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BEIJING: A young boy has died in southern China from what was
probably hand, foot and mouth disease, health authorities there said
Saturday, raising fears the virus had spread from its epicenter
further north. The 18-month-old died Friday in Foshan City,
Guangdong province, bordering Hong Kong, the provincial health
department said in a statement posted on its website. It is feared
the case was due to an intestinal virus known as Enterovirus 71, or
EV71, an official with the department said, citing the results of
preliminary checks by the provincial disease prevention control
center.
-- AFP
BEIJING: China kept up a barrage of criticism
against the Dalai Lama Saturday even as two of his envoys were set
to arrive for talks on unrest in Tibet that has marred the runup to
the Olympics. Chinese state media carried no reference to the
much-anticipated meetings, instead accusing Tibet’s spiritual
leader of seeking to sabotage the Beijing Games in August. The Tibet
Daily warned against the “Dalai clique,” a loosely defined term
referring to people close to the Tibetan leader-in-exile.
-- AFP
MACAU: The Olympic torch relay got underway
Saturday in the gambling haven of Macau, the final leg on its
round-the-world tour before heading into mainland China. The torch
was to snake through the former Portuguese colony where few, if any,
protests were expected, before being flown in the evening to the
holiday resort of Hainan, its first mainland leg for the August 8 to
24 Games. Thousands of people waving Chinese flags and dressed in
red lined the relay route, many huddling under umbrellas against the
bright sunshine.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s prime minister said
Saturday his government would delay non-essential projects and use
funds to secure the country’s food supply amid spiralling global
food prices.The government announced on Friday that it would spend
2.49 billion ringgit (778 million dollars) this year to boost food
production as worldwide costs soar for staple items such as rice.The
money is part of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s
4.0-billion-ringgit pledge last week to increase food production and
tackle price hikes.
-- AFP
MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said world powers
concerned about Iran’s nuclear program were asking Tehran only to
suspend uranium enrichment during a period of talks. After a meeting
on Iran in London of the five permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council plus Germany, Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov said no mention had been made of new sanctions and that
Tehran must be made to see the advantages of cooperation.”Our
first conditions are the freezing, suspension of uranium enrichment.
The approach of the six (powers) is that Iran should suspend
enrichment only for the period in which talks continue,” Lavrov
told the Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies.
-- AFP
SEOUL: Bird flu outbreaks have spread to six of
South Korea’s nine provinces despite a massive cull which saw the
slaughter of more than five million chickens and ducks last month,
officials said Saturday.An outbreak reported Wednesday at a farm
around 300 kilometers (187 miles) southeast of Seoul was confirmed
after blood tests as the virulent H5N1 strain of the disease, the
agriculture ministry said. It raised to 23 the total number of
outbreaks reported across six provinces of South Korea.Only the
northeastern province of Gangweon, North Chungcheong in the centre
and the southern island of Jeju have been unaffected so far,
according to the ministry.
-- AFP
HAGATNA, Guam: On the distant Pacific island of
Guam, nearly a day’s plane ride from Washington, a few thousand
voters seized centre stage Saturday in the race for the US
Democratic presidential nomination. Early turnout for the Democratic
caucus was low as temperatures hovered around 90 degrees (32
Celsius), but picked up as the afternoon wore on. Local party
officials said they expected around 4,000 people to have cast their
ballots by the time polls closed at 8:00pm (1000 GMT). With only
four party votes at stake, each is now crucial to the clash in which
Obama leads Hillary Clinton by a narrow margin estimated at 1,738 to
1,599. Although there was no obvious pre-election favourite,
political analyst Dr Ron McNinch forecast Obama to take 65 percent
of the vote.
-- AFP
PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal: The parents of British
girl Madeleine McCann will remain formal suspects over her
disappearance, Portugal’s national police chief said as ceremonies
were held Saturday to mark the first anniversary since she went
missing. ”The judicial police are continuing to collect and
analyse all the elements of proof that may exist,” police director
Alipio Ribeiro told the Lusa national news agency. ”For the
moment, investigators have made no decision over any charges or, on
the contrary, whether to close the case,” he added.
-- AFP
MADRID: Growing concerns over soaring food
prices which threaten to push millions deeper into poverty
overshadowed the start of the Asian Development Bank annual meeting
here Saturday.Bank director general Rajat Nag said the surging cost
of food affects one billion poor in Asia who spend a lot of their
wages on food.”I think at this meeting there will be lots of
discussion on the food situation,” he said ahead of the start of
the four-day gathering.The ADB, which last year handed out just over
$10 billion (6.4 billion euros) in loans, has offered to lend money
to Asian governments so that they can subsidise the price of food
staples for the poor.
-- AFP
JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice returns to the region on Saturday in a bid to breath new air
into the sluggish Middle East peace process ahead of a visit by
President George W. Bush. On her 15th visit to Israel and the
Palestinian territories in under two years, Rice is expected to push
the sides to stick to their goal of clinching a peace deal by the
end of 2008. The talks will be held alongside Egyptian-led efforts
to broker a truce between Israel and Gaza militants that would ease
an Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory, which has been
sidelined in the current peace talks.
-- AFP
MOSCOW: One passenger was killed and 14 others
were injured when a bus carrying 28 Chinese citizens overturned in
the Trans-Baikal Territory on Saturday, Interfax news agency
reported. The accident was reported at 4:05 a.m. Moscow time
(0005GMT) at the 403rd km of Route A-166 in the Borzinsky district.
The bus was carrying 28 people. One of the 14 hospitalized Chinese
citizens is in intensive care, and six are in serious condition,”
a spokesman of the Siberian regional emergency situations center was
quoted as saying. he cause of the traffic accident is under
investigation.
-- Xinhua
YANGON: Severe tropical cyclone Nargis lashed
Myanmar’s main city Saturday, downing power lines and tearing
rooves off houses as residents took shelter in their homes and
waited for the storm to pass. Electricity supplies in Yangon have
been cut since late Friday night as the storm bore down from the Bay
of Bengal, packing winds of 190 to 240 kilometres (120 to 150 miles)
per hour, residents said. Trees were uprooted across the city and
streets were deserted with no buses or taxis seen and all shops
closed. A lot of buildings were damaged with their rooves blown off
and signs knocked down.
-- AFP
TAIPEI: Taiwanese prosecutors on Saturday
questioned a Singaporean man accused of embezzling $30 million of
diplomatic aid earmarked for Papua New Guinea, reports
said.Television footage showed Wu Shih-tsai entering the Taipei
district prosecutors office for questioning over his alleged role in
the scandal, which has gripped the island.Taiwanese authorities
allege that Wu and another businessman Ching Chi-ju pocketed the
fund intended for Taiwan to forge ties with Papua New Guinea in
2006—a charge he denied.”If I get a penny of this I won’t be
sitting here today,” Wu told a press conference conducted in
English on Saturday.
-- AFP
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