Mon, Dec 19, 2005 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ Thailand
  Quake evacuation planned

  The northern province of Chiang Rai is preparing the possible evacuation of thousands of residents after several minor earthquakes in recent days, a disaster official said yesterday. Five quakes in four days, including two on Saturday, have worried residents in the province bordering Myanmar and Laos, especially those living in high rises, the provincial official said. While no damage or injuries have been reported from the quakes several buildings remain under investigation, the Chiang Rai Disaster Prevention and Mitigation office said. Chiang Rai may be in line for an earthquake of magnitude 6 on the Richter scale, but anything more than 4 could trigger an evacuation.

  ■ Thailand

  Floods leave 20 dead

  Some of the worst flooding in southern Thailand in 40 years has left 20 dead, officials said yesterday. Rising flood waters have devastated several provinces along the border with Malaysia and the death toll is expected to rise, said Suvit Kaneelkul, chief of the southern Disaster Prevention and Rescue Center. In the past three days, 14 people were killed and two are missing in the area, while six people were killed in the province of Nakhon Srithammarat, Suvit said. The state Thai News Agency also reported that flash floods in 13 districts in Narathiwat province inundated the homes of 4,000 families.

  ■ Malaysia

  War veto mooted

  Defense Minister Najib Razak, speaking at an international peace forum, has called for democratic countries to give their citizens the right to decide whether they should go to war, reports said yesterday. Najib also received a 14-point document drafted by a committee of speakers, called the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War. The document included calls to criminalize all commercial and scientific activities that aid war, and for national leaders who initiate aggression to be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

  ■ Malaysia

  North Korea implicated

  The families of four Malaysian women missing since 1978 will seek help from North Korea after US army deserter Charles Jenkins said he had seen one of them there, a Malaysian politician said. Michael Chong said he was assisting the families after Jenkins, who spent 40 years in North Korea, told a reporter that he met Malaysian woman Ying Ying Tai several times in Pyongyang some 25 years ago. The four Malaysians, together with a Singaporean woman, were last seen in 1978 boarding a cargo ship off Singaporean waters accompanied by three men.

  ■ South korea

  Cloning pioneer quizzed

  Investigators yesterday began questioning cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk and members of his research team amid allegations that he may have faked his landmark stem cell research, officials said. An investigation committee, launched two days ago by Seoul National University where he teaches, said its members visited Hwang's laboratory and began interviewing him and his researchers. A tight-lipped Hwang showed no emotion when he arrived at the university's veterinary school for the questioning for which some 20 researchers on his team were also called in.

  ■ United Kingdom
  Valuable sculpture nabbed

  Thieves with a flatbed truck and a crane snatched a 1.8-tonne Henry Moore bronze of a reclining figure from the grounds of the late sculptor's foundation north of London, police said on Saturday. The sculpture, valued at more than ?3 million (US$5.2 million), was stolen Thursday evening from the artist's Hertfordshire county estate, authorities said in a statement. "This is a very valuable statue and we are working closely with the Henry Moore Foundation to ensure its safe return," Detective Sergeant Graeme Smith of the Area Crime Unit said in the statement. "The foundation is offering a substantial reward for information leading to its recovery."

  ■ France

  Nine jailed for funding terror

  Anti-terrorism magistrates have locked up nine suspected Islamic militants for allegedly financing terrorism. Two others were released under judicial watch. The 11 were placed under investigation -- a step short of being charged -- overnight Friday to Saturday for alleged criminal association in relation to a terrorist enterprise, and financing of terrorism. The suspects were among 25 people, North African and French, rounded up in a vast sweep by counterterrorism agents in the Paris area and in the northern Oise region last Monday, the officials said. Monday's roundup was France's largest sweep of alleged Islamic militants in more than two years.

  ■ Liberia

  Presidential contenders meet

  President-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf met her challenger George Weah for the first time since last month's election Weah says was fraudulent, but it was not clear whether their talks had persuaded the international soccer star turned politician to drop his protest. After Saturday's meeting arranged by former Nigerian military leader General Abdusalami Abubakar as part of regional efforts to resolve Liberia's political impasse, Weah was asked whether he was abandoning his attempt to keep Johnson-Sirleaf from taking office. "I don't want to jeopardize the peace process in Liberia," he responded.

  ■ Gaza

  Israel launches attacks

  Israeli warplanes pounded targets in the Gaza Strip early yesterday, in response to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, the army said. There were no reports of casualties. A military statement said planes attacked eight roads and a bridge leading to sites used for launching home-made rockets and mortar shells. "The objective of targeting them is to prevent the passage of terrorists to reach the areas from which they launch rockets into Israel," the statement said. An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip killed a militant on Saturday as he returned from firing rockets into Israel, according to Palestinian security officials and militant leaders.

  ■ Tanzania

  Kikwete set to win big

  Jakaya Kikwete, presidential candidate for the ruling Revolutionary Party, has won Tanzania's third elections since multiparty politics were reintroduced in 1992, securing 87.4 percent of the vote, an official document showed yesterday. Kikwete was declared winner according to a National Electoral Commission document, of which reporters obtained a copy. He had been widely expected to be elected Tanzania's fourth president since its 1961 independence from Britain.

  ■ Iran
  Tehran downplays remarks

  Tehran yesterday termed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent anti-Israeli remarks as a "scientific discussion." "This is a scientific discussion and there are different viewpoints which, however, had been raised before and the baseless European reply to it has no place in a civilized world," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi said. Last Wednesday Ahmadinejad reiterated his doubts over the extent of the Holocaust and once again called for the relocating of Israel to Europe, the US, Canada or Alaska. "The Europeans' reply has been quite emotional, far from any logic and showing their blind and one-sided support of the Zionists [Israel]," the spokesman said.

  ■ Canada

  Terror suspect arrested

  The eldest son of an accused al-Qaeda financier was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Saturday on a warrant issued by the US Department of Justice. A spokeswoman for the RCMP said Abdullah Khadr is being held in a Toronto jail. Khadr's lawyer told the Globe and Mail's Web site that his client faces extradition to the US for allegedly planning to kill US soldiers abroad. Khadr, a 23-year-old who had just returned to Canada after being detained for more than a year in Pakistan, was arrested at his family's apartment in Toronto. Khadr is the eldest son of Egyptian-born Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, an accused al-Qaeda financier who was killed in a battle with Pakistani forces in 2003. Khadr denies his family is or was ever involved with al-Qaeda.

  ■ Germany

  Mammoth's relative named

  German scientists say they have reconstructed a key sequence in the genome of the woolly mammoth, enabling them to show that the extinct beast's closest modern relative is the Asian elephant. Reporting online yesterday in the British science journal Nature, the researchers say they devised a new technique for the feat, teasing out DNA from just 200mg of bone found at a mammoths' graveyard in the Siberian permafrost. Their technique copied 46 chunks of sequence, which were rearranged to give a picture of the creature's mitochondrial DNA to match against those of modern animals.

  ■ Mexico

  Jaguar returned to the wild

  A jaguar captured last year after killing nearly 60 cows and sheep ran to freedom in the jungles of southern Mexico on Saturday. The federal Environmental Department cut loose the 1.3m long male named "Jaguar of Light" in a ceremony near the remote village of Asuncion Lachixila, Oaxaca. The jaguar wore a special collar that will allow scientists and police to locate the 43kg animal through a global positioning system. Police will be able to monitor the feline for public safety while scientists can increase their understanding of jaguars. The device will self-destruct in seven months, without harming the jaguar.

  ■ United States

  Shoppers ignore boycott

  A group of religious protesters demonstrated outside a Wal-Mart superstore in Sacremento, California, hoping to turn away customers by calling attention to the retailer's decision to use "happy holidays" rather than "merry Christmas" in its seasonal advertising. But even shoppers who agreed with the protesters weren't willing to interrupt their quest for holiday deals. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said it was a matter of choosing a slogan that carries through the entire season.
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