“The United States has kept providing Taiwan with defensive weapons according to the Taiwan Relations Act, enabling Taiwan to be more confident in pressing for reconciliation with the Chinese mainland,” Minister Kao said.

“In the future, Taiwan will continue purchasing more weaponry from the United States… so as to build a smaller and leaner deterrent force.”

The US$6.8 billion arms sale between the U.S. and Taiwan in January infuriated Chinese officials who accused America of using “cold war logic.”

Speaking at a security conference in Munich last week, China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said that the deal violated standards in international relations and provoked officials in Beijing.

According to the AFP, Taiwan’s Premier Wu Den-yih dismissed Yang’s allegations, saying Beijing’s continued missile buildup along the mainland coastline facing the island had prompted Taiwan to seek more self-defensive weaponry.

“It’s just like two people trying for reconciliation. If one of them sticks a gun in his waist, it would be weird, don’t you think so,” Wu said in an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix satellite television Saturday.

“The people of Taiwan would feel better if China can withdraw its missiles…,” he said.

That’s not going to happen.

Opposition leader Viktor F. Yanukovich has declared victory over current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election, which has garnered immense international attention over the last few months.

It is not yet official, and Tymoshenko will not concede, but exit polls currently put Yanukovich three to four points ahead.

In the simplest form, Tymoshenko has the support of eastern Ukraine with her pro-Europe stance while Yanukovich, in contrast, has the support of the Russian-speaking western and southern Ukraine.

The two fierce rivals have spared no expense in their efforts to insult, humiliate, and discredit one another with smear campaigns as they dragged each other through the mud.

Although it has been entertaining, the true victims of this election are the Ukrainian people. They are the ones who will be stuck with one of these candidates as their president in a now more divided country that already has its fair share of problems.

Furthermore, for those hoping this drawn out election may finally find its conclusion, you may be disappointed. The fallout of Tymoshenko’s loss may carry on for some time.

Over the weekend, she called on her supporters to take to the streets in protest if Yanukovich prevails.

As the elections started on Sunday, Tymoshenko’s team also said that Yanukovich supporters were practicing “terrorism” and “open banditry.”

Ukrainian officials deny any such reports.

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.

The air force will buy EC-225 search-and-rescue helicopters, defense ministry spokesman Martin Yu said without offering details.

China has blasted the United States over a planned $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan, saying it would place sanctions on U.S. firms that sell weapons to the self-ruled island that Beijing considers a breakaway province of China.

Taiwan will sign a $111 million deal in the next few days to buy up to 20 choppers from Eurocopter, the Defense News reported. Eurocopter is a subsidiary under German-based EADS.

“What is equally odd about the contract award is China has remained silent on the issue after it threatened to sanction U.S. companies selling arms to Taiwan and occurs at the same time European leaders have been pushing for a lifting of arms exports to China,” Defense News said.

The EC-225 is considered a dedicated search and rescue craft rather than a combat helicopter.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

Taiwan seeks advanced foreign-made weapons to update its military, which lags China in the balance of power.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration notified Congress a week ago of its first proposed arms sales to Taiwan including Black Hawk utility helicopters, Patriot “Advanced Capability-3″ anti-missile missiles, and command-and-control technology.

Romanian President Traian Basescu hastily issued a statement yesterday saying he was prepared to negotiate the details of the missile defense system which, he added, could be up and running by 2015.

Mr. Basescu said that with Romania’s participation, the system was not directed at Russia but rather “against other threats,” without specifying them.

A NATO member since 2004, Romania’s ground based missile interceptors will be designed to shoot down any short to medium-range missiles launched from Iran.

This agreement may help Russia and the U.S. with their nuclear disarmament talks as Moscow has long suggested Romania and Bulgaria as an alternative to the Poland and Czech Republic sites.

Khan Resources is a uranium development company based in Mongolia, with their subsidiary Central Asian Uranium Company Ltd. (CAUC) primarily focused on the Dornod province in the country’s northeast.

CNNC’s acquisition would grant them a 58 percent stake in CAUC and access to the Dornod field, which has at least 22,000 tons of uranium reserves.

This news comes after an unsuccessful attempt at a hostile takeover of the Canadian company by Russia’s state-owned AtomRedMetZoloto in December, who has a 21 percent stake in CAUC.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Somali pirates hijacked a North Korean cargo ship on Wednesday with an unknown number of crew on board, the European Union Naval Force said.

The MV Rim was seized in the Gulf of Aden, outside the internationally recommended transit corridor patrolled by the anti-piracy naval coalition, said Cmdr. Anders Kallin of the EU Naval Force.

The MV Rim has not had any communication with maritime authorities, but Kallin said an American warship, the USS Porter, and a helicopter from American warship USS Farragut confirmed the seizure of the ship to the EU.

The 4,800-ton ship is owned by White Sea Shipping of Libya. It is carrying unknown cargo and the number and nationalities of the crew are not known. The seized ship was heading toward the Somali coast and warships were monitoring the situation, the EU Naval Force said. The MV Rim is the third ship seized by Somali pirates this year. Its crew will join more than 180 sailors being held hostage along the Somali coast.

Most Somalis are impoverished and many have suffered from almost two decades of fighting. The anarchic Horn of Africa nation is the perfect pirate base because the weak U.N.-backed government is too busy fighting an Islamist insurgency to patrol its shores or go after pirates on land.

The multimillion dollar ransoms that pirates command are one of the few remaining ways for Somalis to make money. Experts say the problems will only get worse unless the security situation on land improves.

They have done so by striking at some of the country’s most sensitive topics over the last month, namely: censorship, Taiwan, and the Dalai Lama.

It started with Google’s announcement that it would be leaving the Chinese market after suffering a series of sophisticated cyber attacks originating in China in addition to claiming that censoring their search results went against the company motto, “Don’t be evil.”

Google’s announcement came a week after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a private dinner with some of America’s top executives, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Coincidence?

The Google accusations were the perfect preamble for Mrs. Clinton’s speech the next week, which harshly criticized China’s Internet policy.

“Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand,” Clinton said during her speech. “This lopsided access to information increases both the likelihood of conflict and the probability that small disagreements could escalate.”

Anyone living in China will know that “lopsided access to information” would be an understatement. Just read the front page of China Daily or Xinhua News.

Then, last Friday, all of China was in a fury over U.S. plans to approve and ship US$6.8 billion worth of arms to Taiwan.

Beijing, in response, has said it will suspend military exchanges between the two countries, review cooperation on key issues, and may enact embargoes against the U.S. companies involved.

While the nature of the deal was bound to make people in China upset, given the sensitivity of Mainlanders to the “One-China” ideology, it was largely ignored that the arms deal was consistent with U.S. foreign policy (Taiwan Relations Act) and primarily included defensive weapons and technology.

Let’s not forget that China has more than one thousand missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait and has made it clear that they would use military force to bring the island under its control if Taiwan ever moved towards formal independence.

Here’s the Taiwan arms deal breakdown according to the Defense Security Co-operation Agency:

PROPOSED ARMS SALE
114 Patriot missiles ($2.81bn)
60 Black Hawk helicopters ($3.1bn)
Communication equipment ($340m)
2 Osprey mine-hunting ships ($105m)
12 Harpoon missiles ($37m)

Finally, U.S. officials have signaled this week that President Obama will likely be meeting with Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Although President Obama is not doing anything new by dealing with Taiwan or meeting with the Dalai Lama, he is sending a message that if Beijing wants the U.S. to operate with Chinese interests in mind, China will have to reciprocate.

Regardless of the fallout that may come of these moves in Washington, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s anticipated visit to the United States in April will be interesting to watch.

McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Russia 20 years ago this past Sunday, on January 31, 1990, while thousands of Moscoviets braved the cold in Pushkin Square.

To celebrate the milestone, as well as a 23 percent year on year profit increase last quarter, McDonalds’ CEO Jim Skinner announced that they would be expanding their business in Russia by 45 outlets in 2010.

“Russia is doing so well, we have chosen Russia as one of the top countries for reinvestment of capital in 2010,” Mr. Skinner said.

The expansion would bring the total number of McDonald’s restaurants in Russia to 290 as Burger King, their chief rival, arrives on the scene.

“Every new competitor and opportunity to serve the Russian customers is a challenge for us to do a better job, to be more relevant,” Mr. Skinner told reporters regarding the entry of Burger King into the Russian market.

McDonald’s remains the world’s number one fast-food restaurant with more than 32,000 restaurants in 120 countries.

The aforementioned McDonald’s in Pushkin Square reviewed 27,000 applications for 600 jobs before it opened in 1990.

Today, it is the busiest McDonald’s restaurant in the world.

The findings were published in the German science journal Naturwissenschaften (Natural Sciences) on January 28 this year, after tests confirmed that the teeth found in 2008 indeed once belonged to a Neanderthal.

The teeth were uncovered in the mountains of the Polish Jura Chain – an area which claims more than 200 caves scattered among limestone rocks, cliffs, and outcroppings.

Many Neanderthal artifacts such as flint tools, campsites, and the bones of animals have been found within Poland, but these are the first bodily remains found of the Neanderthals themselves who lived between 100 thousand to 80 thousand years ago.

Read the full AP story here.