■ India
WSF tackles Iraq war
Peace activists from around the world, including Iraq, spoke out yesterday against US President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, as delegates at the World Social Forum (WSF) focused on war and militarism. Protests against unfair global trade, big business and foreign debt had dominated the first two days of the annual anti-globalization and anti-war event, held this year at a sprawling factory complex in Bombay, western India. But yesterday's agenda was packed with seminars and conferences seeking to link peace movements across the world to fight militarism, with specific interest in recent US-led wars.
■ India
Opposition seeks candidate
India's fractured opposition has begun a hunt for a prime ministerial candidate to match the formidable image of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee ahead of parliamentary polls likely be held in April. The main opposition Congress party's leader -- Italian-born Sonia Gandhi -- has decided to keep herself away from the race, at least for the moment. "We never impose our leadership on other parties," Gandhi said in Mumbai recently. "This question [of who will be prime minister] will be decided by the people of the country." The Congress has started an intense exercise to forge new alliances with regional parties while also patching up relations with old foes.
■ Afghanistan
Bin Laden healthy: Web site
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, his right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar are all in good health, according to a statement purportedly from the Taliban published on an Islamist Web site. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the statement, signed by "the vanguard of the Mujahidin victory in Afghanistan." It said media reports about a hunt led by Pakistani and US forces against bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Zawahiri were "just lies aimed at fooling people." The whereabouts of three fugitives is unknown, although there are suggestions that bin Laden is hiding out in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.
■ Afghanistan
Another lady sings on TV
Afghan television Saturday night again showed a woman singing, in defiance of strong conservative sentiment in the country, as the country's arts minister confirmed that such broadcasts would continue. An old video clip of the respected musician Mahwash was the latest footage of a woman singing to be shown on Kabul TV and follows the broadcast of 1970s and 1980s star Salma singing one of her old hits on Monday night. Salma's broadcast was the first time a woman had been broadcast singing on public television for more than a decade. Monday's broadcast provoked a strong reaction, with members of the Supreme Court complaining that the images were un-Islamic.
■ China
`Friends' too risque
The hit American sitcom Friends may prove too risque for Chinese television. "I had thought the play focused on friendship, but after a careful preview I found each episode had something to do with sex," said Qin Ming-xin of China Central Television's entertainment unit, in an article on the Web site of the Communist Party's People's Daily. "The attitudes of the six close-knit young friends in the play cannot be generally accepted by Chinese audiences yet," Qin was quoted as saying.
■ United States
Ex-wife turns to politics
The bitter divorce may be final but the fight isn't over for the ex-wife of a US congressman who now wants to unseat her former husband. Becky Whetstone filed papers this month to run as an independent for the 20th District seat held by Charles Gonzalez, a Democrat who represents the area in San Antonio. "I believe the district doesn't know Charlie very well, and once they learn who he really is, they will not want him to represent their interests in Washington, or as a role model for their children," Whetstone said in a statement. When asked if the run for Congress was an act of revenge, Whetstone said, "Absolutely not." Gonzalez, a third-term congressman, brushed off his ex-wife's candidacy as a stunt with "a certain `entertainment' value."
■ Brazil
Hunger tax proposed
Brazilian President Luiz da Silva will propose introducing a tax on international financial transactions to provide funds for a worldwide campaign against hunger when he meets later this month with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Geneva, the Brazilian government said on Saturday. A statement by the government's official Agencia Brasil news agency indicated that details of the tax and its manner of distribution were still under discussion. However, the statement said the proposed tax will be similar to a Brazilian levy on financial transactions.
■ Nigeria
Radicals still distrust vaccine
Officials of a heavily Islamic northern Nigerian state said Saturday they wouldn't lift a ban on polio immunizations, after local tests failed to assuage fundamentalists' fears that the doses contain ingredients to render Muslims infertile. Since extremists shut down a UN-backed campaign to eradicate the disease in Kano and two other states in October, Nigerian federal authorities have tested random samples of the vaccine, declaring them free of sterility-inducing hormones. On Saturday, authorities in Kano, a hard-hit region in one of the few remaining nations where polio stills cripples children, said their own tests showed questionable substances in some vaccine samples.
■ Italy
Berlusconi health fears rise
Fears surround the health of Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as the billionaire on Saturday again slipped out of the public view despite the country's climate of increasing political turmoil. Berlusconi was reportedly "seeking inspiration" among the lemon trees of his vast Sardinian holiday home. Since Dec. 20, the image-obsessed Prime Minister has been almost invisible. He was treated for prostate cancer six years ago, and his political opponents suspect that stories of facelifts and crash diets may have been "planted" to divert attention from the 67-year-old's health or from Italy's real problems.
■ Spain
Prime minister says goodbye
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar bid an emotional farewell to the party faithful Saturday at a rally reviewing the ruling conservatives' eight years in power and looking ahead to the upcoming March general elections. In one of his final appearances as prime minister, Aznar -- who will not run for a third term -- listed his Popular Party's achievements since it took power in 1996: Spain's economic upswing; the creation of 4.3 million jobs; the rebuilding of the public's faith in politics, ruined by a corrupt Socialist government; and the fight against terrorist attacks by the armed Basque separatist group ETA -- a battle he vowed to continue.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was