■ Guam
Former leader indicted
Former two-term Governor Carl Gutierrez has been indicted for allegedly using US$64,000 worth of government materials and personnel to build his two-story cliffside ranch. Gutierrez and former Department of Administration Director Clifford Guzman also were indicted on charges of authorizing the use of government funds to pay for thousands of private streetlights. Gutierrez, 62, served as governor from January 1995 to January last year. He and Guzman, 50, were summoned to appear in Guam Superior Court on Jan. 29.
■ Pakistan
Constitution amended
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday approved a constitutional amendment that endorses his right to stay on as leader until 2007 and paves the way for him to seek a vote of confidence on his presidency from lawmakers, officials said. The bill, which has already been adopted by the parliament, will now become part of the country's 1973 constitution, they said. The amendment was part of a deal struck last week between the ruling coalition and the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic parties, to end a power tussle between the government and the opposition which had deadlocked parliament for more than a year.
■ The Philippines
Police kill kidnappers
Philippine police killed four suspected kidnappers of a 2-year-old boy after a car chase yesterday, officials said. The men were killed in a brief but fierce firefight in Mabitac town in the province of Laguna, south of Manila, a day after soldiers and police rescued their captive, a businessman's 2-year-old son, said Angelo Reyes, head of an anti-kidnapping force. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who has made a crackdown on kidnappings a priority, praised the rescuers of Gian Jethro Chua, who was recovered in Laguna early on Tuesday.
■ Afghanistan
US winds up operation
US forces have wound up the largest combat operation here in more than a year, a monthlong operation involving 2,000 troops across the south and east of Afghanistan. More than 100 people were detained during the operation and 10 suspected Islamic militants killed, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, the US military spokesman, said on Tuesday in a statement at Bagram airbase north of Kabul. He did not mention the 15 children and three adults killed in two separate bombing raids during the operation. The two raids are under investigation and findings have not been released.
■ China
Two jailed for subversion
A Chinese court sentenced an American and a New Zealander to up to five years in jail yesterday on charges of plotting to explode balloons by remote control above Tiananmen Square and scatter pro-democracy leaflets. The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court handed a five-year prison sentence to Chinese-born New Zealand businessman Sun Gang, 44, and a three-and-a-half-year term to Taiwan-born US national Lan Yupeng, the official Xinhua news agency said. The court ruled the men should be deported, Xinhua said, adding that they were also fined unspecified amounts on charges of inciting subversion.
■ United States
Ashcroft out of probe
US Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday stepped aside from the politically charged investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name in the build-up to the Iraq war, as the Justice Department named a special prosecutor to lead the probe. Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Ashcroft decided "in an abundance of caution" to step aside from the investigation. Comey named the US attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, to lead the investigation into who disclosed the identity of a CIA officer whose husband had challenged President George W. Bush's claims about Iraq's weapons threat.
■ United States
BSE measures announced
US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced
on Tuesday a series of new measures targeting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the US last week. New measures call for removing from the human food chain those products obtained from so-called "downer" animals that are too sick to walk to the slaughterhouse on their
own, Veneman said. Other measures cover how slaughterhouses should handle cattle brains and other nervous system tissues to prevent meat from being contaminated.
■ United States
Officials ban ephedra
The Bush administration announced on Tuesday that it was banning the herbal weight-loss supplement ephedra because of concerns about its health effects. The decision is the latest episode, but almost surely not the last, in a debate that has lasted for several years. Manufacturers of ephedra dispute assertions that the amphetamine-like substance is a health risk, and are likely to challenge the government ban in court. In anticipation of the action, executives of several companies that make ephedra-based products said that studies had proven that they are safe when used properly.
■ Saudi Arabia
Terror suspect surrenders
A terror suspect surrendered to police on Tuesday, while a Western diplomat said that Islamic militants who have attacked foreigners in the kingdom appear to have homed in on a new target -- senior members of the security services. The militant who turned himself in, Mansour Mohammed Ahmed Faqih, is 14th on an official list of 26 wanted terror suspects. His face was among those published in a newspaper advertisement in which the government offered US$270,000 for information leading to their arrests. Meanwhile, an explosion on Monday in Riyadh was aimed at a top official of the Interior Ministry's Mabahith branch, the kingdom's equivalent of the FBI, the diplomat said.
■ Libya
IAEA claims mandate
The UN nuclear agency does not need US help in dismantling Libya's nascent weapons program, the agency chief said on Tuesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is happy to receive US and British intelligence that will assist its inspectors in Libya, said Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. But the IAEA doesn't want help on the ground. "As far as I'm concerned, we have the mandate, and we intend to do it alone," he said. ElBaradei spoke a day after returning from a visit to Libya, where he and an IAEA team visited four once-secret nuclear sites in the capital, Tripoli.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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