Miss Eve's World

blog：CONDOLENCE FLOODS AROUND THE WORLD

High-profile foreign delegates, including special envoy of the Chinese government Tang Jiaxuan, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Japan’s former House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono, also came to Seoul to pay respect to the former president.

Meanwhile, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) top leader Kim Jong-Il also mourned over Kim’s death, sending a condolatory delegation made up of his close aides on Friday.

The six-member delegates paid their respects to the late leader at the memorial altar, laying a floral tribute sent by Kim Jong-Il.

The DPRK’s leader and ex-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung held the first-ever inter-Korean summit talks in Pyongyang in 2000,in pursuit of opening an era of reconciliation and cooperation between the two sides.

. Blog: ‘Complete shambles’

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman told a meeting of about 40 Labour MPs on Tuesday morning public confidence must be restored in the expenses system.
But she said the letters were just the first stage of the process and said there was “no conclusive determination” in them and MPs had been invited to respond.
The BBC’s deputy political editor James Landale said some Labour MPs were planning to challenge any requests for money while others were angry at the Parliamentary Fees Office which they say has lost some of the receipts.
One former minister said he had yet to receive his letter and the way they had been sent out was a “complete shambles”. Another Labour MP said it appeared Sir Thomas was “impugning all our integrity and that matters”.
The Financial Times reports that angry backbench Labour and Conservative MPs were planning to meet to discuss what to do about the review.
David Cameron has been asked to provide more information about mortgage payments, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is to repay £910 relating to gardening claims and the SNP’s Alex Salmond is repaying £710 for removal costs.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is repaying £800 claimed for the cost of tree surgery work in his Hartlepool home in 2004.
Veteran Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, who is stepping down at the general election and had one of the lowest claims under the second homes allowance last year, said there was a “pretty big question mark over the legality of this”.
“If any other employer said to his employees: ‘These were the rules. You stuck fastidiously by them … but we have now changed the rules so here’s a bill’, that employer would be up before a tribunal,” she said.
Labour’s Sir Stuart Bell, a member of the Members’ Estimate Committee, said talk of MPs preparing legal action to fight repayments was “balderdash”.

Blog: At risk

“Now we know that women with negative lymph nodes and low levels of BAG-1 are at risk of developing metastatic (secondary) disease and may be good candidates for aggressive cancer treatments,” said Dr Turner.

Studies looking at thousands of women were needed, he added.

Dr Lesley Walker, head of scientific information at the Cancer Research Campaign, said that BAG-1 was known to be present at high levels in 80% of cases where breast cancer has developed.

Finding that low levels of the protein are detrimental to women was, therefore, “counter-intuitive”, she said.

“You wouldn’t expect it because other people have shown that there are high levels of BAG-1 in invasive breast cancer,” she said.

But she added: “I hope the breast cancer community will now follow this up. If it is true, it could be useful.”

Blog: Honduras leader’s nephew killed

The nephew of the interim President of Honduras Roberto Micheletti has been found dead in what the police are calling an execution-style killing.
Enzo Micheletti’s body was discovered on Sunday in woodland near Choloma, 250 km north of the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Police say his hands were tied behind his back and his body was riddled with bullets.
There is no indication that his death is connected to the coup that brought his uncle to power at the end of June.
The 24-year-old’s body was discovered on Sunday two days after he had been reported missing.
The body of another unidentified man was found nearby.
Mr Micheletti came to power after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in June after trying to hold a vote on whether a constituent assembly should be set up to look at rewriting the constitution.
He wants to be reinstated before 29 November elections, but the interim leaders have resisted his demands.
They say Mr Zelaya was legally removed from office as he had violated the Honduran constitution.
It is not thought that the interim leader’s nephew was involved in politics, but Honduras has the highest murder rate in Central America - much of it drug related.
Last year more than 7,000 people were killed.

‘Totalitarian regime’

The European Union has taken a different approach and has already removed all its sanctions and recently announced a 40m euro development aid package.
The EU argues that engaging with the Cubans on areas of common interest such as trade and the environment could open the door to future discussions on issues such as human rights.
Dissidents such as Miriam Leiva, a rights campaigner, are sceptical of the approach.
“Its very naive what they are doing,” she said.
“You can’t expect a totalitarian regime to change just because you come along and say I want a dialogue. It’s not a dialogue, it’s a monologue.”
She does welcome the moves on allowing Cuban Americans visiting relatives and sending remittances home.
The announcement from Washington did not make headline news on Cuban state television, but the statement by the presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs was shown and reported, including details of the telecommunications plans.
In one of his recent editorials, former President Fidel Castro wrote that Cuba “does not fear dialogue with the United States nor do we need confrontation to exist”.
President Obama has made the first move. All eyes are now on President Raul Castro to see if he can offer any reciprocal gestures to help push the process forward.

Cuba blogger cannot receive prize

A dissident Cuban blogger cannot go to New York to receive a top journalism prize, after the authorities upheld a ban on her travel abroad.
Yoani Sanchez, 34, won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Generacion Y, a blog critical of Cuba’s one-party Communist government.
The prize is the oldest international award in journalism.
It is given by Columbia University to journalists who have furthered inter-American understanding.
“The immigration office just informed me that the ban remains on my leaving the country,” Ms Sanchez said on Monday via the social networking website Twitter, where she has 6,638 followers.
“I am going to celebrate on the night of the award with some friends. I am not going to let the refusal to travel ruin the happiness of the prize,” she added.
“I dream of an island where nobody needs to ask permission to enter and leave.”

Cuba faces tough US choice

As the US eases restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting relatives back home, the BBC’s Michael Voss in Havana looks at the impact this could have on a 50-year-old conflict.
Havana airport’s Terminal 2 is reserved exclusively for charter flights from Miami.
Every day, noisy crowds pack around the barrier in front of the exit from the customs hall waiting for their relatives to emerge.
There are screams of excitement and tears of joy as families rush to greet their loved ones.
Under the Bush administration, Cuban Americans could return only once every three years - and with strict limits on how much they could spend or send home.
“I feel great, I’ve got my family with me now, it’s awesome,” said Miami resident Roberto Grande after hugging his mother and sisters.
“I think things are going to get better now. I think there’s a big hope with the new president [Barack Obama]. He’s making a lot of changes for good.”

Games formula

There is some debate as to whether innovation and creativity is suffering as game publishers become increasingly unwilling to back any project that lacks a built-in audience.
A glance at the games charts in the UK shows that most of the titles in the top 10 are either sequels or tied to a film.
Many have come from the EA stable, but it makes no apologies for sticking to a successful formula.
“The franchise strategy is good for the company, investors and consumers as this is a hit-driven business,” said Mr Brown.
He explained that EA had honed its franchise strategy, learning with every new version of a game. And he argued it also sat well with investors, who could forecast sales of a hit series.
“More importantly, it is good for the consumer as video games cost a lot of money to make and have a high price at retail,” he said. “If you buy three or four games a year, you don’t want to make a mistake.”
However, he admitted that there was a risk that a franchise could be exploited.
“I’m not going to say that every game is perfect,” admitted Mr Brown. “But if studios don’t deliver a high quality game, there is hell to pay internally.”

. The S words

The key to understanding North Korea might well be the two S words.
The first is survival - the survival of the system and its leaders. That requires a strong defence, of which nuclear is the most powerful and attractive - justified by a constant refrain that the country is under threat.
The second is the military-first philosophy called “songun”.
This has been emphasised under Kim Jong-il and basically requires that the military is the most important state organ and gets first pick of everything.
Songun would appear to preclude the idea of giving up nuclear weapons.
The United States maintains as its goal the denuclearisation of the whole Korean peninsula and will not unilaterally accept North Korea as a nuclear state. Its regional partners, especially Japan and South Korea, would be alarmed if it did.
As for direct talks, President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said in September that the United States was “willing to engage with North Korea on a bilateral basis”.
But, he added: “We do not consider in any way that bilateral engagement is a substitute for multilateral engagement, and this is not a substitute for us for the re-ignition of the six-party talks.”

Foot dragging’

Environment groups, too, had hoped that developed countries would come forward with stronger commitments on reducing emissions and on providing money to help poorer nations adapt to climate impacts.
Norway pledged to reduce its emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2020 - the strongest pledge by any country so far.
But campaigners accused others, notably the EU, of using the absence of a firm US commitment as an excuse for dragging their own feet.
Legislation mandating emission cuts has yet to pass through the US Senate, and may not go through before the Copenhagen talks.
“Other countries are using the US’s position as an opportunity to try and avoid stringent legally binding emissions cuts which they should implement at home,” said Meena Raman from Friends of the Earth Malaysia.
“So far it looks like the Copenhagen talks could deliver a toothless agreement based on vague pledges that cannot deliver the deep greenhouse cuts that science and justice demand of rich nations.”
Delegates convene again in Barcelona at the beginning of November for a further week of negotiations - the final round before the Copenhagen summit.
Mr de Boer noted that at the UN special session on climate change held in New York last month, heads of government had given a “clear mandate” to reach a firm climate deal this year.
But, he said, this needed to be translated into stronger ambitions within the detailed negotiations.