Phnom Penh—Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen
criticised Thailand’s leaders Monday, saying
they had insulted his country after Phnom Penh
refused to extradite fugitive former Thai
premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Hun Sen said that
his country would “have no happiness” while Thai
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his foreign
Minister Kasit Piromya were still in power.
Phnom Penh—Lawyers for a former Khmer Rouge
leader demanded Monday that investigators at
Cambodia’s war crimes court question premier Hun
Sen and government officials over alleged
interference. The defence for former Khmer Rouge
ideologue Nuon Chea cited a September statement
by Hun Sen—who himself defected from the
communist regime in 1977—that witnesses do not
have to testify to the UN-backed tribunal.
Nanjing—Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday sought to reassure
the EU that China shared its environmental
concerns, a week ahead of the global conference
on climate change in Copenhagen. Wen, in an
unusual move for a Chinese leader, began a
speech at a China-EU business summit—where he
addressed an audience including European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso—by
quoting the world conservation strategy.
Canberra—Australia’s major rivers are shrinking
and farms are gripped by drought as scientists
warn of climate change, but that has not
convinced some sceptical politicians to back
carbon-trade laws. In a pointer to the
difficulty of striking a pact to curb global
greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks in
Copenhagen, Australia’s parliament is at an
impasse over a scheme to slash carbon emissions
blamed for global warming.
CONGRESSMAN David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat who
is chairman of the powerful House Appropriations
Committee, has come up with a novel idea:
American should pay for the wars they are
waging. Obey’s proposal, which is backed by ten
other congressmen, sounds startling — until one
realises that both the Bush and Obama
administrations have never properly financed
their foreign wars by forcing Americans to pay
for them through higher taxes.
