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SAPPORO: Thousands of farmers and activists from around the world demonstrated Saturday in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo ahead of next week's summit of the Group of Eight rich nations. Thousands of riot police were mobilized to prevent any violence on the streets of Sapporo, the closest major city to the lakeside resort of Toyako, where world leaders will meet from Monday. Dozens of masked protesters marching to rock music were warned by police against entering restricted areas as Japanese organizers of the rally called on the demonstrators to avoid violence and clashes with police.
-- AFP
WASHINGTON: With fireworks displays lighting the skies from coast to coast, Americans celebrated Independence Day as White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain geared up Saturday for new clashes on the campaign trail. President George W. Bush spoke Friday at a ceremony at the home of the third US president, Thomas Jefferson, in Monticello, Virginia, where 72 people became naturalized US citizens and swore an oath to their new home nation.
-- AFP
TOKYO: Japanese sailor and environmentalist Kenichi Horie has completed a 110-day solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean in a boat propelled by wave power to claim another world first. Horie, who will turn 70 in September, reached his destination in the channel between the main Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku just before midnight after covering some 7,000 kilometres (3,780 nautical miles) from Hawaii without a port call.
-- AFP
BAGHDAD: Iraqi Special Operations Forces ( ISOF) have captured three suspected al-Qaeda militants and a leader of the Iranian-backed Shiite militia during operations in Baghdad and western Iraq, the U.S. military said on Saturday. The ISOF captured an al-Qaeda leader suspected of conducting bomb attacks against US and Iraqi security forces in an operation in the town of Garma near the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, a military statement said. In a separate operation, the ISOF captured two al-Qaeda militants, one of them a local al-Qaeda deputy leader accused of conducting roadside bomb attacks against US forces.
-- Xinhua
ABUJA: The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) is to spend $64.2 million on its activities in Nigeria in the next four years under its 6th Country Program, scheduled to commence in 2009. The figure was made public in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, during a Stakeholders' Consultative Forum on UNFPA's Country Programme (CP) of Assistance to Nigeria, according to the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday. Aimed at improving the standard of living of Nigerians, the program represents UNFPA's sixth round of program cycle in Nigeria.
-- Xinhua
SANTIAGO: Chilean government declared Friday red alert around the Llaima volcano in the south of the country, days after it spewed new lava down one of its sides. The volcano, located some 650 km south from Santiago, began its activity on Tuesday after being in calm for months since it erupted violently on New Year's Day. The measure affects the area of volcano's lower slope, a home of some 40 people, authorities said.
-- Xinhua
TEHRAN: Iran's inflation rate, which has provoked intense criticism of the government, topped 26 percent in June, according to a central bank statement published on Saturday. The previous month, annual inflation was running at 25.3 percent. Many economists have blamed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for directly fuelling the price rises by ploughing huge amounts of cash into the economy to fund local infrastructure projects.
-- AFP
BEIJING: More than 100 hospital directors agreed at a national forum on Saturday that key structures of hospital buildings should be designed to resist earthquakes measuring 9 to 10 degrees or above in terms of seismic intensity. Deputy director of the People's Liberation Army General Hospital Wang Shufeng presented at the meeting how the new buildings of his hospital used advanced seismic isolation technology to become more quake-resistant. This is to ensure that those buildings do not collapse because of quake damage. The current state standard for the quake-resistant capacity of buildings for medical use is at 8 degrees of seismic intensity.
-- Xinhua
NICOSIA: At least 25 inmates were shot dead by Syrian security forces during a riot by political detainees at a prison in mountains outside Damascus on Saturday, a human rights group said. Islamist prisoners started a riot inside the prison this morning, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Shooting against the prisoners continued, that a number of inmates had climbed the roof of the military prison north of Damascus to escape the violence.
-- AFP
HANOI: Thich Huyen Quang, the head of the Vietnamese Buddhist movement that has refused to come under communist government control, died on Saturday aged 87, his supporters said in a statement from Paris. He died peacefully at his Nguyen Thieu monastery in Binh Dinh in central Binh Dinh province, where he had returned from hospital Friday at his own request after spending more than a month in intensive care for heart, lung and kidney ailments. His death was announced by the UBCV's deputy leader Thich Quang Do, the presumed successor, who has like Quang spent decades under house arrest and police surveillance, and who led a morning prayer ceremony for Quang.
-- AFP
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