London—Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday
Britain must play a comprehensive role in
“changing the world” as he defended the
country’s military mission in Afghanistan. Brown
also said more has been planned in 2009 and
“enacted with greater success” to cripple
Al-Qaeda than in any year since the US-led
invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban
regime in 2001.
Manila—The son of Philippines democracy icon
Corazon “Cory” Aquino continues to lead
candidates for the 2010 presidential election,
an opinion poll said on Monday. The latest
public opinion survey was released on the same
day Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino was formally
nominated by the small Liberal Party (LP) as its
standard-bearer for next May’s national and
local elections. The poll by the independent
Pulse Asia showed 44 percent of respondents
prefered Noynoy while Senator Manuel Villar, a
billionaire property developer who topped the
August 2009 polls, was second with 19 percent.
Copenhagen—Environment ministers from 44 key
countries gathered Monday in Copenhagen for a
two-day closed-door meeting to prepare next
month’s UN conference on global warming in a bid
to avoid a fiasco. The delegations taking part
were from the United States, China, India and
Brazil as well as several island nations and
African states that are among the poorest in the
world.
Jakarta—Indonesia threatened Monday to deport
hundreds of Sri Lankan asylum seekers who have
been refusing to leave a boat docked at a
Javanese port until they are granted refugee
status. Some 247 ethnic Tamil migrants, led by
an alleged people smuggler called Kulaendrarajah
Sanjeev, have been engaged in the stand-off
since they were intercepted on their way to
Australia on October 11. “If Australia doesn’t
want to accept them and they don’t want to come
off the boat, we will ask the IOM (International
Organisation for Migration) to return them to
their country,” senior foreign ministry official
Sujatmiko said.
ARMISTICE Day is always a very solemn event here
in Paris and across France. But this year’s
ceremony held special significance. On this 11
November, Germany’s national anthem rang out
beneath France’s most hallowed site, the Etoile,
or Arc de Triumph. Then came France’s
heart-stirring ‘La Marseillaise,’ originally
called the ‘War Song of the Army of the Rhine.’
For the first time, a German chancellor joined
the president of France to commemorate the
ghastly losses of World War I. Bells tolled to
remember the nearly six million French and
German soldiers killed or wounded in the Great
War.
