Conflict between Japan, China could necessitate meeting\nBEIJING -- Japan and China considered on Monday whether their leaders should meet this weekend to try to defuse the worst dispute in decades between the Asian powers, but at the same time they traded more angry words over anti-Japanese protests and Tokyo's wartime history.\nChina said Japan proposed that its prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, meet one-on-one with President Hu Jintao during a conference of Asian and African leaders in Indonesia.\n"We are still considering it," said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei.\nSuggesting that plenty of work lay ahead before either leader might commit, Koizumi warned in Tokyo that "if it's going to be the exchange of harsh words, it's better not to meet."\nThe heated rhetoric and sometimes violent protests aimed at Japanese interests in China have raised worries about the potential effect on the economic relationship between Asia's two biggest economies, which are linked by billions of dollars in trade and investment.\nChina's government took another swipe at Tokyo on Monday, blaming Japan for the diplomatic spat and again accusing the Japanese of failing to face up to their militaristic past.
India, Pakistan leaders call peace talks "irreversible"\nNEW DELHI, India -- The peace process between India and Pakistan is now "irreversible," leaders of the two longtime rival nations said Monday, announcing a series of agreements to increase trade and cross-border travel in Kashmir.\nWith Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf standing beside him, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the two had agreed to continue talks on the divided region of Kashmir, the heart of decades of disputes, in "a sincere and purposeful manner" until a settlement was found.\nSingh, reading from a joint statement, said the two leaders "determined that the peace process was now irreversible."\nThe two countries agreed to increase the frequency of a cross-Kashmir bus service that started earlier this month and to identify more places along the Kashmir frontier that could be opened to traffic.\nThey also agreed to revive a joint commission to boost business ties and to open additional consulates by the end of the year. They also vowed not to allow terrorism to thwart the peace process.\nThe two sides also agreed to allow the movement of trucks across their borders, a decision expected to lead to exponential growth in trade.
sh: Texas oil executives plead not guilty in oil-for-food scandal
NEW YORK -- Two Houston oilmen pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that they cheated the United Nations oil-for-food program out of humanitarian aid funds by paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime.\nThe pleas were entered by David B. Chalmers Jr., sole shareholder of Houston-based Bayoil (USA) Inc., and oil trader Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian citizen and permanent U.S. resident, during a brief proceeding in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.\nChalmers and Dionissiev were arrested Thursday at their Houston homes as federal authorities in Manhattan accused them of cheating the United Nations of at least $100 million that should have gone for humanitarian aid to Iraqis.\nThe men were charged along with a British citizen, John Irving. Prosecutors said they would seek Irving's extradition from England.\nChalmers and Dionissiev entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who continued to allow each of them to remain free on bail of $500,000, secured by $150,000 in cash.\nThe oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It let the Iraqi government sell limited -- and eventually unlimited -- amounts of oil primarily to buy humanitarian goods.
