Millions of people braved China's overcrowded transport networks yesterday as they began the long trek back to work at the end of the Lunar New Year holiday, amid warnings of more bad weather.

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China has appointed a rising political star to oversee preparations for the Beijing Olympics, as pressure mounts over air pollution and human rights concerns, a report said yesterday.

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INDEPENDENT-MINDED: The lawyers called the boycott to pressure the president into reinstating senior judges who were sacked under a Nov. 3 state of emergency
Pakistani lawyers began a nationwide boycott of courts to pressure Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf into reinstating senior judges he sacked more than three months ago.

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An alliance of Pakistani opposition parties, All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), which is boycotting nationwide Feb. 18 elections, told Pakistanis not to vote because it was nothing but a "fraud."

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An overnight fire left one of Seoul's great landmarks in ruins yesterday, destroying the centuries-old wooden structure atop the Namdaemun gate that was deemed South Korea's No. 1 national treasure. Officials said they suspected arson.

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Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians are threatened with forced eviction as the government ramps up development in the country's cities, the human rights group Amnesty International said yesterday.

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A US marine was arrested yesterday for allegedly raping a Japanese schoolgirl in Okinawa, but the suspect denied he raped the teenager, police said.

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ELABORATE PLOT: The 88 Generation Students, a coalition of leading activists, said the junta's move is a ploy to abolish the 1990 election results
Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar yesterday warned the ruling junta could unleash a new wave of violence to ensure victory in a constitutional referendum, urging voters to reject the regime's charter.

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CALL FOR CALM: Hawkish members of the Israeli Cabinet favor a full-scale invasion of northern Gaza and the assassination of Hamas political leaders
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out a large-scale invasion of Gaza, despite demonstrators from a battered town protesting in front of his office after a boy lost a leg in a Palestinian rocket attack.

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Sir Paul McCartney and his estranged wife, Heather Mills, were yesterday to embark on the latest stage of their divorce proceedings.

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NOT FAIR? : The rebels said the eu peacekeepers would not be neutral because they would be dominated by french troops, who allegedly helped repel a rebel attack
Chadian rebels yesterday urged EU member states not to send peacekeeping troops to the country's east, saying the force would not be neutral because it would be dominated by France.

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DESPERATE: Kenyans are hopeful that elder African statesman Kofi Annan will be able to mediate a breakthrough to end the violence in their country
Kenya's feuding politicians were girding themselves yesterday for tough discussions to hammer out a power-sharing deal that could end post-election chaos and haul the country out of a downward economic spiral, negotiators said.

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Driven out of sewers by summer floods and an urban building boom, then nurtured by warmer winters and the leftovers of fast food, rats have been moving into homes, gardens and even cars around the UK.

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'ALO PRESIDENTE': Accusing ExxonMobil of acting in concert with Washington to 'rob' Venezuela, Chavez said his country, and others, could stop shipping oil to the US
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to cut off oil sales to the US in an "economic war" if ExxonMobil Corp wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

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PROSPECTS: In preparation for a possible force drawdown in Iraq, the US Secretary of Defense sat down with his top military aides in Iraq to take stock of the situation
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was meeting US military commanders yesterday on the second day of a surprise visit to Baghdad to assess security and political progress in Iraq.

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Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime aide Maggie Williams on Sunday, engineering a shake-up in a presidential campaign struggling to overcome rival Barack Obama's financial and political strengths.

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Space shuttle Atlantis' astronauts geared up for a spacewalk yesterday that NASA said would remain unchanged despite a last-minute switch in crew for medical reasons.

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lauded a team of scientists on Sunday who will participate in Venezuela's first expedition to Antarctica, where his government hopes to establish a research station.

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