Monday, September 24, 2007
hBuddhist monks, nuns
lead protest in Myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar — About 20,000 protesters led by Buddhist monks and nuns on Sunday mounted the largest anti-government protest in Myanmar since a failed 1988 democratic uprising, shouting support for detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. At one point a small crowd of about 400 — about half of them monks — split off from the main demonstration and tried unsuccessfully to approach the home where Suu Kyi is under house arrest. The march raised both expectations of possible political change and fear that the military might try to crush the demonstrations with violence, as in 1988 when thousands were killed.
Protests greet president
of Iran in New York visit
NEW YORK — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in New York to protests Sunday and said in a television interview that Iran was neither building a nuclear bomb nor headed to war with the United States. The president’s motorcade pulled up to the midtown hotel where he will be staying while he appears at a series of events including the U.N. General Assembly and a forum at Columbia University, where about 40 elected officials and civic leaders decried his visit. Ahmadinejad’s public-relations push appears aimed at presenting his views directly to a U.S. audience amid rising strains and talk of war between the two nations. Tensions are high between Washington and Tehran over U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Cuba shows Castro photo
HAVANA — Cuba published a photo Sunday of a standing, smiling Fidel Castro looking heavier but still gaunt as he met with Angola’s president, the first head of state to see the ailing 81-year-old since June. The picture, which appeared on the front page of Communist Party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, shows Castro in a track suit, athletic pants and tennis shoes. The Cuban leader appears to have gained weight and wears a warm half-smile as he shakes hands with Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, who was in Cuba since Thursday.
Fla. Dems to defy party
PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. — Florida’s state Democratic Party announced Sunday that it would defy the national party by holding its presidential primary as scheduled Jan. 29, even though it will probably mean that none of Florida’s delegates will be seated at next summer’s Democratic convention. The decision, less than a month after the Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its 210 delegates unless it changed the primary date, is likely to embolden other big states that have threatened to rebel against Democratic Party rules.
Arrest over headless duck
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A man was in custody Sunday after police said he ripped the head off a tame duck that lived in a hotel lobby’s ornamental pond. Scott D. Clark, a guest at the Embassy Suites Hotel in St. Paul, cornered the duck early Saturday morning, grabbed the bird and ripped its head from its body while a hotel security guard and others watched, police said. Clark then turned to onlookers and said: “I’m hungry. I’m gonna eat it,” St. Paul police Sgt. John Wuorinen said. “He was allegedly drunk,” Wuorinen said. Clark, 26, of Denver, was detained by hotel security guards until police came to arrest him. He remained jailed Sunday on suspicion of felony animal cruelty.
Teen dies in sulfuric acid
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — An 18-year-old fell into a vat of sulfuric acid and died after apparently being overcome by fumes, police said. His body was discovered by his father Sunday at a circuit board factory where they both worked. The San Mateo County coroner’s office identified the victim as Fernando Jimenez Gonzalez of Redwood City. Gonzalez had been submerging circuit boards in the vat at Coastal Circuits, Redwood City police said. Gonzalez’s father went to the factory when his son did not come home from his shift and discovered the body.
Combined dispatches