SEOUL, South Korea -- The United States has told South Korea that it will impose its own financial sanctions on the North apart from punishments the U.N. has been mulling for Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, a news report said Friday. The U.S. sanctions call for blacklisting foreign financial institutions that help the North launder money and conduct other dubious deals, the South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg briefed the South Korean president on the new sanctions at a meeting Thursday, the mass-market paper said, citing an unidentified official at the presidential office. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul could not confirm the report.
SEOUL, South Korea -- The United States has told South Korea that it will impose its own financial sanctions on the North apart from punishments the U.N. has been mulling for Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, a news report said Friday.
The U.S. sanctions call for blacklisting foreign financial institutions that help the North launder money and conduct other dubious deals, the South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg briefed the South Korean president on the new sanctions at a meeting Thursday, the mass-market paper said, citing an unidentified official at the presidential office. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul could not confirm the report.
All flights to Beirut are full and most hotels in the city are booked, as tens of thousands of Lebanese abroad come home to vote in Sunday's parliamentary election.Throughout the campaign, political parties have been criticised, and have accused each other of spending millions on offering free trips to Beirut in exchange for votes. "I think there's been a huge amount of money spent here, per capita more than anywhere else on any election in the world, and this money distribution certainly deligitimises the election," says Karim Makdisi, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut. But between hugs and kisses in the crowded arrivals hall of Rafik Hariri International Airport, Rima said she had paid for her own passage home. "I had to be part of this historic moment, our future is being decided" said Rima, a student at Harvard University in the United States.
All flights to Beirut are full and most hotels in the city are booked, as tens of thousands of Lebanese abroad come home to vote in Sunday's parliamentary election.
Throughout the campaign, political parties have been criticised, and have accused each other of spending millions on offering free trips to Beirut in exchange for votes.
"I think there's been a huge amount of money spent here, per capita more than anywhere else on any election in the world, and this money distribution certainly deligitimises the election," says Karim Makdisi, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut.
But between hugs and kisses in the crowded arrivals hall of Rafik Hariri International Airport, Rima said she had paid for her own passage home.
"I had to be part of this historic moment, our future is being decided" said Rima, a student at Harvard University in the United States.
Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld could soon be in trouble for the role he played in human rights abuses committed in the Guantanamo prison, a United Nations expert said Wednesday. "In a year or two, his responsibilities will be established. Wherever he goes, he will face difficulties," Leandro Despouy, who is Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told journalists in Geneva. A US bipartisan Senate report released late last year found Rumsfeld and other top administration officials responsible for abuse of Guantanamo detainees in US custody. It said Rumsfeld authorised harsh interrogation techniques on December 2, 2002 at the Guantanamo prison, although he ruled them out a month later.
Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld could soon be in trouble for the role he played in human rights abuses committed in the Guantanamo prison, a United Nations expert said Wednesday.
"In a year or two, his responsibilities will be established. Wherever he goes, he will face difficulties," Leandro Despouy, who is Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told journalists in Geneva.
A US bipartisan Senate report released late last year found Rumsfeld and other top administration officials responsible for abuse of Guantanamo detainees in US custody.
It said Rumsfeld authorised harsh interrogation techniques on December 2, 2002 at the Guantanamo prison, although he ruled them out a month later.
