■ United States
Support for Bush declines
PHOTO: AP
One year before the next presidential election, Americans are evenly divided between US President George W. Bush and a Democratic challenger, according to a poll released yesterday in The Washington Post. Support for Bush has fallen to the point where 48 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for him if the election were held today, while 47 percent said they would vote for the Democratic Party's nominee, the Post said. Five percent said they did not know. Bush's approval rating, which topped 90 percent after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was at 56 percent, with 42 percent giving him a negative review. Bush received better marks for his handling of the war on terror than for Iraq or his stewardship of the economy.
■ United States
Crash sparks security scare
A woman rammed a car carrying children into a building where US President George W. Bush was campaigning on Saturday, drawing a swarm of police in her wake before being dragged away at gunpoint. Bush was in his limousine ready to leave the arena when the screaming woman hit the same side of the building, near the exit the president's motorcade was to use. Bush was one level below, down a ramp about 75m away. "We don't think there was any malice against the president. ... It was a matter of very bad timing," a DeSoto County Sheriff's Department official, who wished to remain anonymous, said. Employees of the DeSoto Civic Center said they ran away from the crash, scared that it was an attempted car bombing.
■ Gibraltar
`Ghost ship' heads for shore
A cruise liner carrying 500 passengers hit by a virulent stomach virus was heading toward Gibraltar Saturday night after finally being given permission to dock. As an investigation got under way into how a common bug created such havoc on P&O's flagship Aurora, officials said the vessel would be docking today. Conditions were so bad on board the luxury liner it had been refused permission to dock in Greece. Hundreds of sick passengers had also been turned away from Dubrovnik and Venice. More than 40 passengers remained in quarantine as the crew attempted to prevent the virus from spreading further. Hundreds more remain locked in their cabins for fear of catching the highly contagious Novovirus. Passengers said the once-crowded corridors of the vessel resembled a "ghost ship."
■ Georgia
Voters go to the polls
Georgians voted in parliamentary elections yesterday that are seen as a test of strength for politicians seeking to succeed President Eduard Shevardnadze when he steps down in two years after a quarter century in power. Fourteen parties and seven coalitions are competing in the election in this former Soviet republic of 4.4 million. Long lines of voters snaked outside some polling places in the capital Tbilisi even before polls opened at 8am. They were to close at 8pm. Georgians were simultaneously voting in a referendum on cutting the number of legislators from 235 to 150 by the 2007 parliamentary elections.
■ China
Mine search called off
Rescuers have given up hope of finding seven miners trapped in a flooded coal mine in western-most China's Xinjiang region nearly two weeks ago, state press said yesterday. The seven were declared dead on Saturday after having been trapped in the Xishan coal mine near the regional capital of Urumqi since October 19, Xinhua news agency said. Rescuers were quoted as saying the workers were believed to be buried under a build up of sludge that resulted from the accidental flooding of the mine shaft where they were working. A high concentration of gas was also likely to have been fatal, it said.
■ India
Bus crash kills 22
A tourist bus skidded off a mountain road and plunged into a gorge in western India, killing 22 people and injuring 30 others, a news report said yesterday. The accident occurred just before midnight on Saturday on a mountain road near Mahabaleshwar, a hill resort 150km southeast of Mumbai, India's financial center, Press Trust of India news agency said, quoting police. The bus's driver was negotiating a bend in the road when he lost control of the vehicle which skidded and crashed into a gorge, nearly 60m below.
■ Afghanistan
Two dead in clashes
Fighting in northern Afghanistan killed two people as clashes between the militias of rival warlords entered their third day yesterday, a local commander said. A woman and child died in the clashes in Sari Pul province, said General Abdul Sabor, a commander under Tajik warlord General Atta Mohammed. At least three fighters had died in the fray on Saturday. The violence began Friday night in Kohistanat district, with forces under Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Tajik rival, Mohammed, battling with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
■ Pakistan
Musharraf regals audience
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday said economic cooperation was the key to Asia's development, but observed that tensions in South Asia and instability in Afghanistan adversely affected such endeavors, China's state press reported. "It is an urgent task to enhance comprehensive and integrated development, build complementarity, reinforce Asian values, abate tensions and seek for peaceful resolution to political disputes in Asia," Musharraf told the Boao Forum for Asia in southern China's Hainan province. Trends towards regional and sub-regional integration is a character of the global scenario, Musharraf was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying.
■ Nepal
French clean up
A team of French environmentalists has removed nearly three tonnes of garbage including beer bottles and batteries from around the base camp of the world's seventh-tallest summit, Mount Dhaulagiri. The five-member team supported by 10 trekking staff and 20 Sherpas and porters spent nearly a month at the base camp of the 8,167m mountain. Breffni Bolze, 27, a recycling engineer who lives near Paris, said his team had collected empty cans, beer bottles, plastic material and highly toxic lithium batteries among other rubbish. But they left behind a body which they came across somewhere above the camp. "We were very much disturbed to see this very old dried body but we did not dare to remove it for burial or cremation," he told reporters in Kathmandu.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in