■Myanmar
Red Cross team starts tour
An International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) team yesterday began a tour of northern Myanmar to visit pro-democracy supporters rounded up in the wake of violent clashes last month. "We have got guarantees from the Myanmar authorities that they will have access to the newly detained persons," said ICRC official Alfredo Mallet. "They will stay in the area for roughly a week or a week and a half." Myanmar's military government refused the ICRC's request to see Aung San Suu Kyi, who was taken into "protective custody" after May 30 clashes that pitted her supporters against hundreds of members of a pro-junta gang.
■ Sri Lanka
Wickremesinghe visits UK
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe left for London yesterday for high-level meetings that will attempt to jump-start the island's peace process, a senior government official said. Wickremesinghe is scheduled to meet Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen today to discuss the government's deadlock with the Tamil Tiger rebels, who are demanding an interim administration in exchange for re-entering peace talks, the official said on condition of anonymity. Norway brokered a cease-fire between the government and the rebels in February last year, halting 19 years of civil war. The two sides held six rounds of talks until the rebels pulled out this past April, saying the government was not doing enough for the country's Tamil minority.
■ Tajikistan
Referendum kicks off
Polling stations opened in Tajikistan yesterday at 6am for a referendum on amendments to the constitution that will give President Emomali Rakhmonov the chance of ruling the country until 2020, the Electoral Commission said. Some 3.1 million Tajiks were set to approve a bloc of 56 changes to the constitution, one of which would enable Rakhmonov to embark on two more seven-year mandates when the current one ends in 2006. The 2,806 polling stations were to remain open until 8pm. The referendum will be valid if 50 percent of voters take part.
■ Australia
Governor-general named
Australia yesterday named a new governor-general following the dramatic resignation last month of the previous British monarch's representative amid a child sex abuse scandal. Conservative Prime Minister John Howard named Major General Michael Jeffrey, a career military man and former head of the Special Air Service (SAS) special forces group. Howard said he discussed the appointment with his inner circle and trusted advisors and had conducted a thorough background check. The prime minister was broadly criticized last month for not checking the background of his previous appointee, Peter Hollingworth.
■ India
Bus passengers electrocuted
At least eight workers traveling on the roof of a bus were electrocuted on Saturday when they hit a high-voltage overhead wire, police said.
Another 11 people were hospitalized in serious condition in Lucknow, the capital of northern Uttar Pradesh state, a home ministry officer said on condition of anonymity. Three workers died on the spot and five others on their way to hospital after the accident on the outskirts of Lucknow, the officer said. Buses in India are often overcrowded, with people riding on their roofs.
■France
Opposition leader detained
Maryam Rajavi, the figurehead leader of the People's Mujahedeen movement, was placed in detention early yesterday in Paris as part of a large-scale crackdown on the French-based Iranian opposition organization, her lawyer Henri Leclerc said. Rajavi, wife of Massoud Rajavi who is the movement's military leader, had earlier been placed under judicial investigation -- the first step before formal charges -- by France's top anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere for conspiring with a terrorist organization. She was ordered detained after a marathon two-hour hearing before another judge.
■ France
Police arrest Jose Bove
Anti-globalization hero Jose Bove was arrested at dawn yesterday to start a 10-month prison term imposed for his actions against genetically-modified crops, his lawyer Francois Roux said. He was whisked away by helicopter from his farm at Millau in southern France to the Villeneuve-les-Maguelone prison, police said. Bove, 49, the controversial spokesman for the radical Peasant's Confederation, put up no resistance, even though police broke down the door of his farmhouse before arresting him, Roux added.
■ Bosnia
Pope preaches forgiveness
Pope John Paul II arrived in the mainly Orthodox town of Banja Luka yesterday for a one-day visit during which he delivered a message of reconciliation and forgiveness to post-war Bosnia. Up to 60,000 pilgrims from all over the country and neighboring Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro were expected to attend the ceremony of beatification of a 20th century layman, Ivan Merz, at an open-air mass here. The pope's second visit to the former Yugoslav republic since 1997 is hoped to lead to greater tolerance in the Serb-run half of the country where only a minority of Croats and Muslims has returned after being expelled during the 1992-95 war by Serb forces.
■ Liberia
Rebels break ceasefire
Liberia's government said yesterday rebels had attacked its forces on two fronts in a breach of a ceasefire agreed last week to end a war that has spilled chaos into West Africa. The truce has been looking ever more shaky since President Charles Taylor announced last week that he would not go before the end of his mandate in January, which rebels say would violate the ceasefire deal. Taylor's spokesman said loyalist positions had been attacked late on Saturday by the LURD faction at Klay, some 35km north of the capital Monrovia, and by another rebel group known as Model in the southeast.
■ Congo
Deadline set for gunmen
An international force set a 72-hour deadline for gunmen to leave the Congolese town of Bunia on Saturday, aiming to restore security to streets where ethnic militia have fought running battles. French troops blocked about 100 protesters from reaching Bunia airport, hoping to calm tensions in the town where they began deploying this month with a UN mandate to shield civilians from tribal bloodshed. France is supplying the bulk of the international force for Bunia, a flashpoint for clashes between militia allied to rival Hema and Lendu tribes that killed hundreds last month. Force commander General Jean Paul Thonier gave the ultimatum at talks with Thomas Lubanga, head of the Union of Congolese Patriots.
Agencies
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
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