Report: N. Koreans defect in wooden boat

Source: CNN.
May 1, 2007.

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Four North Koreans have drifted south across a heavily guarded maritime border in a wooden boat and are seeking political asylum, South Korean media reported on Wednesday quoting government officials.

The group of four was picked up after midnight on Saturday near South Korean islands off the west coast and said they wanted to defect, media quoted the officials as saying.

South Korea's defense ministry and the intelligence agency declined to comment on the case, citing what they said was the need to protect the group.

The waters off the west coast have been hotly contested by both Koreas and have been the scene of naval skirmishes in past years that killed scores of sailors on both sides.

Defections of North Koreans by sea to the South are rare because of the heavy military presence. The two Koreas, still technically at war, share one of the most fortified borders in the world.

Bush to North Korea: Patience 'not unlimited'

Source: CNN.

CAMP DAVID, Maryland (AP) -- President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe demanded on Friday that North Korea live up to its promises and abandon its nuclear weapons program.

The two leaders threatened more sanctions against Pyongyang.

"There's a price to pay," Bush said, standing alongside Abe at the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains. (Watch why Japan has special concerns about North Korea.)

"Our partners in the six-party talks are patient, but our patience is not unlimited," Bush said, referring to disarmament negotiations between the United States, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and North Korea

For his part, Abe said, "We completely see eye to eye on this matter. They need to respond properly on these issues. Otherwise we will have to take a tougher response on our side."

North Korea missed a deadline to shut down its nuclear reactor under an agreement reached in February.

Bush's words appeared to be an attempt to persuade Abe that the United States is not softening its stance on North Korea.

Japan is already withholding economic and food aid to the reclusive communist regime.

Abe said that sanctions "will worsen" if North Korea continues to defy the international community.

On another subject, Abe apologized for the Japanese military's actions in forcing women to work in military brothels during World War II. He said he wanted to "express my apologies that they were placed in that circumstance."

Abe created a controversy recently by suggesting their was no evidence Japan's Imperial Army had directly coerced the so-called "comfort women" to work in brothels.

In his Camp David remarks, Abe said he had apologized for those remarks in his meetings with members of Congress on Thursday, and again with Bush on Friday.

Bush said the comfort women situation was "a regrettable chapter in the history of the world. And I accept the prime minister's apology."

Abe expressed "deep-hearted sympathies" for the comfort women, saying they had been placed "in extreme hardship."

At the same time, Abe said that "human rights were violated in many parts of the world" at the time. "So we have to make the 21st century a century in which no human rights are violated," he said. He pledged to make "a significant contribution to this end."

On the North Korea issue, Bush said, "We expect North Korea to meet all its commitments under the February 13th agreement. And we will continue working closely with our partners."

A U.S. decision to allow the return of $25 million in disputed North Korean money in an attempt to move the disarmament process forward has been criticized in Japan as a sign of softness.

Bush addressed this issue. "There's a financial arrangement that we're now trying to clarify for the North Koreans, so that that will enable them to have no excuse for moving forward. And that's where we are right now," he said.

"I think it's wise to show the North Korean leader as well that there's a better way forward. I wouldn't call that soft," said Bush.

On another nuclear weapons issue, Bush also said that "we speak with one voice to the regime in Iran. Our nations have fully implemented the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council in response to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"Further defiance by Iran will only lead to additional sanctions and to further isolation from the international community," Bush said.

Japan holds suspected N. Korea spy

Source: CNN.

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japanese police obtained an arrest warrant Thursday for an alleged North Korean spy suspected of abducting two children to the communist country decades ago, according to a media report.

Police obtained the arrest warrant for Yoko Kinoshita, 59, for allegedly kidnapping a 6-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother in 1973 and taking them to North Korea, Kyodo News agency reported.

Police refused to immediately confirm the report.

The National Police Agency was to place a request to the Interpol to place Kinoshita on an international wanted list. She would be the ninth North Korean abduction-related suspect to be listed on international wanted lists through Interpol.

The National Police Agency said earlier this month they believe Ko Kyong Mi and her younger brother Ko Kang were snatched from their home in Saitama in 1973 by several colleagues of their father -- a suspected North Korean agent believed to have been running a spy agency in Japan under the cover of a trading company.

Police believe the children were held captive in Tokyo for about six months, then shipped to the North in 1974 on a spy boat from northern Japan. Kinoshita is believed to be a key figure behind the case, Kyodo said.

On Wednesday, police raided the offices linked to pro-North Korean association over the case.

The move this week is the latest in a series of steps against the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryong, over the North's nuclear and missile disputes and its past abductions of Japanese citizens -- a major source of friction between the two countries, which have no diplomatic ties.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s. Pyongyang sent five of them home later that year, but insisted the rest were dead. Japan has demanded proof of the deaths, and says more of its citizens may have been taken.

Tokyo also refuses to provide energy and economic aid to North Korea -- as promised under a breakthrough nuclear disarmament agreement in February -- or to normalize relations, unless progress is made on resolving the issue.