World in brief: Migrant advocates rue failed reforms

Opinion makers and migrant advocates in Mexico said Friday that the collapse of U.S. immigration reform plans hurts Mexican workers, U.S. employers and anti-terrorism efforts.

President Bush’s plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants from around the world while fortifying the border failed in the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

“This is very bad news for Mexican migrants in the U.S.,” said Jorge Bustamante, special rapporteur to the U.N. human rights commission for migrants. “It means the continuation and probably a worsening of the migrants’ vulnerable conditions.”

Some major newspapers called the Senate’s action hypocritical.

“It’s obvious that the politicians of that country want laborers, but they are not willing to legalize the labor that they need,” El Universal said in an editorial.

Pyongyang, North Korea

Deal will help verify reactor shutdown

North Korea moved a step closer to fulfilling a promise to shutter its main nuclear reactor after agreeing with international monitors Friday on how to verify a shutdown.

International Atomic Energy Agency Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen announced the tentative deal after wrapping up a visit this week to the North, which included the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s first trip to the Yongbyon reactor since inspectors were expelled from the country in 2002.

“We have concluded this understanding, what our monitoring and verification activities are in principle,” Heinonen said in Associated Press Television News footage from the capital Pyongyang. He did not give details of the agreement.