21 die in makeshift gold mine
BOGOTA – A landslide at a makeshift mine collapsed in southwest Colombia yesterday, killing at least 21 people and injuring another 18, authorities said, after residents began digging for rumoured deposits of gold.
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Rice says Kremlin is too powerful
MOSCOW – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Russian human rights activists yesterday that she wanted to help them build institutions to protect people from the “arbitrary power of the state.”
“I think that there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin,” she later told reporters.
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Burma arrests key dissidents
YANGON – Burma’s junta arrested four prominent political activists yesterday, Amnesty International said, as the regime defied UN calls to halt its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Among those detained was high-profile dissident Htay Kywe, who led some of the first marches several weeks ago before going into hiding to escape a manhunt for protest organizers, Amnesty said. Others arrested were Aung Htoo and Thin Thin Aye, also known as Mie Mie.
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UK Tories take the lead
LONDON — Britain’s opposition Conservatives have taken their biggest lead over Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party in 15 years, according to a poll published in a Sunday newspaper.
The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph put the Conservatives at 43 percent and Labour at 36 percent, apparently reflecting widespread criticism...
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US maternal death rate higher than EU
WASHINGTON — The United States has a sharply higher rate of women dying during or just after pregnancy than European countries, even some relatively poor countries such as Macedonia and Bosnia, according to the first estimates in five years on maternal deaths worldwide.
The report released by various United Nations agencies...
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Former top US commander in Baghdad critical of war
‘Catastrophic failure’ in Iraq
WASHINGTON — A “catastrophic failure” in the Bush administration’s leadership of the Iraq war has mired the United States in a nightmarish conflict with no clear way out, the former top US commander in Iraq said late on Friday.
The blistering assessment by retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sánchez was one of...
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Clinton has 21-point lead in recent poll
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton has a 21-point lead over fellow Democrat Barack Obama in New Hampshire, one of the first states to vote in the nominating process for the 2008 US presidential election, a poll showed today.
In a poll by Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, 41 percent of likely...
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Rice recommends prudence in Northern Iraq
Restraint urged for Turkey
MOSCOW/ANKARA — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday she had urged Turkey to refrain from any major military operation in northern Iraq.
“I urged restraint,” Rice, on a visit to Moscow, told reporters of her telephone conversations on Friday with Turkey’s president, prime minister and foreign minister.
Two senior US...
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Massive security for Bhutto’s return
KARACHI — Pakistan will deploy 3,500 police and paramilitary troops to guard former prime minister Benazir Bhutto when she returns within days amid Islamic extremists’ threats to her life, an official said yesterday.
The elaborate security arrangements are being made after a court ruled that Bhutto — who faces threats from...
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Polish opposition ahead
WARSAW — A week before an election, Poland’s main opposition party, the centre-right Civic Platform, moved ahead in an opinion poll yesterday, the first since its leader beat Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a televised debate.
Friday night’s debate between Civic Platform (PO) leader Donald Tusk and Kaczynski appeared to have...
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Venezuela not playing host to press
MIAMI — An international press association representing media from across the Americas accused the Venezuelan government yesterday of pressuring hotels not to host the group’s general assembly next year — an allegation the government quickly denied.
The Inter-American Press Association made the accusation on the second day of its 63rd General...
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Vatican suspends ‘gay’ monsignor
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican said yesterday it has suspended a monsignor from a senior post at the Holy See after an Italian TV programme, with a hidden camera, recorded him making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity...
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The trivial pursuit
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times
Friday began with the gratifying news that Al Gore, derided by George H.W. Bush as the “Ozone Man,” had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The first thing media types wanted to know was whether this would prompt Gore to elbow his way into the...
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