■ China
SARS drug sent to Beijing
An antibody-based SARS drug developed by the University of Massachusetts Medical School and a Princeton-based company is being shipped to China for preclinical testing. The drug is being sent to Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech, which will test its effectiveness in neutralizing strains of the SARS virus. University medical researchers worked with genetically engineered mice for their tests. "We think we are on track to have the material to put into patients next April," said Donna Ambrosino, director of the Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories in Boston. The researchers would be able to make the material quickly and then test it in patients, Ambrosino said.
■ Australia
PM targets gay marriage
Only marriages between men and women would be recognized in Australia under draft legislation that has the support of both the ruling Liberal-National coalition and the opposition Labor Party. "The proposal would simply be to insert a definition in the Marriage Act which gives formal expression to what most people regard to be the case -- which is that marriage, as we understand it in Australia, is between a man and a woman," Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. "This is not directed at gay people; it's directed at reaffirming a bedrock understanding of our society." The draft legislation was immediately labelled reactionary and divisive by homosexual rights groups.
■ Thailand
PM defends daughter
Thailand's prime minister wants people to stop picking on his daughter following a rash of criticism over her expected admission to a prestigious university despite having an inadequate academic record. "Is she the child of a bandit?" Thaksin Shinawatra asked reporters after they inquired about his 17-year-old daughter, Paetongtarn. Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Communication Arts recently relaxed enrollment standards to short-list Paetongtarn for a list of 109 students to be accepted this year for an undergraduate degree.
■ Hong Kong
Movie stars honored
Action star Jackie Chan (成龍) and the late martial arts actor Bruce Lee (李小龍) are among Hong Kong's entertainment elite honored in a new harbor-front Avenue of Stars. The tourist attraction, which opened last night, pays tribute to Hong Kong's past and present stars by featuring their names and hand prints in a 440m-long strip. Others honored include director John Woo (吳宇森), actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) and The Matrix fight choreographer Yuen Wo-ping (袁和平). Among other stars honored are actor-singer Andy Lau (劉德華), and two stars who died last year: Leslie Cheung (張國榮), who committed suicide; and Anita Mui (梅艷芳), who died of cancer.
■ Bangladesh
Police hold 20,000 activists
Police halted a crackdown on political activists yesterday after detaining 20,000 people in the run-up to a Friday deadline set by the opposition for the government to resign. Police cells and prisons in the capital Dhaka have been filled with suspects picked up at railway stations, ferry and bus terminals, local media and officials said. Newspapers and opposition parties criticized the police action. Police had said they had intelligence reports that many people would try to enter Dhaka to carry out subversive acts ahead of the deadline.
■ Nigeria
Delta crackdown launched
Nigeria launched a new military offensive against ethnic militants and crim-inals in the oil-rich southern delta region on Monday after five people, including two US oil workers, were killed in violence. Leaders of the Ijaw ethnic group condemned last week's killings, but said a general clampdown on community leaders, bitter about poverty and neglect in the region, could backfire and spark even more violence. Hun-dreds of people have died in ethnic fighting in the region over the past two years, but the killings on Friday took the level of violence against foreigners to a new level.
■ Belgium
Qaddafi visits Europe
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi made his first trip to Europe in 15 years, beginning with a visit to the European Commission in Brussels. He was scheduled to dine last night with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and meet business leaders and lawmakers before leaving today. Qaddafi's invitation resulted from what the EU called the "remarkable progress" Libya has made in recent months in shedding its rogue nation status, including abandoning its nuclear weapons program and settling the Pan Am-Lockerbie and UTA airliner bombing cases. Qaddafi has said he will seek full mem-bership in the aid and trade program the EU runs with its neighbors.
■ France
`Mona Lisa' shows her age
The Mona Lisa is showing signs of wear and worried officials at the Louvre museum in Paris have ordered tests to check the condition of Leonardo da Vinci's 500-year-old painting. "The thin panel of poplar wood, on which this mythical image is painted, is more warped than it was previously," the museum said in a statement on Monday. The Louvre has ordered an in-depth study to determine the materials used and the state of the painting, which is particu-larly sensitive to changes in temperature, it said. The portrait will remain on public view throughout. The tests are due to begin next year.
■ United States
Princeton limits top marks
Princeton University's faculty has approved a plan to combat rising grades by limiting the number of A's it awards to undergraduates. The faculty voted 156 to 84 on Monday to implement the plan, making Princeton the first US college or university to formally curb grade inflation by rationing A's, said a university official. Under the guidelines, faculty are expected to restrict the number of A's to 35 percent in undergraduate courses. For junior and senior independent work, the percentage receiving A's will be capped at 55 percent.
■ Colombia
IRA suspects to be expelled
Three alleged members of the Irish Republican Army who have spent more than two-and-a-half years in prison in Colombia were cleared on Monday of charges that they had trained leftist guerrillas. But James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly were convicted of travelling with false pass-ports. They were sentenced to jail terms varying from 44 to 26 months, but the judge ordered their release upon payment of fines and their expulsion from Colombia. The trio were detained at Bogota airport on Aug. 11, 2001 as they prepared to leave after spending five weeks in southern Colombia.
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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