Visit the focus of food shortages of the Northern Korea: Carter - AFP

Visit the focus of food shortages of the Northern Korea: Carter (AFP) - 2 hours ago

BEIJING - A group of men of ancient State led by former President Jimmy Carter said that they will focus on the shortages of food, rights of man and denuclearization when they travel to the North Korea this week.

A delegation of the group "The Elders" of the former State leaders will visit Pyongyang Tuesday to seek ways to ease tensions on the North Korea nuclear weapons programs, they told a press conference in Beijing.

The Group of four members, headed by Carter, includes the former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, Prime Minister, ex-norvégien Gro Harlem Brundtland and former Irish President Mary Robinson.

In addition to discussing ways of advancing the multi-nation talks on Denuclearisation of North Korea, Carter said that he would seek ways to ease sanctions on Pyongyang, which have exacerbated a serious food crisis.

"This is a horrible situation and we hope to encourage other countries to help alleviate (the food crisis), including the South Korea, which cut all supplies of food materials to the North Koreans,"Carter said of the journalists."

"When there is an entire people sanctions, people suffer the most, and leaders are suffering least."

Robinson said one-third of the children of the Korea of the North suffered from delayed growth due to a lack of food, while almost 3.5 million people were vulnerable to the crisis growing which has seen the average food rations cut in half this year to 700 calories per day and per person.

"It is very, very important to ensure that women, children and elderly people do not suffer because of a political, said Robinson." We will be very well be highlighting this.

"We believe really that humanitarian issues and human rights are also very important."

Food agencies of the United Nations, which recently visited the North say more than six million people – a quarter of the population - urgently need food aid.

Carter said the delegation hopes to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, but for the moment such a meeting has not been announced. The trip was organized at the invitation of the Korea of the North.

The delegation was to meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi China and other Chinese experts on the North Korea later Monday. The group, which will publish a report on their findings, will fly to Seoul Thursday.

Talks between the two Koreas, China, United States, Japan and Russia six-party disarmament became stalled since Pyongyang was released in April 2008 and made its second nuclear test staged a month later.

Cross-border tensions have been exacerbated when the North Korea bombed a border in November, killing four South Korean, including two civilians, and generate fears of war.

The first attack against civilians since the 1950-53 weeks Korea war after Pyongyang revealed an apparently operational uranium enrichment plant to American experts visit.

The North that it was a peaceful but experts energy project said that he could be reconfigured to produce weapons-grade uranium.

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Political focus of China for the G-20

WASHINGTON - The United States and their allies, frustrated in their efforts to put pressure on China to change its economic policies, are looking to join other nations in developing an international campaign that China may find more acceptable.

At a meeting of Finance Ministers of the Group of 20 nations Friday, the United States hope to advance a set of proposed standards to judge the risks posed by the individual nations for the global economy. These standards could be used at the end of the year to shed light on China to remove its currency to keep its cheap exports.

Even if the exercise is successful, the benefits are probably tangible step or claire. The United States and China have ropin' years on the relative value of their currencies. The Chinese have made modest concessions in recent years, but mainly because internal concerns about inflation and economic dependence on exports.

A senior Treasury official said that it was important for countries to establish common standards, and in particular to highlight the large deficits and large surpluses was both sides of the same issue and deserve the same concern.

"This has not been on the table in the past, but it is that the conversation is moving now and that is useful, said Lael Brainard, Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs."

The purpose of standards is not lost on China, which has resisted the procedure. In February, the Chinese fought successfully to exclude a significant degree, the reserves of foreign currency from the list of proposed standards.

China holds more than 2.85 trillions of dollars in foreign currency, largest reserve in the world. He pursued a policy aggressive renminbi of printing to buy foreign currency, the value of these currencies of lifting and pressed, the value of its own.

Earlier this week, a senior Chinese official has published an article blasting the standards as a "political tool" intended to make developing nations like China to pay for the economic recovery of the developed countries such as the United States.

Li Yong, vice Minister of finance, has written that developed countries were responsible for their own currencies overprinting, conduct rise the price of basic products and the creation of inflationary pressures in developing countries. Mr. Li wrote that the real purpose of these countries was to increase demand for their exports.

"The problem of external imbalances is a sensitive issue related to the rights of development and growth of China and other potential economies emerging and is another political tool, after the exchange rate used by the developed countries such as the United States to curb the economic development of China's"Mr. Li wrote in the article""which was published on the website of the Ministry of finance.

Still, China has evolved slowly in the direction sought by the international community in recent years. China leaders adopted a plan of five years in October that calls for domestic consumption replace exports as the driver of economic growth. The country also allowed its currency appreciate 4.4 per cent against the dollar since last June. US officials described it as a 10 percent effective increase because the rate of inflation in China is much higher in the United States.

The United States adopted a role for the Group of 20 as the main forum for international economic coordination.

The Group of 7, which has already played this role, is composed of nations whose economy is driven by consumption and the currencies that float freely in response to the request. The new seats at the table, however, take place primarily by countries such as China, the India and the Brazil who manage their currencies to create a competitive advantage for their exports.

There is broad agreement that defines the relationship unbalanced between these two countries - receivable on the one hand, the exporters of the other - is a major fault that threatens global stability. There is much less agreement on the proper allocation of economic pain associated with possible solutions.

The objective of the current process is to break this controversial pieces manageable. France, the current Chairman of the group, has spent this year trying simply to create an agreement on the rules for the analysis of the nations which may be supplemented by time, heads of State gather in Cannes this fall. These rules would be used to single out nations that represent the greatest risks for further study.

A French official said he hoped there would be "further progress" Friday.

As to highlight the gap must be filled, the two parties will meet separately Thursday. The Group of 7 Finance Ministers consult quietly in Washington. During this time, heads of State of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - the emerging powers called BRIC - met on Chinese Hainan Island.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Australia, Glenn Stevens, meanwhile warned Wednesday there was too of focusing on the relationship between the United States and China.

In describing the problem of global imbalances in terms of both countries, he said, "risks simplify problems and therefore to reduce the likelihood of solutions". Mr. Stevens spoke to the American Australian Association in New York.

He noted that the United States described once Japan trade problems.

David Jolly contributed reporting from Paris and Xu Yan contributed research of Shanghai.

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