News of the World

“I would doubt very seriously that they would recognize (his) name.”

More and more, top government diplomats are straying from official Bush foreign policy as the administration wanes, leaving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struggling to keep them in check.

Twice just this week, Rice and her aides had to rebuke, disavow or otherwise try to explain away public words or actions by three top officials on delicate affairs ranging from North Korea and Iran to the violence in Kenya.

The trouble began on Jan. 17, when Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, delivered a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank in which he trashed the six-nation talks aimed at persuading the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons program. Read more

“We also have to see whether we are financially capable and if they are worth it … There should also be national consensus. Just because politicians went there and signed them does not mean we have to do that”

South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak said he would reassess aid projects promised to North Korea by his outgoing predecessor to see if they are economically feasible and in line with progress in Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament.

The remark, made in a newspaper interview published Saturday, represents the most specific conditions Lee has attached to economic cooperation projects agreed on at an October summit between outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

That could rile North Korea, as the communist nation has strongly called for fulfillment of the South’s wide-ranging pledges, which include building a new joint economic zone, a shipbuilding factory and road and rail improvements in the North. Read more

The European Union’s chief negotiator in free trade talks with South Korea said Friday that the current round of negotiations has yielded significant advances but added that contentious issues such as automobiles were not discussed.

‘I think I can say that in this round we have achieved an enormous amount of progress in the negotiations,’ Ignacio Garcia Bercero said at a news conference. He cited progress in areas such as trade subsidies and intellectual property rights.

However, he also said a number of difficulties remain. The two sides agreed not to discuss politically sensitive issues such as industrial tariffs, automobiles and televisions during the current round, which ends Friday. Read more

KEB has been surrounded by controversy Texan private equity firm Lone Star has been found guilty of stock price manipulation by a South Korean court. via BBC

Hatim E. El Gammal, an investor relations official with Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E., said Thursday that the network would be the first based on 3G in North Korea. via SF Gate