Tuesday 9th February, 20106

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwan’s topChina negotiator said Monday that theU.S. decision to sell $6.4 billion in armsto the island will not affect steadilyimproving ties between Taipei andBeijing.

Chiang Pin-kung’s comments came

amid strong Chinese protests againstthe planned American sales, whichwere announced in late January.

Reacting to the deal, China suspend-ed military exchanges with Washingtonand threatened sanctions against U.S.defense companies making weapons

available to Taiwan. However, China didnot criticize Taipei over the issue.

Taiwan and China split amid civilwar in 1949. Beijing continues to claimthe island as part of its territory. Itregards U.S. arms sales to Taiwan asunacceptable interference in its inter-nal affairs.

Speaking to reporters Monday,Chiang said arms procurement fromthe U.S. is long-standing Taiwanese poli-cy.

The latest arms package “shouldnot have any impact on ongoing Chinatalks and the future development ofbilateral ties,” he said.

Since Taiwanese President MaYing-jeou took office in May 2008, he hasmoved aggressively to improve rela-tions with China, jettisoning his prede-cessor’s pro-independence policies.

Regular flights and shipping servic-es across the 100-mile- (160-kilometer-)wide Taiwan Strait have been inaugu-rated, and regulations for cross-straitinvestment liberalized.

The jewel in the crown of Ma’sapproach is a partial free trade agree-ment with Beijing, which would reducetariff barriers, further liberalize invest-ment regulations and create new struc-tures for financial cooperation.

Chiang said formal negotiations onthe deal will continue in the spring.They began late last month in Beijing.

Taiwan firm on Chinaties after US arms deal

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Pro-Russian opposition leaderViktor Yanukovych declaredvictory in Ukraine’s presiden-tial runoff election but resultspublished Monday showed hislead narrowing and his oppo-nent rejected the claim, sayingthe vote was too close to call.

Exit polls showedYanukovych - the main foe ofprotesters in Ukraine’s 2004Orange Revolution - with aslim lead in Sunday’s election

over Prime Minister YuliaTymoshenko, a key figure inthose pro-democracy protests.

Ukraine’s Central ElectionCommission reported Mondaythat Yanukovych was ahead48.6 percent to 45.8 percentwith 87.31 percent of the votecounted.

If the result stands, aYanukovych victory couldrestore much of Moscow’sinfluence in a country that haslabored to build bridges to theWest and closes a chapter inthe country’s political historythat has been defined by theOrange protests.

Polls show that mostUkrainian voters still supportthe economic and politicalgoals of the 2004 Orange revo-lution, but many are deeplydisillusioned with the failureof its leaders to carry outpromised reforms.

“From this day, a new pathopens up for Ukraine,”Yanukovych declared lateSunday, vowing to “take thecountry down the path ofchange.”

Three major exit pollsshowed Yanukovych winningby a few percentage points,but Tymoshenko said theywere unreliable because therace was so close and manyballots remain uncounted.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -

Israeli troops broke down the door ofan apartment in the Palestinian-ruledWest Bank town of Ramallah on

Sunday and arrested two pro-Palestinianactivists from Spain and Australia, theirroommate said.

The Israeli military said the twowomen overstayed their visas, but alsoalleged they were involved in violentprotests in the West Bank. Their lawyer,Omer Shatz, said he believes the pairwere targeted for what he described aspeaceful protests against Israeli policiesin the West Bank.

The two women are members of theInternational Solidarity Movement,which has been active in the Palestinianterritories for several years.

Shatz said the women were in deten-tion but that a judge issued an order pre-

venting their deportation. He identifiedthem as Ariadna Jove Marti, 25, of Spain,and Bridgette Chappell, 21, of Australia.

The women’s roommate, RyanOlander, said about a dozen Israeli sol-diers broke into the apartment beforedawn Sunday and demanded to see every-one’s passports. Soldiers searched theapartment, confiscated a laptop and twovideo cameras and told the women topack up their things, said Olander, of St.Paul, Minnesota.

International Solidarity Movementactivists show up at points of frictionbetween Israeli troops and Palestiniandemonstrators, often trying to block thesoldiers. They take part in weeklyprotests against Israel’s West Bank sepa-ration barrier.

At the protests, Palestinian teens rou-tinely throw stones at soldiers, who

respond with tear gas, stun grenades andsometimes live ammunition. Israel saysthe barrier is meant to keep Palestinianattackers out, while Palestinians say it’s aland grab.

In recent months, Israel has intensi-fied its crackdown on those involved inthe barrier protests, arresting dozens ofPalestinians.

Sunday’s raid marked only the secondtime troops have seized foreigners from aPalestinian-ruled area of the West Bank.In January, a Czech activist with theInternational Solidarity Movement wasdetained in Ramallah and deported.

An Israeli military spokesman saidthe two women arrested Sunday wereinvolved in “riots and other acts of vio-lence.” The official spoke on condition ofanonymity, in line with military regula-tions.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -A senior Chinese envoy was inNorth Korea on Monday on a mis-sion to persuade the reclusivestate to rejoin nuclear disarma-ment talks, reports said, while offi-cials from the two Koreas met inthe North to discuss restartingjoint tour programs.

Wang Jiarui, a top CommunistParty official, will likely meetMonday with North Korean leaderKim Jong Il to discuss the stalledsix-party nuclear talks, the SouthKorean cable network YTN report-ed, without citing its source.

The mass-circulation ChosunIlbo newspaper carried a similarreport, saying Wang is expected todeliver a message from PresidentHu Jintao to Kim. The paper, cit-ing an unidentified senior SouthKorean official, said the North willlikely promise during Wang’s tripto make progress in denucleariza-tion in return for Chinese econom-ic assistance.

In Beijing, officials at theForeign Ministry declined to com-ment on Wang’s trip.

The visit from North Korea’schief ally and benefactor comesamid an international push to getNorth Korea back to negotiationson dismantling the regime’snuclear program. U.N. politicalchief B. Lynn Pascoe also was duein Pyongyang this week.

A South Korean delegation,meanwhile, traveled to a NorthKorean border town to discussrestarting tours to the North’sfamed Diamond Mountain resortand ancient sights in downtownKaesong. The tours, which offeredSouth Koreans and others a rarechance to visit North Korea, weresuspended in 2008 amid inter-Korean tensions.

Reclusive North Korea hasbeen reaching out to the interna-tional community recently aftermonths of tensions over itsnuclear and missile programs.

Pyongyang on Saturdayreleased an American missionarywho had been detained for morethan 40 days after deliberatelygoing into North Korea illegally tocall attention to rights abusesthere.

On Sunday, Wang and NorthKorean Workers’ Party officialsmet in Pyongyang to discussstrengthening ties and other “mat-ters of mutual concern,” the offi-cial Korean Central News Agencysaid.

YTN said the trip is Wang’sfifth since 2004, and that he hasmet with leader Kim on all previ-ous visits. A year ago, Kimassured Wang that North Korearemains “dedicated to the denu-clearization of the Korean penin-sula” and wanted to move interna-tional talks forward, according to

Beijing’s Xinhua News Agency.North Korea walked away

from the disarmament talks lastyear in anger over internationalcondemnation of a long-rangerocket launch. The country laterconducted a nuclear test, test-launched a series of ballistic mis-siles and restarted its plutonium-producing facility, inviting wide-spread condemnation and tighterU.N. sanctions.

North Korea wants sanctionseased, better relations with theUnited States and a peace treaty toformally end the 1950-53 KoreanWar before returning to the talks.

Washington has saidPyongyang must come back to thetalks first before any talk aboutpolitical and economic conces-sions.

South Korea’s foreign ministersaid Monday that it’s still unclearwhether and when the Northwould return to the six-partytalks, noting that the country hasnot stopped provocative acts suchas firing artillery toward its seaborder with South Korea lastmonth.

“I believe there is no funda-

mental change in North Korea’spolicy on the nuclear issue,”Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwantold a ministry meeting, accordingto the text of a speech provided byhis office.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary ofState Hillary Rodham Clinton saidthe Obama administration wouldcontinue to try to get North Koreato return to the table.

“Engagement has brought usa lot in the last year,” Clinton saidin an interview with CNN’s “Stateof the Union.”

A woman shouts in her attempt to lure customers to her stall at the Dihua Street market, Saturday,Feb. 6, 2010, in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwanese shoppers has started hunting for foods on sale andother bargains at the market ahead of Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. The Chinese NewYear falls on Feb. 14 this year and will commemorate the year of the tiger. (AP)

BEIJING (AP) - China has foundanother 170 tons of tainted milk pow-der in an emergency crackdown thathas made it increasingly clear manyproducts discovered in the country’s2008 milk scandal were repackagedfor sale instead of destroyed.

The growing number of cases inrecent weeks challenges the govern-ment’s earlier promise to overhaul itsapproach to food safety after hun-dreds of thousands of children in thatscandal were sickened by milk prod-ucts tainted with an industrial chemi-cal. At least six children died.

Already, tainted milk productshave recently emerged in China’slargest city, Shanghai, and in theprovinces of Shaanxi, Shandong,Liaoning, Guizhou, Jilin and Hebei.

China’s 10-day emergency crack-down on the products is set to endWednesday, and it was not clearwhether it would be extended. Thecountry’s biggest holiday, the LunarNew Year, starts this weekend, andalready some offices are closing andmillions of people are going on vaca-tion.

In the latest discovery, officialsrecalled more than 170 tons of milkpowder tainted by the industrialchemical melamine and closed twodairy companies in the northernregion of Ningxia, the China Dailynewspaper reported Monday.

The report said officials seized 72tons of the powder but were still look-ing for the rest, which had beenrepackaged by the Ningxia TiantianDairy Co. Ltd. and sold to factories inthe neighboring region of InnerMongolia and the bustling southernprovinces of Guangdong and Fujian.

Dairy suppliers in the past havebeen accused of adding melamine,which is high in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to make it appear protein-rich in quality tests that measurenitrogen.

The report said the tainted pow-der should have been destroyed in the2008 scandal, and that NingxiaTiantian Dairy got it from anunnamed company as a debt payment.

“Our small companies were intotal trust of their partners becausethey’ve been doing business and hav-ing good relations with them for along time,” Zhao Shuming, secretary-general of the Ningxia Dairy IndustryAssociation, told The AssociatedPress. “They didn’t expect those com-panies would hurt them.”

China Daily quoted Zhao as say-ing many small dairies, includingNingxia Tiantian, don’t have the tech-nology to even test for melamine.

“Flaws in the previous system ledto the current chaos. What if compa-nies with tainted milk also hold backtheir stocks for this round of check-ups and reuse them later, just likewhat’s happening now?” the newspa-per quoted him as saying.

Zhao spoke more carefullyMonday, telling the AP, “We havestrict checks and our client compa-nies have strict checks too.”

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -President Hugo Chavez has ordered theexpropriation of privately ownedbuildings within Venezuela’s historicalcapital district.

Chavez says retailers and restaura-teurs shouldn’t occupy buildings sur-rounding Plaza Bolivar that the gov-ernment is seeking to renovate.

Chavez on Sunday told JorgeRodriguez, the mayor of the capital’sEl Libertador district, to seize controlof the buildings.

The president argued that the his-torical district, some of which datesback to Venezuela’s colonial era,should be owned and managed by thegovernment.

He did not say how many buildingswould be expropriated.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran hasarrested seven people linked to aU.S.-funded Farsi-language radiostation for allegedly fomentingunrest, and accused some of thesuspects of working for Americanspy agencies, Iranian state mediareported Sunday.

The official IRNA news agencyand Iran’s state radio both cited anIntelligence Ministry statement say-ing the suspects played a role in vio-lent anti-government demonstra-tions in Tehran on Dec. 27. On thatday, at least eight people were killedand hundreds were arrested during

clashes between opposition support-ers and security forces.

The violence was the worstsince authorities launched a harshcrackdown immediately after Iran’sdisputed presidential election inJune.

IRNA quoted the ministry state-ment as saying “some of them havebeen officially hired by the U.S.intelligence agencies.” State radiosaid the suspects were trained out-side of Iran in sabotage, disturbingpublic order, spreading rumors andoverthrowing a government by softmeans.

It also said the seven planned totake part in opposition demonstra-tions expected on Feb. 11, when Iranmarks the 31st anniversary of theIslamic Revolution that brought thecountry’s hardline clerical estab-lishment to power.

It did not identify the suspectsor say when they were detained.

The arrests may be part of agovernment effort to discredit theopposition. Iran’s hardline rulersfrequently accuse its opponents ofbeing “stooges” of the country’senemies and of trying to topple theIslamic system.

China finds 170more tons oftainted milkpowder

Israeli forces detain pro-Palestinian activists

In this Dec. 27, 2008, file photo, an injured Palestinian is helped from the rubble following an Israelimissile strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. Israel has failed to show it will conduct an impartial inves-tigation of allegations that it committed war crimes during its Gaza offensive last winter, an interna-tional human rights group said Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. (AP)

Chinese envoy in NKorea; 2 Koreas meet at border

Iran detains 7 tied to US-fundedradio for spying

Yanukovych declares victoryin Ukrainian vote

Kim Nam-sik, center, head of a South Korean delegation, answers to reporters’questions before leaving for North Korea’s border city of Kaesong at the customs,immigration and quarantine, or CIQ office, near the border village of Panmunjom,in Paju, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010.

Ukrainian opposition leader and pres-idential candidate Viktor Yanukovych

Chavez: ‘Seize buildingsin historicaldistrict’

University students stand with their mouths cov-ered during a protest against Venezuela’sPresident Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Thursday,Feb. 4, 2010. (AP)