The World
For Now, Korean Talks Are Advancing
Optimism is not a word often associated with the long diplomatic effort to get North Korea to drop its nuclear programs. But last week, the top U.S. negotiator in the six-nation nuclear talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, used that term to describe the mood of the unprecedented bilateral talks with North Korean envoys in New York to explore normalizing relations. Hill's eight-plus hours of conversation with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan was the first tangible expression of a February 13 accord setting out a road map for denuclearizing the North in return for energy, other aid, and security assurances.
Hill and Kim talked about the process of removing North Korea from the U.S. terrorism-sponsors list and about U.S. allegations that the North has acquired equipment for a clandestine uranium-enrichment program. Some analysts question the U.S. intelligence assessment on that, but Hill insisted that the North had to "come clean" if the negotiations are to succeed. The broader nuclear talks are planned to reconvene March 19 in Beijing. Pyongyang is then, in a first phase, supposed to freeze work at its plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor and readmit U.N. inspectors.
The uranium issue could well be a future sticking point. Another is the tense state of North Korean-Japanese relations, with Japan demanding that the North account for at least eight Japanese citizens it kidnapped during the 1970s and 1980s. But in a sign of progress, Pyongyang is preparing for a visit this week by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who will try to arrange for his inspectors to return to the North after a four-year absence.
Pressing China for Changes
It says something about the importance of China that U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was there again last week, his third visit in less than a year in his treasury post. There was no word from his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi in Beijing, but Paulson used a speech at the modest Shanghai's Futures Exchange to press China to lift barriers to foreign investment in its financial institutions. He used the recent jolt to international financial markets from the 9 percent plunge in the Shanghai stock market to make his point that reforms would help China's financial well-being, as well as that of the global economy. What's more, there is the issue of China's undervalued currency, the yuan, which gives Chinese exporters a trade advantage while Beijing piles up billions of dollars from its trade surplus with the United States.
Claims by Norway's Nazi-Bred Children
Hitler's monstrous quest to propagate his imagined blond-haired, blue-eyed master race led to a scheme known as Lebensborn, or "Fountain of Life," that accounted for up to 12,000 children born in Norway to Norwegian mothers and German fathers during World War II. Yet, these children hardly led the gifted lives envisioned for them by Nazi leaders. To the contrary, they were regarded by some after the war as mentally and genetically suspect. Some were confined to psychiatric institutions without reason; many faced decades of discrimination in education and employment.
A group of 154 of them last week sought financial damages through Europe's human rights court, saying that the Norwegian government hasn't done enough to make up for past wrongs. In 2002, the Norwegian parliament ordered payments to the now adult Lebensborn children, and the government offered up to $32,260 each. But the group is seeking $65,500 per person and more for those whose lives were the most damaged. The court will decide later whether to hear the case.
Turkey Pulls the Plug on YouTube
Internet users in Turkey found themselves suddenly cut off from YouTube last week after a Turkish court temporarily ordered the popular website blocked because it contained videos allegedly insulting Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. The offending video refers to the late Turkish leader (as well as other Turks) as homosexual, which was deemed to violate a law against insulting Ataturk.
The ban, lifted after two days, highlighted what has been something of a virtual war between antagonists in Greece and Turkey on YouTube. There are hostile videos, for instance, showing a '90s-era aerial dogfight between a Greek Mirage and Turkish F-16, many exchanges about the supposed sexual orientation of Greeks and Turks, and streams of obscenities and vitriol. But they aren't the only ones: Turks and Armenians are sparring over the Armenian genocide by Turks nearly a century ago. In fact, many traditional conflicts and modern-day ones, such as hostility between Ethiopia and Eritrea, are playing out on YouTube and other virtual battlefields.
With Thomas Omestad and Associated Press
This story appears in the March 19, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.