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WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton
Saturday makes a last stand in her ebbing White House bid, as the
Democratic Party tries to defuse a unity-sapping row over voided
primary votes in Michigan and Florida. The legal wranglings of the
Democratic National Committee’s rules panel in a Washington hotel
will mark the latest impropable twist in Clinton’s epic
coast-to-coast nominating duel with Barack Obama, now drawing to a
close. The former first lady won outlaw elections in both Florida
and Michigan, which gatecrashed the party’s set-in-stone
nominating calendar—but the states were punished and had their
nominating convention delegates stripped.
AFP
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s deposed
monarch is willing to leave his pink-hued palace quietly to begin
life as a commoner but wants help with housing and protection for
his family, state-run media reported Saturday. “The king has
expressed his wish to respect the constituent assembly’s historic
decision and make a peaceful exit,” said Pradeep Aryal, secretary
at the now-dissolved Narayanhiti Palace secretariat, The Rising
Nepal reported. Aryal made the comment after the palace received a
letter Friday formally asking the unpopular ex-monarch to leave for
a private residence within two weeks, in line with the newly-elected
assembly’s vote Wednesday.
AFP
SINGAPORE: A senior Chinese
general on Saturday defended his nation’s increased military
spending while rival Asian power Japan sought greater transparency
at a high-level security forum. Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief
of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, said
China’s build-up is a logical result of its rising economic power
and does not threaten other countries. “Notwithstanding the
vicissitudes of the international situation, China will always adopt
a defensive defense policy,” he said in a speech to the Shangri-La
Dialogue. AFP
LIMA: The Irish hungered after
it, Dan Quayle couldn’t spell it, Russian cooks swear by it and
China is its biggest producer—and now the potato is at the root of
an Andean war of words over where exactly it originated. Peru and
Chile, longtime rivals, are each laying claim to the humble
vegetable, which experts agree is indigenous to South America and
was spread to Europe by Spanish colonists in the 16th century. At
stake is the reflected glory of being the home of the “patata”
(or “papa” in the Quechua language of the Andes), celebrated
this year in the UN Year of the Potato. Chile brought the dispute to
a boil by disputing the bulk of scientific evidence—and the UN
potato website—suggesting the spud was first cultivated near Lake
Titicaca in southern Peru around seven millennia ago.
AFP
BANGKOK: Thailand’s Prime
Minister Samak Sundaravej said on his weekly Saturday TV talk show
program that if the anti-government group continue protest at the
main street of Bangkok, the government would use police or military
force to drive them. In a special live-broadcast speech on state
television NBT on Saturday morning, Samak said the on-going rallies
have severely affected other people to the level that the government
might have to forcefully end the demonstrations. “I’m here to
say that I will take legal action against them because they have no
right to be there. I won’t let you, nor will police and
soldiers,” he said.
XINHUA
Washington: The United States
confirmed Thursday it was talking with Libya in London to establish
“a fair compensation mechanism” for the relatives of US victims
of Libyan terrorist attacks. The State Department said
representatives from both countries met in the British capital
Thursday and Friday to reach “a claims settlement agreement.”
“Both parties affirmed their desire to work together to resolve
all outstanding claims in good faith and expeditiously through the
establishment of a fair compensation mechanism,” it said in a
statement. Libya claims 41 people were killed in US raids on Tripoli
and Benghazi in April 1986, 11 days after three Americans were
killed in a terorist bombing of La Belle discotheque in Berlin.
AFP
Yangon:
Myanmar’s junta Saturday came under renewed international
pressure from rights groups and the US defense chief who said its
slow response to the cyclone disaster had cost “tens of thousands
of lives.” US Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized the
military regime’s delay in allowing in foreign aid, saying US
ships and aircraft could have swiftly brought much-needed relief to
the cyclone-hit nation. “Our ships and aircraft awaited country
approval so they could act promptly to save thousands of
lives—approval of the kind granted by Indonesia immediately after
the 2004 tsunami and by Bangladesh after a fierce cyclone just last
November,” Gates told a top-level security forum in Singapore.
“With Burma, the situation has been very different—at a cost of
tens of thousands of lives.”
AFP
Beijing:
The death toll in China’s major earthquake increased by 119
to 68,977 as of Saturday noon, the Information Office of the State
Council said. Another 367,854 people were counted as injured and
17,974 listed as missing in the 8.0-magnitude quake that jolted
southwestern Sichuan Province on May 12. A total of 45.55 million
people were affected by the quake, of whom 15.15 million were
relocated, according to the office.Hospitals had treated 89,818
injured survivors as of Saturday noon, of whom 59,877 were
discharged, 12,797 were still being treated and 9,245 were
transferred outside of Sichuan for further treatment.
Xinhua
Madrid: Nine
skydivers jumped free of their plane before it crashed to earth in
Spain killing the pilot and another of their companions, local
authorities said Saturday. Four of the surviving parachutists were
hurt in the fall, two of them seriously, a spokesman for the local
sub-prefecture in the central region of Toledo, told AFP. She said
the cause of the accident was not yet known and that the crash was
being investigated. The plane crashed on Friday afternoon near an
airfield in the Lillo area. Spanish media citing rescuers said the
parachute-jumpers broke free after the plane lost a wing and went
into free-fall. They said the team was filming an advertisement for
British television. AFP
Bangkok:
About 100 Thai protesters fashioned shields of plywood boards
and carried wooden batons as hundreds of riot police gathered nearby
on Saturday, threatening to break up a week-long demonstration. The
protesters carrying improvised weapons stood guard in front of about
2,000 other activists. About 1,200 riot police in full gear stood
by, while police officials tried to convince the crowd to disperse
peacefully. Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has ordered the
protesters to leave, saying they have illegally blocked a major road
for the last week. The protesters led by the People’s Alliance for
Democracy (PAD) have refused, vowing to fight off any police
advance.
 --AFP
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