Tag: Weekend News Digest

From costume parades in the Philippines to a cyclist’s protest in London, marches were held in more than 50 cities around the world to coincide with the two-week U.N. Climate Change Conference, which runs through Friday in Bali, Indonesia.

Hundreds of people rallied in the Philippine capital, Manila, wearing miniature windmills atop hats, or framing their faces in cardboard cutouts of the sun.

The United Russia Party won 62.3 percent of the vote, according to official results with 12 percent of the ballots counted and with opposition complaints mounting.

United Russia and its allies, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party would enter the State Duma with a collective 86.3 percent of the vote, according to an exit poll by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion.

“These (emergency) conditions are not conducive to free and fair elections,” Sharif told reporters at the airport after arriving from Saudi Arabia. “I think the constitution of Pakistan should be restored, and there should be rule of law.”

Sharif, the head of one of the country’s main opposition parties, said he had not negotiated his return with Musharraf, who overthrew him in a 1999 coup. Musharraf expelled Sharif when he first tried come back to Pakistan this year.

Losses because of canceled performances are in the millions and climbing each day – a disaster not only for producers and theater owners, but for everyone employed in the theater and for those whose businesses depend on curtains going up.

Both sides are hanging tough and have not talked for almost a week. The standoff has meant dark theaters during the Thanksgiving holiday, usually one of the year’s best weeks for business.

“We have agreed to set up a committee consisting of oil and finance ministers from OPEC countries to study the impact of the dollar on oil prices,” Gholam Hussein Nozari told Dow Jones Newswires at a rare heads-of-state OPEC summit.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani also confirmed that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was forming the committee, which would “submit to OPEC its recommendation on a basket of currencies that OPEC members will deal with.” He did not give a timeline for the recommendation.

In a panorama of the evidence, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared that the impact of global warming could be “abrupt or irreversible” and no country would be spared.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed to political leaders to push for “a real breakthrough” at a key conference running on the Indonesian island of Bali from December 3-14.

Increasingly concerned by the unfolding crisis, the Bush administration said Sunday that American aid to Pakistan would be reviewed. The U.S. has provided about $11 billion to Pakistan since 2001, when Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, allied with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Some of the aid that goes to Pakistan is directly related to the counterterrorism mission,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters traveling with her. “We just have to review the situation. But I would be very surprised if anyone wants the president to set aside or ignore” the responsibility to national security that can come through such cooperation, she said.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan’s internal security has deteriorated sharply in recent months with a wave of suicide attacks by al Qaeda-inspired militants, including one that killed 139 people.

State-run Pakistan Television said Musharraf had suspended the constitution and declared an emergency, ending weeks of speculation that the general who seized power in a 1999 coup might impose emergency rule or martial law.