China, Russia gang up
The week's news at a glance.
Pyongyang
The presidents of China and Russia called on North Korea this week to abandon its nuclear weapons program. At a summit in Beijing this week, Jiang Zemin and Vladimir Putin said that keeping the Korean peninsula nuclear-free was “important for the destiny of the world.” It was a rare public admonishment by North Korea’s biggest and closest allies. The two countries also called on Pyongyang and Washington to renew dialogue. The U.S. walked out of talks in October, after North Korea abruptly announced that it had been lying for years and secretly building a plant to enrich uranium. But in the past few weeks, USA Today reported, the Bush administration has been “quietly paving the way toward negotiations.”
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