US, N.Korea hold first talks after Kim’s death

Pyongyang and Washington began their first official contact since the death of Kim Jong-il, as senior diplomats from the two countries met in Beijing yesterday to discuss North Korea's nuclear activities.

After meeting on denuclearization, non-proliferation and humanitarian aid with North Korea's negotiator Kim Kye-gwan, Glyn Davies, coordinator for US policy on North Korea, marked the talks as serious and substantive.

"We covered a number of issues," AFP quoted Davies as saying, since "we are in mid-talks. I expect we will wrap up tomorrow (Friday)."

China yesterday supported the efforts of the US and North Korea for resuming the talks, as Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that "China has always believed that it is in accordance with the interests of all parties to resume the Six-Party Talks at an early date and implement the September 19 joint statement," according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Relevant parties should continue to follow the direction and objectives of the six-party talks and create conditions for the early resumption of the six-party talks, Hong said.

The process of negotiating between the two sides, in which the US is demanding North Korea end its nuclear activities, halted after the unexpected passing of Kim Jong-il.

It is the third round of negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, which began last year, aiming to break a deadlock for the relations between the two Koreas and for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

"The resumption of contact is hard for achieving substantial results, because Pyongyang willl not meet the requirements set by the US on dismantling its nuclear activities," Jeung Young-tae, director of the North Korea Studies Center at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told the Global Times.

However, it is a good sign that Pyongyang would like to take a step on contributing to the early resumption of the Six-Party Talks, he said.

Wang Junsheng, a Korean affairs expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agreed with Jeung, saying that the process of the Talks depends on the development of US-North Korea negotiations, and the improvement of relations between the two Koreas.

During the ongoing dialogue, Washington is trying to clear Pyongyang's attitude toward US demands on ending nuclear activities, since North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un just took over power at the end of last year, Wang said.

He said the US also wants to see if North Korea is abiding by its 2005 agreement on abandoning nuclear activities in exchange for food aid and security guarantees, adding the bilateral negotiations showed their efforts on pushing forward the Six-Party Talks.

Since Kim Jong-il died in December, the friction between the two Koreas has been growing. North Korea has announced it would no longer deal with the South, and has repeatedly denounced the "inhuman" response by Seoul following Kim Jong-il's death.

Yesterday, South Korea's unification ministry authorized two charitable groups to send medical instruments and drugs worth about $70,000 to the western provinces of North Korea, AFP reported.

South Korea is trying to ease tensions, because the US doesn't want to see any military clash between the two, which would not be consistent with US interests in the region, Wang said.

Agencies contributed to this story

Astronomers reveal new type of planet

 

Using Hubble space telescope, an international team of astronomers have come up with a new class of planet, according to a report published online Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal.

By analyzing the previously discovered world GJ1214b, the team led by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astronomer Zachory Berta proved that it is a water world enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere.

Our solar system contains three types of planets: rocky, terrestrial worlds (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), gas giants ( Jupiter and Saturn), and ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). Planets orbiting distant stars come in an even wider variety, including lava worlds and "hot Jupiters".

"GJ1214b is like no planet we know of," said Berta in a statement issued Tuesday. "A huge fraction of its mass is made up of water."

GJ1214b was discovered in 2009 by the ground-based MEarth Project. This super-Earth is about 2.7 times Earth's diameter and weighs almost seven times as much. It orbits a red-dwarf star every 38 hours at a distance of 1.3 million miles, giving it an estimated temperature of 230 degree Celsius.

In 2010, CfA scientist Jacob Bean and colleagues reported that they had measured the atmosphere of GJ1214b, finding it likely that the atmosphere was composed mainly of water. However, their observations could also be explained by the presence of a world- wide haze in GJ1214b's atmosphere.

Berta and his co-authors used Hubble's WFC3 instrument to study GJ1214b when it crossed in front of its host star. During such a transit, the star's light is filtered through the planet's atmosphere, giving clues to the mix of gases. Hazes are more transparent to infrared light than to visible light, so the Hubble observations help tell the difference between a steamy and a hazy atmosphere.

They found the spectrum of GJ1214b to be featureless over a wide range of wave lengths, or colors. The atmospheric model most consistent with the Hubble data is a dense atmosphere of water vapor.

"The Hubble measurements really tip the balance in favor of a steamy atmosphere," said Berta.

Since the planet's mass and size are known, astronomers can calculate the density, which works out to about two grams per cubic centimeter. Water has a density of one gram per cubic centimeter, while Earth's average density is 5.5 gram per cubic centimeter. This suggests that GJ1214b has much more water than Earth, and much less rock. As a result, the internal structure of GJ1214b would be very different than our world.

Theorists expect that GJ1214b formed farther out from its star, where water ice was plentiful, and migrated inward early in the system's history. In the process, it would have passed through the star's habitable zone.

GJ1214b is located in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, and just 40 light years from Earth. It's a prime candidate for study by the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope.

Al-shabab commanders flee towards Yemen

Reports from southern Somalia says that close to 100 members of the militant group Al-Shabab streamed out of the port town of Kismayu, directing towards Yemen, a sign the militant group is under increasing pressure.

Residents say at least three speed boats have docked at the port of Kismayu on Wednesday alone to carry 100 militants — mostly foreign fighters — fleeing to Yemen, only weeks after the Al-shabab and Al-Qaeda announced their merger.

Senior Al-shabab commanders ordered local residents in Kismayu town, which is just 500km away south of Mogadishu to come out in the streets and squares in the city, urging people to join the battlefields of the militants in Somalia.

Al-Shabab has formally merged with Al-Qaeda — a move that analysts say was an attempt to give a boost of confidence to an insurgent force that is losing power.