The 1.1 million-strong North Korean armed forces – the world’s fifth largest – form the backbone of the North’s Stalinist rule in the midst of a deepening economic crisis. It is relying on international aid to feed its 22 million people.
“It is inevitable that the military will rise up,” Hwang Jang Yop, 74, said in a speech to a presidential advisory group.The former member of North Korea’s policy-making body, the Central Committee of the ruling Workers Party, who defected to Seoul in April, the highest- ranking North Korean to do so, based his prediction on the crumbling of the North’s vast military supply industries and sagging military morale.. One told the heavyweight Ha’aretz: “We have to start thinking about how to revive the Likud we once knew This isn’t a party. What happened here is more like the mafia.”Before leaving for London, Mr Netanyahu held out a hand of “peace and reconciliation”. They feared that reversion to selection by the party conference would concentrate too much power in Mr Netanyahu’s hands. Most delegates, working- class branch bosses, owe their place to the Prime Minister. A nod and a wink would be enough for them to throw out anyone who did not toe the line.Two weeks ago, Mr Netanyahu promised his rebellious ministers to postpone a decision, although he was widely believed to have orchestrated the demand to abolish primaries.

At the conference on Monday, he was shouted down when he begged delegates to wait. On Tuesday, his lieutenants discreetly encouraged them to go ahead.Ministers felt they had been deceived. Aimal Kansi is seen as something of a hero – and if he gets the death penalty he will become a national martyr.There may be a different explanation for the killings Karachi is a violent city. Rival ethnic groups stage frequent shoot-outs, and more than 400 people have died in the city this year. One theory has it that the oil men’s murderers are frustrated extortionists.- Peter Popham, New Delhi.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrives in London today, leaving his right-wing Likud in disarray Friends and foes openly accused him of duplicity. The communications minister, Limor Livnat, told delegates at a tumultuous party conference on Tuesday night: “The Likud is committing suicide.
Most damagingly for Mr Netanyahu, his national infrastructure minister, Ariel Sharon, disclosed that when the Prime Minister asked for his help in quelling a grassroots revolt, he replied: “I don’t know whether to help your right hand or your left hand.”Israeli commentators speculated yesterday that the disenchantment shared by almost all his senior Likud colleagues might split the partyThe immediate quarrel, as one television pundit put it, was not over principle or policy, but “who owns the shop”. The issue in dispute was how the Likud selects its parliamentary candidates. After two days of anguished debate, the 3,000 conference delegates voted to abolish the American-style primaries under which candidates were chosen in 1996.The change was opposed by all the Likud ministers and most of its serving MPs.

He was eventually tracked down to a hotel in a remote part of the country in June. FBI agents were involved in his capture and he was then extradited to the United States without formal proceedings.America is highly unpopular in Pakistan and is blamed for many of the country’s ills. The car in which they were travelling was overtaken on a bridge and forced to a halt. Gunmen opened fire and continued firing until all five occupants of the car, including the driver, were dead.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though there is speculation that the killings may have been in retaliation for the conviction the previous day in Washington DC of a 33-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Aimal Kansi, for the murder of two CIA employees in January 1993.Following the killings of the two men, Kansi, the sole suspect, fled the country and eluded capture for four years.