BEIJING — North Korea said Sunday that it was resuming the dismantlement of its nuclear program in response to President Bush’s decision to remove it from a list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
The announcement means that U.N. nuclear inspectors, who were barred from entering the facilities in September but not kicked out of the country, can resume their jobs at Yongbyon, North Korea’s main nuclear compound.
Surveillance cameras installed by the inspectors are expected to be turned on again starting today. North Korea also will resume the removal of fuel from a nuclear reactor.
The verification deal does not permit inspectors unimpeded access to other sites, where it is feared that North Korea could be developing an alternative nuclear program using highly enriched uranium. A fact sheet released by the U.S. State Department on Saturday said that inspectors could visit undeclared nuclear sites only by “mutual consent.”
Pakistan: No al-Qaida die in strike
The latest in a barrage of suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan’s northwest killed five people, but none was believed to be a foreign al-Qaida fighter, officials said Sunday. Two drone aircraft were seen above the town of Miran Shah in the North Waziristan tribal region minutes before missiles hit a house near a matchbox factory Saturday, two intelligence officials said. Meanwhile, clashes with security forces reportedly killed 52 suspected militants in two neighboring tribal regions, officials said. The accounts were impossible to verify in the remote and dangerous area.
Afghanistan: NATO not losing war to Taliban, top general says
The top NATO general in Afghanistan on Sunday rejected the idea that NATO is losing the Afghanistan war to an increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency. But U.S. Gen. David McKiernan also said he needs more military forces to tamp down the militants, and he depicted a chaotic Afghan countryside where insurgents hold more power than the Afghan government seven years after the U.S.-led invasion. He said better governance and economic progress were vital. “We don’t have progress as evenly or as fast as many of us would like, but we are not losing Afghanistan,” he said.
Mexico: Six killed at party
Gunmen killed six young men at a family party in the gang-plagued Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, prosecutors said Sunday. The men, ages 20 to 25, were killed during a party in a house, said Alejandro Pariente, a spokesman for the regional attorney general’s office. The motive for the attack was unknown. At least 1,000 people have been killed this year in Ciudad Juarez, a city across from El Paso, Texas. Many of the deaths were attributed to warring drug gangs.
California: Wildfire expected to rapidly grow
Fire officials prepared late Sunday for rapid growth of a wildfire blazing 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles with the expected arrival of strong, dry wind gusts overnight. The fire, which broke out early Sunday, burned through 2,066 acres of rugged terrain in the Angeles National Forest, razing a house, a garage, several sheds and three mobile homes. More than 1,200 people were evacuated and advised not to return to their homes overnight.
Florida: Nana forms in Atlantic
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami say Tropical Storm Nana has formed in the eastern Atlantic but predict it will weaken to a tropical depression by today. The storm was about 925 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands on Sunday night. Meanwhile, Hurricane Norbert dissipated into a tropical depression over the northern mountains of mainland Mexico on Sunday, after ripping off roofs, flooding streets, and forcing thousands to seek shelter in Baja California.
From Herald news services
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