In Asia, Obama, Medvedev see nuclear pact progress

SINGAPORE – President Barack Obama said yesterday the United States and Russia would have a replacement treaty on reducing nuclear arms ready for approval by year’s end, an announcement designed as an upbeat ending to a summit with Asia-Pacific leaders.

While publicising progress with Russia on arms control – part of Obama’s agenda to advance nuclear disarmament – the president and other leaders bowed to the obvious on climate change. They discussed a compromise agreement for a 192-nation gathering next month in Copenhagen, indirectly admitting that the meeting would not produce a new global treaty to reduce the heat-trapping carbon emissions that are warming the planet.Nearing the end of his two days in Singapore, Obama also attended a second summit with leaders of the 10 southeast Asian countries that make up the Asean group. Obama was the first US president to sit in on the meetings, that included a senior leader of Myanmar – part of a shift in US policy away from isolating the repressive Myanmar military government.Afterward, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama told the gathering, Myanmar General Thein Sein included, that his government must free long-detained democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. – Nampa-AP