

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, predicted Pyongyang would now spend some time watching how the international community reacts to the launches.

"There will be a cooling off period for the time being," he said.