OUTCRY: Taiwanese advocates of membership in the world body have contested the secretariat's authority to reject the application without submitting it to members
By Charles Snyder
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday defended his decision to reject Taiwan's latest application for UN membership this month, but conceded that the membership question "ultimately" must be decided by the member states, not his office.

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After a year of negotiations, India and the US on Friday announced completion of a civilian nuclear accord, which Indian officials hailed as preserving India's national security interests and as a testament to its emerging strategic importance to the US.

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US President George W. Bush yesterday pushed Congress to modernize a law that governs how the US intelligence community monitors the communications of suspected terrorists.

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IN-FLIGHT INSANITY: Passengers attempted to open exit doors while airborne, quarreled, complained loudly and tried to sleep on the floor
Taiwan-based airlines have experienced a high number of "abnormal actions" -- ranging from vandalism to safety violations -- by air passengers during flights in the past six years, a report released yesterday by the Flight Safety Foundation-Taiwan said.

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Investigators sifted through the wreckage of a bombed-out restaurant in Pakistan's capital and scoured a government database yesterday to try to identify the remains of a suicide attacker who killed 13 people a day earlier.

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