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MIANYANG, China: New survivors were plucked from the rubble Saturday
as rescuers in China waged an increasingly desperate battle to save
lives five days after a huge quake killed an estimated 50,000
people. With towns and villages reduced to a mass of twisted metal
and concrete, recovery teams used sniffer dogs and cutting equipment
to try and find victims trapped under buildings across the
southwestern province of Sichuan. A German tourist was pulled out of
the wreckage Saturday by soldiers after being buried for 114 hours,
the state-run Xinhua news agency said. The confirmed number of
people killed by the 7.9 magnitude quake was 22,069 late Friday,
with officials in Sichuan province saying another 14,000 remained
buried.
-- AFP
YANGON: Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party
Saturday rejected the Myanmar junta’s claim of an overwhelming win
in a referendum to approve a new constitution, accusing the regime
of forcing people to vote during the cyclone tragedy. Myanmar held
the referendum across most of the country on May 10, even though
huge swathes of land were still underwater from a cyclone that has
left 133,000 people dead or missing. The junta, which says the new
constitution will pave the way to democratic elections in two years,
announced Thursday that 92.4 percent of voters had approved the
charter, with a 99 percent turnout. “This result is completely
incorrect,” said Nyan Win, spokesman for the opposition National
League for Democracy .
-- AFP
YANGON: Dozens of Asian doctors headed into
Myanmar on Saturday to treat survivors of the cyclone that the
military regime said has left 133,000 dead or missing in the
country’s worst natural disaster. They are the biggest group of
foreigners so far allowed in to help cyclone victims but
international aid agencies say that, with 2.5 million needy
survivors, a greater and faster relief effort is desperately needed.
Myanmar officials also took a group of foreign diplomats to tour the
Irrawaddy delta, the hardest-hit region in the impoverished
country’s rice-growing south, where the junta has blocked
outsiders from entering. But diplomats held little hope they would
see the most devastated regions, where corpses still lie in rice
fields.
-- AFP
WASHINGTON: Democrat Barack Obama and Republican
John McCain on Friday traded furious foreign policy barbs in a
three-way row over how to deal with US foe Iran originally sparked
by President George W. Bush. Obama, the Democratic presidential
frontrunner, said he was ready to do battle at anytime on the
foreign policy records of Bush and McCain, the Republican
presumptive nominee. “They are trying to scare you. They are
lying,” Obama said a day after Bush ignited the row by implying in
a speech in Israel that Democrats want to appease terrorists. McCain
hit back by saying Obama does not understand the reality that
America has enemies which makes the latter’s strength, judgment,
and determination to keep the country safe doubtful.
-- AFP
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Friday gave no concrete
promises to visiting US President George W. Bush who is in the
oil-rich kingdom to press for an immediate increase in its oil
production to help tame record oil prices. On May 10, the kingdom
already raised supplies to customers by increasing oil output of
300,000 barrels per day (bpd) and “supply and demand are in
balance today,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told a press
conference, while Bush held talks with King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz.
Saudi oil output in June would reach 9.45 million bpd and the
kingdom sees fundamentals in oil markets were sound now, Naimi said.
The oil minister, however, promised that “if the need appears,
Saudi Arabia has no objection to producing more.”
-- Xinhua
SEOUL: North Korea welcomed Saturday a US
decision to provide the impoverished country with food aid, saying
the move will help promote “understanding and confidence”
between the two countries. “The DPRK [North Korea] is ready to
provide all technical conditions necessary for the food delivery,”
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said. “The food
aid of the US government will help settle the food shortage in the
DPRK to a certain extent and contribute to promoting the
understanding and confidence between the peoples of the two
countries,” it said. The United States said Friday it will send
500,000 metric tons of emergency food aid to North Korea over the
next year under a deal with Pyongyang permitting better monitoring
of deliveries.
-- AFP
CANNES, France: A small flick went from refugee
camp to red carpet Friday as Sean Penn, backed by rock star Bono and
filmmaker Michael Moore, brought an Australian aid worker’s
tsunami film to the Cannes fest. Politically-minded Penn won special
agreement from the Cannes festival organizers for a special one
off-red carpet screening of “The Third Wave”, a film he told the
crowd was “as provocative and inspiring as anything I’ve ever
seen.” With highly applauded Bono and Moore in the audience, and
Faye Dunaway as well, Penn added: “In lieu of the fact that
governments don’t seem to be able to help, this film gives an
indication of how you can help yourself.”
-- AFP
PARIS: In the midst of a global food crisis,
experts from around world would gather Monday in the German city of
Bonn for a marathon conference aimed at ending the destruction of
countless plant and animal species. While the extinction of mammals
or sea-life have long caught the public imagination, pressing
concerns over food prices and stocks, allied to global awareness of
the dangers of climate change, means the Earth’s plant life, as a
means of sustenance and of maintaining nature’s balance, is
suddenly catapulting its way up the political and environmental
agenda. This is the ninth meeting of countries who signed up to the
United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity at the 1992 Rio
Earth Summit.
-- AFP
HARARE: Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai was to return home on Saturday bidding to deliver a
knockout blow to weaken President Robert Mugabe in a run-off
election scheduled for June 27. Mugabe acknowledged Friday that he
had suffered an electoral disaster in losing a first-round poll
against Tsvangirai on March 29 and lambasted his party for being
unprepared. After leaving Zimbabwe in early April, Tsvangirai was to
return to Harare to begin campaigning despite evidence of violence
and intimidation against his supporters and the risk of a treason
charge hanging over him. “Mugabe lost that first round, 57 percent
of the people who cast their vote did not vote for him,” he said
defiantly on Friday.
-- AFP
PARIS: France’s Directorate of Territorial
Security has arrested eight people in two suburbs across the capital
as part of an investigation into a syndicate that is suspected of
financing terrorism activities in the country, French security
sources have said. The operation, conducted Friday on the basis of
international letters issued by French anti-terrorist judge Thierry
Fragnoli, was conducted in collaboration with other foreign security
services, notably Germany and the Netherlands, where further arrests
had also been made. The eight people arrested in France, all of
Turkish origin, are suspected to be linked to a network that is
involved in raising funds to finance an Uzbekistan-based radical
Islamic movement that recently proclaimed ties with the infamous al-Qaeda
terror network, French investigators said.
-- Xinhua
CANNES, France: An “intimidated” Mike Tyson
won cheers at the Cannes film festival late Saturday after the
premiere of a flattering documentary on the former world heavyweight
boxing champion’s turbulent life. Tyson, dressed in an elegant
dark gray suit with a white pocket handkerchief, mounted the stage
ahead of the screening at the world’s biggest cinema showcase,
flanked by director James Toback. “I’ve never experienced
anything like this in my whole career,” Tyson said. “I’m an
athlete and this is totally out of my field here—it’s kind of
intimidating.” The retired fighter flew to the French Riviera from
his suburban Las Vegas home for the premiere of “Tyson” which
features more than 30 hours of interviews and highlights of his
boxing career.
-- AFP
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