EU’s Almunia sets deadline for Google antitrust plan






BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union set Google an ultimatum on Tuesday, giving it a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve a two-year investigation into complaints that it used its power to block rivals, including Microsoft.


The EU’s antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, delivered the deadline in a meeting with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in Brussels.






If it fails to address the complaints, the world’s most popular search engine could face a lengthy battle with what is arguably the world’s most powerful antitrust authority. If found guilty, it could mean a fine of up to 10 percent of its revenue, or $ 4 billion.


“Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences regarding possible ways to address each of the four competition concerns expressed by the Commission,” Almunia said in a statement.


“On the basis of the progress made, I now expect Google to come forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013.”


Almunia said he would seek feedback from rivals and users once he has received Google’s proposal.


Google said it continues to work co-operatively with the Commission.


The European Commission has been examining informal settlement proposals from Google since July but has not sought feedback from the complainants, suggesting it is not convinced by what Google has put on the table so far.


The EU watchdog’s two-year investigation has centered on complaints that Google unfairly favored its services over its rivals in search results, and that it may have copied material from travel and restaurant websites without permission.


The Commission is also looking into whether Google restricted advertisers from transferring their data to rivals.


The Commission’s decision to press Google to offer more far-reaching concessions comes in sharp contrast to the case U.S. regulators have against the company.


Sources told Reuters the U.S. Federal Trade Commission could drop their investigation into Google without requiring any major change in how the company does business.


(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Robin Emmott, Louise Heavens and Nick Zieminski)


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Ben Stiller’s Red Hour sells two more comedies to ABC Studios






LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ben Stiller‘s Red Hour Television is continuing to pump out comedies for ABC Studios.


Following the sale of “Complikated” in October, the production company has sold network’s production division two new series – “You’re Not Doing It Right” and “Between Two Kings” – a rep for Red Hour told TheWrap on Monday.






Comedian Michael Ian Black writes, stars and produces in the former, a half-hour single-camera comedy based on his book of the same name that explores his childhood, marriage, children and career. Set “in the wilds of Connecticut,” the show takes a hard look at what happens when you wake up, look around and don’t recognize the life you’re living as your own, Red Hour said.


“Between Two Kings” is written and executive-produced by Jeff Kahn, who has written for series like “Drawn Together” and “The Ben Stiller Show.” It follows the hardships of a divorced father raising an 11-year-old son while living in his elderly father’s home.


Both are being executive-produced by Stiller, along with Red Hour’s Debbie Liebling and Stuart Cornfeld.


Since signing an overall deal with ABC Studios at the end of 2011, Red Hour also has sold “Please Knock,” written by Kevin Napier, and “The Notorious Mollie Flowers,” written by Adam Resnick.


The sale of “You’re Not Doing It Right” and “Between Two Kings” were first reported by Deadline.


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Amgen to pay $762 million, pleads guilty in marketing case






NEW YORK (Reuters) – Amgen Inc pleaded guilty in a New York federal court on Tuesday for improper marketing practices involving its once top-selling Aranesp anemia drug, and prosecutors said the company has agreed to pay $ 762 million in a civil settlement and criminal fines.


The world’s largest biotechnology company had set aside funds it expected to have to pay as a result of federal and state investigations, as well as nearly a dozen civil whistleblower lawsuits.






Federal prosecutors said in court that the company had agreed to pay $ 612 million in a civil settlement, a $ 14 million criminal forfeiture payment, and a $ 136 million criminal fine.


Amgen entered the guilty plea to one misdemeanor count. Acting U.S. attorney Marshall Miller confirmed that under the agreement Amgen will not lose any federal business or contracts. Exclusion from federal programs, such as Medicare, could have crippled its business.


As part of the deal, Amgen will enter into a five-year corporate integrity agreement with the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, prosecutors said. The agreement will require Amgen’s executives and members of its board of directors to certify compliance with applicable regulations, institute new transparency measures and put corporate officers “on the hook” for compliance failures within that five-year period, prosecutors said.


The plea agreement must be approved by U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson. He has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday morning.


Aranesp, primarily used to treat anemia in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, remains one of Amgen’s largest drugs with sales of $ 2.3 billion in 2011. Its sales, and that of a related older red blood cell booster Epogen, have declined significantly over the past few years amid safety concerns, stricter usage guidelines and reimbursement restrictions.


Amgen was accused of promoting Aranesp for anemia caused by cancer, for which it was not approved, rather than to combat anemia as a side effect of chemotherapy treatments. The company was also accused of pushing higher doses and more convenient treatment schedules than what was approved in the drug’s label for both cancer and chronic kidney disease patients.


The government said the illegal practices were undertaken in part to help Amgen take market share from Johnson & Johnson’s similar anemia drug Procrit.


Amgen was “pursuing profits at the risk of patients’ safety,” Miller told reporters Tuesday after the plea hearing. He added that while the company “circumvented the FDA approval process,” the investigation had not uncovered any evidence of fraudulent intent on Amgen’s part.


Federal prosecutors declined to comment further on the civil portion of the settlement, which they said is still under seal.


A spokeswoman for the company, based in Thousand Oaks, California, said that if the judge accepts the criminal plea tomorrow, “Amgen expects immediately thereafter to complete the comprehensive resolution of related civil and criminal matters,” for which it had previously recorded a $ 780 million charge in the third quarter of 2011.


In a recent regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Amgen said it had accrued $ 806 million related to the proposed settlement of charges arising out of the federal civil and criminal investigations.


Amgen shares were down 14 cents at $ 89.36 in late morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.


(Additional reporting and writing by Bill Berkrot and Caroline Humer; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Andrew Hay and David Gregorio)


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S&P raises Greece’s credit rating







Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has raised the credit rating of Greece’s sovereign debt by six levels, praising the “strong determination” of fellow eurozone countries to help it stay as a member state.






S&P has increased Greece’s rating from “selective default” to “B-minus”.


The agency also praised the continuing efforts by Greece’s government to cut its spending.


Greece is currently receiving the second of two bailouts.


Last week, Greece started to receive the latest tranche of the bailout funds from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.


They agreed to release 49.1bn euros ($ 57bn; £37bn) after continuing austerity work by Greece, and a buyback of some of its debt.


A total of 240bn euros has been earmarked for Greece from the two bailout loans.


So far, Greece has received nearly 149bn euros (£119bn; $ 191bn) from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, out of that 240bn euros.


Continue reading the main story

This is a significant upgrade, which the Greek government will consider a vote of confidence, but it seems to be more of a vote of confidence in the euro in general. ”



End Quote



S&P said in its statement: “The upgrade reflects our view of the strong determination of European Economic and Monetary Union (eurozone) member states to preserve Greek membership in the eurozone.


“The outlook on the long-term rating is stable, balancing our view of the government’s commitment to a fiscal and structural adjustment against the economic and political challenges of doing so.”


Greece had to seek the bailouts to meet its debt repayments after years of overspending meant it could not keep up with its debt obligations.


The negative market opinion of Greece’s situation only worsened its position, as it pushed up the yield, or level of interest, that the the country had to offer on the sale of its new government bonds, in order to attract buyers.


The BBC’s economics editor Stephanie Flanders said of S&P’s announcement: “This is a significant upgrade, which the Greek government will consider a vote of confidence, but it seems to be more of a vote of confidence in the euro in general.


“Greece is not out of the woods economically, by any stretch of the imagination. But financial markets do now think a Greek exit from the euro is less likely.


“S&P is catching up with that market optimism with this upgrade. In theory, the fact that a large part of Greek sovereign debt has already been restructured also makes future defaults a bit less likely.”


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NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria






BEIRUT (AP) — NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said Tuesday he and members of his network crew escaped unharmed after five days of captivity in Syria, where more than a dozen pro-regime gunmen dragged them from their car, killed one of their rebel escorts and subjected them to mock executions.


Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, an unshaven Engel said he and his team escaped during a firefight Monday night between their captors and rebels at a checkpoint. They crossed into Turkey on Tuesday.






NBC did not say how many people were kidnapped with Engel, although two other men, producer Ghazi Balkiz and photographer John Kooistra, appeared with him on the “Today” show. It was not confirmed whether everyone was accounted for.


Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.


“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said the 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.


“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group, but he did not elaborate.


There was no mention of the kidnapping by Syria’s state-run news agency.


Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, who used military force to crush mostly peaceful protests against his regime. The crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has become a civil war.


Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.


“They captured us in order to carry out this exchange,” he said.


Engel and his crew entered Syria on Thursday and were driving through what they thought was rebel-controlled territory when “a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road.”


“There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car,” he said.


He said the gunmen shot and killed at least one of their rebel escorts on the spot and took the hostages into a waiting truck nearby.


Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.


“And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn’t expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan,” he said. “The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them.”


Engel and his crew crossed back into neighboring Turkey on Tuesday.


The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.


NBC sought to keep the disappearance of Engel and the crew secret for several days while it investigated what happened to them. Major media organizations, including The Associated Press, adhered to a request from the network to refrain from reporting on the issue out of concern it could make the dangers to the captives worse. News of the disappearance did begin to leak out in Turkish media and on some websites on Monday.


Syria has become a danger zone for reporters since the conflict began.


According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is by far the deadliest country for the press in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces.


Among the journalists killed while covering Syria are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain’s Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.


The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers and travel with rebel escorts or drivers.


Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.


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Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook research






BOSTON (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for Facebook Inc’s initial public offering, will pay a $ 5 million fine to Massachusetts to settle charges that its bankers improperly influenced its research analysts when the Internet company went public.


Massachusetts’ top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged that Morgan Stanley improperly helped Facebook disclose sensitive financial information selectively, perpetuating what he calls “an unlevel playing field” between Wall Street and Main Street.






Morgan Stanley has been under criticism since the social media company went public in May for having revealed revised earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients on conference calls before the media company’s $ 16 billion initial public offering. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.


Galvin, who has been aggressive in policing how research is distributed on Wall Street ever since investment banks reached a global settlement in 2003, said the bank violated that settlement. He fined Citigroup $ 2 million over similar charges in late October.


Massachusetts says that a senior Morgan Stanley banker helped a Facebook executive release new information and then guided the executive on how to speak with Wall Street analysts about it. The banker, Galvin’s office said, rehearsed with Facebook’s Treasurer and wrote the bulk of the script Facebook’s Treasurer used when calling the research analysts.


The banker “was not allowed to call research analysts himself, so he did everything he could to ensure research analysts received new revenue numbers which they then provided to institutional investors,” Galvin said in a statement.


Retail investors were not given any similar information, Galvin said, saying this case illustrates how institutional investors often have an edge over retail investors.


(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss with additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in New York; Editing by Theodore d’Afflisio)


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TV network aimed at millennials set for summer






NEW YORK (AP) — Participant Media plans to launch a cable network aimed at viewers 18 to 34 years old with programming it describes as inspiring and thought-provoking.


The as-yet-unnamed network is set to start next summer with an initial reach of 40 million subscribers, the company announced Monday.






Targeting so-called millennials, Participant is developing a program slate with such producers as Brian Graden, Morgan Spurlock and Brian Henson of The Jim Henson Company.


Evan Shapiro, who joined Participant in May after serving as President of IFC and Sundance Channel, will head the new network.


Parent company Participant Media has produced a number of fiction and nonfiction films including “Charlie Wilson’s War,” ”An Inconvenient Truth” and Steven Spielberg’s current biopic “Lincoln.”


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Global malaria battle stalls as financing gets tight






LONDON (Reuters) – Global funding for the fight against malaria has stalled in the past two years, threatening to reverse what the World Health Organisation (WHO) says are “remarkable recent gains” in the battle to control one of the world’s leading infectious killers.


After rapid expansion between 2004 and 2009, funding for malaria prevention and control leveled off between 2010 and 2012 – meaning there were fewer life-saving steps taken in hard- hit malarial regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.






“If we don’t scale up vector control activities in 2013 we can expect major resurgences of malaria,” said Richard Cibulskis, lead author of the WHO’s World Malaria Report, which was published on Monday.


“Vector control” means stopping transmission of the disease with tools such as treated mosquito nets. The report found that deliveries of such nets to endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa dropped from 145 million in 2010 to an estimated 66 million in 2012.


“This means that many households will be unable to replace existing bed nets when required, exposing more people to the potentially deadly disease,” the report said.


Malaria is caused by a parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes and kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, mainly babies and children under the age of five in Africa.


According to WHO data, the disease infected around 219 million people in 2010, killing around 660,000 of them. Robust figures are, however, hard to establish and other health experts say the annual malaria death toll could be double that.


GLOBAL TARGETS


An estimated $ 5.1 billion a year is needed between 2011 and 2020 to get malaria medicines, prevention measures and tests to all those who need them in the 99 countries which have on-going transmission of the disease.


“Essentially, with the tools that we’ve got, we need to make sure that we continue the investments in the control measures that we have,” Cibulskis told a news conference in Geneva.


“If we don’t do that, malaria will bounce back. As soon as you take bed nets away, malaria will come back. If you stop indoor residual spraying, it will come back, and with a vengeance. So yes, we need to keep on investing in malaria ultimately until new tools are developed.”


The WHO says while many countries have increased financing for malaria, the total available global funding remained at $ 2.3 billion in 2011 – less than half of what is needed.


“Global targets for reducing the malaria burden will not be reached unless progress is accelerated in the highest burden countries,” Robert Newman, director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, said in statement with the report.


“These countries are in a precarious situation and most of them need urgent financial assistance to procure and distribute life-saving commodities.”


The WHO report found that by far the greatest impact of malaria is concentrated in 14 endemic countries which account for an estimated 80 percent of malaria deaths.


Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, while India is the hardest hit in South East Asia.


WHO director general Margaret Chan wrote in a forward to the report that there is now an urgent need to identify new sources of funding to boost and sustain malaria control.


“We also need to examine new ways to make existing funds stretch further by increasing the value for money of malaria commodities and the efficiency of service delivery,” she said.


The Roll Back Malaria Partnership, which includes the WHO, UNICEF and the World Bank, said it was already exploring several options, including financial transaction taxes, airline ticket taxes and a potential “malaria bond” to encourage more involvement from private sector investors.


Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, said Mozambique and one other African country were preparing to pilot such a bond in 2013, with the hope that other countries would follow their example.


(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Stephen Powell)


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Only balanced plan to avoid “cliff” is Obama’s: White House






WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The only proposal that avoids the year-end U.S. “fiscal cliff” in a balanced manner is the one President Barack Obama has put forward, White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.


“The only plan that we have seen that achieves the size and the balance that’s required for sustainable – for long-term deficit reduction and for putting our economy on a sustainable fiscal path, is the president’s,” Carney told reporters at a briefing.






Carney had been asked to comment on reports of a proposal from House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, that would allow top tax rates to rise in exchange for cuts to entitlement programs.


(Reporting By Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Eric Walsh)


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N. Korea displays Kim Jong Il a year after death






PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.


Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.






Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.


North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.


North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week’s launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.


The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology, was portrayed not only as a gift to Kim Jong Il but also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.


The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.


The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday’s launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il’s nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star,” a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.


Cameras were not allowed inside the mausoleum, and state media did not release any images of Kim Jong Il’s body.


With the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.


His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim’s father and grandfather.


There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.


North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumors even in Pyongyang about whether the country’s first couple is expecting.


To honor Kim’s father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.


Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.


Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang’s outskirts.


“Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away,” Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. “But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. … We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country.”


Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military’s top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it “a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity.”


Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.


The test, which the U.N. Security Council said violated a ban on launches using ballistic missile technology, underlined Kim Jong Un’s determination to continue carrying out his father’s hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.


Washington said Monday it has no option but to seek to isolate Pyongyang further.


“What’s left to us is to continue to increase pressure on the North Korean regime and we are looking at how to best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward until they (North Korea) get the message. We are going to further isolate this regime,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.


Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang’s next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.


Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.


At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea’s top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea’s parliament, called the launch a “shining victory” and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.


The rocket’s success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il’s death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un’s reign.


In a sign of the rocket launch’s importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.


The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader’s death follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the anniversary of his death in 1994.


___


Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Jean Lee, AP’s bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.


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