Berdymukhammedov predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who enjoyed a bizarre personality cult during his 21-year rule until he died suddenly of a heart attack in December 2006, had routinely held show trials of top officials to demonstrate his attempts to root out corruption.

Foreign press repeatedly noticed that Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov also enjoys unrestricted authority in this Central Asian country.

Authorities may also be seeking to reassure foreign investors as a group of Turkish companies prepares to seek legal action against Turkmenistan in a bid to recover what they say is more than US$1 billion in unpaid bills for construction work in the former Soviet state, the Associated Press speculates.

“I held a responsible job, in which I embarked on a track of illegal enrichment. I extorted money from businessmen — worth a total of US$3.6 million,” television showed Byashim Begjanov, a former head of international operations at Turkmenistan’s central bank, telling the court.

“I repent for the grave crime I committed,” he said.

Begjanov and two other senior central bank officials were each sentenced to 15 years in jail, which is the maximum penalty in Turkmenistan for economic crimes.

The government has recently reduced maximum prison sentences for economic crimes down from 25 years as part of reforms aimed at liberalizing the justice system.

The gas-rich nation has made waffling efforts to diversify the country’s mostly energy-dependent economy, but many foreign companies remain wary of investing in what remains an opaquely regulated and corruption-riddled market.

Turkmenistan, which holds the world’s fourth-largest reserves of natural gas, is a small nation of approximately 5 million people. It is located in Central Asia and is bordered by the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the east, and Kazakhstan to the north.

Turkmenistan’s economy is based largely on natural resource extraction. Although the hydrocarbon sector performs well, according to the U.S. Fund for Peace, 58 percent of the population lives below the poverty level.

During the Soviet period, Turkmenistan was one of the poorest republics, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has continued to fall behind its Central Asian neighbors in most areas of development. Infant and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the other Central Asian states, while GDP is lower and economic development is slow in comparison to its neighbors.

Crude Accountability NGO, which focused on environmental justice for petroleum communities in the Caspian Sea region, has named Turkmenistan in its report as the “one of the world’s most closed and repressive countries.”

The bill, approved early Friday, is designed to overhaul Ukraine’s Soviet-era pension system as the government seeks to slash spending in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.

Ukraine’s parliament approved a government bill on pension reform at first reading on June 16.

The parliament discussed amendments to the document all night (consideration of the bill lasted 8.5 hours) before passing the final text in the early hours of Friday. It is expected to be signed into law soon by President Viktor Yanukovych.

The bill, which will enter into force on September 1, would gradually raise the retirement age for women from 55 to 60 years and increase by 10 years the period when workers make salary contributions to their retirement funds. The retirement age of male civil servants men was raised to 63 years.

The adopted bill stipulates the maximum pension cannot exceed 10 times the living wage, which is currently around US$95 a week. Previously, the maximum amount was 12 time.

The bill also decreases from 90 percent to 80 percent the wage for calculating pensions for civil servants. The maximum pension is limited to 10 minimum incomes (some US$1,000 at present).

The Ukrainian government put forward a draft pension reform bill parliament last year in a bid to overcome the Pension Fund’s growing annual deficit and to meet IMF requirements. But its passage has been postponed several times.

As a result the IMF froze funding this year because of the failure to pass the bill, and the government hopes the aid will resume once the law is passed. The bill now awaits presidential approval to become law.

“If the parliament will vote for the pension reform, in early August we can get the decision of the IMF Board of Directors,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for Social Policies Sergei Tigipko said to reporters.

Tigipko suggested that the two tranches of the IMF might be combined. “We might be able to obtain two tranches simultaneously – about US$3 billion, which will be added to the foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank.”

According to official data, Ukraine has the world’s largest share of spending on pensions – 18 percent of GDP in 2010. Moreover, one of the highest levels of pension contributions in Europe, representing 35 percent of gross salary. In addition, despite that in 2010 an amount equivalent to 7 percent of GDP was transferred from the budget to the pension fund.

Martin Raiser, World Bank Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova assures that once the bill is be signed by the Ukrainian president to come into force, it will allow annual savings on pension costs amounting to about 1.5 percent of GDP starting 2012. And till 2015 Pension Fund deficit budget financing will disappear.

According to the survey, conducted by the Gorshenin Institute on June 11-13 2011, 52.3 percent of interviewed respondents living in Ukraine’s regional centers, cities, towns and villages, including Kiev and Sevastopol, agree that the pension reform is definitely necessary.

At the same time, only 6.7 percent of respondents are taking some actions to ensure their financial security upon retirement, while 68.3 percent of respondents, as it was in Soviet time, are “doing nothing and count on a state pension.”

The new amendment to the Latvian Law on Immigration came into force in July, 1, and allows foreign investors and their family members including those from non-EU countries to receive a 5-year residence permit in Latvia along with the right to travel in the Schengen area freely, if they purchase Latvian property of at least 70,000 euros (US$95,000) in value, or invest in a business.

“The meaning of the amendments is to encourage investment in Latvia, to attract investors. We wanted to make sure that people who in one form or another contribute to the economic development of our country have more opportunities to obtain a residence permit,” Boris Tsilevich, deputy of the Saeima (Parliament) of Latvia explained to local press.

The volume of investment in one of Latvia’s companies has to be at least 36,000 euros. The minimum amount of paid corporate taxes has to amount to 28,000 euros per year.

Although the law does not give investors the right to work anywhere within the European Union, they can still enjoy the freedom of movement within all 25 EU countries in the Schengen zone.

Before the amendments, the foreigner could actually get a temporary residence permit in three cases: if he/she learns in Latvia, running (in which case the employer had to justify why he needs a foreign worker), and for family reunification purposes.

Since the law was introduced in July, it has already given the property market a boost. “In essence the whole initiative restarted the real estate market in Latvia,” apartment building owner Kristaps Kristopans said to the BBC.

“One year ago it was completely dead. No transactions. Nothing. And now a lot has changed. Sales are picking up nicely.” According to him, almost all his buyers are Russians who have been attracted by the Latvian residency permit offer.

According to Latvia’s immigration authorities, more than 100 foreigners have already applied for the rights after purchasing property or investing in business in Latvia — all of them from the former Soviet Union.

Robert Zile, a Latvian member of the European Parliament, agrees with the opponents of the new law and says the influx of Russian investments will increase Moscow’s influence in the country.

Along with other protesters, members of the Latvian National Party think the incentive to foreign buyers will inevitably increase prices, making real estate unaffordable for locals.

“The government is trying to sell our country. They do not bother to think how to bring back Latvians who left the country,” said Hardis Paradnieks, one of those opposed to the new law.

In response to fears, the government says that all applicants are thoroughly checked out before being awarded residency rights, and forbids cash payments to prevent money laundering.

In addition to their contribution to Latvia’s economy, foreign investors as well as other categories of residence seekers must pass an examination on Latvian language. “Actually it is the exam to the lowest category, i.e. candidate for permanent residence must speak the language to a bare minimum,” said Tsilevich.

Meanwhile, the local banks are offering the useful assistance to their new customers, who’ve been provided the possibility to conclude deposit placement agreement within one day without requiring coming in to Riga.

On December 27, the Central Election Commission registered a statement by the initiative group in favor of such a plebiscite, which was endorsed by both houses of parliament. In their letter to Nazarbayev, the legislators asked him “to support the initiative to call a national referendum on the following question: Do you accept the law on Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, envisaging the possibility of extending in a national referendum the powers of the first president of Kazakhstan?”

The initiative group operating throughout the country has already collected 3.6 million signatures in support of the referendum, in contrast to the required minimum of 200,000.

Last Friday, a joint session of the lower and upper houses of parliament voted unanimously to change the constitution to allow the referendum. “The will of our people is law,” said Yerlan Nigmatulin, a Member of Parliament.

Earlier this January, the United States called the idea a “setback for democracy.” On the eve of the vote, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a group that includes democracy promotion among its main goals, expressed grave concerns over the referendum plans.

“To cancel presidential elections once again in favor of a referendum would represent a step backwards from Kazakhstan’s OSCE commitments to establishing democracy, holding periodic free and fair elections, and respecting the rule of law,” Ambassador Ian Kelly told the OSCE permanent council in Vienna.

Kazakhstan has never held an election deemed free and fair by international observers.
On January 6, the U.S. Embassy to Kazakhstan made Washington’s position clear.

“We think that it is important that Kazakhstan’s government and citizens honor their international commitments and continue to strive for free and fair elections,” the Embassy said in a statement.

The United States has fostered close ties with the mineral-rich country, despite the government’s record on human rights, the stifling of opposition and the concentration of power in the hands of the president and his family.

Nursultan Nazarbayev has led Kazakhstan since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. He has already indicated he is confident of winning the next election, due in 2012.

Parliament, snubbing U.S. and EU criticism, has unanimously approved a referendum that would avert any potential challenge of the 70-year-old president in 2012 and 2017 elections.

The constitutional council, itself headed by the president, said in a statement that it would examine whether the proposal complied with Kazakhstan’s constitution and deliver its verdict within a month.

Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said he was uncertain what Nazarbayev would do now. Yertysbayev conceded that allowing the referendum would likely set Kazakhstan on a collision course with its international commitments to improve democratic standards.

“But parliament was unable to take any other decision since they represent the people, and 5 million people have supported this idea of referendum,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Some analysts have suggested that the idea was made only so that President Nazarbayev could reject it, in order to improve his democratic credentials in the West, BBC News reports. But the success of the petition campaign now appears to have made the referendum inevitable.

A satirical cartoon posted last Friday on YouTube to the accompaniment of a song mocking the referendum proposal ends with an on-screen message reading: “Make the right choice! Be a sheep and vote yes.”

The draft list of enterprises includes stakes that have been offered multiple times in the past but never sold.

“We continue to campaign, that the electricity should go for privatization. And it will be privatized. This will be the main event of the privatization of the year,” Alexander Ryabchenko, Ukrainian State Property Fund (SPF) chairman said earlier in December 2010.

In the oil sector, the SPF plans to sell 50 percent plus one share in Ukrnaftaprodukt. It will also offer 25 percent plus one share in Sumyoblenergo, and 46 percent in Cherkassyoblenergo.

Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) is also in the privatization draft list. By selling 61.58 percent of its stake the cabinet plans to earn around US$31.6 million.

“The UIA stake won’t be sold if the assessment will be less then US$31.6 million,” official familiar with the matter told reporters.

The sale of Ukrtelecom will be the largest privatization deal in Ukraine since 2005, when ArcelorMittal bought Kryvorizhstal.

With revenue from the sale of 92.79 percent stake in the company, according to preliminary estimates, could reach 10-12 billion hryvnia (US$1.5 billion).

According to Ryabchenko, the sale of state telecommunications company, Ukrtelecom, originally scheduled for December 2010, will help implement this year government’s economic development program.

“The real price of Ukrtelecom is about US$2 billion, but it was slightly little underrated,” Tomas Fiala, the managing director at the Dragon Capital investment company, said to KievPost.

“Ukrtelecom is the champion of the privatization plans. But the process is not transparent,” said Ihor Mitiukov, the former Ukrainian finance minister, the director of Morgan Stanley Ukraine and the director general of the Financial Policy Institute.

Fiala said that despite the lower price, the privatization of Ukrtelecom was a good sign for investors. He predicted that competition for Ukrtelecom would unfold between Ukrainian and Russian companies, which he declined to name.

Director of International Relations and Investor Relations at System Capital Management Jock Mendoza-Wilson said that under the current situation, Ukraine should conduct the last stage of Ukrtelecom’s sale as transparently as possible in order to attract investors to the privatization of the energy sector in 2011.

He said that without the privatization, it was impossible to resolve energy problems in Ukraine and that the successful privatization of this sector would attract foreign investors.

Mitiukov said that apart from privatization, Ukraine’s energy sector should arouse the interest of investors in the recently adopted very attractive legislation in the field of green energy, which obliged the state to buy such energy at 100 percent at high tariffs.

Among other interesting objects for privatization in Ukraine, investors also named ports and a number of large state-owned engineering enterprises, like 94.9 percent of Ukrpapirprom paper mill, 25 percent of Chernigov Radio Instruments Plant, 100 percent of Kyiv Motorcycle Plant, 100 percent of Feodosia Shipyard More and 91.6 percent of photo materials producer Svema.

The new version will be drafted by the president’s office and the government together with representatives of small businesses.

Thousands of entrepreneurs have been rallying across the country for two weeks protesting a reform passed by the parliament that would have made thousands of entrepreneurs no longer eligible for generous tax breaks.

On November 18, Ukraine’s legislature adopted the new tax code that basically abolishes simplified taxation, raises the income tax, and restricts the use of tax benefits. The legislation needed the president’s signature to become law.

The demonstrators say the tax code passed by the Verkhovna Rada is tilted toward the rich and big companies, and will punish small and medium-sized enterprises.

“I vetoed [the tax code] today,” Yanukovych told reporters after a government meeting.

“Protests in Kiev are a manifestation of the democratic process in Ukraine. It is normal and I welcome it,” he added.

The move shows his unwillingness to sacrifice popularity for the sake of reforms, analysts said.

It could also mean that other painful measures, especially those required by an International Monetary Fund program, will be delayed or canceled.

Proponents of the legislation, led by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, had argued the changes were necessary to balance the national budget and reduce tax evasion.

Ukraine needs to cut its budget deficit to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2011 from the 5 percent to 5.5 percent expected this year under its US$15 billion deal with the IMF.

While neither the government nor the IMF expected the tax code to immediately boost budget revenues, extending tax breaks for small businesses could make it harder for Ukraine to achieve the deficit target and sets a dangerous precedent.

Political experts agreed in opinion that Yanukovych has exercised his right of veto on the tax code because of fear of escalation of the conflict.

“The authority has reasonably estimated risks of the follow-up protest actions, their considerable scale and nature,” Yury Jakimenko, political analyst said to the Kommersant-Ukraine.

“This is negative for the country,” said Citi analyst Luis Costa said to The Moscow Times. “The market consensus was that Yanukovych was going to approve it despite popular resistance we have seen over the last couple of weeks.”

Next year, under the IMF deal, Ukraine needs to start gradually raising the retirement age for women to 60 from 55 and continue increasing the price of gas for households.

Addressing the issue at a public event titled “Legality and Transparency of the State Control as a Basis of Consumer Rights Protection,” the authorities didn’t point out what criteria they are going to use to judge businesses and “to die-cast them as wolves or innocent sheep.”

At the same time, the vice-minister of MEDT Timur Sulejmenov informed that the state is going to reduce the number of checks in different spheres. They will be twice reduced in sanitation inspections, veterinary practice and plants while checks on seed-growing and the grain and cotton markets is going to be reduced by six times.
The chairman of the Legal Statistics Committee of the SOPP, Marat Ahmetzhanov said that in 2009 there were 853 illegal checks of business from the state. “Last year we refused to register 1154 certificates of inspection appointments where we are able to prevent them from being illegally carried out,” Ahmetzhanov confirms.

According to General Public Prosecutor Kajrat Mami, last year more than 11,000 infringements during inspection conductions were revealed, which were basically classified as unreasonable intervention of law-enforcement bodies in business affairs. “Some officials forced businessmen to sponsor programs and such examples can be seen in South Kazakhstan, Pavlodar and other areas of the country,” said Mami, adding that “even some NGO’s in Kostanajsky and South Kazakhstan areas are trying to conduct illegal business checks by themselves.”

Answering questions of local journalists, the MEDT vice-minister Timur Sulejmenov admitted that at the given stage all attempts to supervise mutual relations between businesses and the state have actually failed: “Despite the presence legislative possibilities, real protection of the legitimate rights of businessmen is carried out inefficiently.” He also informed that the Ministry of Economic Development intends to found a businessmen’s rights protection committee within its body.

As the New York Times reports, currently, “the inmates are divided into barracks housing a hundred or so men without regard to the severity of their crimes. At night, a guard locks the door and walks away, leaving first-time offenders and people convicted of nonviolent crimes to fend for themselves in a crowd of gang members, hit men and other career criminals.”

The new plan calls for a three-stage dismantling of the barracks housing system and the abolition of all 755 penal colonies – the remains of Stalin’s gulag – by 2020.

In a session that lasted less than ten minutes, a Beijing court on Thursday upheld an 11-year sentence against popular Chinese human rights activists Liu Xiaobo, co-author of the pro-democracy Charter 08.

After the court decision, US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman called on “the government of China to release him immediately and to respect the right of all citizens to peacefully express their political views and exercise internationally recognized freedoms”.

European Union representatives in Beijing said: “The EU believes that the verdict against Liu Xiaobo – for his role as author of Charter 08 and for publishing articles concerning human rights on the internet – is entirely incompatible with his right to freedom of expression.”

Beijing said the prosecution was in accordance with Chinese law.

“China has no dissidents,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.

The following is an abridged statement by Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, co-author of the Charter 08 campaign for constitutional reform, given in his trial on 23 December 2009. Today the result of his appeal against an 11-year jail sentence for subversion was announced – the court upheld the verdict.

June 1989 was the major turning point in my 50 years on life’s road. Before that, I was a member of the first group of students to take the newly restored college entrance examinations following the Cultural Revolution; my career was a smooth ride, from undergraduate to grad student and through to PhD. After graduation I stayed on as a lecturer at Beijing Normal University.

On the podium, I was a popular teacher, well received by students. I was also a public intellectual: in the 1980s I published articles and books that created an impact. I was frequently invited to speak in different places, and invited to go abroad to Europe and the US as a visiting scholar. What I required of myself was to live with honesty, responsibility and dignity both as a person and in my writing.

Subsequently, because I had returned from the US to take part in the 1989 movement, I was imprisoned for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement to crime”, losing the platform I loved; I was never again allowed to publish or speak in public in China. Simply for expressing divergent political views and taking part in a peaceful and democratic movement, a teacher lost his podium, a writer lost the right to publish, and a public intellectual lost the chance to speak publicly. This was a sad thing, both for myself as an individual, and, after three decades of reform and opening, for China.

Thinking about it, my most dramatic experiences after 4 June 1989 have all been linked with the courts; the two opportunities I had to speak in public have been provided by trials held in the people’s intermediate court in Beijing, one in January 1991 and one now. Although the charges on each occasion were different, they were in essence the same, both crimes of expression.

Twenty years on, the innocent souls of 4 June are yet to rest in peace, and I, who had been drawn into the path of dissidence by the passions of 4 June, after leaving the Qincheng prison in 1991 lost the right to speak openly in my own country, and could only do so through overseas media, and hence was monitored for many years; placed under surveillance (May 1995 – January 1996); educated through labour (October 1996 – October 1999), and now once again am thrust into the dock by enemies in the regime.

But I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom, I stand by the belief I expressed 20 years ago in my hunger strike declaration – I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I’m unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities. This includes the prosecution at present: I was aware of your respect and sincerity in your interrogation of me on 3 December.

For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes in understanding the development of the state and changes in society, to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love.

I firmly believe that China’s political progress will never stop, and I’m full of optimistic expectations of freedom coming to China in the future, because no force can block the human desire for freedom. China will eventually become a country of the rule of law in which human rights are supreme. I’m also looking forward to such progress being reflected in the trial of this case, and look forward to the full court’s just verdict – one that can stand the test of history.

Ask me what has been my most fortunate experience of the past two decades, and I’d say it was gaining the selfless love of my wife, Liu Xia. She cannot be present in the courtroom today, but I still want to tell you, my sweetheart, that I’m confident that your love for me will be as always. Over the years, in my non-free life, our love has contained bitterness imposed by the external environment, but is boundless in afterthought. I am sentenced to a visible prison while you are waiting in an invisible one.

Your love is sunlight that transcends prison walls and bars, stroking every inch of my skin, warming my every cell, letting me maintain my inner calm, magnanimous and bright, so that every minute in prison is full of meaning. But my love for you is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough to hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes.

Given your love, my sweetheart, I would face my forthcoming trial calmly, with no regrets about my choice and looking forward to tomorrow optimistically. I look forward to my country being a land of free expression, where all citizens’ speeches are treated the same; where different values, ideas, beliefs, political views … both compete with each other and coexist peacefully; where, majority and minority opinions will be given equal guarantees, in particular, political views different from those in power will be fully respected and protected; where all political views will be spread in the sunlight for the people to choose; [where] all citizens will be able to express their political views without fear, and will never be politically persecuted for voicing dissent.

I hope to be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisition, and that after this no one else will ever be jailed for their speech.

Freedom of expression is the basis of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth. To block freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, to strangle humanity and to suppress the truth.

I do not feel guilty for following my constitutional right to freedom of expression, for fulfilling my social responsibility as a Chinese citizen. Even if accused of it, I would have no complaints.

*This statement was translated from the Chinese by Professor David Kelly of the China Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney. It can be read in the original and in full here ]]> http://communisttaxlawyer.com/location/china/china-has-no-dissidents-1225.html/feed 0 http://communisttaxlawyer.com/location/china/china-sends-envoy-to-north-korea-1218.html http://communisttaxlawyer.com/location/china/china-sends-envoy-to-north-korea-1218.html#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:07:03 +0000 The Proletariat http://communisttaxlawyer.com/?p=1218

SEOUL (Reuters) – A senior Chinese envoy was in North Korea to prod the reclusive state back to stalled nuclear talks while the South sent a team across the border on Monday for talks to restart tourism projects halted due to political wrangling.

The North will also host the U.N.’s top political envoy later this week, with analysts saying this engagement may bode well for the dormant six-way disarmament-for-aid talks and could lead to Pyongyang reducing the security threat it poses to the region.

The destitute North is feeling pressure to return to the nuclear talks, where it can win aid to prop up its broken economy, due to U.N. sanctions imposed after its nuclear test in May 2009 and a botched currency revaluation that sparked inflation and rare civil unrest.

Analysts said there is a chance the North could launch military moves if the talks do not go well. Market players have said this would dampen sentiment and serve as a reminder of the dangers of investing in the troubled peninsula.

Chinese Communist Party international affairs chief Wang Jiarui flew to North Korea at the weekend. Wang met Kim Jong-Il last year, and received a denuclearization pledge from the North Korean leader.

Wang met senior officials other than Kim at the weekend. He is expected to stay four days and have discussions with Kim, the South’s Yonhap news agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying.

China, the destitute North’s biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state. Kim Jong-il told the Chinese premier in October he could return to the nuclear talks if conditions were right.

In a move seen as bettering the mood with the United States, the North’s most important dialogue partner in the nuclear talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, Pyongyang at the weekend released a U.S. missionary it had held since late December for illegally entering the country.

North Korea is recent weeks has been reaching out to South Korea, which once was a major aid donor, but also threatening its neighbor and U.S. military ally by firing artillery near its neighbor on the troubled peninsula.

Analysts said the North wants to underscore the threat it poses to North Asia, which is responsible for one-sixth of the global economy, in a ploy to increase its bargaining leverage.

The Koreas were set to begin talks on joint tourism projects in the North run by an affiliate of the South’s Hyundai group.

The tours, suspended for more than a year, once earned the North’s leaders tens of millions of dollars a year and Kim Jong-il has appealed to have them restarted.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who took office two years ago, ended unconditional handouts to the North and linked aid to progress his neighbor makes in reducing the military threat it poses to North Asia.