■ The Philippines
Arroyo `married' to country
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday vowed not to protect her husband from corruption and money laundering charges made by an opposition senator, saying she is "married" to the country. In her weekly radio message, Arroyo said she will not get into the fray involving her husband because it had nothing to do with her work as president. Senator Panfilo Lacson, one of her most vocal critics, alleged on Monday that Arroyo's husband, Jose Miguel, amassed huge sums through corruption and money laundering and keeps a secret bank account.
■ Hong Kong
Ip may seek top job
Former security chief Regina Ip said running for Hong Kong's top political post would be akin to jumping into "a flaming pit," but she did not rule out a comeback, newspapers reported yesterday. "If I run for chief executive I will have to jump into a flaming pit. I would need to consider the sacrifice to my life, my time and my privacy," Ip said during an interview with Asia Television Ltd, set to air last night. Excerpts of her interview, conducted before she left with her daughter for San Francisco earlier this week, were broadcast on ATV late Friday and published in Hong Kong newspapers yesterday.
■ Australia
Asylum-seekers deported
Thirty Iranians who unsuccessfully sought asylum in Australia were being forcibly deported to their homeland this weekend, a refugee advocate group said yesterday. The government had said Friday it would soon deport a number of Iranians, but refused to say how many or when. Three Iranian men, all around age 40, had been taken from the Baxter Detention Center in South Australia state early yesterday morning, said Liz Thompson of the National Anti-Deportation Alliance. The three were the first of up to 30 people expected to be sent on a flight to the Iranian capital of Tehran yesterday or today, she said.
■ Tibet
Dalai Lama to meet Bush
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, is expected to meet US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit to the US next month, a Tibetan official said yesterday. Although Press Secretary Tenzin Taklha said the meetings would likely be informal, they would provoke protests from China, which regards the Dalai Lama as a separatist and a troublemaker. The Dalai Lama had earlier met Bush in Washington in May 2001. He has also met two former presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush, when they were in office. The Dalai Lama will arrive in San Francisco on Sept. 4 for a three-week visit to the US.
■ Pakistan
Crews try to stop oil spills
Crews were trying to stop fresh oil spills from the stranded Greek-registered oil tanker that ran aground in the Arabian Sea more than one month ago off the southern port city of Karachi, a senior official said yesterday. Inflatable booms have been placed around the ship to try to slow and eventually stop the oil spilling from containers still aboard the MT Tasman Spirit _ -- owned by Malta-based Assimina Maritime Ltd, said Brigadier Iftikhar Arshad, general manager of the Karachi Port Trust which manages the port. A siphoning operation to remove the oil was suspended last Thursday because of high winds, he said.<
■ Liberia
Blah mets rebel backer
Liberia's caretaker President Moses Blah met the main backer of his country's biggest rebel group on Friday as part of a regional tour designed to end 14 years of bloodshed. Blah held talks with Guinea's President Lansana Conte in the Guinean capital Conakry, and left afterwards to head to Sierra Leone. There was no immediate word on what the two leaders discussed. Conte was named in a UN report as the biggest supporter of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), the larger of two rebel factions holding at least three-quarters of Liberia.
■ United States
Bush receives cool welcome
Up to 500 drum-banging demonstrators expressed their disapproval of US President George W. Bush, as he visited the liberal and economically-stricken US northwest on Friday. Some 400 to 500 jeering, chanting protesters gathered in Seattle, one of the hubs of US counter-culture, to slam Bush's economic policy and the US-led war in Iraq during a two-day presidential fundraising trip, witnesses said. Security was tight in the city -- the scene of anti-globalization riots during the 1999 WTO summit -- with SWAT teams, bicycle and motorcycle policemen and secret service agents in evidence.
■ United Kingdom
Orchestras to turn it down
Orchestral musicians are to be trained to protect their ears from the noise of their own instruments and those of other players. The UK legal limit of sound exposure is 90 decibels (dB) but the sound of a symphony orchestra playing a big classical piece at treble forte has been measured at 98dB. Orchestras are now preparing for an EU directive which will reduce the maximum sound level to 85dB, a drop of 20 percent. Many players use earplugs during performances and clear plastic acoustic screens are used to protect players who sit in front of brass players or percussionists, whose instruments have been known to register 140dB.
■ Canada
Police arrest terrorists
Canadian police arrested 19 men last week in a case that, according to court documents obtained by a newspaper, has eerie parallels to the preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks on the US. Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokeswoman Michele Paradis confirmed the arrests but declined to offer details. The Toronto Star newspaper said the men were arrested after a "pattern of suspicious behavior" which featured one man taking flight lessons that took him directly over an Ontario nuclear power plant.
■ Australia
Boat chase causes row
An Australian fisheries vessel's marathon 16-day pursuit of a South American trawler suspected of poaching appeared headed for a diplomatic standoff yesterday when Uruguayan officials ordered the boat to return to Montevideo. A spokesman for Australian Fisheries Minister Ian Macdonald insisted the Uruguayan-flagged Viarsa should be subject to Australian law after being spotted in the country's remote sub-Antarctic fisheries zone. The customs and fisheries patrol boat Southern Supporter has been in hot pursuit of the Viarsa since Aug. 7, tracking it across the Southern Ocean and through dangerous pack ice. The trawler is suspected of illegally fishing the endangered Patagonian toothfish.
■ Canada
Ailment is not SARS
A respiratory ailment that sickened nearly 150 residents and staff members of a Canadian nursing home was not caused by the SARS virus as had been feared, health officials said. Laboratory tests at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control and British Columbia Cancer Agency's Genome Sciences Center showed that the virus responsible for an outbreak of respiratory illness at Surreys Kinsmen Place Lodge was not the SARS virus, authorities said on Friday. "We have clearly found large sequences of the virus that are not present in the SARS coronavirus," said Dr. David Patrick, director of epidemiology at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control.
■ Canada
Gay marriage protested
Around 5,000 people gathered outside the Canadian Parliament on Friday to protest against plans to legalize gay marriages, an increasingly controversial move that has badly split the ruling Liberal Party. The federal government has already drawn up draft legislation on same sex marriages and submitted it to the Supreme Court for an opinion, prompting anger from critics who say Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is moving too fast. "Woe be to those who call evil good and good evil," Roman Catholic priest Francois Beyrouti said.
■ United Kingdom
Former diplomat arrested
A British court on Friday placed a former Iranian ambassador to Argentina in custody, without ruling on a request by Buenos Aires to extradite him over a 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities center that killed 85. Hadi Soleimanpur, a research student at Durham University in northeast England, has been in the country on a student visa since February last year. He was arrested on an extradition warrant after a request by Argentina. A Scotland Yard detective told a court in London that Buenos Aires alleged Soleimanpur was involved in planning and commissioning the bombing in Argentina nine years ago.
■ United States
NASA to launch telescope
A new infrared space telescope, which NASA plans to launch tomorrow, will allow astronomers to peek into the dusty corners of the universe and see for the first time objects that have eluded existing observatories. The launch of Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) was originally set for April, but was repeatedly postponed because of technical problems. The telescope is now scheduled for launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:35am tomorrow, strapped to a Boeing Delta II rocket.
■ United States
Stars blast Schwarzenegger
A growing band of leading Hollywood Democrats are starting to speak out against actor Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming the next governor of California. "That would be the worst tragedy in the history of California," said actress Cybil Shepherd on the TV show Access Hollywood on Thursday. "I think that we are the laughing stock of the world, with Arnold Schwarzenegger running [for] governor," Shepherd said. "I think he's a real hypocrite. I think he has a past that is going to come out, and I'm not going to mention what it is, but it's not going to be pretty," she said. The New York Post reported on Friday that Tom Hanks, Woody Harrelson, Carrie Fisher and Martin Sheen were among those that were organizing a Hollywood campaign against the bid of the Austrian-born actor to win the governor's race in America's richest and most populous state.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese