■ Guam
Former leader indicted
Former two-term Governor Carl Gutierrez has been indicted for allegedly using US$64,000 worth of government materials and personnel to build his two-story cliffside ranch. Gutierrez and former Department of Administration Director Clifford Guzman also were indicted on charges of authorizing the use of government funds to pay for thousands of private streetlights. Gutierrez, 62, served as governor from January 1995 to January last year. He and Guzman, 50, were summoned to appear in Guam Superior Court on Jan. 29.
■ Pakistan
Constitution amended
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday approved a constitutional amendment that endorses his right to stay on as leader until 2007 and paves the way for him to seek a vote of confidence on his presidency from lawmakers, officials said. The bill, which has already been adopted by the parliament, will now become part of the country's 1973 constitution, they said. The amendment was part of a deal struck last week between the ruling coalition and the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic parties, to end a power tussle between the government and the opposition which had deadlocked parliament for more than a year.
■ The Philippines
Police kill kidnappers
Philippine police killed four suspected kidnappers of a 2-year-old boy after a car chase yesterday, officials said. The men were killed in a brief but fierce firefight in Mabitac town in the province of Laguna, south of Manila, a day after soldiers and police rescued their captive, a businessman's 2-year-old son, said Angelo Reyes, head of an anti-kidnapping force. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who has made a crackdown on kidnappings a priority, praised the rescuers of Gian Jethro Chua, who was recovered in Laguna early on Tuesday.
■ Afghanistan
US winds up operation
US forces have wound up the largest combat operation here in more than a year, a monthlong operation involving 2,000 troops across the south and east of Afghanistan. More than 100 people were detained during the operation and 10 suspected Islamic militants killed, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, the US military spokesman, said on Tuesday in a statement at Bagram airbase north of Kabul. He did not mention the 15 children and three adults killed in two separate bombing raids during the operation. The two raids are under investigation and findings have not been released.
■ China
Two jailed for subversion
A Chinese court sentenced an American and a New Zealander to up to five years in jail yesterday on charges of plotting to explode balloons by remote control above Tiananmen Square and scatter pro-democracy leaflets. The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court handed a five-year prison sentence to Chinese-born New Zealand businessman Sun Gang, 44, and a three-and-a-half-year term to Taiwan-born US national Lan Yupeng, the official Xinhua news agency said. The court ruled the men should be deported, Xinhua said, adding that they were also fined unspecified amounts on charges of inciting subversion.
■ United States
Ashcroft out of probe
US Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday stepped aside from the politically charged investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name in the build-up to the Iraq war, as the Justice Department named a special prosecutor to lead the probe. Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Ashcroft decided "in an abundance of caution" to step aside from the investigation. Comey named the US attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, to lead the investigation into who disclosed the identity of a CIA officer whose husband had challenged President George W. Bush's claims about Iraq's weapons threat.
■ United States
BSE measures announced
US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced
on Tuesday a series of new measures targeting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the US last week. New measures call for removing from the human food chain those products obtained from so-called "downer" animals that are too sick to walk to the slaughterhouse on their
own, Veneman said. Other measures cover how slaughterhouses should handle cattle brains and other nervous system tissues to prevent meat from being contaminated.
■ United States
Officials ban ephedra
The Bush administration announced on Tuesday that it was banning the herbal weight-loss supplement ephedra because of concerns about its health effects. The decision is the latest episode, but almost surely not the last, in a debate that has lasted for several years. Manufacturers of ephedra dispute assertions that the amphetamine-like substance is a health risk, and are likely to challenge the government ban in court. In anticipation of the action, executives of several companies that make ephedra-based products said that studies had proven that they are safe when used properly.
■ Saudi Arabia
Terror suspect surrenders
A terror suspect surrendered to police on Tuesday, while a Western diplomat said that Islamic militants who have attacked foreigners in the kingdom appear to have homed in on a new target -- senior members of the security services. The militant who turned himself in, Mansour Mohammed Ahmed Faqih, is 14th on an official list of 26 wanted terror suspects. His face was among those published in a newspaper advertisement in which the government offered US$270,000 for information leading to their arrests. Meanwhile, an explosion on Monday in Riyadh was aimed at a top official of the Interior Ministry's Mabahith branch, the kingdom's equivalent of the FBI, the diplomat said.
■ Libya
IAEA claims mandate
The UN nuclear agency does not need US help in dismantling Libya's nascent weapons program, the agency chief said on Tuesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is happy to receive US and British intelligence that will assist its inspectors in Libya, said Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. But the IAEA doesn't want help on the ground. "As far as I'm concerned, we have the mandate, and we intend to do it alone," he said. ElBaradei spoke a day after returning from a visit to Libya, where he and an IAEA team visited four once-secret nuclear sites in the capital, Tripoli.
‘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