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World News Quick Take

■ South Korea
Li to prepare for talks
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing will visit South Korea next week to fine-tune policy on North Korea ahead of six-way talks on the nuclear crisis, officials said yesterday. During his three-day visit from August 13, Li is to meet his South Korean Korean counterpart Yoon Young-Kwan and other senior officials. Li and Yoon are to exchange "views on North Korea's nuclear problem," it said. North Korea said Monday that six-party talks involving North and South Korea, Russia, Japan, China and the US would take place "soon" in Beijing.

■ Indonesia
Officer guilty of rights abuses
An Indonesian court yesterday sentenced an Indonesian general to three years in prison over human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999. The verdict against Major-General Adam Damiri came as a surprise, because in May the prosecution itself requested that the charges be dropped due to lack of evidence. "The court finds Damiri proven guilty of committing gross human rights violation in East Timor," said Judge Marmi Mustafa. Damiri was last of 18 suspects to appear in the specially convened human rights tribunal.

■ Thailand
Refugees `might' get help
Thailand will consider helping 10 North Koreans who forced their way into the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok if they are found to be political dissidents, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday. The 10 -- four men, four women and two children -- rushed through an open gate into the embassy on Thursday, apparently seeking political asylum. Thaksin said Thai authorities would send the North Koreans back if they were not taken in by Japan or another country and if they were found to be criminals or simply seeking a better life outside North Korea.

■ Australia
No gay unions down under
Australia's conservative prime minister has no plans to allow gay marriages because such unions do nothing to ensure the "survival of the species." In an interview published in yesterday's edition of Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper, Howard said there would be no such legislation while he was prime minister. "The reason is not based on discrimination," he told the paper. "It is that marriage ... [is] the voluntary union between a man and a woman, hopefully for life." A prominent gay rights activist slammed Howard's comments. "Excluding gay and lesbian people from marriage is just as morally reprehensible as excluding women from the vote or making black people ride at the back of the bus," said Rodney Croome, spokesman for the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group.

■ China
Dissident gets jail term
China has jailed for five years a veteran dissident who served time after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and recently wrote to Beijing's communist leaders demanding democracy, a rights group said yesterday. The Xi'an Intermediate People's Court convicted Zhao Changqing (趙常青), 36, of subversion on Monday following a closed trial on July 10, the New York-based Human Rights in China said in a statement. Zhao, a former middle school teacher, was detained last November as one of 192 political activists who signed an open letter to China's 16th Party Congress calling for political reform, the group said. Zhao participated in the 1989 demonstrations and was imprisoned for half a year as a result.
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■ Canada
Fires partly controlled
Firefighters and soldiers have brought some of the wildfires in western Canada under control and have permitted 3,000 people to return to their homes late Monday. However, there remain dozens of municipalities still cut off by the fire and 7,000 to 8,000 inhabitants without access to their homes. It was estimated that the fires have laid waste to some 40,000 hectares of land in British Columbia alone at the weekend, with experts calling it the worst forest fire in Canada in half a century. The more than 322 wild fires in British Columbia are being fought by more than 2,000 firefighters on the ground with the aid of 37 airplanes. Over the weekend wildfires advanced at more than 5 kilometres per hour and burned at temperatures up to 1,000 Celsius.

■ Iran
Suspect prison guards freed
Two female Iranian prison guards detained in connection with the death in custody of a Canadian photojournalist last month have been freed on bail, the official IRNA news agency reported yesterday. Three other people held over the death of Zahra Kazemi, a Montreal-based photographer of Iranian descent, were still being questioned, IRNA said, quoting from a statement by the Tehran criminal court investigating the case. The death of Kazemi, 54, who Iranian government officials have said was killed by a blow to the head after her arrest for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison, has sparked a diplomatic row between Iran and Canada, which has recalled its ambassador to Ottawa. The incident has also thrown a spotlight on the shadowy practices of Iran's security services and the treatment of the media in the Islamic Republic.

■ United kingodom
Police seek naked rambler
Worried police are searching for a naked rambler who has been enjoying the sights along a famous British walking trail wearing only a floppy hat and a pair of hiking boots. The man has startled other ramblers on several occasions in the past fortnight during his walks in the Yorkshire Dales in northern England, where he has been seen at several points on the 435km Pennine Way. Acting Chief Inspector Tadeusz Nowakowski, who is leading the hunt, said the mystery rambler could face charges of outraging public decency.

■ Portugal
Fire aid announced
The government on Monday declared a state of disaster as it continued to battle Portugal's biggest forest fires in more than 20 years, pledging more than 22 billion escudos (US$124 million) in aid for people who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Some 3,000 firefighters, helped by 400 soldiers and dozens of aircraft, struggled to contain more than 70 fires raging across Portugal. The Forest Service estimated that about 53,360 hectares of forest have burned since July 28.

■ United states
Voice analysis released
A CIA technical analysis of an audiotape broadcast over the weekend has determined it was "likely" the voice of Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 in al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, a CIA official said on Monday. The voice on the tape, broadcast on Sunday, warned the US it would pay a high price if it harmed any of the detainees it is holding at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The date of the recording cannot be determined, a CIA official said.
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