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North Korea claims it will denuclearize

SEOUL, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- North Korea said Thursday it will denuclearize in the coming year and rebuild its ailing economy.

The statement was seen as a possible bid for a fresh start with the United States.

Pyongyang continued criticism of Seoul in a joint newspaper editorial that summed up policy goals for 2009.

But officials made no hostile mention of Washington, which inaugurates a new administration in three weeks. Yonhap news service said.

Six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea are on hold until after Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20.

Some observers say Pyongyang sees the Obama inauguration as an opportunity to start afresh after eight years of largely sour relations with the outgoing Bush administration.

North Korea is expected to continue to uphold its military-first policy, but this year's statement showed an increased focus on the economy, particularly on feeding its people.

S. Korea expects N. Korea coast incident

SEOUL, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- South Korea Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee warned his troops Thursday to be ready for possible conflict with North Korea over a coastal dispute.

The central dispute appeared to be near the Northern Limit Line, or N.L.L., drawn on the Yellow Sea unilaterally by U.S.-led U.N. forces at the end of the Korean War. It is here, Lee told the Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, that North Korea would likely do something provocative, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korea's naval boats often infringe the N.L.L. in hopes of replacing it with another border further south, Yonhap reported. Naval skirmishes occurred in 1999 and 2002.

Obama, Pelosi to discuss stimulus package

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- The scope of a recovery plan for the punk U.S. economy will be discussed by President-elect Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, party officials said.

Obama and the California Democrat are scheduled to meet Monday as Congress prepares to reconvene and consider a substantial recovery plan, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The sit-down between Obama and Pelosi will be one of the president-elect's first acts after relocating his family to a hotel in Washington during the weekend.

Obama and Pelosi will discuss the scope and timing of the economic recovery package, which Obama pledged would be his first priority once he is sworn in. Pelosi has said she wants recovery legislation on Obama's desk ready to be signed Jan. 20, the day he takes the oath of office.

That target date may fall aside as Republican and conservative Democrats have raised concerns about the impact on the federal deficit of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on an economic stimulus package with little congressional evaluation. The spending package is estimated to be between $675 billion and $775 billion.

Poll: Obama gets high leadership marks

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- President-elect Barack Obama's leadership is rated as high as President George Bush's was after the 2001 terrorist attacks, poll results indicate.

The CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll indicates 76 percent of Americans questioned said they thought Obama is a strong, decisive leader.

"That's the best number an incoming president has gotten on that dimension since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said of the results released Wednesday. "The public's rating of his leadership skills is already as high as George W. Bush's was after (Sept. 11, 2001) and easily beats the numbers that both Bush and Bill Clinton got at the start of their first terms in office."

Eight in 10 people surveyed said Obama inspires confidence, can get things done and is tough enough to be president, the survey said.

The 67 percent of those polled who say they admire Obama -- his worst rating in the poll -- is about the same as the highest rating Bush earned just after he took office in 2001, CNN said.

The CNN-Opinion Research Corp. telephone survey was conducted Dec 19-21, with 1,013 adults.The survey's margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.