Nearly 100 countries speaking at the first U.N. General Assembly meeting on climate change signaled strong support for negotiations on a new international deal to tackle global warming. There was so much interest among worried nations, many facing drought, floods and searing heat, that the two-day meeting was extended for an extra day so more countries could describe their climate-related problems, how they are coping and the help they need.
Iraqi lawmakers clapped and cheered for the country’s Asian Cup soccer champs at a rare gathering Saturday during parliament’s summer recess. The U.S. military, meanwhile, killed four suspects and captured 33 others in raids in northern Iraq and along the Tigris River Valley, officials said.
Scores of people were arrested in a traditionally Tibetan area of western China following public calls for the return of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, reports said Friday. Also Friday, China moved to tighten its control over Tibetan Buddhism by asserting the communist government’s sole right to recognize Buddhist reincarnations of the lamas that form the backbone of the religion’s clergy. All future incarnations of living Buddhas related to Tibetan Buddhism “must get government approval,” the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
Mexican archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar have detected underground chambers they believe contain the remains of Emperor Ahuizotl, who ruled the Aztecs when Christopher Columbus landed in the New World. It would be the first tomb of an Aztec ruler ever found. The find could provide an extraordinary window into Aztec civilization at its apogee. Ahuizotl (ah-WEE-zoh-tuhl), an empire-builder who extended the Aztecs’ reach as far as Guatemala, was the last emperor to complete his rule before the Spanish Conquest.
Automaker DaimlerChrysler AG said Friday it has completed the sale of a majority stake in its U.S. Chrysler division to the private-equity firm Cerberus. The $7.4 billion deal sets the beleaguered 82-year-old Chrysler on a new path to recovery as a private company. DaimlerChrysler, which also makes Mercedes luxury cars, agreed in May to transfer an 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler to New York-based Cerberus. Daimler will retain a 19.9 percent interest in the company.
A Hong Kong man paid $5,000 on Saturday for a car license plate that read “BRUCELEE,” after the late kung fu movie star. “When I studied in England, foreigners would only know two Chinese people. One is Bruce Lee. The other is Chairman Mao (Zedong),” the buyer, identified only by his surname Wong, said on a Hong Kong cable television station. The Lee-inspired plate was among several vanity plates to be auctioned Saturday by the Hong Kong Transport Department, according to the department’s Web site.
Britain raced to avert economic disaster Saturday by halting meat and dairy exports and the movement of livestock around the country after foot-and-mouth disease was found on a southern English farm. Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed to work “night and day” to avoid a repeat of a 2001 outbreak, when millions of dead animals were burned on pyres, swathes of the countryside were closed, rural tourism was badly hurt and British meat was shut out of international markets.
Authorities in Singapore on Friday banned a gay rights forum at which a retired Canadian law professor was to speak, the second time in a week the city-state has forbidden an event that touches on gay issues. The forum was to feature Douglas Sanders, a professor emeritus in law at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, the event’s organizer, Alex Au, told The Associated Press.
