North Korea is willing to take China’s advice and enter into talks, Chinese state television cited an envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as saying, following weeks of tension on the Korean peninsula after the North’s latest nuclear test.
However, that prospect seems unlikely as North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons while the United States insists North Korea must take meaningful steps on denuclearization before there can be talks.
The visit to Beijing by Choe Ryong-hae, a top North Korean military officer, is the most high-level contact between North Korea and China in about six months.
Ties have been hurt between the two supposed allies by the North’s third nuclear test in February, despite China’s disapproval, and by China agreeing to U.N. sanctions on the North in response and starting to put a squeeze on North Korean banks.
China was also alarmed by North Korea’s threats this year to wage nuclear war on South Korea and the United States in retaliation for the sanctions, fearing any conflict would inevitable have disastrous consequences for China.
Choe told Liu Yunshan, the Chinese Communist Party’s fifth-ranked leader, that Kim had sent him to China “to improve, consolidate and develop ties between China and North Korea”.

Police in India seized thousands of kilos of cannabis then destroyed the haul by setting it on fire.

The huge discovery was made by officers in the town of Kharupetia in the state of Assam in the North East of the country.

Scores of bags were then emptied onto the ground and set ablaze.

It is not known exactly how large the haul was but recent raids in the area have recovered as much as ten tonnes of the illegal crop.

Cannabis cultivation has become rife in the towns and villages of Assam in recent years.

It is used not not only a transit route to other parts of the country but also offers a lucrative market to dealers.

A kilo of cannabis currently sells for around £60.

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart had Aus$7 billion (US$6.8 billion) wiped off her fortune in the past year but remains Australia’s wealthiest person, an annual rich list showed Wednesday.

Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a $79 million credit to import toilet paper and other personal hygiene products to relieve shortages in the petroleum-rich state.
The South American OPEC member has the world’s largest proven oil reserves but has wrestled with periodic shortages of several consumer goods since price controls were imposed in 2003 under the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
The credit will be used to purchase 39 million rolls of toilet paper, 50 million sanitary napkins, 10 million bars of soap, 17 million disposable diapers and three million tubes of toothpaste.
Chavez, who died of cancer in March, launched a “Bolivarian Revolution” during his 14 years in power, using the country’s vast oil wealth to fund social programs for the poor and back regional leftist allies.
But chronic shortages have plagued the country since Chavez imposed currency and price controls in 2003.
Venezuelans suffer from sporadic power outages, inflation — which topped 20 percent last year — and a public debt of $150 billion, or half the gross domestic product of the country of 29 million.

A climber from Bangladesh and another from South Korea have died on Mount Everest as hundreds flock to the world’s highest peak during good weather, Nepalese tourism officials said Tuesday.
“Both men died while descending from the summit on Monday,” an official with the tourism ministry told AFP from Everest Base Camp.
Sung Ho-Seo, 34, of South Korea was attempting the climb without supplementary oxygen and died on his way down the mountain.
Mohammed Hossain, 35, from Bangladesh, died in his tent a few hours after successfully climbing the summit.
“The exact cause of death is unknown, but altitude played a part,” said the official, Gyanendra Shrestha, adding that the bodies would not be recovered until after the summit season ended so as not to interrupt other climbers.
Both men perished in the “death zone” — above 8,000 metres, notorious for its difficult terrain and thin air.
Five other climbers have died on the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) mountain this season.

China’s human H7N9 bird flu outbreak has cost the country’s poultry industry more than 400 billion yuan ($65 billion) as consumers shun chicken, government officials said, according to state media.

The sector has been losing an average of one billion yuan a day since the end of March, the Beijing Times said on Monday, citing Li Xirong, head of the National Animal Husbandry Service.

H7N9 avian influenza has infected 130 people in China, killing 35, since it was found in humans for the first time, according to latest official data.

Poultry sales have tumbled and prices plunged, Li said, causing major financial problems and job losses as a result.

In a stunt to boost confidence, officials and poultry business leaders in the eastern province of Shandong held a widely reported all-chicken lunch last week, according to Chinese media.

A senior Communist Party official says that ‘uncivilised behaviour’ by Chinese tourists is harming China’s image abroad.

Wang Yang, one of the country’s four vice-prime ministers, said holidaymakers should be more polite, singling out talking loudly and spitting as poor behaviour by his fellow citizens.

It was revealed last month that the Chinese are the world’s biggest spending tourists, splashing out $102billion on foreign trips in 2012, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.

Chinese tourists make 83million trips abroad last year, compared with only 10million in 2000, becoming the single biggest source of global tourism income.

Writing in the official party newspaper People’s Daily, Mr Wang said: ‘Improving the civilised quality of the citizens and building a good image of Chinese tourists are the obligations of governments at all levels and relevant agencies and companies.’

He said Chinese authorities should ‘guide tourists to conscientiously abide by public order and social ethics, respect local religious beliefs and customs, mind their speech and behaviour… and protect the environment’.

However, some Chinese tourists say they are treated ‘like second-class citizens’ when they are abroad.

‘Chinese internet forums were flooded with protests earlier this year when news emerged that a hotel in the Maldives had removed kettles from rooms occupied by Chinese tourists,’ said the BBC‘s Beiijing correspondent Celia Hatton.

‘Apparently, the hotel’s manager was upset that some Chinese tourists were using boiling water to eat instant noodles in their rooms, instead of spending money in the hotel’s restaurants.’

Fourteen Muslim clerics from across the globe will visit the former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland next week as part of a Holocaust awareness and anti-genocide program, organisers said Friday.

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has bought a 40-percent stake in a new 290,000-square metre skyscraper project near the centre of Milan with a commercial value of 2.0 billion euros ($2.6 billion), the companies said on Friday.
Texas-based Hines’ Italian arm leads the project.
“Land is Italy’s most important natural resources and we are confident it can be a strategic engine for development and economic growth,” said Manfredi Catella, chief executive of Hines Italia.
“The agreement is a fundamental signal for the Italian economic system and the international capital market,” he was quoted as saying.
Qatar Holding last year bought a luxury resort on the Italian island of Sardinia with one of the country’s most beautiful stretches of coastline.
In 2012, Qatar also set up a joint venture with Italy with a 2.0 billion euro fund to invest in Italian business including in fashion, food, tourism and design.

Bangladesh garment manufacturers said Thursday they would reopen hundreds of factories in a manufacturing hub outside the capital, days after they shut the plants due to worker unrest following a deadly accident.
The manufacturers Monday announced the shutdown of the factories in the Ashulia industrial area after two weeks of protests over the death of 1,127 garment workers in the country’s worst industrial tragedy.
“We’ve decided to reopen the factories from Friday,” Shahidullah Azim, vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said after meeting government and labour representatives.
The association, which represents the country’s 4,500 garment factories, took the decision after the government assured it of the “highest security” for the plants, Azim told AFP.
“We met the home and labour ministers and representatives from the workers today. They assured the highest security for our factories,” he said.
Most of Bangladesh’s top garment factories, which make clothing for a string of major Western retailers including Walmart, H&M, Tesco, Inditex and Carrefour, are based at Ashulia.
Police said tens of thousands of workers joined the protests and dozens of factories and vehicles were vandalised.

Two Australian ‘crusaders without clothes’ have stripped off beside some of London’s most iconic landmarks in a project to promote nudity.

Sam Hatfield and Fiona Skelton bared all at BuckinghamPalace, TowerBridge, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

They also offered their own interpretation of the iconic image of The Beatles by strolling across the Abbey Road crossing.

The stunts are part of their ‘Nakedme’ internet project – a ‘worldwide crusade’ to ‘make nudity more acceptable’.

The London images were part of a short film they made for the project called ‘Bare Rollin’ in the Big Smoke’.

The duo, who call themselves ‘the crusaders without clothes’, said: ‘We are here to make being comfortable with nudity cool.

It is not the first time the two Australians have stripped-off in public.They rode a scooter across the SydneyHarbourBridge wearing nothing but helmets, boots and gloves.

They also danced naked with commuters on the suspended railway in the picturesque German town of Wuppertal.