The first anthrax letters were received in the US by institutions symbolic of American culture. But in the last few weeks, anthrax scares have been reported in a number of countries around the world.
Israel: Jerusalem's main postal sorting office was closed for two days "recently" because of an anthrax scare, the telecommunications ministry said Thursday. The office was closed and its several hundred employees sent home for 48 hours while a suspicious envelope, posted abroad, was tested and found to be harmless. The postal services have reported a number of alerts which all proved to be false, while the police have threatened severe measures against hoaxers or anyone trying to spread panic.
Cyprus: Cyprus has had its first postal anthrax scare, but the package turned out to be nothing more than tokens of affection and a love letter, police sources were quoted as saying Thursday. Police and specially equipped fire crews were called to a post office in the southern resort of Limassol on Wednesday when the parcel was discovered with an unidentified substance on the taped exterior, press reports said. Some 120 Cyprus postal sorters were given surgical gloves earlier this week in the wake of the anthrax-related deaths of US postal workers.
Sri Lanka: The French embassy in Sri Lanka was yesterday closed indefinitely following an anthrax scare in Colombo, embassy officials said. The decision to shut down the embassy until further notice was taken pending the results of tests on a suspicious letter received there four days ago, an official said. The Australian, British, Indian and US diplomatic missions here have also received suspicious mail in the past few days containing a white powder.
Iceland: Police on Thursday were investigating an apparent anthrax hoax sent to Iceland Prime Minister David Oddsson. A powder-filled letter was sent to the home of Oddsson, who personally opened it on Tuesday, Oddsson's spokesman said. Tests later revealed that the substance did not contain anthrax. Police spokesman Arnar Jensson said the letter had been sent from within Iceland, and that detectives were working on leads.
South Korea: South Korea's Asiana Airlines yesterday said it would minimize the use of powdered coffee creamer on its planes to prevent anthrax scares. A box containing white powder was found at Los Angeles' Tom Bradley Terminal last week, causing thousands of passengers and employees to be evacuated and the terminal was shut down for two hours. The powder turned out to be coffee creamer.
India: Fearing anthrax, postal workers in a remote eastern Indian town locked up the post office and fled after they received a package containing a white powder, but police said Thursday the substance was protein powder meant for a cancer patient. Panic stricken postal workers in Soro, a small town in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, vacated the post office Wednesday after one of their colleagues handled a package containing the white powder sent from New York.
Bangladesh: In Bangladesh, suspicious powders found in letters sent to foreign embassies this week tested negative for anthrax spores, investigators confirmed Thursday.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS