Friday, June 05, 2009 BEIJING: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg met with top Chinese diplomats in Beijing on Friday, after reportedly telling South Korea it will impose its own financial sanctions on Pyongyang apart from those being considered by the United Nations.Steinberg met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Friday morning and had afternoon meetings scheduled with State Counselor Dai Binguo, a senior diplomatic adviser, and Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who is China's top North Korean envoy. Winning Chinese support for tough new sanctions is key because Beijing is one of five permanent veto-holding members of the United Nations Security Council, as well as North Korea's most important diplomatic ally and chief source of fuel and food aid.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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