NKorea issues warning ahead of US-SKorea summit

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Tuesday threatened the United States and South Korea over joint naval drills taking place this week in tense Yellow Sea waters ahead of a Washington summit by the allies' leaders.

The warning, however, was softer than North Korea's recent highly bellicose rhetoric, and followed the North's removal of two missiles from a launch site where they had been readied for possible test firing, U.S. officials said.

In the highly conditional threat, the section of the Korean People's Army responsible for operations in North Korea's southwest said it would hit back if any shells fall in its territory during the drills, which began Monday and are to end Friday. Should the allies respond to that, it said the North Korean military will strike five South Korean islands along the aquatic frontline between the countries.

The area includes waters that are claimed by both countries, and is the most likely scene of any future clash between the rival Koreas. North Korea disputes a boundary unilaterally drawn close to its shores by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the war, and has had three bloody naval clashes with the South since 1999.

Highly critical language is standard from North Korea during what the allies call routine military drills that they stage over the course of a year. Tuesday's statement was less bellicose than the rhetoric Pyongyang regularly unleashed during two months of larger-scale joint military drills by the allies that ended one week ago. That included threats of nuclear and missile strikes on Washington and Seoul.

The warning also came after the North took a step back from its recent escalation of tensions by removing two medium-range missiles from a launch site in eastern North Korea where they had been in launch-ready status, two U.S. officials said Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss a matter involving sensitive U.S. intelligence. It wasn't immediately clear why the missiles were removed.

Still, the new warning came at a time of tentative diplomatic maneuvering on the divided Korean Peninsula, which is still technically in a state of war because the three-year Korean War ended 60 years ago with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The threat also came hours ahead of a summit by President Barack Obama and South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye. They hoped to present a strong front against North Korea during their meeting Tuesday at the White House, while also leaving the door open to talks with Pyongyang.

There are concerns that any skirmish or shelling between the Koreas could escalate into war. Two attacks blamed on Pyongyang in 2010 killed 50 South Koreans, and Park has repeatedly said Seoul would respond aggressively to another attack from the North.

If Pyongyang conducts an attack similar to the 2010 shelling of an island that killed four South Koreans, "We will make them pay," Park told CBS in an interview aired Monday.

Inter-Korean relations are particularly strained amid North Korean anger over U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.N. sanctions in March that sought to punish the North over its February nuclear test, the country's third.

Last week, South Korea pulled out its last remaining citizens from a joint factory park in North Korea after Pyongyang earlier withdrew all of its 53,000 workers. The park is the last symbol of inter-Korean rapprochement and an important source of hard currency for the North.

North Korea suffered another financial blow Tuesday when one of China's biggest banks said it has halted business with a North Korean bank accused by the U.S. of financing Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs, in the latest sign of Beijing's displeasure with its estranged ally.

The state-run Bank of China Ltd. has notified the Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea that its account or accounts were being closed and all financial transactions suspended, said a bank spokeswoman, reading a brief statement. She did not provide further details.

The move comes after China's leadership has shown growing frustration with North Korea's young leader Kim Jong Un and the nuclear and missile tests his government has conducted, aggravating regional tensions. China is North Korea's economic lifeline, providing nearly all of its fuel and most of its trade.

Despite the allies' claims that the military drills are routine, Pyongyang calls them a preparation for invasion and is especially sensitive to the inclusion of any U.S. nuclear-capable assets. Washington in March responded to rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula by making the unusual announcements that it had sent nuclear capable B-52 and B-2 bombers to participate in the drills, prompting a harsh North Korean rhetorical response.

Nuclear-powered U.S. carriers routinely come to South Korea around this time of year as part of drills aimed at enhancing naval cooperation, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said Monday in a briefing. But Seoul wouldn't discuss whether any U.S. nuclear-capable assets were participating in this week's drills, and U.S. military officials declined to comment on operations.

On Tuesday, Kim denied North Korea's claim that South Korea's military this week conducted live-fire artillery drills near the disputed Yellow Sea waters.

Israel groups say PM halts new settlement building

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stopped approving new construction in West Bank settlements, two prominent Israeli activist groups said Tuesday, in what could be an attempt to clear the way for renewed peace talks with the Palestinians.

Anti-settlement group Peace Now, which monitors all new Israeli settlement construction, said Netanyahu has not approved new tenders or announcements of new building plans in the settlements since he won a new term in January elections.

"It seems that Netanyahu took it upon himself to follow a policy of restraint," Peace Now said in a statement. It said Netanyahu was likely trying to avoid colliding with the U.S. at a time when Secretary of State John Kerry is attempting to restart peace negotiations.

The group said it did not know how long the freeze on new settlement building would hold, and noted that previously started settlement building is proceeding.

The Yesha settlers council, which promotes settlement construction, also claimed a freeze was in place. Yigal Dilmoni, a Yesha official, said Netanyahu's office confirmed to him that the prime minister has stopped approving housing tenders.

"This does not help anything, and it is discriminatory," Dilmoni said. "We are severely against this."

Peace talks broke down in 2008 and have remained stalled in large part because of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both areas, captured byIsrael in 1967, as parts of a future independent state and have insisted that Israel halt settlement construction before peace talks to resume. Israel says the talks should take place without preconditions.

Following President Obama's visit to the region in March, Kerry has been shuttling between the two sides to try to break the deadlock. Last week, after some prodding by Kerry, Arab leaders renewed a decade-old comprehensive peace offer, with softer language to appeal to Israel, to help restart talks. Israel has not responded to the offer. Kerry is scheduled to meet with Israeli and Palestinian representatives in Rome this week.

Last September, the Palestinians won upgraded status at the United Nations. Netanyahu responded by announcing plans to build hundreds of new homes in settlements. But those plans never moved forward.

Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a pro-settler hard-liner, met with Netanyahu recently. He asked Netanyahu to push forward the housing tenders, but Netanyahu refused, Dilmoni claimed.

The minister refused to comment on the reported settlement freeze in an Army Radio interview on Tuesday.

"I do not confirm things that I do with the Prime Minister. Therefore I cannot comment on this," Ariel said.

Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the U.S. is exerting efforts to "create the needed atmosphere" for new talks, but that he was unaware of any Israeli construction freeze.

"We should hear this officially from the Israeli government," he said.

Dalai Lama decries Buddhist attacks on Muslims in Myanmar

By Ian Simpson

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland (Reuters) - Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tuesday decried Buddhist monks' attacks on Muslims in Myanmar, saying killing in the name of religion was "unthinkable."

The Dalai Lama, a foremost Buddhist leader, told an audience at the University of Maryland at the start of a U.S. tour that the root of seemingly sectarian conflict was political, not spiritual.

"Really, killing people in the name of religion is unthinkable, very sad. Nowadays even Buddhists are involved in Burma," another name for Myanmar, with monks attacking Muslim mosques, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said after delivering the Anwar SadatLecture for Peace at the university.

"I think it is very sad," he said, adding, "I pray for them (the monks) to think of the face of Buddha," who had been a protector of Muslims.

A wave of sectarian violence erupted in March in the central Myanmar town of Meikhtila, causing 44 deaths and displacing an estimated 13,000 people, mostly Muslims.

A Reuters investigation found that radical Buddhist monks had been actively involved in the violence and in spreading anti-Muslim material around the country.

Sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Muslims, who make up about 5 percent of Myanmar's population, have erupted on several occasions since a quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011 after five decades of military dictatorship.

The 77-year-old Dalai Lama, whose name is Tenzin Gyatso, also urged his largely student audience of 15,000 to create a new world in the 21st century, saying that he was a man of the last century.

"That group of individuals of the 20th century are ready to say bye-bye," Tibet's most revered spiritual leader said. "You have the responsibility to create a new world based on the concept of one humanity."

China brands the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule of Tibet, as a separatist. The Dalai Lama says he is merely seeking more autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.

The address in College Park, Maryland, was the start of a U.S. visit that includes stops in Oregon, Wisconsin, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone and Kenneth Barry)

Scientist: Cassava disease spread at alarming rate

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Scientists say a disease destroying entire crops of cassava has spread out of East Africa into the heart of the continent, is attacking plants as far south as Angola and now threatens to move west into Nigeria, the world's biggest producer of the potato-like root that helps feed 500 million Africans.

"The extremely devastating results are already dramatic today but could be catastrophic tomorrow" if nothing is done to halt the Cassava Brown Streak Disease, or CBSD, scientist Claude Fauquet, co-founder of the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century, told The Associated Press.

Africa, with a burgeoning population and debilitating food shortages, is losing 50 million tons a year of cassava to the disease, he said.

In Uganda, a new strain of the virus identified five years ago is destroying 45 percent of the national crop and up to 80 percent of harvests in some areas, according to a new survey, said Chris Omongo, an entomologist and cassava expert at Uganda's National Crops Resources Research Institute.

"The new strain looks to us to be much more aggressive," Omongosaid.

Fauquet said one problem is that the virus attacks the tubers underground, so a farmer can husband his crop for up to 18 months and only realize when he goes to dig up the cassava that all his fields are infected.

Omongo has participated in a training video — funded by U.S. aid to the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa — where farmers in north Tanzania are shown digging up cassava and cutting into roots turned black and brown with rot. The farmers say the rotten bits taste bitter and are inedible. They say they spend hours trying to chop away blighted parts.

The disease is spreading too fast to measure its impact, say scientists. A moderate infection with up to 30 percent root damage decreases the market value of cassava tubers drastically, to less than $5 a ton instead of $55, according to a study published last year in the journal Advances in Virology.

"Recent estimates indicate that CBSD causes economic losses of up to $100 million annually to the African farmer and these are probably an underestimate, as the disease has since spread into new areas," the article said.

Africa produced 150 million tons of the global harvest of 250 million tons last year, with Nigeria alone producing 50 million tons, according to Fauquet.

The cassava disease is endemic along the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa, affecting Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. In the past, it had not struck at high altitudes. But recently the disease has been found at up to 1,500 meters (nearly 5,000 feet) above sea level in Uganda, Congo and Tanzania's lake zones, the article in Advances in Virology reported. The disease also is found in Burundi and Rwanda.

In the past year, Fauquet said, symptoms of the virus have been found as far south as Angola and moving into West Africa. The white fly that acts as a vector for the disease also has been spotted in Cameroon, in central Africa, and in Zambia to the south.

"If the disease makes it to the Congo Basin, which is a big cassava producer, and — really frightening — reaches West Africa and Nigeria, the biggest producer, you can just imagine the impact, the magnitude," Fauquet said.

This week, scientists are meeting in Bellagio, Rome, to discuss what can be done.

Fauquet said what is needed is the kind of international effort that the West put into creating a virus-free potato after World War II, ending the chance of a disaster such as the Irish potato famine. Similar work has been done on other crops over the past 50 years, including sugar cane and sweet potatoes, he said.

But it has never been done in Africa for many reasons, including the corruption that makes it a difficult environment in which to operate and differences in transport, communications and infrastructure across the continent's many countries, Fauquet said.

What's needed is a virus-free cassava seed and the Italian meeting is hosting major funders including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hoping to convince them of the importance of the project.

Global warming brings a new urgency, said Fauquet and Omongo. Higher temperatures may already be favoring the new strain of the disease, said Omongo. Higher temperatures will increase the number of explosions of insects that transmit viruses, including the white fly, said Fauquet.

"In the next 40 years, starting now, we need to invest in cassava because it could tremendously help Africa and the world but also so that we are more prepared for more diseases," Fauquet said.

Scientists have called cassava "the Rambo" of food crops, a singular food source expected to become even more productive as the Earth warms, resistant to drought and simply shutting down until rains come. Cassava can also be left in the ground and stored there, providing food security for lean times. Scientists look to cassava as the best bet for African farmers threatened by climate change.

Some 500 million Africans eat cassava, boiled and roasted like potatoes, or pounded into flour to make a stiff porridge-like staple.

Omongo said the good news is that scientists at his research institute have developed a variety of cassava that is more tolerant to brown streak disease, but they cannot produce enough to meet even a quarter of Ugandan farmers' needs.

"When I say tolerant, I mean that perhaps only 5 percent gets infected instead of an entire field," he said. "What we need is research to continue so that we can come up with resistant varieties."

Nigeria's Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala this week said her country is trying to substitute imported wheat with locally grown cassava, and has so far succeeded in replacing 20 percent of its wheat imports. She said they also are having success encourage people to cook and eat bread made from cassava flour instead of wheat.

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