Monday, November 02, 2009 PYONGYANG: North Korea's Foreign Ministry has said the country is ready to return to stalled six-party negotiations about its nuclear programme.It has also repeated its call for direct talks with its avowed enemy the United States. Last month, leader Kim Jong-il said he might consider a return to the nuclear talks he had previously declared dead - after direct talks with Washington. "The conclusion we have reached is that the direct parties, which are the North and the United States, must first sit down and find a rational solution," the foreign ministry spokesman said in comments reported by the official news agency. "Now that we have shown the generosity of stating the position that we would be willing to talk to the United States and hold multilateral talks including the six-way talks, it is time for the United States to make a decision," the spokesman said. But the state department says it has not yet decided whether to accept Pyongyang's invitation for a visit by the US special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth.
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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