LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Too many nations - especially Afghanistan - have suffered too many losses to see this country slide backward.”
Hillary Rodham Clinton,
the secretary of state Article, this page
Peers pressure Burma on elections
HANOI, Vietnam - Southeast Asian foreign ministers gave Burma’s military-run government an “earful” while demanding that it hold free and fair elections, a rare stand by a group often accused of overlooking rights abuses in member nations.
Foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations ended their annual meeting Tuesday in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, where they tackled a diverse agenda, from setting up a Europeanstyle economic community by 2015 to bolstering ties with the West and regional powers China, Japan and India.
But at a dinner on the eve of the conference, Burma took center stage as diplomats vented their concerns about planned elections, which the junta has said will be held this year, without giving a date.
“[Burma], I think, got an earful last night that ASEAN is very much concerned,” the group’s Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters on the sidelines of Tuesday’s meetings.
Migrating penguins starve to death
SAO PAULO - Hundreds of penguins that apparently starved to death are washing up on the beaches of Brazil, worrying scientists who are still investigating what’s causing them to die.
About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the past 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.
Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.
Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty, indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.
U.S., S. Korea: Drills message to North
SEOUL, South Korea - The U.S. and South Korea will launch joint military exercises this weekend to sharpen their readiness against North Korean aggression, the allies’ defense chiefs said Tuesday, despite warnings from Pyongyang that the drills would deepen tensions on the peninsula.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington and Seoul want to send a “clear message” to North Korea after the March sinking of a South Korean warship.
Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the sinking, which an international investigation pinned on a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine near the Koreas’ tense sea border.
The waters have been the site of several bloody skirmishes in recent years.
“These defensive, combined exercises are designed to send a clear message to North Korea that its aggressive behavior must stop, and that we are committed to together enhancing our combined defensive capabilities,” Gates and South Korea’s Kim Tae-young said in a joint statement issued Tuesday after their talks.
Spain votes against Islamic-veil ban
MADRID - Spain’s parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.
However, the Socialist Party government has said it favors including a ban on people wearing burqas in government buildings in a coming bill on religious issues to be debated after parliament’s summer vacation break.
After a lower chamber debate, 183 lawmakers opposed the ban, 162 voted for it and two abstained.
The nonbinding proposal had been put forward by the leading opposition Popular Party, which portrayed it as a measure in support of women’s rights. The ruling Socialist Party opposed the ban.
The opposition’s proposal followed discussions in several other European countries on possibly banning face veils that show only the eyes, or the eyes through a knitted mesh.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 07/21/2010