The SECURITY COUNCIL condemnation of North Korea nuclear test

South Korea's Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan. (INTERMEDIATE)

United Nations (Reuters)-the Security Council of the United Nations (DK-UN), Tuesday, denounced the nuclear test North Korea carried out a third time and was determined to take action against Pyongyang.

"The members of the Security Council condemned vigorously these trials, which is a violation of the resolutions of the Security Council," said South Korea's Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, told reporters, Reuters reported.

South Korea currently is President of the Security Council's monthly.

Sung-hwan says now DK-UN would consider taking "appropriate measures."

Non-binding statement was agreed to by all 15 members of the DK-UN.

United States Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said Washington and its allies want the Security Council passed a resolution that would "add to the sanctions"--who had previously been dropped atomic trials related by Pyongyang in 2006 and 2009.

The Council statement was agreed upon when he did, the trial closed the emergency dituanrumahi by South Korea.

The diplomat said the negotiations about new sanctions could run for weeks because China seems to reject the new measures over fears that new sanctions will lead to further reprisals by North Korea's leader.

Beijing also previously worrisome that heavier sanctions will weaken the economy and cause a flood of refugees fleeing North Korea North Korea to China.

United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China--the five permanent members of the 15-Member Council of State--denounced the latest nuclear test by Pyongyang.

It's called trial supervisory international nuclear test in Vienna as approximately two times larger than North Korea had done in 2009.

U.s. President Barack Obama said the "dangers of threatening activities that North Korea conducted a guarantee for taking further action that is rapid and assured by the international community."

Obama will deliver the annual State of the Union Speech on Tuesday night.

Diplomats say North Korea may indeed choose to blow up the Atomic Sealsa day because Pyongyang usually do such measures on important days in the calendar.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Tuesday called North Korea's Ambassador to China to deliver a protest against its latest nuclear test by North Korea.

Who said China "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" the test.

A number of diplomats from member countries of the Security Council said that the u.s. and its allies will attempt to embody the overthrow sanctions heavier than just extending the sanctions currently applied after a nuclear test by Pyongyang in 2006 and 2009.

There is no clarity about what steps, if any, that will be supported by China.

Diplomats say China's delegation at the meeting pointed out that his country closed there is the possibility of supporting a new Security Council resolution is a matter of North Korea but does not specify which aspects will they support. (T008/AK)

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Libya ruling council deputy quits

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22 January 2012 Last updated at 15:12 GMT Abdel Hafiz Ghoga has been accused by protesters of being an opportunist The deputy head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) says he has resigned amid growing protests against him.

Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told Al-Jazeera TV that he was resigning in the national interest.

Several hundred protesters stormed the NTC headquarters in the second city Benghazi on Saturday.

Observers say it was the most serious show of anger at the new authorities since Col Muammar Gaddafi was ousted.

Mr Ghogha, an NTC spokesman, has become a focus for protesters demanding more openness from the NTC.

They accuse him of being an opportunist, who switched allegiances from the regime of Col Gaddafi as the uprising gained strength.

"My resignation is for the benefit of the nation and is required at this stage," Mr Ghoga told Al-Jazeera.

"Unfortunately, the consensus has not continued to maintain the highest national interests. The atmosphere of deprivation and hatred has prevailed... I do not want this atmosphere to continue and negatively affect the National Transitional Council and its performance," he added.

'Bottomless pit'

The NTC headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi - from where the uprising against the Gaddafi regime began - has been the focus of protests in recent weeks.

The protesters want more transparency from the NTC

But Saturday night's protest turned violent, with the AFP news agency reporting that some protesters threw homemade bombs while others armed themselves with stones and iron bars before ransacking the building.

Many protesters believe the revolution that toppled Col Gaddafi is being taken away from them by people only interested in the money, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Libya says.

The head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, spoke to protesters on Sunday and urged them to have more patience.

"We are going through a political movement that can take the country to a bottomless pit," he said. "There is something behind these protests that is not for the good of the country."

"The people have not given the government enough time and the government does not have enough money. Maybe there are delays, but the government has only been working for two months. Give them a chance, at least two months."

According to Reuters news agency, when asked if Mr Ghoga would step down, Mr Abdel Jalil said he would not.

Our correspondent says Mr Ghoga's resignation adds to a current feeling of instability and flux in the country, and a sense that the NTC is not really in sole control.

Source BBC

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U.N. council approves withdrawal of some Haiti troops

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Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers unload electoral materials they escorted from Port au Prince to Anjou March 19, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/UN/MINUSTAH/Victoria Hazou

UNITED NATIONS | Fri Oct 14, 2011 2:44pm EDT

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Friday agreed to withdraw nearly 3,000 blue-helmeted troops and police, bringing the unpopular force's size close to where it was before a devastating earthquake in January 2010.

The 15-nation council unanimously approved a resolution that called for the withdrawal in response to an improved security situation in the Caribbean country, the poorest in the Americas.

The plan is to withdraw 2,750 U.N. peacekeepers from the force, known as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti or MINUSTAH, according to the resolution passed by the council. That reduction brings the force's size to just under 10,600 troops and police.

Many Haitians have called for the complete withdrawal of the force due to allegations that Nepalese U.N. troops brought a deadly cholera epidemic to the country after their camp latrines contaminated a river. This sparked riots last year.

Last month, the U.N. force faced renewed public protests over allegations that a group of Uruguayan troops raped a man.

MINUSTAH was established by the Security Council in 2004 and has been helping Haiti's short-staffed and ill-equipped police maintain security, especially during elections plagued by fraud and unrest. The size of the force was increased after last year's earthquake.

Despite the improvement in the security situation, the council's resolution voiced "concern that trends since the earthquake reveal an increase in all major categories of crime, including murder, rape and kidnapping in (the capital) Port-au-Prince and the West Department."

But the council said Haiti "has made considerable strides" since the earthquake.

"For the first time in its history, Haiti has experienced a peaceful transfer of power between one democratically elected president and another from the opposition," it said.

The U.N. Development Program said on Wednesday that workers have removed about half of the twisted piles of concrete, steel and other debris that have clogged Haiti's capital and surrounding areas since the earthquake.

Haiti still faces a massive reconstruction effort following the January 12, 2010 quake, which killed more than 300,000 people and caused massive damage across the nation.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Jobs Council Issues Growth Proposals, Acknowledges Dysfunction

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It's a vicious cycle: the economic downturn has helped to create political discord. Prolonged, political discord has hurt Americans' confidence in government. As a result, the economy suffers even more.

Confidence is a cornerstone of the latest report from the President Barack Obama's Jobs Council: "Taking Action, Building Confidence." In June, the council presented its first proposals, aimed at fostering immediate hiring. Now, the group has turned to larger macroeconomic issues. While the report issued today proposes broad initiatives intended to boost growth and restore economic confidence, like spending on infrastructure and encouraging foreign direct investment, it also acknowledges the U.S. crisis of political confidence: "[T]he Council believes that bipartisan action on this agenda in Washington—even on modest issues, to start—would boost confidence at this juncture and have a positive effect on our economy." Indeed, Americans' disenchantment with government can itself have the power to significantly slow the economic recovery.

[Read analysis of the September jobs report.]

The council, a diverse mix of 27 leaders, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who chairs the council, put together ideas that it believes can foster political agreement as well as job growth. "The Council has avoided politics, and focused on producing common-sense proposals that should attract broad-based support," a spokesman for Immelt said in an e-mail.

Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, believes that it is hard to argue with many of the council's ideas: "A lot of them of course would be excellent recommendations even if the U.S. had 4 percent unemployment and were growing at 3.5 percent a year."

However sensible the recommendations, Americans are pessimistic about Washington's abilities to pass job-creating measures. "I think there's little question that most people look at Washington, they see the dysfunction, [and] they say, 'We're not going to get any help from that direction,'" says Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, a Pennsylvania-based economic consulting firm. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows that 67 percent of Americans believe the president and Congress are doing a "poor" or "very poor" job on dealing with America's problems.

Lawmakers' inability to reach consensus is again coming into sharp relief as the Senate prepares to vote on the President's jobs bill. Already foreseeing defeat at the hands of Republicans and perhaps a few moderate Democrats, the White House has formed a plan B: introduce the bill's proposals piece by piece.

In a speech at an IBEW training center in Pittsburgh today, Obama addressed the politics surrounding his jobs bill: "I think [Republicans would] have a hard time explaining why they voted no on this bill," he said, acknowledging that some Republicans may not approve it purely to prevent the White House from scoring a political victory. "This is not about getting me a win. That's why folks are fed up with Washington," Obama said.

Being "fed up" can hurt the economy in several ways, one of which is in a lack of consumer activity. When consumers see no chance of economic boosts on the horizon, they get timid, making very few or just very safe investments. The effect of a political crisis of confidence on the economy, says Naroff, is "a lot larger than people believe." He adds, "What we're seeing is sluggish spending not just from those people who have reasons to be sluggish [like the unemployed] ... but from the people who have the money to spend."

[See where the population of same-sex couples is growing.]

Even if Congress manages to push through some sort of job-creation legislation, the cumulative effects of harsh political messaging could cripple such a policy. With both parties having roundly declared each others' economic policies as potentially ruinous, says Naroff, any economic proposal that should happen to pass could create further economic worries among a significant share of the population. And a worried consumer is a hesitant consumer.

In addition, a pervasive, dark economic outlook can potentially make politics even more dysfunctional, as worried voters fall for poor economic logic, says Burtless: "I think when people don't have much confidence, then all of the nasty arguments that opponents to sensible policy make seem to make a lot of sense to people who are not particularly economically sophisticated," Burtless says.

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