BEIJING, May 21 (Reuters) - North Korea released a Chinese fishing boat on Tuesday after it was taken from waters between the two countries, the boat's owner said, in an incident that had proved a new irritant in ties between the often uneasy allies.
Chinese counsellor to North Korea Jiang Yaxian had told state media earlier that North Korea had “grabbed” the private vessel from off the northern city of Dalian in waters between China and the Korean peninsula. Other Chinese state media quoted the owner of the missing boat, Yu Xuejun, as saying North Korea was demanding 600,000 yuan ($97,600) for its safe return, along with its 16 crew.
Yu told Chinese media the boat had been snatched on the evening of May 5 and he had approached Chinese authorities five days later to ask them to intervene.
Tensions have been mounting between North Korea and China, Pyongyang's most important economic and political backer. Some Chinese banks have frozen out North Korea's main foreign exchange bank amid frustration in Beijing over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
Speaking to Reuters by telephone, boat owner Yu said his vessel was released early on Tuesday and they had not paid the North Koreans any money.
“The Chinese foreign ministry coordinated with them, so we do not know any details so far,” he said in a brief interview.
The case has been widely discussed on China's Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, with angry comments directed at North Korea.
In an editorial on Tuesday published before news of the release, the influential Chinese tabloid the Global Times said China should reduce its aid to North Korea if it continued such behaviour.
“If North Korea continues to go rogue, China should take actions to push it toward a more measured response,” the newspaper, published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily, said in an editorial.
“If it is difficult to teach North Korea in words, we can make it understand in deeds.” This is not the first time Chinese vessels have been held by North Korea. A year ago, the impoverished North held a number of boats and fishermen for two weeks before releasing them.

BEIJING, May 21, 2013 (AFP) - No new human cases of the H7N9 virus have been recorded in China for a week, national health authorities said, for the first time since the outbreak began in March.
One previously infected patient died in the week beginning between May 13, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a statement late Monday, taking the total number of fatalities from the virus to 36.
But the number of confirmed cases was unchanged at 130. Of those, 72 have recovered and been discharged from hospital, it said, adding that no evidence of human-to-human transmission had been detected so far.
Experts fear the possibility of the virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to trigger a pandemic.
Flu viruses are often seasonal and much of China is experiencing warmer weather following the end of winter.
But the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the evolution of the outbreak was still unpredictable.
“Influenza viruses constantly reinvent themselves. No one can predict the future course of this outbreak,” Margaret Chan said Monday at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.
“Although the source of human infection with the virus is not yet fully understood, the number of new cases dropped dramatically following the closing of live poultry markets,” she added.
China was accused of covering up the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that killed about 800 people around the world a decade ago, but Chan thanked authorities for their close collaboration with the WHO over H7N9.

TEHRAN, May 21, 2013 (AFP) - Iran's June 14 presidential election steps up a gear on Tuesday when the Guardians Council releases the approved list of candidates who have passed muster under the vetting process.
The unelected council, controlled by religious conservatives appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, must ensure that all candidates meet certain conditions before being allowed to stand.
These conditions include being faithful to the principles of the Islamic republic and its official religion.
Most of the 686 men and women who registered to stand are expected to be disqualified.
Under Iranian presidential election law the Guardians Council will submit the names of those approved to the interior ministry, which organises the poll.
The ministry then has until Thursday to announce the names and campaigning begins the next day.
This year's poll comes four years after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election for a second term sparked months of violent street protests.
Among the well-known figures who have registered are the moderate former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close Ahmadinejad ally.
Both have been targeted by ultra-conservatives calling for their disqualification.
Ahmadinejad himself is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.
Rafsanjani, who will be 79 in August, polarised Iran's complex political spectrum when he said he was considering standing again.
He has been isolated by ultra-conservatives since the massive street protests in 2009 sparked a heavy-handed regime crackdown and the arrest of hundreds of journalists, activists and reformist supporters.
At the time Rafsanjani called for those rounded up during the demonstrations to be released.
“If someone who wants to deal with the country's macro issues can only work a few hours per day, then it is natural that he will not be qualified,” Guardians Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei was reported as saying in the media on Monday.
Rafsanjani's two consecutive presidential terms (1989-1997) were marked by reconstruction after the eight-year Iran-Iraq war and a relative openness to the West.
According to a Western diplomatic source, Rafsanjani is the main “proxy” candidate for the reformists.
He played an important role in the election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami, who succeeded him as president (1997-2005).
Khatami has repeatedly said he favours Rafsanjani's candidacy which should garner the support of moderate leaders and reformists.
A Western diplomat told AFP that Rafsanjani could also carve away votes from Mashaie as people prefer “their votes to be useful and not be considered just a vote,” given Mashaie's slimmer chance of winning.
Mashaei has been targeted by hardliners for emphasising Persian civilisation rather than focusing on Islamic values.
In 2009, Khamenei overturned Mashaei's appointment as first vice president, sparking a rift between Ahmadinejad and conservatives loyal to Khamenei.
Mashaie cannot boast any economic success, since Ahmadinejad's second term has been marred by international sanctions over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.
However, another Western diplomat said Mashaie can rely on Ahmadinejad's popularity among lower-income Iranians and on the support of a generation of civil servants who owe him their jobs.
Among potential conservative candidates, three names stand out: former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Velayati, 67, was foreign minister for 16 years from 1981 but appears to lack popular support, unlike the 51-year-old Qalibaf, who succeeded Ahmadinejad as mayor in 2005.
Iran-Iraq war veteran Qalibaf commanded the elite Revolutionary Guards air force and later became national police chief.
He has overseen huge projects in the capital, despite being denied government financing. However, some of Qalibaf's projects are deemed too Western for ultra-conservatives.
Jalili is close to the all-powerful Khamenei. His unexpected candidacy is supported by ultra-conservatives for his firmness in discussions with the great powers over Tehran's controversial atomic activities.
The West fears Iran's uranium enrichment is aimed at developing a military capacity, but Tehran denies this.
Jalili, 47, is also a veteran of the 1980s war with Iraq in which he lost his lower right leg. But political circles say he lacks both administrative experience and public support.

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration has decided to give the Pentagon control of some drone operations against terrorism suspects overseas that are currently run by the CIA, several U.S. government sources said on Monday.
Obama has pledged more transparency on controversial counterterrorism programs, and giving the Pentagon the responsibility for part of the drone program could open it to greater congressional oversight.
Obama will make a speech on Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington that will include discussion of the government's use of drones as a counterterrorism tool. It is unclear whether he will announce the drone program shift in that speech or separately.
Four U.S. government sources told Reuters that the decision had been made to shift the CIA's drone operations to the Pentagon, and some of them said it would occur in stages.
Drone strikes in Yemen, where the U.S. military already conducts operations with Yemeni forces, would be run by the armed forces, officials said.
But for the time-being U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan would continue to be conducted by the CIA to keep the program covert and maintain deniability for both the United States and Pakistan, several sources said. Ultimately, however, the administration's goal would be to transfer the Pakistan drone operations to the military, one U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.  The internal debate within the administration about whether to switch control of drone strikes to the military has been going on for months. Obama is under heightened pressure to show that his administration is transparent, after a series of scandals about civil liberties and allegations of government overreach broke last week. A White House National Security Council spokeswoman and a CIA spokeswoman each declined comment.
DECISION AFTER MONTHS OF DEBATE
One of the reasons to make the shift is that it would help the CIA to return to more traditional spying operations and intelligence analysis, rather than paramilitary operations involving killing terrorism targets, officials have said.
The U.S. military is not engaged in ground combat in Pakistan, where the population in tribal areas has been angered by drone strikes and governments do not want to acknowledge that they allow U.S. unmanned aircraft to operate.  But in Yemen, the same sensitivities do not exist because the U.S. military is working with Yemeni forces in counterterrorism operations and so drone strikes in Yemen will shift to the Pentagon, two sources said.  There have been 355 drone strikes in Pakistan and 66 in Yemen, according to a widely cited drone attack database run by the New America Foundation think tank.
The United States has also carried out drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and East Africa, some of them operated by the military.  The use of armed drones jumped in 2008 when President George W. Bush authorized the use of “signature” strikes, allowing the targeting of terrorism suspects based on behavior and other characteristics without knowing the targets' identities.  Rosa Brooks, a New America Foundation fellow and Georgetown University law professor, said the problem with the targeted killing program was “an assertion by the executive branch that it has this essentially unconstrained and unreviewable power to kill people.” Brooks, who previously served at the Pentagon, said she hoped that Obama would publicly release the legal justifications and analysis for the targeted killings overseas, including of U.S. citizens.
“I would also like to see the president say that we will acknowledge all strikes, that we will publicly report on identities of who was targeted, at least after the fact,” she said.