Briefly

AUSTRIA

Envoys tight-lipped as arms control talks start

Nuclear weapons talks between the United States and Russia started in Vienna on Monday, with the two countries' envoys making only guarded comments shortly before they met. Little has been said officially about the arms control negotiations, but the US envoy has made clear they will be about nuclear weapons, suggesting they will include replacing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which expires in February. The deadlock over New START and the demise of other nuclear arms control treaties "suggest that the era of bilateral nuclear arms control agreements between Russia and the USA might be coming to an end", said Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. According to the institute's latest research, Russia has 6,375 nuclear warheads, including those that are not deployed, and the US has 5,800.

REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Action threatened over scattering of leaflets

The Unification Ministry of the Republic of Korea said on Tuesday that it will sternly deal with the scattering of leaflets criticizing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea after the alleged dispersal of such leaflets across the inter-Korean border overnight. The ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs expressed deep regret over an attempt by some civic group activists to scatter anti-DPRK leaflets and materials across the border, according to a statement. The ministry said it would sternly deal with such acts in cooperation with relevant agencies, including the police, adding that it would strongly respond to the distribution of anti-DPRK leaflets, which escalate tensions between the two neighbors, and endangers the lives and safety of people residing in the border areas. Earlier this month, the ministry filed a legal complaint against two civic groups for having sent anti-DPRK leaflets.

MEXICO

15 killed in attack on indigenous village

Assailants killed 15 inhabitants of an indigenous village in southern Mexico that has been plagued by local disputes, authorities said on Monday, in one of the most brutal attacks to shake the countryside in recent years. State prosecutors in Oaxaca said the bodies of 13 men and two women were identified as victims of the attacks over Sunday night and Monday morning in the municipality of San Mateo del Mar, east of the Pacific port of Salina Cruz. The San Mateo del Mar municipal government said in a statement that the attack was orchestrated by at least six armed people with the support of a suspected local crime boss. No arrests have yet been made. In a separate statement, Oaxaca state prosecutors said investigations are under way.

Agencies - Xinhua