Mystery of Salamander Limb Regrowth Solved

Scientists on Wednesday shed light on how the salamander, one of nature's great oddities, is able to regrow an amputated leg. The insight may one day help researchers to replicate the achievement among people, they hope.

All living creatures have the ability to regrow some part or parts of their body, but the salamander tops the list for regenerative agility. Mammals like us can regenerate skin or fuse broken bones back together, but salamanders can replace a lost limb in a few weeks, regrow damaged lungs, mend a severed spinal cord and even replenish lost chunks of brain.

Until now, biologists pondering the little amphibian's trick have generally surmised it uses "pluripotent" cells, which charge into action at the point of amputation, called a blastema.

Pluripotent cells are spectacularly versatile cells that, like human embryonic stem cells, are somehow coaxed by chemical signals into differentiating into the specific tissues that make up skin, bone, nerves, muscle and so on. But in a paper released by the British journal Nature, scientists from the United States and Germany say the regrowth appears to happen through more humdrum, tissue-specific cells -- and this is good news.

The seven researchers first took axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum), a species native to Mexico that is widely used as a model for vertebrate development, and genetically modified them. They added a gene from a fluorescent jellyfish that is commonly used as a telltale in lab experiments. Cells that carry the gene glow a livid green under ultraviolet, thus giving researchers an immediate indication of the cells' origin and progression.

Using embryonic axolotls, the researchers transplanted transgenic tissues into sites already known to develop into certain body parts, then observed how and where the cells organized themselves as the embryo grew. They then worked on genetically modified axolotls, cutting away limbs or organs from them.

They grafted that tissue onto normal axolotls, then cut away some of it and observed what happened to the signature "green" cells as the blastema area regenerated. What they found was that regeneration comes not through pluripotent cells, as thought, but through cells that keep a "memory" of their tissue origin.

In other words, only "old" muscle cells make new muscle cells, only "old" nerve cells make new nerve cells, only "old" skin cells make new skin cells, and so on. The only cells that appeared to be versatile were those that made skin and cartilage. In some circumstances, these two cell types could swap roles.

The findings are important because the salamander's magic appears to derive from tissue-specific cells, which makes it somewhat closer to mammalian processes than thought. "I think it's more mammal-like than was ever expected," one of the authors, Malcolm Maden, a University of Florida professor of biology, said in a press release. "It gives you more hope for being able to some day regenerate individual tissues in people."

Much more work lies ahead, though, before the vision of salamander-style regeneration can be achieved for humans who have lost a hand or leg can be taken seriously. In a commentary, also published by Nature, University of Utah neurobiologist Alejandro Sanchez Alvarado hailed the work as unveiling "a new dimension to our understanding of regeneration."

"Like all important work, it also leaves us with questions that will probably occupy researchers for the next few years," he said.

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Source: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/02/salamander-regeneration.html

Tags: Salamander, limb regeneration, mammals, science, Nature magazine, Malcolm Maden, a University of Florida professor biology, Germany, USA, jellyfish, University of Utah neurobiologist Alejandro Sanchez Alvarado, global development news,

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China, US Hold Defense Talks, More Planned

Chinese and U.S. officials say the two countries share a common concern over a nuclear-weapons armed North Korea and both countries say they want to avoid confrontations at sea. These were among the issues discussed in two days of high level defense talks that ended in Beijing. Under Secretary for Defense Michele Flournoy headed the U.S. delegation.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, she said both countries share concern about what she described as North Korea's recent "provocative actions," and discussed the North Korean nuclear issue in general.

She said the two sides did not specifically discuss a North Korean ship off the coast of China that is allegedly carrying small arms to Burma. If verified, this would be in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution that was recently imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted its second nuclear test at the end of May.

"This was not the appropriate forum to have detailed operational level discussions about how enforcement of this U.N. Security Council resolution was going to go," Flournoy said.

Serious concerns about North Korea

The head of the Chinese side, Lieutenant-General Ma Xiaotian, said his country has "serious concerns" about a nuclear North Korea. But he urged all parties to keep negotiating. Ma says he is confident the U.S.-China military relationship will continue to strengthen in the future. Ma says he believes military ties will continue to make progress despite all the difficulties.

One recent issue has been a series of encounters between U.S. and Chinese ships in waters off China's coast that Beijing claims are within its so-called exclusive economic zone. The Pentagon has said the U.S. ships involved were operating in accordance with international law.

U.S. and Chinese military officials will hold special consultations in July, to address the sea confrontation issue.

Tension over Taiwan arms sale

The two sides also discussed shared interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and with international anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia. The just-concluded defense talks resumed after an 18-month hiatus. China suspended the meetings last year, after the Bush administration announced a multi-billion-dollar arms deal with Taiwan, a separately governed island that Beijing considers a renegade province.

Under Secretary Flournoy said the Obama administration "inherited" the arms-sale to Taiwan and is in the process of deciding how it plans to proceed.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-24-voa19.cfm

Tags: China, USA, Defense, Military, Ma Xiaotian, Taiwan arms sale, Somalia, The Pentagon, Under Secretary Michelle Flournoy, North Korea, UN Security Council, Global Development News,

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Italy Intercepts Billions in Fake Treasuries From Japanese

Ever since two middle-aged men with Japanese passports were caught in Italy this month trying to smuggle a purported $134.5 billion in United States government bearer bonds into Switzerland, the Internet has been abuzz with theories.

Was the Japanese government, or some other creditor nation, secretly trying to dump Treasury bonds to drive down the value of the dollar? Had the Italian mafia stolen the equivalent of 1 percent of the American gross domestic product, using the paper, which supposedly was instantly convertible into cash, to run a giant scam?

Adding spice was the whole Bond — James Bond — aspect of the tale. A crowded customs checkpoint near the Alps; two men traveling on a local train, professing that they had nothing to declare; and a false-bottom suitcase containing United States government bonds made out in stratospheric denominations.

In all, the Italian financial police and customs guards confiscated 249 paper bonds, each supposedly worth $500 million, and 10 bonds with a face value of $1 billion each.

Too bad the bonds were fake.

“The whole thing is a total fraud,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Thursday. “They don’t look anything like real securities, which in any case were never issued in any of those denominations.”

The highest denomination ever issued by the Treasury Department was $10,000, he said. The Italian financial police claimed some of the paper was “Kennedy bonds” from the 1930s, but no such bonds ever existed. And the total of Treasury bearer bonds still outstanding is a mere $105 million; the Treasury has been issuing bonds in electronic form since 1986.

But none of this has stopped the rumor mill from grinding away. After reports of the seizure began to trickle out of Italy, the blogosphere sprang into action, the ponderings fueled by suspicions that the mainstream media was willfully ignoring the tale.

The story took on greater life after Italian authorities — who have refused to talk about the scandal — declined to declare the bonds fakes until they were examined by Washington. After all, although the Guardia di Finanza suspected the bonds were false, if they were not, the Italian treasury stood to profit from a law that permits the government to pocket up to 40 percent of the total value of cash or securities smuggled into the country over the legal export limit, which is 10,000 euros.

Repeated telephone calls to the prosecutors’ office in Como, Italy, that is handling the investigation were not returned.

Darrin Blackford, a spokesman for the United States Secret Service, which was contacted by the Italian financial police and the prosecutor’s office to determine the “legitimacy of the seized financial instruments,” said that his agency had verified the bonds were “fictitious instruments and were never issued by the United States government.”

Col. Rodolfo Mecarelli, the provincial commander of the financial police in Como, said the investigations were focused on “understanding who these men were and where they were from.”

Or where they might have been going. “Switzerland may not have been their final destination,” he said in a recent interview. “They could have taken a plane anywhere.”

Also unknown are the whereabouts of the two men, who were released after being stopped in early June. Italian law does not call for the criminal arrest of persons found to be taking funds without permission to another country. It might have been another matter if the police had determined immediately that the bonds were false.

“The men were questioned, but not arrested,” said Naoki Oyakawa, an official at the Japanese consulate in Milan, which contacted judicial officials in Como after reading about the seizure in the Italian papers.

He said the two men had valid Japanese passports, but he would not elaborate further on their identities. “We don’t know where they are now,” he said. “We have had no contact with the two men. They have not asked us for our help.”

What the bonds were for remains unclear. “It’s not the sort of thing that you can just go into a bank and convert,” said Colonel Mecarelli. “But they may have been useful to guarantee business deals among people who don’t use cash.”

Agencies that deal with financial crimes, including Europol, declined to comment while the Italian investigation was still under way. The Treasury Department says it is stumped, too. “I can’t speak to the motives of the person or persons who tried to do this,” Mr. Meyerhardt said. “I would guess that they were trying to find someone foolish enough to buy the securities for real money.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/business/global/26fake.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Tags: Italy, Japan, USA, Fake US Treasuries, Colonel Mecarelli, Kennedy bonds, Switzerland, Como, US Treasury Department, Milan, US Secret Service, James Bond, Global Economic News,

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US Draws Line With China On Climate Technology

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Access to green technology is becoming a growing stumbling block in global efforts to fight climate change, with US lawmakers bristling at what they see as China's attempt to "steal" US know-how.

China and India have led calls for developed nations to share technology to help them battle global warming as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen meant to seal a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The US House of Representatives this month unanimously voted to make it US policy to prevent the Copenhagen treaty from "weakening" US intellectual property rights on a wind, solar and other eco-friendly technologies.

Congressman Rick Larsen, a member of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party who authored the measure, said the United States was caught between concern both over the climate and its soaring trade deficit with China. "The US can be part of China's solution for the problems that they admittedly have with energy efficiency and emissions. And I think legitimately we want to be part of that solution -- we're the two largest emitters of C02 in the world," Larsen said.

"But we need to couple being part of that solution with making it part of the solution on the trade deficit as well," he said ahead of the measure's approval. Representative Mark Kirk, a Republican who joined Larsen on a recent trip to China, said that climate change was the most contentious issue during talks with Chinese leaders.

Kirk said the Chinese essentially were seeking "the stealing of all intellectual property" related to energy efficiency and climate change. Kirk warned that China's position could change the political dynamics in Washington, where promoters of a bill to force emission cuts say the United States stands to create millions of jobs in a new green economy. "Right now a number of green industries like the climate change bill coming out. But if an international treaty sanctions the theft of their intellectual property, then there will be hardly any green jobs built in the United States," Kirk said.

The United States is the only major industrialized nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, with former president George W. Bush saying it was unfair by making no demands of fast-growing developing nations such as China and India. Despite a recession, President Barack Obama has vowed to work to halt the planet's warming, which UN scientists warn will threaten severe weather and the extinction of plant and animal species later this century if unchecked.

More than 180 countries promised at a December 2007 meeting in Bali, Indonesia to take part in the next global treaty with a "common but differentiated responsibility" for developed and developing economies. But 12 days of talks this month in Bonn came up with no visible progress, with top Chinese negotiator Li Gao accusing rich nations of reneging on sharing technology and watering down commitments to cut emissions.

"There is an attempt to obliterate the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibility' and to split up the developing countries," Li told China's state Xinhua news agency.

Shyam Saran, India's envoy on climate change, also criticized rich nations, which he said bore the historic responsibility for climate change. India has proposed setting up global "innovation centers" to work on green technology.

A report last month by experts for the UN climate body called for a "balanced" approach, stressing the importance of intellectual property rights but saying all nations needed to accept the terms.

Technology transfer "is certainly a big and important question that might be a roadblock" in global negotiations, said Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace.

The environmental group has called for public and private funds on climate change to be pooled into an independent global body, funded to the tune of at least 140 billion dollars a year. But such funding may prove hard to come by. The European Union, champion of the Kyoto Protocol, has come under fire from environmentalists for declining to put a figure on climate aid, saying it is waiting to see other nations' proposals.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090623/bs_afp/uschinaclimatewarmingtechnology_20090623022226

Tags: China, USA, Obama, Kyoto Protocol, EU, Greenpeace, Xinhua, Li Gao, Daniel Kessler, Shyam Saran, Global Development News, US House of Representatives, Copenhagen, Bali, Mark Kirk, Rick Larsen, Intellectual Property, Global Best Practice,

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American Muslims and Jews Consider Obama's Middle East Policy

Reaction to President Obama's Middle East Policy, outlined in his speech in Cairo earlier this month, has been mostly positive. At the center of his policy is a renewed effort to bring about a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state living peaceably alongside Israel. The Bush administration also endorsed a Palestinian state but was seen as favoring Israeli policies. For the moment, Israel has refused to agree to a total settlement freeze, demanded by Mr. Obama.

"The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security," President Obama said in his Cairo speech.

As the dust settles after President Obama's speech, American Muslim and Jewish communities are beginning to look at what his Middle East policy will mean. At the National Mosque in Washington D.C., Imam Abdullah Khoug said reaction to the speech among Muslim Americans has been overwhelmingly positive. Now, they want to see action on solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I have listened to many of the important people [in our community], and all of them are very happy. Most of them, they have great hopes of what is coming," Khoug said. "And I think that is the concern: what is coming now as practice." American Jews are more divided. At the editorial offices of Washington Jewish Week, editor Debra Rubin is positive but with a caveat.

She says she favors a two state solution but wants the Arab world to recognize Israel's historical rights on the land. She takes issue with what she sees as President Obama's statement that Israel's legitimacy comes from the Holocaust. "And the recognition that the aspiration of a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied," President Obama said. The Holocaust, Rubin says, played an important role in Israel's creation. But, she says, Jews had ties to the land for thousands of years before the Holocaust. And those ties must be the basis of Arab recognition, not the Holocaust.

"It kind of feeds into what goes on in the Arab world that it is not legitimate for the Jews to be there," Rubin states. Other Jewish groups, like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), take issue with Mr. Obama's opposition to Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.

"The United States does not accept the continued legitimacy of Israeli settlements," President Obama said. "The construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for those settlements to stop."

The ADL, influential during the Bush administration, says settlements are not illegal nor an impediment to peace. Ori Nir is with the left leaning group Americans For Peace Now. It opposes Jewish settlement and is for a Palestinian state in most of the occupied territories. Nir says his group is thrilled by President Obama's speech. He says most American Jews and Israelis support the peace process as laid out in the 2003 roadmap. It requires a halt to terrorism on the Palestinian side in exchange for a two state solution. "Israelis do not like the settlements, they do not like the settlers. Most of them would like to see this whole issue removed from the agenda. It's an impediment," he said.

Nir says that with the new American policy, Jewish peace groups are gaining influence both with the president and on Capitol Hill. "We have a Congress that sees eye to eye with our agenda, has made it clear and is making it clear that it is not going to be a pawn in the hands of conservative pro-Israeli organizations or in the hand of the Israeli government to be pitted against the White House," Nir said.

But still, the U.S. must work with the government of Israel. In a recent speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed the goal of a Palestinian state. But he did not commit to a total settlement freeze and did not define the borders of a Palestinian state. He referred to the West Bank as "the land of our forefathers." One more reminder that a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians will not be be easy.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-19-voa24.cfm

Tags: Obama, Netanyahu, Ori Nir, ADL, Jewish, Mulim, USA, Israeli settlements, Capitol Hill, Imam Abdullah Khoug, Debra Rubin, Palestine, Global Development News, Middle East, Washington Jewish Week,

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N Korea Defiant After New Sanctions

North Korea has warned that it will increase its nuclear activities and could launch military action against the US and allies after the UN Security Council announced new sanctions over last month's atomic test. North Korea's foreign ministry said it will regard any attempts to impose a blockade against it as an "act of war", the state-run KCNA news agency reported on Saturday.

"We'll take firm military action if the United States and its allies try to isolate us," the unnamed foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying. The UN resolution, passed on Friday, banned all weapons exports from North Korea and authorised member states to inspect sea, air and land cargo, requiring them to seize and destroy goods that violate the sanctions. The UN resolution was passed as media reports suggested that North Korea could be planning a third nuclear test.

Enrichment Programme

But North Korea remained defiant, pledging to start a uranium enrichment programme for a light-water nuclear reactor. The foreign ministry spokesman also warned that the North would "weaponise all plutonium [in its possession]" and had "reprocessed more than one-third of our spent nuclear fuel rods."

Alexander Neill, the head of the Asia security programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in the UK, told Al Jazeera that while the warning is "bluster", it is also a serious threat. "This [threat of enrichment] is not a new phenomenon," Neill said. "It would take a long time and sophisticated technology to convert plutonium to missile-grade material, but it is a gesture with a lot of teeth behind it. "When it comes to the international reaction, the only option is for the UN Security Council resolution. "It is almost certain that the US and Japan will enforce a blockade which will put a pincer movement around any of the sea trade going in and out of North Korea.

"The question is whether it will have any result inside North Korea. The regime has proved resilient to sanctions in the past," he said. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said on Saturday: "The North Koreans' continuing provocative actions are deeply regrettable'. "They have now been denounced by everyone, they have become further isolated, and it is not in the interest of the people of North Korea for that kind of isolation to be continued."

'Firm Opposition'

North Korea's nuclear test in May defied a previous Security Council resolution adopted after the North's first underground nuclear test in October 2006. Zhang Yesui, China's UN ambassador, said the resolution showed the "firm opposition" of the international community to North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The backing of China, one of North Korea's key trading partners and regional allies, and Russia for the resolution gave greater weight to the new sanctions as they have been reluctant to act in the past.

"To a certain extent, China has been happy to leave North Korea to its own devices," Al Jazeera's Tony Cheng, reporting from Beijing, said. "Now China is profoundly concerned about the regime in Pyongyang, which seems increasingly unstable and seems increasingly not to follow Beijing's lead." Japan is expected to impose its own sanctions on North Korea, including suspending all trade, in a largely symbolic demonstration of its opposition to the test, the Kyodo news agency reported.

'Tightening Sanctions'

Al Jazeera's Cheng said that it was difficult to judge what effect the new sanctions would have on the already impoverished state. "This is really just tightening sanctions that already exist on North Korea, but they do target it in specific areas," he said.

"I think that one area that will hurt quite a lot will be the ban on conventional weapons arms sales and the possibility of stopping ships going to and from North Korea ... that is a business that could earn Pyongyang as much as $100m." Jamie Metzl, the executive vice-president of the Asia Society, said North Korea had exported arms to about 20 countries in the past, including Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Sudan.

"Their finances are in big trouble. They have almost nothing that anybody else wants to buy but these arms," Metzl said. The UN vote comes amid continuing tensions on the Korean peninsula after North Korea on Thursday demanded a 3,000 per cent increase in rent and a 400 per cent increase in wages for 40,000 workers employed by South Korean companies at an industrial park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.

North Korean state media issued a statement on Thursday saying that relations between the two countries had reached the "phase of catastrophe" and that the Kaesong complex had been "thrown into a serious crisis".

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/06/200961361534368421.html

Tags: Kim jong il, Kim jong un, USA, China, Russia, UK, France, UN Security Council, Sanctions, Nucelar reactors, Nuclear Weapons, Global Development News, Hillary Clinton, Kaesong industrial Park, South Korea, Japan, Kyodo,

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Security Council Set to Tighten Sanctions on North Korea

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council’s five permanent members agreed on Wednesday on a draft resolution that would ratchet up sanctions against North Korea by concentrating on its financial transactions and its arms industry, including allowing for inspections of its cargo vessels on the high seas.

The sharply worded resolution, while diluting some of the sanctions sought by the West and Japan, would still serve notice on North Korea that its nuclear and other weapons programs had created sufficient alarm to forge a rare unified front among the world’s major powers.

Written by the United States, the resolution came after more than two weeks of negotiations among the five permanent members — China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France — as well as with Japan and South Korea. It was presented to the full Security Council on Wednesday, and although no timetable for a vote was announced, it could come as early as Friday. Given its supporters, the measure seems assured of passing.

Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, told reporters, “Having sanctions and things like that is not our choice, but a certain political message must be sent, and some measures must be taken, because we are facing a very real situation of proliferation risks.”

North Korea did not react immediately, although its reclusive government has said in the past that ship inspections or other intrusive steps would be considered acts of war. If the resolution is approved, the next hurdle will be ensuring its highly technical provisions are all carried out. Not all resolutions are equally respected by United Nations member states, and, as Ambassador Jorge Urbina of Costa Rica noted, the draft resolution is complex.

The biggest question mark involved China, which has been reluctant to deploy the full weight of its influence on North Korea out of fear of destabilizing it amid a leadership transition. But various analysts suggested that it would not have publicly backed such sanctions unless it was serious about responding to North Korea’s underground nuclear test on May 25.

“They are deeply troubled by North Korean actions,” Jonathan D. Pollack, a professor of Asian and Pacific studies at the Naval War College, said in a telephone interview from Beijing.

The nuclear test followed a series of confrontational actions taken by the North, largely reversing every step it had taken to abandon its nuclear program in recent years.

“It is important for there to be consequences, and this sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite and bite in a meaningful way,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador, who shepherded the resolution through the negotiations.

The United States and its allies had wanted the draft resolution to include mandatory cargo inspections, if there was reasonable suspicion that the cargo was weapons-related — something Washington had been seeking outside the United Nations during the Bush years through its Proliferation Security Initiative. But China and Russia balked at mandatory inspections. In a compromise, the resolution requests that states inspect ships on the high seas. If the country where the ship is registered decided to reject an inspection in international waters, then the country would be required to direct the vessel to a nearby harbor for an inspection. If neither happened, the episode would be reported to the Security Council’s sanctions committee. The resolution also suggests that states should cut off “bunkering” services, like refueling, for North Korean vessels.

It is assumed that North Korea would balk at any inspections of its ships, analysts noted, and the resolution does not come under a United Nations provision that would allow the use of force as the ultimate fallback. The sanctions basically fleshed out measures that were first listed in a Security Council resolution passed after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006. They were never enacted, because the North agreed to participate in talks to dismantle the program.

The draft resolution condemns the latest North Korean nuclear test, demanding that North Korea conduct no more tests and that it suspend its ballistic missile program and rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The theme salted throughout the resolution is choking off anything that might feed the country’s nuclear and weapons programs, including a complete arms embargo, with the exception of small weapons.

Arms generate significant earnings for North Korea, Ms. Rice said, “and we think it important that that source of revenue be entirely curtailed.”

Analysts said the proposed sanctions with the most bite might be the financial ones. They called upon member states to cut off financial services related to the North’s nuclear and weapons programs, to avoid any new grants or loans to the country and to halt other trade support like export credits. Financial transactions for humanitarian or development purposes would be allowed.

William H. Tobey, the former senior Bush administration official for nuclear nonproliferation, who is now at Harvard’s Belfer Center, said that North Korea imported about $3 billion in goods annually, $2 billion of it from China. It exports about $1.5 billion legally, so it needs significant credit to make up the difference. “It would put a significant crimp in their ability to import,” he said of the financial sanctions.

In recent years, efforts to sanction rogue states like Zimbabwe have foundered on the split between Russia and China, on one side, and Western nations on the other. The fact that all five permanent Security Council members agreed on the draft showed how seriously they viewed the gradual global decay in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty — a message aimed not only at North Korea but at other countries suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons, like Iran.

“They have to get North Korea right, because it has implications for the entire nonproliferation regime,” said Robert C. Orr, the United Nations assistant secretary-general for policy planning.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11korea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Tags: UN, United Nations, UN Permanent Security Council, China, Russia, USA, Britain, France, Global Economic News, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Nuclear weapons, Economic Sanctions, Croatia, Costa Rica, Vitaly Churkin, Robert C Orr,

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