8:48 PM
YANGON (AFP) - - Myanmar's ruling junta lashed out at foreign aid donors Friday, saying cyclone victims did not need supplies of "chocolate bars" and could instead survive by eating frogs and fish.
The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a government mouthpiece, also warned that foreign relief workers could snoop inside homes, and condemned donors for linking aid money to full access to the hardest-hit regions in the Irrawaddy Delta.
The tirade came as the junta tightened its political grip on the country, extending democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and announcing that its new constitution has been enacted.
The regime says the charter will pave the way for democratic elections in two years, but dissidents say it will enshrine military rule in a country ruled by generals since 1962.
Despite the harsh statements in official media, aid agencies say they have had some success in receiving visas and securing access to the delta, which suffered the brunt of the May 2-3 storm that left 133,000 dead or missing.
An assessment team from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was set to arrive in Yangon on Friday to determine how best to help the 2.4 million survivors in desperate need of food, shelter and medicine.
But the UN's disaster response arm OCHA said access remained patchy, especially for private charities.
"Sometimes there are hindrances, sometimes not," Terje Skavdal, OCHA's regional director, told a press conference. "Some of the larger NGOs seem to have a problem, but it's not a clear picture."
After several days of praising the work of the United Nations and charities, the regime's official newspaper renewed its attacks on foreign aid and insisted Myanmar could survive without outside help.
"The government and the people are like parents and children," the paper said. "We, all the people, were pleased with the efforts of the government."
The paper said that granting free access for aid workers in the delta means donors "are to be given permission to inspect all the houses thoroughly at will."
Myanmar needs 11 billion dollars to recover from the storm, but donors have pledged just 150 million dollars so far, it said.
"Myanmar people are capable enough of rising from such natural disasters even if they are not provided with international assistance," the newspaper said.
"Myanmar people can easily get fish for dishes by just fishing in the fields and ditches," the paper said. "In the early monsoon, large edible frogs are abundant."
"The people (of the Irrawaddy delta) can survive with self-reliant efforts even if they are not given chocolate bars from (the) international community," it added.
No aid agencies are known to have provided chocolate bars to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which struck the impoverished country four weeks ago.
The UN's World Food Programme gives rice, beans and high-energy biscuits designed to provide nutrition to people without regular food supplies.
The United Nations estimates that about one million people in the delta are still without emergency aid.
The military regime drew international outrage for three weeks of delays in allowing foreign aid workers access to the delta region, although the United Nations said Thursday that all of its staff had now been granted visas.
The official newspaper also took a swipe at a world monetary organisation for refusing to give aid -- apparently a reference to the World Bank, which has said no loans could be given because Myanmar has not been repaying its debts.
It also criticised countries for maintaining sanctions on the regime despite the cyclone devastation.
"Do such countries really have humanitarian spirit?" the paper said.
It was apparently referring to the United States, which renewed sanctions on the regime two weeks after the storm, accusing the military junta of suppressing the pro-democracy movement.
The United States has insisted the sanctions will not affect humanitarian aid, which US military planes have helped deliver into the country.
5:46 PM
MIAMI (AFP) - - The Miami-based National Hurricane Center on Thursday forecast an especially active 2008 weather season, saying there could be up to nine hurricanes and 12 tropical storms in the Atlantic region.
The meteorologists forecast that during the hurricane season -- which officially starts Sunday and runs through the end of November -- there will be between six and 12 tropical storms powerful enough to be named, and between six and nine hurricanes.
Of those, five could reach destructive levels, meaning hurricanes of Category Three or above on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, with Category Five being the most destructive.
The Hurricane Center collects information on hurricanes from different sources, including special "hurricane hunter" aircraft equipped with high-tech instruments that fly over the hurricane collecting data.
The chance of being struck by a hurricane in places like Florida triggers an immense public information awareness campaign each year, with authorities urging citizens to strengthen their homes, purchase emergency kits and learn about regional evacuation plans. There is even a training program on how to save pets in case of an emergency.
Experts say most people living in hurricane-prone areas of the US coastline are ill-prepared for a disaster.
"The day something bad happens isn't the day to start preparing for it," said Mark Brennan, a sociologist with University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Brennan called on authorities to train volunteers to work in areas that could be hit by hurricanes. "There are still plenty of volunteer gaps that need to be filled," he said.
The most hurricane-prone US region is the southeastern coastline, running from the states of North Carolina to Texas. The region is home to some 35 million people, according to the US Census Bureau.
Despite the risks, during the last half century more than 25 million people moved to these areas, with the majority -- 15 million -- living in Florida, according to Census Bureau figures.
In early April a University of Colorado team led by William Gray, who has been in the hurricane predicting business for 25 years, forecast that there would be 15 tropical storms during the season, eight of which will hit hurricane strength and four of which would be major.
"Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the US coastline is 69 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent," said Phil Klotzbach, a scientist on Gray's team.
Klotzbach predicted a "very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 seasons."
In 2004 and 2005 hurricanes Frances, Jeanna and Katrina ripped through the Caribbean and hit the US coast, leaving a trail of destruction and death in its path.
The 2007 season was milder than had been forecast, but was still devastating.
Two hurricanes with top wind speeds of more than 249 kilometers (150 miles) an hour hit. In August Hurricane Dean killed at least 29 people as it tore through the Caribbean and parts of Mexico, and a month later Hurricane Felix left 150 people dead and major devastation as it slammed Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.
Warmer seas accounted for 40 percent of a dramatic surge in hurricanes from the mid-1990s, according to a study released in January by the British journal Nature.
Some of the 21 names that would be used for tropical storms this year include Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Gustav, Ike, Laura, Nana, Paloma, Rene, Teddy and Vicky.
11:49 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - The US Army said 115 soldiers on active duty committed suicide in 2007, the most in one year since the service began keeping records in 1980. Nearly a thousand soldiers attempted suicide.
The spike came in a year that saw the highest US casualties in Iraq and increased levels of violence in Afghanistan, but officials said the trend has continued into 2008.
Barack Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, called it "a tragic reminder of the staggering and ongoing costs of the Iraq war, particularly on our troops and their families."
Army officials acknowledged that long and repeated combat deployments were a major source of stress in soldiers' lives, but they found no direct relationship between increased conflict and suicides.
"In terms of this current conflict we see a lot of things going on in the war which do contribute," said Colonel Elspeth Ritchie.
"Mainly it is the long time and multiple deployments away from home, the exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things, the easy availability of loaded weapons, and, of course, it's very, very busy right now," she said.
In a report, the army said the 115 confirmed suicides raised the suicide rate to 18.8 percent per thousand for the active duty army in 2007, or 16.6 percent if based on a larger pool that includes reservists on active duty.
The suicide rate among active service members was 17.3 per 100,000 in 2006, compared to 12.8 in 2005 and 10.8 in 2004. In 2001 the rate was 9.8 per 100,000.
The suicide rate for the US population, adjusted for the age group and gender, is 19.5 percent.
"It's the highest number since the army has been keeping records," Colonel Thomas Languirand said of the suicides in 2007.
So far this year there have been 38 confirmed suicides and 12 suspected cases, he said, adding that that was comparable to last year.
There were 935 suicide attempts by soldiers in 2007, including 166 during deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the report.
Forty-three percent of those who killed themselves did so after being deployed; 31 percent took their lives during deployments; and 26 percent were soldiers who had never deployed, according to the report.
"Suicide behaviors were significantly more common for young, Caucasian, unmarried, junior enlisted soldiers," the report said.
"Younger, lower-enlisted female soldiers were overrepresented for suicide attempts compared to completions," it said.
Most of those who committed suicide in Iraq or Afghanistan were on their first tour.
About half of the soldiers who completed suicide had a recent failed intimate relationship, the report said.
Officials said only six percent had been previously diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, but officials said most of those who killed themselves had not previously sought medical help.
"In the army what we have more often is a sudden loss, a humiliation, a breakup, or trouble at work, and an immediate precipitating event, and unfortunately all too often, immediate action," Ritchie said.
"And again one of the most potent risk factor is the access to loaded weapons," she said.
11:46 AM
KATHMANDU (AFP) - - Holed up within his high-walled Narayanhiti palace, Nepal's king Gyanendra kept a studied silence Friday after a historic assembly abolished his monarchy and gave him a two-week eviction order.
Quite when he will leave the pink-hued palace in the heart of Kathmandu is unclear, although royal-watchers said he was packing his bags and could leave Friday.
The royal flag was taken down early Thursday within hours of a constituent assembly voting to sweep away the monarchy and turn this Himalayan nation into a republic, ending 240 years of dynastic rule.
Gyanendra has a tight deadline to vacate the Narayanhiti palace, which the assembly -- now dominated by former rebel Maoists -- has agreed to turn into a museum.
"He is said to be leaving the palace on Friday," said Kishore Shrestha, who is editor of the royal-watching Nepali-language weekly Jana Aastha.
The king has yet to comment on the constitutional assembly vote that ended his rule.
An estimated 1,500 army soldiers guard the king in his palace, but an army spokesman said they were ready to pull back the security when the government orders.
For now, the palace and its surrounding roads are heavily guarded by riot police. Demonstrations have been banned, but revellers celebrating Nepal's new republican status skirmished with police Thursday on the road leading to the complex.
Police baton-charged and tear-gassed the revellers when they tried to climb a statue of the unloved king's father in order to put a national flag on it.
Nepal has been brimming for weeks with rumours over the king's plans, with each and every departure from the palace in recent days -- including a weekend trip to his summer home and a drive to his sister's house for tea -- watched with bated breath.
"The king is going to have to leave within the next 10 days," said Bimal Sharma, a shopkeeper strolling past the royal residence with his family.
"I don't like this king. This wouldn't have happened with the previous king," said Sharma, referring to Gyanendra's popular older brother Birendra, who was slaughtered in a palace massacre.
That 2001 massacre -- most of the royal family was slain by the then crown prince Dipendra, who was allegedly fuelled by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol -- was what led Gyanendra to ascend the throne.
Dipendra, who had been forbidden from marrying the woman he loved, gunned down his parents the king and queen, and seven other royals before apparently turning the gun on himself.
Gyanendra was at the centre of many conspiracy theories linking him to the killings, and his unpopularity only deepened when he sacked the government and embarked on a period of autocratic rule in early 2005.
Mass protests against Gyanendra's rule led to a landmark peace agreement in 2006 that culminated with the abolition of the monarchy late Wednesday.
Many ordinary Nepalese are delighted to see the back of the dour, unpopular king as well as his son and would-be heir, Paras -- notorious for his playboy lifestyle.
International reaction to the monarchy's demise has focused on how the new political landscape could benefit the poor nation.
While the United States is not yet prepared to strike the Maoists from its terrorist blacklists, Washington has since reversed its previous policy of not negotiating with the group's leaders.
Some 13,000 people were killed in the insurgency launched by the Maoists in 1996 to install a communist republic in the world's only Hindu kingdom.
Britain, Nepal's former colonial ruler, sent its congratulations after the assembly's first session.
Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown called it "another step toward the democratic and stable future that the people of Nepal justly deserve."
11:44 AM
WASHINGTON - England's enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates.
Dating of cremated remains shows burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, researchers said Thursday.
And those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, they said.
"It's now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages," said Mike Parker Pearson, archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield in England and head of the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project.
In the past many archaeologists had thought that burials at Stonehenge continued for only about a century, the researchers said.
"Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid third millennium B.C. The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge's sarsen stones phase is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument's use and demonstrates that it was still very much a domain of the dead," Parker Pearson said in a statement.
The researchers also excavated homes nearby at Durrington Walls, which they said appeared to be seasonal homes related to Stonehenge.
"It's a quite extraordinary settlement, we've never seen anything like it before," Parker Pearson said. The village appeared to be a land of the living and Stonehenge a land of the ancestors, he said.
There were at least 300 and perhaps as many as 1,000 homes in the village, he said. The small homes were occupied in midwinter and midsummer.
The village also included a circle of wooden pillars, which the researchers have named the Southern Circle. It is oriented toward the midwinter sunrise, the opposite of Stonehenge, which is oriented to the midsummer sunrise.
The research was supported by the National Geographic Society, which discusses Stonehenge in its June magazine and will feature the new burial data on National Geographic Channel on Sunday.
The researchers said the earliest cremation burial was a small group of bones and teeth found in pits called the Aubrey Holes and dated to 3030-2880 B.C., about the time with the first ditch-and-bank monument was being built.
Remains from the surrounding ditch included an adult dated to 2930-2870 B.C., and the most recent cremation, Parker Pearson said, comes from the ditch's northern side and was of a 25-year-old woman. It dated to 2570-2340 B.C., around the time the first arrangements of large sarsen stones appeared at Stonehenge.
According to Parker Pearson's team, this is the first time any of the cremation burials from Stonehenge have been radiocarbon dated. The burials dated by the group were excavated in the 1950s and have been kept at the nearby Salisbury Museum.
In the 1920s an additional 49 cremation burials were dug up at Stonehenge, but all were reburied because they were thought to be of no scientific value, the researchers said.
They estimate that up to 240 people were buried within Stonehenge, all as cremation deposits.
Team member Andrew Chamberlain suggested that that the cremation burials represent the natural deaths of a single elite family and its descendants, perhaps a ruling dynasty.
A clue to this, he said, is the small number of burials in Stonehenge's earliest phase, a number that grows larger in subsequent centuries, as offspring would have multiplied.
Parker Pearson added: "I don't think it was the common people getting buried at Stonehenge _ it was clearly a special place at that time. One has to assume anyone buried there had some good credentials."
The actual building and purpose of Stonehenge remain a mystery that has long drawn speculation from many sources.
And not all archaeologists agree with Parker Pearson's theory.
Indeed, the June issue of National Geographic Magazine quotes Mike Pitts, editor of the journal British Archaeology, as saying some details of the theory are problematic with gaps remaining to be filled. Uses of the landscape in the area for farming and grazing, for example, do not seem compatible with a ritualized place.
"The value of this interpretation is not just the idea of linking stones and ancestors, but that it works with the entire landscape," Pitts was quoted as saying.
10:14 AM
LIMA (AFP) - - Most of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" takes place in Peru, but many Peruvians are suffering heartburn after seeing the movie's many clumsy -- and often insulting -- mistakes about their country.
Viewers here cringed when the world's most famous fictional archaeologist arrives in Peru and announces that he learned to speak Quechua, the language of indigenous people across the Andes, when he was captured by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.
Villa and his revolutionaries raided the US town of Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 -- and in an episode of the 1990s TV show, "The Young Indiana Jones," the young Jones is kidnapped.
But Villa's men spoke Spanish, not Quechua, which is spoken by some 10 million people in places like Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
"This is outrageous," said Hugo Neyra, who heads Peru's National Library.
Neyra and others are also angry at seeing Maya warriors from Central America speaking Quechua in the Peruvian jungle, where hundreds of native languages, but not Quechua, are spoken.
The movie also shows quicksand, man-eating ants and enormous Hawaiian waterfalls, all of which do not exist in the Peruvian Amazonia.
In what is perhaps the biggest insult, director Steven Spielberg and writer George Lucas place the Maya pyramid of Chichen Itza, located in Mexico, in the Peruvian jungle.
Another mistake: the location of the Nazca lines -- which give clues to Jones in the movie -- created by the Nazca culture sometime between 200 BC and 700 AD.
Visible only from aircraft, the lines representing stylized animals are etched on a patch of coastal desert some 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of Lima -- and not next to the Incan capital of Cuzco, smack in the southern Peruvian Andes.
The Maya civilization thrived in southern Mexico and northern Central America between 250 and 900, while the Quechua-speaking Incas thrived across the Andes from 1200 to the 1533.
Historian Manuel Burga, the former head of the University of San Marcos, said that Spielberg and Lucas were given bad advice.
"Even if it is fiction there are many incorrect facts," Burga said. "This is going to be damaging to many people who do not know our country, because it shows a Peruvian landscape that is not real.
"It is not possible to mistake the Amazon region with the Yucatan jungle in Mexico."
Neyra said that many informed Americans and Europeans will realize that it is "an aberration" to mix Maya and Inca archaeology. "They know that Machu Picchu is in Cuzco, and that Chichen Itza is in Mexico," he said.
Historian Teodoro Hampe is scathing in his view of they way Americans view the geography of Latin America: "For them Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia or Peru are all the same."
10:12 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - US President George W. Bush's former chief spokesman charges in a harsh new book available Wednesday that the Iraq war was unnecessary and sold to the US public with a deceptive "propaganda campaign."
Released five months before November elections to decide Bush's successor, Scott McClellan's stunning memoir "What Happened" sent shockwaves through Washington and drew immediate and very personal attacks from former colleagues.
"As I have heard Bush say, only a wartime president is likely to achieve greatness," he writes in brutal book that Bush aides quickly branded a coarse betrayal. "In Iraq, Bush saw his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness."
But "war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary. Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake," McClellan, Bush's second of four press secretaries to date, says in the 341-page work.
The former aide writes that history and the US public seem to agree that the March 2003 invasion "was a serious strategic blunder" and accuses top Bush aides of sidelining inconvenient truths in their rush to sell the war.
The US president wanted to topple Saddam Hussein "primarily for the ambitious purpose of transforming the Middle East," but knew that the US public would never agree to send troops into harm's way for that purpose, he says.
So "the administration chose a different path -- not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth; downplaying the major reason for going to war and emphasizing a lesser motivation that could arguably be dealt with in other ways (such as intensified diplomatic pressure)," he said.
They pumped up the case for war with "innuendo and implication" while "quietly ignoring or disregarding" evidence against it.
The former spokesman also denounced the response to Hurricane Katrina and the outing of a covert CIA agent by top Bush aides, a scandal that embroiled McClellan and eventually led to his departure from the White House.
McClellan, a Texas native from a political family, went to work for Bush when the future president was the state's governor, was a spokesman for Bush's 2000 campaign, and served as deputy White House press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003, when he became the president's lead spokesman.
He resigned -- or was pushed out -- in April 2006 and left a month later, his credibility battered amid the scandal over the leak that Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a covert CIA agent.
McClellan accuses former top White House political strategist Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, once a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, of misleading him into publicly denying they played any role in the revelation.
Bush was also deceived, "but the top White House officials who knew the truth -- including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney -- allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie," says McClellan.
The usually cheerful former spokesman is equally savage regarding the White House's early "state of denial" in the face of the devastation from Katrina in August 2005 and the botched government response to the killer storm.
Current White House spokeswoman Dana Perino charged in a statement that McClellan, 40, had revealed himself as "disgruntled" and added, "It is sad -- this is not the Scott we knew."
The president "is puzzled, he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years, and disappointed," she added.
Former colleagues also circled the wagons in response to published accounts from the memoir.
Rove and former Bush homeland security adviser Frances Townsend charged in separate yet strikingly similar television interviews that McClellan had raised no objections to strategies he now assails and was not present at key meetings to shape those policies.
McClellan also denounces the US media as "complicit enablers" of the Iraq war and self-flagellates: "I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be."
"I still like and admire President Bush," he says.
"But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war," he says.
4:49 PM
LONDON (AFP) - - An international watchdog should be set up to urgently investigate child sex abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers, the Save the Children said on Tuesday.
The group said action was needed after its researchers unearthed what they called "widespread" evidence that children as young as six were being traded for food, money, soap and even mobile phones in war zones and disaster areas.
Save the Children's findings was based on work with hundreds of youngsters from Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, said the charity's chief executive Jasmine Whitbread.
"This research exposes the despicable actions of a small number of perpetrators who are sexually abusing some of the most vulnerable children in the world, the very children they are meant to protect," she added.
"It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children's rights."
The charity said "endemic failures" in responding to the abuse that was officially reported were letting down the abused, and better reporting mechanisms should be introduced.
Whitbread said the United Nations, the wider world as well as humanitarian and aid agencies have made important commitments to tackle the problem in recent years.
But most had failed to turn their promises into action, she added, calling for all agencies working in emergencies, including her own, to "own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on".
The reputation of UN peacekeepers has been tarnished in the past by cases of sexual abuse against women, notably in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Haiti.
In November last year, the UN said that more than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers were to be sent home over charges that they paid for sex while stationed in Haiti.
After turning a blind eye for decades to cases of abuse by its peacekeepers -- the world body recommended in 2005 that erring soldiers be punished, their salaries frozen and a fund set up to help any women or girls made pregnant.
The "zero tolerance" policy towards sexual misconduct includes a "non-fraternisation" rule barring them from sex with locals.
It was brought in after revelations in December 2004 that peacekeepers in DRC were involved in the sexual abuse of 13-year-old girls in exchange for eggs, milk or cash sums as low as one dollar.
3:11 PM
ALINGTON, Va., May 26, 2008 – Under sunny skies and before a multitude gathered at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Arlington National Cemetery here, President Bush today honored the sacrifices of American men and women in uniform who gave their lives in the service of their country.
Hundreds packed into the amphitheater near the tomb nestled among green, rolling hills dotted with white crosses and headstones. Some waved miniature flags, others donned patriotic garb. All came on this Memorial Day to pay tribute to servicemembers who have fought and died.
Just before his remarks, the president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
“Today, we gather to honor those who gave everything to preserve our way of life. The men and women we honor here served for liberty. They sacrificed for liberty. And in countless acts of courage, they died for liberty,” Bush said.
“From faraway lands, they were returned to cemeteries like this one, where broken hearts received their broken bodies -- they found peace beneath the white headstones in the land they fought to defend,” he said.
Bush said that the fresh headstones in the cemetery are a solemn reminder of the cost of freedom that is paid by those “who serve a cause greater than themselves.”
“Today we mourn and remember all who have given their lives in the line of duty. Today we lift up our hearts especially those who've fallen in the past year,” he said.
In his address, the president highlighted the service of Army Spc. Ronald Tucker of Fountain, Colo., and Chief Petty Officers Nathan Hardy of Durham, N.H., and Michael Koch of State College, Penn.
Bush called Tucker “a dutiful son who called his mother every day” from Iraq. Less than a month ago, Tucker and other members of his unit built a soccer field for Iraqi children. As he drove back to his base, he was killed by an enemy bomb.
Hardy and Koch were Navy SEALs and close friends who shared a battlefield tradition of going on missions with American flags underneath the shirts of their uniforms. They died in Iraq Feb. 4 after being ambushed by terrorists. Hardy and Koch are buried next to each other in Arlington National Cemetery.
“The men and women of American armed forces perform extraordinary acts of heroism every single day. Like the nation they serve, they do not glory in the devastation of war. They also do not flinch from combat when liberty and justice are embattled,” Bush said.
“We will forever honor their memories. We will forever search for their comrades …. And … we offer a solemn pledge to persevere and to provide the security for our citizens and secure the peace for which they fought,” he said.
Bush received two standing ovations during the speech. He got the he first one when he took the stage, and he got the second when he spoke about his feelings for those who serve in the military.
“On this Memorial Day, I stand before you as the commander-in-chief and try to tell you how proud I am at the sacrifice and service of the men and women who wear our uniform. They're an awesome bunch of people and the United States is blessed to have such citizens,” he said.
The president was introduced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who also made remarks. He said that those who died still remain near.
“We hold them to us, every day, and especially on this day.
We gather to remember,” Gates said.
Gates said the nation’s war dead come from every part of America and from every generation, and that we owed our liberty to those who have fought and died.
“We have our liberty because of what they did. Liberty has come to other peoples because of what they did, and are doing, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in other places around the world,” he said.
“Mourning the war dead calls forth many emotions: remorse that they suffered; awe at how they bore that suffering; pride in the fine people they were; gratitude for their willingness to be the guarantors of our freedom,” Gates said. “Their sacrifice is a reminder that we must go on, and be worthy of them, and finish their work.”
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also spoke briefly at the service. He called the freedoms earned by those who died precious but fragile.
“The precious gift of freedom they have given us is fragile and has to be safeguarded, worked for, fought for, and … even died for,” he said.
The chairman said every headstone in the cemetery represents a promise, a commitment, and a willingness of every one buried there to give their lives to preserve our way of life.
3:08 PM
As of Monday, May 26, 2008, at least 4,082 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,328 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is the same as than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Georgia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.
___
The latest deaths reported by the military:
_ A soldier was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in Salahuddin province.
___
The latest identifications reported by the military:
_ No identifications reported.
3:08 PM
SINGAPORE (AFP) - - Singapore has sacked the superintendent of a detention centre where an alleged extremist leader escaped through a toilet window, the interior minister said Monday, while his deputy has been demoted.
Two elite Nepalese Gurkha guards who had escorted Mas Selamat Kastari to the toilet were also demoted, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng told parliament.
Kastari, the alleged Singapore leader of the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), made his escape from Whitley Road Detention Centre on February 27 after asking for a break during a visit by family members.
His flight punctured Singapore's reputation for solid security and sparked the biggest manhunt in the country's history.
Kastari remains at large and is believed to have fled to neighbouring Indonesia, where other JI leaders are suspected to be based.
The superintendent and his deputy were the two most senior officers in charge of "ground management" at the centre, which is run by the Internal Security Department, Wong said.
The pair were "held accountable for the lack of supervision over the subordinate officers implicated, which resulted in lapses" that enabled Kastari to escape, the minister said.
A special duty operative, her supervisor, two other officers and the chief warder were also disciplined, Wong said.
An inquiry into the escape cited windows without grilles, surveillance cameras that were not working and a slow reaction from guards as likely contributing to Kastari's flight.
Kastari was accused of plotting to hijack a plane in order to crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport in 2001 but was never charged. He was being held in the city-state under a law that allows for detention without trial.
3:06 PM
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The government will ban people in foreign-registered vehicles from buying gasoline in border areas of Malaysia, where heavy subsidies have kept petroleum costs low despite soaring prices internationally.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Abdul Samad said a day earlier that the ban was aimed at keeping foreigners from driving into Malaysia from Thailand and Singapore to fill up on cheap gasoline and diesel, which cost up to twice as much in the neighboring countries.
The ban was "a stern act by the government to reduce the leak in subsidy," national news agency Bernama quoted Shahrir as saying. His aide, who declined to be named citing protocol, confirmed his comments Tuesday.
The fuel subsidies, which were expected to cost the government 45 billion ringgit (US$14 billion; �9 billion) this year, "should actually be enjoyed by the lower-income group in the country" and not foreigners, Shahrir said.
"This move is temporary until we come up with better management of our subsidy system," The Star daily quoted him as saying.
Shahrir said the ban could take effect as early as Friday at up to 300 stations within 30 miles (50 kilometers) of the borders with Thailand and Singapore.
Alang Zari Ishak, president of a local petroleum dealers association, said the ban may hurt tourism and relations with Malaysia's neighbors.
"It's a very harsh decision," he said. "There are other ways to curb this subsidy money being utilized."
Enforcement officers will monitor gasoline stations and signs will inform motorists of the new rule, Shahrir said. Those found breaking the rule could be fined or face up to three years in jail, said another official in Shahrir's ministry. He declined to be named, citing protocol.
Currently, foreign registered vehicles are allowed to buy only up to 5.3 gallons (20 liters), he said.
Although oil prices have soared globally, the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has not raised retail gasoline, diesel or gas prices.
3:05 PM
LONDON - Tributes poured in on Sunday for a teenage actor who was stabbed to death during a fight outside a pub that left three other men with serious knife wounds.
I Am: A Man A Woman Looking for: A Woman A Man Robert Knox, 18, was fatally wounded during the "large disturbance" outside the Metro Bar on Station Road, Sidcup, Kent, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Friends and relatives left bunches of flowers outside the bar, and a stream of messages were posted on social networking Web site Facebook and the International Movie Database Web site.
The teenager had a small part in the forthcoming film Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince.
His parents Sally and Colin Knox, of Maidstone Road, Sidcup, said in a statement: "Rob was kind and thoughtful and would always help out others -- he would always spend his last penny on other people instead of himself.
"The life and soul of the party, he was very outgoing, loved sports, and would always strike up a conversation with people.
"He was respectful to others and adored by all his family and friends. He was asset to the family."
Three of his friends also sustained serious injuries in the incident: a 21-year-old was stabbed in the neck, a 16-year-old in the chest and a third man, aged in his late teens or early 20s, sustained stab wounds to his hand.
The 21-year-old is still receiving hospital treatment, while the other two have been discharged.
A fifth man, 21, was taken to hospital suffering facial injuries. He was later discharged, and has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Scotland Yard said they did not believe the incident to be gang-related.
Knife crime has blighted London in recent months.
Earlier this month, a man was knifed to death on Oxford Street, one of the busiest shopping areas in the country, and 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen died after his throat was slashed after declining to become involved in a fight with a man in a bakery.
11:45 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - NASA's Phoenix spacecraft successfully landed on Mars' frigid north pole region in a risk-fraught mission to search for signs the planet could have supported life, the US space agency said.
"Phoenix has landed," a NASA official said as the safe touchdown was confirmed.
The Mars Phoenix Lander successfully deployed a parachute and then thrusters to brake in a tense seven minutes from 20,400 kilometers per hour (12,700 miles per hour) to manage a soft landing on its three legs.
Mission officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, were seen on television cheering and giving each other hugs and high-fives after signals sent back from the craft confirmed the arrival of the first spacecraft ever to land on the Martian arctic.
The 420-million-dollar spacecraft is designed to help scientists assess whether the Martian arctic has ever had conditions favorable to microbial life.
Given that Mars ' polar region is subject to Earth-like seasonal changes, the scientists are looking to see whether there is a point where the region warms and changes into a water-rich soil with organic, life-supporting minerals.
"Our whole mission is about digging," said Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator at the University of Arizona.
"We find that the arctic region is really sensitive to climate change on a planet ... it also preserves the history of life," Smith said.
"We think that organics must have existed at least at one time" from meteorite and other impacts, he said. The presence of liquid water and organics would signify a "habitable zone," he said.
Phoenix managed an almost perfect landing in a relatively rock-free, flat target area in the flat circumpolar region known as Vastitas Borealis -- akin to northern Canada in Earth's latitude, according to Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at JPL.
The team had been worried about the high risk of the project, with a roughly 50 percent failure rate on all Mars missions since the Russians launched the first one in 1960.
"Frankly, this was by far the hardest part," Goldstein said on NASA TV. "In my dreams it couldn't have gone as perfectly as it did tonight."
NASA will only know that the landing and deployment of Phoenix's equipment went well after pictures from the probe reach the Earth via NASA's Odyssey Mars orbiter, two hours after the landing.
The first pictures will be of the craft itself, to show NASA if all the equipment deployed in working order, and then, possibly shots of the surface.
Phoenix is equipped with a camera and a 2.35-meter (7.7-foot) robotic arm that can dig as deep as one meter to find ice, and can heat up samples to detect carbon and hydrogen molecules, essential elements of life.
It also has meteorological equipment to study the Mars atmosphere.
9:13 PM
OSLO (AFP) - - More than 150 workers were evacuated off an oil rig in Norwegian waters in the North Sea on Saturday after a leak was detected, the rig's operators said.
"With the worst case scenario in mind, in which there could be an explosion, we are taking the necessary security precautions," said Ole Morten Aanestad, a spokesman for Norwegian energy giant StatoilHydro.
Two helicopters had been used to evacuate 156 of the 217 people working on the Statfjord A platform, located some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the Norwegian coast, to nearby oil rigs, another company spokesman, Gisle Johanson, told AFP.
"We are keeping 61 people on board to try to stop the leak," he said.
Oil was still leaking inside a shaft in the rig where there was a danger of it slowly evaporating and creating gas that could cause an explosion if ignited.
"We definitely don't want oil in there, so we have begun pumping oil out into the sea," Aanestad told AFP, adding that clean-up crews were on their way to help remove the oil from the water.
"The volume (of leaked oil) is limited, so in that respect the situation is under control, but we have not managed to stop the leak inside the shaft ... It is of course serious when there is out-of-control petroleum on an oil platform," he said.
It remained unclear exactly how much oil had been pumped into the North Sea, he said.
A total of three rigs work in the Statfjord field, which produces 150,000 barrels of oil a day. Production from the affected rig had been suspended while the leak was dealt with.
Other rigs are also connected to Statfjord: around six million cubic meters of natural gas and between 470,000 and 480,000 barrels of oil transit the field every day, according to statistics provided by the Norwegian oil authorities.
The Statfjord A platform was last in trouble when more than 4,000 cubic metres of oil poured into the sea as it was being piped from the rig to a loading buoy last December, creating the second largest oil spill in Norway's history.
The Scandinavian country is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the third largest exporter of gas.
11:48 PM
THE HAGUE: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague in the Netherlands has awarded sovereignty over Pedra Branca island to Singapore, while the sovereignty of Middle Rocks has been awarded to Malaysia.
The world court delivered the judgement on Friday, after several rounds of written and oral pleadings by the two disputing countries. The ICJ last heard arguments from both sides in November 2007.
For Pedra Branca, ICJ’s 16—member bench voted 12—4 in favour of Singapore. Ownership of Middle Rocks, a maritime feature 0.6 nautical miles from Pedra Branca, was voted 15—1 to Malaysia.
As for the island’s other maritime feature, South Ledge, Awn Shawkat Al—Khasawneh, the Acting President of International Court of Justice, said: "The Court has not been mandated by the parties to draw the line of delimitation with respect to the territorial waters of Malaysia and Singapore in the area in question. In these circumstances, the court concludes that for the reasons explained above, sovereignty over South Ledge, as a low tide elevation, belongs to the State in the territorial waters of which it is located."
The verdict brings to a close a 28—year row between the two neighbours. The dispute arose in 1980 when Singapore protested against a new Malaysian map of its maritime boundaries, which claimed the islet for itself.
Years of bilateral talks failed to resolve the matter and the parties agreed to seek the intervention of the UN court.
Pedra Branca, which Malaysia calls Pulau Batu Puteh, is located some 24 nautical miles to the east of Singapore and it commands the entire eastern approach to the Singapore Strait, through which almost 900 ships pass daily.
Pedra Branca also houses the Horsburgh Lighthouse, the oldest feature on the island which was built by the British between 1847 and 1851.
Leaders from both Singapore and Malaysia had said they would accept the ICJ’s decision and stressed that whichever way it went, it would not affect bilateral ties.
A joint technical committee has been set up to implement the terms of the judgement.
Diplomat and Dean of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Barry Desker, said the judgement indicates that Southeast Asia is moving to accept the broader norms of international law.
He added that it augurs well for the dispute settlement mechanism of the ASEAN Charter and will set precedence for the way Singapore and Malaysia deal with their other outstanding bilateral issues.
Mr Desker said: "In the past, the tendency in ASEAN was to try and resolve issues purely by mediation or negotiations between two parties. The result was that issues or disputes between parties in the region tended to go on and on without completion, without successful negotiation.
"I think we are now moving in the direction of accepting a turn to international law — a willingness to accept international arbitration and this bodes well for issues in which there are bilateral differences."
Mr Desker also described the verdict as "win—win" for both sides because no party can claim it has won everything.
Moving forward, he said the technical committees of both countries will need to put into action the decision of the International Court of Justice. These include working out the necessary protocols to ensure the navigation safety of fishing vessels and pleasure crafts around Pedra Branca.
9:25 PM
KATHMANDU (AFP) - - A 48-year-old Nepalese Sherpa broke his own world record Thursday by conquering Mount Everest for a breathtaking eighteenth time.
Appa Sherpa, who hails from a village at the base of the world's highest peak, topped out in the early hours of the morning, the head of Nepal's Mountaineering Association told AFP.
"Appa Sherpa summitted Everest at 5:45 am (0000 GMT) this morning. He has set the new world record as it is the eighteenth time he has got to the top," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
"This is another proud moment for the whole mountaineering fraternity."
Appa Sherpa, known as one of Nepal's "Super Sherpas" -- hardened local climbers with almost superhuman stamina -- was among 37 climbers taking advantage of the good weather to reach the summit Thursday morning.
Twenty-seven others reached the peak Wednesday.
Appa's closest competition -- trailing at 15 ascents -- is 42-year-old Nepalese climber Chhewang Nima.
This spring's other aspiring recordbreakers include 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura of Japan and 77-year-old Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan, who are both vying to become the oldest person to conquer Everest.
Retired Japanese schoolteacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa, 71, set that record last year. The youngest climber was 15-year-old Nepalese Temba Chheri in 2001.
Appa Sherpa bagged his first Everest summit in 1990, and has been making the climb into the "death zone" look like child's play ever since.
The communities living around the mountain are essential for commercial expeditions.
They lay out kilometres of ropes and prepare camps, and Appa Sherpa -- who started climbing in 1987 -- was quickly recognised as someone who foreign expeditions wanted on their team.
This year he reached the summit with the Eco Everest expedition, an international team aiming to highlight the effects of global warming in the Himalayas as well as test ecologically sound mountaineering practices.
"He wasn't planning on trying for another summit, but he joined the Eco Everest expedition as he wanted to raise awareness about melting glaciers and the fragility of the mountain environment," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
Since it was first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) mountain has been conquered more than 3,000 times.
Last year 557 people -- 254 via Nepal and 303 via Tibet -- reached the highest point on earth, which was a record.
The numbers are expected to be lower this year because of a climbing ban Nepal imposed up to May 11 to allow a protest-free path for the Chinese Olympic torch, which was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.
2:40 PM
MOSCOW (AFP) - - Goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was Manchester United's hero as Sir Alex Ferguson's side claimed the club's third European Cup with a penalty shoot-out win over Chelsea on a night of almost unbearable drama in Moscow.
As many had predicted, the competition's first all-English final ended in penalties and ultimately it was van der Sar's full-length save from Nicolas Anelka that ensured United won the shoot-out 6-5 after the match had ended 1-1 after extra-time.
The triumph ensured ensured a season that has seen United mark the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster ended with both the Premier League and Champions League trophies back at Old Trafford.
Ferguson too believed that Fate had played a role in the win.
"There is a certain sense of fate about this (50 years after the Munich air disaster and winning it in 1968)," said Ferguson.
"It is the first penalty shootout in a big game I've won!"
England midfielder Frank Lampard claimed that the wrong side had won the trophy.
"A small small detail that loses you the game," said Lampard, who has had a tough time of late with his mother dying.
"John slipped for the penalty. No-one could deny that after 3Oth minutes we dominated the game. But we have to take it on the chin."
Chelsea had their chance to claim the trophy for the first time after Cristiano Ronaldo had had his effort saved by Petr Cech. But captain John Terry pushed his spot-kick - Chelsea's fifth - wide of the target.
It was hard on the London club, who could justifiably claim to have come closest to winning the match in the two hours that preceded the dramatic finale.
It was also debatable whether Terry would have taken a penalty had Didier Drogba not been sent off shortly before the end of extra-time for tapping Nemanja Vidic on the face as several players on either side squared up to each other.
United's early domination had yielded a deserved opener in the form of Ronaldo's 26th-minute header, the Portuguese winger's 42nd goal of an extraordinary season.
But after failing to take the chances that followed, Ferguson's men were pegged back by Lampard's equaliser on the stroke of half-time.
Chelsea went on to dominate after the break and almost claimed a winner when Drogba's 25-yard shot came back off the post with van der Sar beaten.
Chelsea struck the woodwork again in the opening period of extra-time, Lampard's cute shot on the turn bouncing off the bar with United's goalkeeper once more struggling.
Substitute Ryan Giggs then had a glorious chance to mark his record-breaking 759th appearance for United in style but the veteran winger never really connected with Patrice Evra's cutback and Terry was able to head the ball to safety.
With the exception of Park Ji-Sung's exclusion from United's match-day squad, there were no suprises in the personnel on display, although Ferguson did tweak United's usual shape.
Owen Hargreaves was deployed on the right side of midfield with Ronaldo in the left-sided role that Park had been tipped to fill.
With Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez alongside each other in attack, Ferguson also departed from the lone-striker policy that has served United well in getting to the final, notably in the semi-final win over Barcelona.
Michael Essien's relative inexperience at right-back may have influenced United's thinking and it was the Ghanaian's poor positioning that enabled United to take the lead.
From his own throw-in on the right, Wes Brown combined with Scholes to escape from Lampard and the rightback was allowed to drift infield before curling a cross to the back post. Ronaldo had peeled off Essien and, with the luxury of an unchallenged header, directed the ball just inside the post.
The goal every neutral and television director had hoped for had the desired effect of bringing the match to life.
Michael Ballack fired a chance to equalise over the bar and United enjoyed a greater let-off minutes later when only an instinctive reflex save from van der Sar prevented Rio Ferdinand from heading into his own net as Ballack strained to reach Drogba's knockdown.
United hit back with Rooney sending Ronaldo clear on the left. The winger's cross was met by Tevez with a diving header that Cech blocked at close range but could not hold.
Terry scuffed the loose ball into the path of Michael Carrick but by the time the midfielder had driven it goalwards, Cech was on his feet and able to palm a poorly directed drive to safety.
United went close again three minutes from the break. Rooney's low cross from the right was cleverly directed into the space between Cech and his centrebacks and Tevez got a boot to it at full stretch but the ball spun wide of the target.
As the half drew to a close it was Chelsea who were in the ascendant but they still required a generous slice of luck to claim their equaliser as a result of a long-range shot from Essien that looked unlikely to trouble van der Sar.
After deflecting off the boot of Vidic, the ball rebounded off Ferdinand's back to leave Lampard with the simple task of tapping in from six yards.
Chelsea continued to dominate after the break, forcing Ferguson to pull Hargreaves into the middle of midfield with Rooney dropping deep on the right.
Still Chelsea pressed and Drogba, largely anonymous until then, almost conjured up a winner with 12 minutes left, his 25-yard drive curling beyond van der Sar's dive and onto the post.
Five minutes later, United finally produced a second-half shot. Tevez's effort was close but not close enough to prevent the match slipping towards the conclusion many had regarded as inevitable.
2:39 PM
YANGON (AFP) - - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Myanmar on Thursday in a high-profile bid to convince the regime to welcome a major international relief operation three weeks after the cyclone disaster.
With around two million desperate survivors still facing dire shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine, the junta's isolationist leader Than Shwe has stunned the world with his refusal to accept a major aid effort.
He was to meet with Than Shwe on Friday in the regime's remote capital of Naypyidaw. Ban repeatedly failed to get the general to take his phone calls after the May 2-3 storm, which left at least 133,000 people dead or missing.
"Our focus is on saving lives," he said in Bangkok on the eve of his trip, aimed at winning a bigger role for the international community in the relief effort. "This is a critical moment for Myanmar."
The secretary general began his official programme by making an offering for the storm's victims at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest Buddhist shrine in Myanmar.
Keeping with tradition, he removed his shoes and socks as he walked around the site, offering flowers to a golden statue of Buddha and donating money for the catastrophe's survivors.
Ban also met Prime Minister Thein Sein in the main city Yangon before he was to set off to overfly some of the most devastated regions of the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the storm.
It is the first visit to Myanmar by a UN secretary general since 1964. The last trip was by U Thant, a Myanmar national, who led the world body when this country was still known as Burma.
Armed police lined the roads leading from the airport before Ban's arrival, while soldiers busied themselves cleaning the storm-damaged streets of Yangon.
The United Nations estimates that only 25 percent of those in need have been reached by international aid.
Although the United Nations has been critical of Myanmar's human rights record, Ban has insisted the aid effort should not be politicised.
The impoverished nation has accepted tonnes of donations from around the world, and has allowed US military planes to airlift supplies into the Yangon airport.
The regime this week also agreed to allow nine UN helicopters to work in remote regions hit by the storm, but still refuses to allow five US and French ships laden with relief supplies to enter the country.
Scores of medics from around Asia have been allowed to begin treating victims of the tragedy, but Myanmar has refused to issue visas to most disaster relief specialists, whose skills are needed to run a complex aid operation.
Ban said he wanted a logistics hub inside Myanmar, which has agreed to a joint mechanism between the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to coordinate the emergency effort.
Exactly how that mechanism would work remains unclear, but the United Nations and ASEAN are set to host a donor meeting Sunday in Yangon to raise money for the operation.
Despite the tragedy and the intense diplomatic manoeuvring, Myanmar's junta is pressing ahead with its own political agenda.
Just days after the storm, the regime held a first round of voting on a new constitution, which dissidents say will entrench military rule.
The regime now insists on holding a second round of voting in the referendum Saturday in towns and villages that were devastated by the cyclone.
The regime's main foe, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest, and her detention is expected to be extended by Monday.
Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy to a landslide victory in Myanmar's last national elections in 1990, but the regime has never recognised the result and instead has kept her locked up for more than a decade.
Her detention is a key reason for years of sanctions by the United States and European countries, which tightened their restrictions last year after Myanmar staged a deadly crackdown on anti-junta marches led by Buddhist monks.
3:23 PM
BEIJING (AFP) - - On a day when Deng Xiaoping's widow gave her entire life savings to China's earthquake relief, it didn't pass unnoticed here that sporting icon Yao Ming was a little less generous with his own donation.
I Am: A Man A Woman Looking for: A Woman A Man China's richest celebrity donated 500,000 yuan (70,000 dollars) to a relief fund, sparking fierce criticism on the Internet that it was too little from a basketball hero known for his charity work.
"A bit stingy isn't it?" one fan wrote.
The 7.9-magnitude quake in China's southwest Sichuan province likely killed some 50,000 people, according to government estimates, with the official toll already nearly 29,000 but countless thousands missing or believed buried under the rubble of devastated towns.
Yao, the 2.26-metre (seven-foot-six-inch) Houston Rockets centre, has been at the top of the Forbes magazine list of richest Chinese celebrities for the past five years.
Last year he earned some 55 million dollars from basketball and sponsorship activities.
His initial offer of 500,000 yuan triggered its own "earthquake of protest,' Maopu (www.mop.com), a top entertainment website, said.
Critics maintain that the donation was loose change to a man who makes more than that with one promotional photo shoot.
"If 500,000 dollars -- not to mention 500,000 yuan -- disappeared from his bank account, he wouldn't even notice," said one fan.
Internet criticism of Yao forced the basketball star to up his donation to 2,000,000 yuan later in the week, according to media reports.
Criticism of sporting heroes is unusual in China where they are often seen as national icons.
Yao is known for his charity work, raising more than a million dollars for under-privileged Chinese children last year and devoting time and energy toward helping stage the 2007 Special Olympics in his home city of Shanghai.
But some Chinese are not slow to attack Yao when it comes to money, accusing him of not giving enough of his enormous wealth back to his home country.
"He's been drinking milk and eating bread (like an American) for a while and he's forgotten where he comes," one posting said. "You are Chinese!"
Though supporters were outnumbered by critics, many people agreed with one commentator who said that contributions were a personal matter, and "whatever Yao gives is his business."
On Friday, China's state media reported that Zhuo Lin, 92-year-old widow of China's late leader Deng, had emptied her life savings totalling 100,000 yuan to give to earthquake victims.
It said she found it hard to sleep and eat after hearing of the tragedy.
State media have played up donations by leaders, business entrepreneurs and others, but donations by the poor have also caught the public eye.
A migrant worker, at the bottom rung of China's labour market, donated 600 yuan which amounted to his entire monthly salary.
"It might not seem like much, but when you consider it's his whole month's income he gave far more than Yao Ming," said one commentator.
10:14 PM
CHENGDU, China (AFP) - - A man who survived China's earthquake by drinking sweetened water through a straw was pulled from the rubble Tuesday after eight days, but hopes faded for others as the death toll topped 40,000.
With flags at half-mast on the second day of official mourning, tens of thousands of jittery residents in the major city of Chengdu ran for cover after authorities warned that more strong aftershocks could shake southwestern China.
Beijing also put out another urgent appeal for tents as foreign medical teams began to arrive on the scene to help care for the nearly 250,000 people injured in last Monday's earthquake, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale.
Despite the overwhelming odds against finding any more survivors under the rubble, rescue workers Tuesday saved a man, Ma Yuanjiang, who had been buried for an amazing 179 hours, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Workers spent more than 30 hours trying to dig the 31-year-old power plant executive out of the rubble of a destroyed building, during which they fed him sugary water through a straw, Xinhua said.
Ma was surprisingly able to speak, eat and drink small amounts as he was rushed to hospital treatment, but his left forearm had to be amputated, it said.
Another man, Peng Guohua, was saved Monday in a lime mine after he drank his own urine to survive, according to state press.
Such improbable survival stories have inspired many Chinese, who on Monday came to an unprecedented three-minute standstill to honour the victims of the earthquake.
But the number of rescues has tapered off, and the frantic pace of searching for survivors in the endless rubble has slowed, as the reality sets in that finding any more people alive after so long is almost impossible.
The government said on Tuesday that the death toll from the earthquake had risen to 40,075. A cabinet spokesman said hours earlier the number of dead and missing was nearly 66,000.
Across southwestern China, tens of thousands of residents ran for safety early Tuesday on fears of another earthquake, carrying bedding, chairs, clothes and other possessions.
Giant traffic jams formed in Chengdu , the capital of Sichuan province with a population of over 11 million people, as drivers headed toward the suburbs or the city's open spaces such as parks, construction sites and stadiums.
"Anyone who says he is not afraid is just kidding," said Zhu Yuejin, a 23-year-old saleswoman who spent the night in a car.
A warning on the Sichuan government website, quoting seismological authorities, said that a strong aftershock of 6.0 to 7.0 magnitude would strike the same area ravaged by last week's massive tremor.
But Du Jianguo, a Beijing-based researcher with China's Institute of Earthquake Science, said it was impossible to predict aftershocks so accurately.
"I don't know who made such a forecast, but personally I don't believe it," he told AFP.
Fuelling fears among the superstitious, residents of the southern city of Zunyi reported a massive migration of frogs and toads, which also covered Sichuan towns days before the May 12 earthquake, according to state media.
China has been hit by more than 150 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or higher on the Richter scale since the initial tremor, including one overnight that measured 5.0.
That tremor appeared to cause further damage in the quake zone, which spans across 100,000 square kilometres (40,000 square miles) of mountainous Sichuan, an area roughly three times the size of Belgium.
In Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas, cranes that were being used for rescue work the previous day were tipped on their side, according to an AFP reporter there.
The warning of the powerful aftershock set off nerves on China's stock markets , contributing to a nearly 4.5 percent drop in share prices, dealers said.
China has seen a wave of sympathy over the earthquake, but international criticism started to build over China's decision to let in foreign rescuers only three days after the earthquake.
"There was a delay in the decision-making. It would have been better if the decision was quicker," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in Tokyo.
The Japanese team, the first official foreign team on the scene, were heading home without finding any survivors, although another Japanese unit left Tuesday to provide medical relief.
Huang Qiong, a Chinese surgeon who has completed 100 operations since the earthquake, told the state-run China Daily that she had to stop herself crying as she worked.
"But when I go back home and lie down on my bed, I just cannot help shedding tears," she said.
8:25 PM
JAKARTA, Indonesia: A powerful 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook the western coast of Indonesia's North Sumatra province on Monday, the meteorology office said.
The quake struck at 9:26 pm (1426 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometres in a mountainous area 35 kilometres northeast of Padang Sidempuan, meteorologists said.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
A resident of Padang Sidempuan, Pardomuan Bangun, contacted by telephone, said that the quake was strongly felt in town, causing people to rush out of buildings in panic, some shouting.
"But so far I have not seen or heard of any serious damage or victims," Bangun said.
The US Geological Survey clocked the quake at 5.9 magnitude.
Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the quake-triggered Asian tsunami in December 2004, which killed 168,000 people in the country's Aceh province alone.
The Indonesian archipelago sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire where continental plates meet and cause frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
7:32 PM
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7:37 PM
YANGON (AFP) - - Even after the twin catastrophes of the cyclone here and the earthquake in China, the outlook for Myanmar, and the rest of Asia, is not good for the remainder of this year, Yangon's revered astrologers agree.
Across from Yangon's golden Shwedagon Pagoda, Khin Myint Myat sits under her newly repaired roof and sketches a star chart that she says explains both the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China.
"This is the year with the combination of three bad factors -- the dangerous planet Mars, the dark planet Kotu, and the watery side," she said, drawing a diagram of the stars while thumbing through an astrology book.
"There will be another wave of natural disasters -- either powerful storms or devastating earthquakes -- in the region again before the end of this year," Khin Myint Myat said, amid the din of hammers working to repair the home next door.
Khin Myint Myat's own roof was blown off when Cyclone Nargis ripped through Myanmar on May 2 and 3, but she retrieved the tin sheets and hammered them back on.
Less fortunate victims of the storm have been trekking to visit astrologers like her in the desperate hope of learning the fate of loved ones who were swept away in the storm, which left more than 66,000 dead or missing.
Numerology plays an important role in the daily life of this devoutly Buddhist country, where people turn to astrologers to determine the most auspicious times for weddings, travelling or making business deals.
Faced with the incomprehensible destruction of the cyclone, many people are now turning to astrologers to help start rebuilding their lives.
In the town of Hmawby, north of Yangon, 70-year-old astrologer Min Theinkha receives at least 200 visitors a day at his "Full of Blessings" compound, including many who made the long journey from the hardest-hit regions of the Irrawaddy Delta.
Min Theinkha has little comfort to offer them. He says the cyclone was part of the universe's karmic balance, a tragedy written into the nation's fate.
"Disasters are unavoidable in astrology. All we can do is pray for the victims," he said.
"Disasters like this can happen when numbers in the year add up to 10," he said, adding that after 2008, the next dangerous year is 2017.
"There could be another storm this year, but it will not be a big disaster like this," Min Theinkha said.
In Myanmar, years ending with an eight are particularly significant.
In the year 888, ancient Burmese texts say that three kings died, ushering in a 20-year reign by a tyrant despised by the people for executing a group of Buddhist monks.
Thailand-based Myanmar analyst Aung Naing Oo says many inside the country believe this ancient history has parallels with the current political crisis.
Myanmar's previous dictator Ne Win was toppled during a pro-democracy uprising that began on August 8, 1988 -- a date now remembered as 8-8-88.
The ruling junta, including the current leader Than Shwe, seized power during the bloody unrest that followed.
Last September, Buddhist monks led new anti-government marches, which were again suppressed by the military as security forces fired on and beat the protesters.
The historical similarities have raised cosmic concerns of new turmoil as August 8 approaches this year.
"The year 888 symbolises the death of kings, the installation of bad kings," Aung Naing Oo said. "Than Shwe has been in power for about 20 years now, he has killed monks, he has been a bad king."
Buddhist teaching lays out 10 rules for monarchs, including values such as compassion and impartiality, he said.
"When a natural disaster like Cyclone Nargis hits Burma, or when there's an outbreak of disease, the Burmese blame it on the rulers," he said, referring to Myanmar by its previous name.
"People always say the king or the rulers have not adhered to their principles of governance."
7:37 PM
YANGON (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will travel to Myanmar this week to try to speed up troubled cyclone relief, his spokeswoman said on Sunday, as signs mounted of a breakthrough in getting aid to survivors.
Ban's spokeswoman Michele Montas also said she expected there would be an international conference in Bangkok on May 24 to marshal funds for the relief effort in the former Burma.
Ban should arrive in the military-ruled Southeast Asian country on Wednesday evening and travel to the Irrawaddy delta, the area hit hardest by Cyclone Nargis on May 2, she said.
"The objective of the trip is to dramatically accelerate the flow of disaster relief," Montas said.
Britain's Asia minister, Mark Malloch-Brown, said a turning point could be near on a framework to accelerate international aid to up to 2.5 million desperate survivors of the cyclone that left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
"But, like all turning points in Burma, the corner will have a few 'S' bends in it," Malloch-Brown told Reuters.
Than Shwe, the reclusive leader of junta, made a public appearance on Sunday for the first time since the disaster.
Ban hoped to meet senior members of Myanmar's government, Montas said, but she could not immediately say whether Than Shwe would be one of them. The general has refused to talk to Ban by telephone since the cyclone.
Aid has been trickling in but the junta, suspicious of the outside world, has been reluctant to admit major foreign relief operations and the workers to run them.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had managed to get rice and beans to 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need.
DEATH TOLL COULD RISE
State television showed Than Shwe meeting in Yangon with ministers involved in the rescue effort and touring some cyclone-hit areas in the immediate vicinity.
The junta, which has ruled Myanmar in various incarnations for 46 years, moved the capital to Naypyidaw, 400 km (250 miles) north from Yangon, the former Rangoon, in 2005. Than Shwe has rarely been seen in public since.
The United Nations' chief humanitarian officer, John Holmes, arrived in Yangon on Sunday night and was expected to deliver a message from Ban to the generals.
Ban previously proposed a "high-level pledging conference" to deal with the crisis, as well as having a joint coordinator from the United Nations and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to oversee aid delivery.
Analysts speculated Than Shwe's appearance in Yangon meant he was likely to meet Holmes or possibly Ban.
Thousands of children could die within weeks if food does not get to them soon, the aid organization Save the Children said on Sunday. Malloch-Brown said the United Nations estimated that help had reached less than 25 percent of those in need.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded the human toll of Nargis -- a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighboring Bangladesh and another that killed 143,000 people in 1991, also in Bangladesh.
If Myanmar's junta does not open its doors to a large-scale aid operation like the one after the Asian tsunami in December 2004, disaster experts say the death toll from Nargis could climb dramatically.
At least 232,000 people were killed when the tsunami struck nations bordering the Indian Ocean.
Malloch-Brown, who came to Yangon after visiting some ASEAN members, said the Asian/U.N.-led process had already begun.
Asian nations considered friendly by Myanmar were sending in aid teams and an ASEAN assessment team was on the ground, he said. That team is due to report to a meeting of foreign ministers from ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, in Singapore on Monday.
Other countries would make their contributions through this channel, Malloch-Brown said.
Despite his optimism about a possible breakthrough, he said that, because of the junta's suspicions, operations were still unlikely to involve numbers of foreign aid workers comparable to other recent disasters in Asia.
7:36 PM
JIANGYOU, China (AFP) - - China on Sunday declared three days of mourning and suspended the Olympic torch relay nearly a week after a massive quake struck the country's southwest, as the death toll continued to mount.
The announcements came after a powerful aftershock rattled devastated Sichuan province, killing at least three people and hampering China's efforts to help nearly five million homeless facing the threats of disease and floods.
From Monday, the government ordered the national flag to fly at half-mast for three days and called for three minutes of silence nationwide at 2:28 pm (0628 GMT) Monday, exactly one week after the massive quake struck.
During the period of national mourning, the Olympic torch relay -- eagerly awaited across China -- has been suspended, organisers of the Beijing summer Games announced.
Authorities on Sunday raised the number of confirmed deaths to 32,476 from the quake and revised upward the strength of the quake to 8.0 on the Richter scale. The US Geological Survey has put its strength at a magnitude of 7.9.
Sunday's aftershock, with a magnitude of 6.0, shook some of the worst-hit parts of Sichuan, killing at least three people in the town of Jiangyou, local government official Liao Boxun told AFP by phone.
People in the town, which was dotted with thousands of blue tents for quake homeless, said the aftershock had spread new fears among a population already traumatised.
"When the aftershock hit, mothers hugged their crying children and tried to comfort them, telling them everything would be OK," Dai Yong, who works in Jiangyou, told AFP.
The region has suffered at least 24 aftershocks of 5.0 or above on the Richter scale since Monday's quake, amid all-out efforts to rescue more than 9,500 people still buried under the rubble of collapsed structures.
Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday urged scientists at the China Seismological Bureau to improve research on earthquakes and develop better warning systems, the Xinhua state news agency said.
Two more people were pulled to safety after improbably surviving six days under the chunks of concrete and other debris, but the pace of such miracle rescues slowed markedly.
Officials have estimated the final death toll could eventually top 50,000.
In a bid to help quake survivors, two US military planes packed with food, power generators and other goods flew into Sichuan province, the first aid that China has accepted from foreign armed forces.
Rescue experts from Japan, Russia, Singapore and South Korea, as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong, have been allowed in to help the effort.
Rain also compounded the misery for many of the estimated 4.8 million who have been left without homes.
Tens of thousands of people huddled in appalling conditions in the town of Maoxian under leaky makeshift rain covers, in dire need of food, medicine and shelter, the Sichuan News Online site reported.
"The people have gone from one disaster to another," the report said.
Flood fears also persisted, with the Sichuan government saying landslides triggered by Monday's earthquake had blocked rivers and streams in at least 21 places, causing water levels to swell dangerously behind the rubble.
China had already on Saturday evacuated thousands of people in devastated areas near the quake epicentre due to one such blocked river.
Worse is possibly to come, with China's national meteorological centre predicting torrential rains later this week in the quake disaster zone, warning they could trigger landslides.
The World Health Organisation said Saturday that the lack of safe drinking water or proper waste disposal along with cramped conditions in makeshift camps was "conducive" to disease outbreaks.
The military, however, said that nuclear facilities in the region had been checked for signs of any damage and were confirmed safe.
Relief workers by Saturday had finally restored land connections with the worst-hit counties of Beichuan and Wenchuan, allowing the full horror of the quake to begin to emerge.
Luo Hong, a 22-year-old woman who sells beer, learned that her 55-year-old father, Luo Zaiping, was killed at the coal mine where he worked.
"He worked hard his entire life. Originally he wasn't supposed to work Monday and then this happened," she said.
Xinhua reported that five employees were killed and at least three pandas were missing at the world-renowned Wolong panda breeding centre, which was heavily damaged.
The news appeared to contradict early reports that more than 80 giant pandas at the centre were confirmed safe.
12:00 PM
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border on Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats.
The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
The junta flew 60 diplomats and U.N. officials in helicopters to three places in the Irrawaddy delta where camps, aid and survivors were put on display. The diplomats were not swayed.
"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see."
The relief group Save the Children UK warned that thousands of children could die of starvation within two or three weeks unless more aid gets into the country quickly.
"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid many of these children will not survive much longer," the charity said in a statement. "Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food."
Meanwhile, a French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water was given the now familiar red light, a response that France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called "nonsense."
"We have small boats which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said a day earlier at U.N. headquarters. "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."
The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well. U.S. Marine flights from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday — bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered — but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.
Britain's prime minister accused authorities in Myanmar of behaving inhumanely by preventing foreign aid from reaching victims, and said the country's regime cares more about its own survival than the welfare of its people.
"This is inhuman," Gordon Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. in his strongest criticism yet of Myanmar's authoritarian government.
Brown said a natural disaster "is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do."
Britain's Ministry of Defense said it had dispatched a Royal Navy frigate to the area "as a contingency." The HMS Westminster broke away from an exercise with the French and Indian navies, a ministry spokesman said, speaking anonymously in line with military policy.
The spokesman said the ship carried a crew of 98 and was equipped with a communications facility, a Merlin helicopter, two sea boats, a doctor and a paramedic. The spokesman added that crew members are all trained in disaster relief.
Myanmar's media, which has repeatedly broadcast footage of generals reassuring refugees calmly sitting in clean tents, announced Friday that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis had nearly doubled to 78,000 with about 56,000 missing.
Aid groups say even those estimates are low.
According to the international Red Cross, the death toll alone is probably about 128,000, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation unless help gets quickly to some 2.5 million survivors of the disaster.
But seeing that help gets to the victims is not the first priority of Myanmar's rulers. The military, which took power in a 1962 coup, says all aid must be delivered to the government for distribution and has barred foreigners from leaving Yangon, putting up a security cordon around the country's main city.
Myanmar has been slightly more open to aid from its neighbors.
It has accepted Thai and Indian medical teams, which arrived in Yangon on Saturday. The 32-member Thai team was expected to travel to the delta in the coming days, said Dr. Surachet Satitniramai, director of Thailand's National Medical Emergency Services Institute.
The Indian team consists of 50 doctors and paramedics from the Army Medical Corp., said Indian Air Force spokesman Wing Cmdr. Manish Gandhi. He could not immediately say if they will be allowed to go to the delta.
With the monsoon season coming, Myanmar was bracing for a long haul ahead.
Though patches of hot sun broke through Saturday, heavy rains since the cyclone have hampered relief efforts. Despite the overabundance of water in the flooded delta, shortages of water that is fresh enough to drink grew more severe by the day.
Access to regular supplies of safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for preventing waterborne diseases like cholera. Malaria and dengue fever outbreaks also will be a major concern in the coming weeks after mosquitoes have time to breed in the stagnant water.
In one town, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts awaiting food and water. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious supplies, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share.
They were among the lucky ones — aid was actually coming.
"The further you go, the worse the situation," said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of the country's largest city, Yangon, helping a locally organized relief effort there.
"Near Yangon, people are getting a lot of help and it's still bad," said the doctor, who refused to give her name for fear of being punished by the regime. "In the remote delta villages, we don't even want to imagine."
11:59 AM
DONGHEKOU, China - Two rivers blocked by landslides threatened to flood towns shattered by China's massive earthquake, sending thousands of survivors fleeing Saturday in a region still staggering from the country's worst disaster in 30 years.
A mountain sheared off by the mighty tremor cut the Qingzhu river and swallowed the riverside village of Donghekou whole, entombing an unknown number of people inside a huge mound of brown earth.
Compounding the horror for survivors, a lake rising behind the wall of debris threatens to break its banks and send torrents cascading into villages downstream.
Pannicky residents streamed out of the entire county on the northern edge of the quake zone, spurred on by mobile phone text messages sent en masse by local government officials warning that the water level was rising and people downstream were being evacuated.
In the town of Beichuan, 60 miles to the south, thousands fled as the reports circulated.
Rescue work resumed later in the day and experts were monitoring the river above Beichuan, the People's Daily newspaper said on its web site. The swift exodus underscored the jitters running through the disaster zone. A strong aftershock — the second in two days and measured by the U.S. Geological Survey at magnitude 5.7 — shook the area early Sunday for 45 seconds, causing people to run into the streets.
In all the devastation wrought by the quake, little looks as bleak as Donghekou.
The road to the village ends in a tangled twist of metal and tar. In the small valley below, the village itself has disappeared when the mountain collapsed. Locals said two other villages further upstream, Ciban and Kangle, had suffered the same fate. The three villages were home to about 300 families, locals said.
Eerie and still, the remaining landscape has few signs of human life — a soiled green floral scarf, a rubber pipe, a log.
"Oh God! I have lost everything," said Wen Xiaoying, 32, whose voice shook as she surveyed the valley below for the first time since returning from far-off Guangdong province where she worked.
She held up one hand as she ticked off the family members that died — her father, her mother, her sister and her brother-in-law — all of them buried somewhere in the muck before her.
"When I saw them the last time, we celebrated together," said Wen, a glimmer of a smile showing through as she remembered happier days. "I didn't expect it would be the last time I saw them."
Su Ciyao trudged over the bend in plastic slippers, carrying a plastic rice bag stuffed with salvaged clothes.
"My village is over there," the 44-year-old said, gesturing to the swollen earth behind him. Asked where his family was, he could only shake his head.
"Only me," he said, and then set off without a backward glance.
Drizzling rain in the valley added to the gloom, and to the fear of carloads of people who clogged the twisting mountain roads as they streamed out of the region.
The government's daily update added another few thousand bodies to the death toll as it continued climbing toward an expected final tally of at least 50,000. Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin said 28,881 deaths have been confirmed so far.
The official Xinhua News Agency, citing regional officials, said more than 10,600 people were known to be still buried almost one week after the 7.9 magnitude quake hit, shattering thousands of buildings in dozens of towns and cities in Sichuan province.
The number of security forces helping victims rose to almost 150,000, and the government added cash payments to victims to its response.
The government would give $715 in compensation to each family that lost a member in the earthquake, China National Radio reported Saturday on its web site. At a State Council meeting hosted by Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, the government also decided it would also hand out a daily ration of food and $1.40 to survivors, the report said.
Almost a week after the quake struck, rescues were still occurring.
Rescuers pulled at least seven more survivors from collapsed buildings, the last a man saved after 128 hours. Both of his legs had to be amputated. Another, 20-year-old highway worker Jiang Yuhang was pulled free shortly after his mother arrived from a neighboring province.
"I was expecting to see my son's body. I never expected to see him alive," his mother, Long Jinyu, said on state television.
Experts say buried earthquake survivors can last a week or more, depending on factors including the temperature and whether they have water to drink, but that the chances of survival diminish rapidly after the first 24 hours.
Rescue teams from Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Russia worked alongside Chinese troops, and more international aid was arriving, including a U.S. Air Force cargo plane loaded with tents, lanterns and 15,000 meals.
9:48 PM
SHIFANG, China (AFP) - - China ramped up efforts on Saturday to stave off disease for millions of earthquake victims, as more miracle rescues amid the rubble offered hope in an increasingly desperate battle to save lives.
Five days after the enormous earthquake that the government estimates killed more than 50,000 people, there were rising concerns over potential disease outbreaks among the nearly five million survivors who have lost their homes.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the 7.9-magnitude quake continued to climb as authorities cleared their way through pulverised towns and gained better access to isolated areas -- gaining a better picture of the full scale of the horror.
The government raised the confirmed death toll by more than 6,000 to 28,881. But many expect the eventual figure could surpass even the government's estimate of over 50,000.
Entire towns in mountainous Sichuan province were flattened in Monday's quake, with the main zone of destruction spreading across 100,000 square kilometres (40,000 square miles) -- an area three times the size of Belgium.
The tremor, which could be felt as far away as Bangkok, saw mountainsides in Sichuan sheared off, roads split in two, and countless thousands of buildings toppled or in danger of collapse.
Since the quake, the most pressing priority has been to rescue those trapped amid the mass of twisted metal and concrete, and three more people, including a German tourist, were pulled out of the rubble on Saturday.
In Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas, a 69-year-old man was hauled out of the rubble after 119 hours, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, marking the longest time that a person is known to have survived in the debris.
Five hours earlier, 20 Chinese soldiers pulled out the German tourist from the wreckage of a building in a remote village that was just a few kilometres from the quake's epicentre, according to Xinhua, which did not identify him.
The miracle rescues on Saturday defied the warnings of experts that chances of survival were extremely small after 72 hours, and showed the determined statements from China's leaders and rescue workers had foundation.
"Giving up is excluded from our dictionary," the Xinhua quoted one rescue worker as saying.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who state media reported was personally leading rescue efforts, earlier said: "Where there is a beam of hope, we will spare no efforts to save the trapped."
China initially rebuffed offers of help from foreign rescue experts, but teams from Japan, Russia, Singapore and South Korea have now all begun operating in the disaster zone.
Teams have also headed in from Taiwan -- which China considers to be part of its territory -- and Hong Kong.
The international experts have brought in sniffer dogs, fibre-optic scopes, life detector systems and hydraulic cutters and spreaders.
As the rescue effort pressed on, other authorities focused on supplying fresh drinking water and improving sanitary conditions for the 4.8 million people who lost their homes and are living in tent cities or in the open.
Chian's health ministry said supplying clean water to the survivors was vital if the disease outbreaks were to be prevented.
Huge water purification machines capable of providing for up to 10,000 people a day were being taken into some of the most remote areas of Sichuan province, while authorities were frantically distributing portable toilets.
In Shifang city, where more than 2,500 people have been confirmed killed and thousands more remain missing, leaflets were being given to the shell-shocked, homeless survivors advising on hygiene and how to prevent disease.
In Dujiangyan city, hundreds of people living in tents had access to just one toilet.
"That toilet is too crowded, so maybe some people are going outside," said one woman who did not want her name to be used.
Amid the grief and shock, there was also increasing anger at how towns and cities could be felled in a matter of minutes.
The government said close to 7,000 schools -- a disproportionately high number of buildings -- were destroyed in Sichuan by the quake, which struck in the afternoon when many children were in class or taking their daily naps.
"Look at the building materials they used," said one resident in the rural community of Juyuan where the four-storey middle school was destroyed, blaming poor workmanship for the collapse.
"The cement wasn't mixed with water in the right proportion. There are not enough steel beams." Up to 900 children were killed at the school, while nearby buildings remained standing.
8:48 PM
YANGON (AFP) - - Myanmar's ruling junta lashed out at foreign aid donors Friday, saying cyclone victims did not need supplies of "chocolate bars" and could instead survive by eating frogs and fish.
The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a government mouthpiece, also warned that foreign relief workers could snoop inside homes, and condemned donors for linking aid money to full access to the hardest-hit regions in the Irrawaddy Delta.
The tirade came as the junta tightened its political grip on the country, extending democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and announcing that its new constitution has been enacted.
The regime says the charter will pave the way for democratic elections in two years, but dissidents say it will enshrine military rule in a country ruled by generals since 1962.
Despite the harsh statements in official media, aid agencies say they have had some success in receiving visas and securing access to the delta, which suffered the brunt of the May 2-3 storm that left 133,000 dead or missing.
An assessment team from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was set to arrive in Yangon on Friday to determine how best to help the 2.4 million survivors in desperate need of food, shelter and medicine.
But the UN's disaster response arm OCHA said access remained patchy, especially for private charities.
"Sometimes there are hindrances, sometimes not," Terje Skavdal, OCHA's regional director, told a press conference. "Some of the larger NGOs seem to have a problem, but it's not a clear picture."
After several days of praising the work of the United Nations and charities, the regime's official newspaper renewed its attacks on foreign aid and insisted Myanmar could survive without outside help.
"The government and the people are like parents and children," the paper said. "We, all the people, were pleased with the efforts of the government."
The paper said that granting free access for aid workers in the delta means donors "are to be given permission to inspect all the houses thoroughly at will."
Myanmar needs 11 billion dollars to recover from the storm, but donors have pledged just 150 million dollars so far, it said.
"Myanmar people are capable enough of rising from such natural disasters even if they are not provided with international assistance," the newspaper said.
"Myanmar people can easily get fish for dishes by just fishing in the fields and ditches," the paper said. "In the early monsoon, large edible frogs are abundant."
"The people (of the Irrawaddy delta) can survive with self-reliant efforts even if they are not given chocolate bars from (the) international community," it added.
No aid agencies are known to have provided chocolate bars to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which struck the impoverished country four weeks ago.
The UN's World Food Programme gives rice, beans and high-energy biscuits designed to provide nutrition to people without regular food supplies.
The United Nations estimates that about one million people in the delta are still without emergency aid.
The military regime drew international outrage for three weeks of delays in allowing foreign aid workers access to the delta region, although the United Nations said Thursday that all of its staff had now been granted visas.
The official newspaper also took a swipe at a world monetary organisation for refusing to give aid -- apparently a reference to the World Bank, which has said no loans could be given because Myanmar has not been repaying its debts.
It also criticised countries for maintaining sanctions on the regime despite the cyclone devastation.
"Do such countries really have humanitarian spirit?" the paper said.
It was apparently referring to the United States, which renewed sanctions on the regime two weeks after the storm, accusing the military junta of suppressing the pro-democracy movement.
The United States has insisted the sanctions will not affect humanitarian aid, which US military planes have helped deliver into the country.
5:46 PM
MIAMI (AFP) - - The Miami-based National Hurricane Center on Thursday forecast an especially active 2008 weather season, saying there could be up to nine hurricanes and 12 tropical storms in the Atlantic region.
The meteorologists forecast that during the hurricane season -- which officially starts Sunday and runs through the end of November -- there will be between six and 12 tropical storms powerful enough to be named, and between six and nine hurricanes.
Of those, five could reach destructive levels, meaning hurricanes of Category Three or above on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, with Category Five being the most destructive.
The Hurricane Center collects information on hurricanes from different sources, including special "hurricane hunter" aircraft equipped with high-tech instruments that fly over the hurricane collecting data.
The chance of being struck by a hurricane in places like Florida triggers an immense public information awareness campaign each year, with authorities urging citizens to strengthen their homes, purchase emergency kits and learn about regional evacuation plans. There is even a training program on how to save pets in case of an emergency.
Experts say most people living in hurricane-prone areas of the US coastline are ill-prepared for a disaster.
"The day something bad happens isn't the day to start preparing for it," said Mark Brennan, a sociologist with University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Brennan called on authorities to train volunteers to work in areas that could be hit by hurricanes. "There are still plenty of volunteer gaps that need to be filled," he said.
The most hurricane-prone US region is the southeastern coastline, running from the states of North Carolina to Texas. The region is home to some 35 million people, according to the US Census Bureau.
Despite the risks, during the last half century more than 25 million people moved to these areas, with the majority -- 15 million -- living in Florida, according to Census Bureau figures.
In early April a University of Colorado team led by William Gray, who has been in the hurricane predicting business for 25 years, forecast that there would be 15 tropical storms during the season, eight of which will hit hurricane strength and four of which would be major.
"Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the US coastline is 69 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent," said Phil Klotzbach, a scientist on Gray's team.
Klotzbach predicted a "very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 seasons."
In 2004 and 2005 hurricanes Frances, Jeanna and Katrina ripped through the Caribbean and hit the US coast, leaving a trail of destruction and death in its path.
The 2007 season was milder than had been forecast, but was still devastating.
Two hurricanes with top wind speeds of more than 249 kilometers (150 miles) an hour hit. In August Hurricane Dean killed at least 29 people as it tore through the Caribbean and parts of Mexico, and a month later Hurricane Felix left 150 people dead and major devastation as it slammed Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.
Warmer seas accounted for 40 percent of a dramatic surge in hurricanes from the mid-1990s, according to a study released in January by the British journal Nature.
Some of the 21 names that would be used for tropical storms this year include Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Gustav, Ike, Laura, Nana, Paloma, Rene, Teddy and Vicky.
11:49 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - The US Army said 115 soldiers on active duty committed suicide in 2007, the most in one year since the service began keeping records in 1980. Nearly a thousand soldiers attempted suicide.
The spike came in a year that saw the highest US casualties in Iraq and increased levels of violence in Afghanistan, but officials said the trend has continued into 2008.
Barack Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, called it "a tragic reminder of the staggering and ongoing costs of the Iraq war, particularly on our troops and their families."
Army officials acknowledged that long and repeated combat deployments were a major source of stress in soldiers' lives, but they found no direct relationship between increased conflict and suicides.
"In terms of this current conflict we see a lot of things going on in the war which do contribute," said Colonel Elspeth Ritchie.
"Mainly it is the long time and multiple deployments away from home, the exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things, the easy availability of loaded weapons, and, of course, it's very, very busy right now," she said.
In a report, the army said the 115 confirmed suicides raised the suicide rate to 18.8 percent per thousand for the active duty army in 2007, or 16.6 percent if based on a larger pool that includes reservists on active duty.
The suicide rate among active service members was 17.3 per 100,000 in 2006, compared to 12.8 in 2005 and 10.8 in 2004. In 2001 the rate was 9.8 per 100,000.
The suicide rate for the US population, adjusted for the age group and gender, is 19.5 percent.
"It's the highest number since the army has been keeping records," Colonel Thomas Languirand said of the suicides in 2007.
So far this year there have been 38 confirmed suicides and 12 suspected cases, he said, adding that that was comparable to last year.
There were 935 suicide attempts by soldiers in 2007, including 166 during deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the report.
Forty-three percent of those who killed themselves did so after being deployed; 31 percent took their lives during deployments; and 26 percent were soldiers who had never deployed, according to the report.
"Suicide behaviors were significantly more common for young, Caucasian, unmarried, junior enlisted soldiers," the report said.
"Younger, lower-enlisted female soldiers were overrepresented for suicide attempts compared to completions," it said.
Most of those who committed suicide in Iraq or Afghanistan were on their first tour.
About half of the soldiers who completed suicide had a recent failed intimate relationship, the report said.
Officials said only six percent had been previously diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, but officials said most of those who killed themselves had not previously sought medical help.
"In the army what we have more often is a sudden loss, a humiliation, a breakup, or trouble at work, and an immediate precipitating event, and unfortunately all too often, immediate action," Ritchie said.
"And again one of the most potent risk factor is the access to loaded weapons," she said.
11:46 AM
KATHMANDU (AFP) - - Holed up within his high-walled Narayanhiti palace, Nepal's king Gyanendra kept a studied silence Friday after a historic assembly abolished his monarchy and gave him a two-week eviction order.
Quite when he will leave the pink-hued palace in the heart of Kathmandu is unclear, although royal-watchers said he was packing his bags and could leave Friday.
The royal flag was taken down early Thursday within hours of a constituent assembly voting to sweep away the monarchy and turn this Himalayan nation into a republic, ending 240 years of dynastic rule.
Gyanendra has a tight deadline to vacate the Narayanhiti palace, which the assembly -- now dominated by former rebel Maoists -- has agreed to turn into a museum.
"He is said to be leaving the palace on Friday," said Kishore Shrestha, who is editor of the royal-watching Nepali-language weekly Jana Aastha.
The king has yet to comment on the constitutional assembly vote that ended his rule.
An estimated 1,500 army soldiers guard the king in his palace, but an army spokesman said they were ready to pull back the security when the government orders.
For now, the palace and its surrounding roads are heavily guarded by riot police. Demonstrations have been banned, but revellers celebrating Nepal's new republican status skirmished with police Thursday on the road leading to the complex.
Police baton-charged and tear-gassed the revellers when they tried to climb a statue of the unloved king's father in order to put a national flag on it.
Nepal has been brimming for weeks with rumours over the king's plans, with each and every departure from the palace in recent days -- including a weekend trip to his summer home and a drive to his sister's house for tea -- watched with bated breath.
"The king is going to have to leave within the next 10 days," said Bimal Sharma, a shopkeeper strolling past the royal residence with his family.
"I don't like this king. This wouldn't have happened with the previous king," said Sharma, referring to Gyanendra's popular older brother Birendra, who was slaughtered in a palace massacre.
That 2001 massacre -- most of the royal family was slain by the then crown prince Dipendra, who was allegedly fuelled by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol -- was what led Gyanendra to ascend the throne.
Dipendra, who had been forbidden from marrying the woman he loved, gunned down his parents the king and queen, and seven other royals before apparently turning the gun on himself.
Gyanendra was at the centre of many conspiracy theories linking him to the killings, and his unpopularity only deepened when he sacked the government and embarked on a period of autocratic rule in early 2005.
Mass protests against Gyanendra's rule led to a landmark peace agreement in 2006 that culminated with the abolition of the monarchy late Wednesday.
Many ordinary Nepalese are delighted to see the back of the dour, unpopular king as well as his son and would-be heir, Paras -- notorious for his playboy lifestyle.
International reaction to the monarchy's demise has focused on how the new political landscape could benefit the poor nation.
While the United States is not yet prepared to strike the Maoists from its terrorist blacklists, Washington has since reversed its previous policy of not negotiating with the group's leaders.
Some 13,000 people were killed in the insurgency launched by the Maoists in 1996 to install a communist republic in the world's only Hindu kingdom.
Britain, Nepal's former colonial ruler, sent its congratulations after the assembly's first session.
Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown called it "another step toward the democratic and stable future that the people of Nepal justly deserve."
11:44 AM
WASHINGTON - England's enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates.
Dating of cremated remains shows burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, researchers said Thursday.
And those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, they said.
"It's now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages," said Mike Parker Pearson, archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield in England and head of the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project.
In the past many archaeologists had thought that burials at Stonehenge continued for only about a century, the researchers said.
"Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid third millennium B.C. The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge's sarsen stones phase is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument's use and demonstrates that it was still very much a domain of the dead," Parker Pearson said in a statement.
The researchers also excavated homes nearby at Durrington Walls, which they said appeared to be seasonal homes related to Stonehenge.
"It's a quite extraordinary settlement, we've never seen anything like it before," Parker Pearson said. The village appeared to be a land of the living and Stonehenge a land of the ancestors, he said.
There were at least 300 and perhaps as many as 1,000 homes in the village, he said. The small homes were occupied in midwinter and midsummer.
The village also included a circle of wooden pillars, which the researchers have named the Southern Circle. It is oriented toward the midwinter sunrise, the opposite of Stonehenge, which is oriented to the midsummer sunrise.
The research was supported by the National Geographic Society, which discusses Stonehenge in its June magazine and will feature the new burial data on National Geographic Channel on Sunday.
The researchers said the earliest cremation burial was a small group of bones and teeth found in pits called the Aubrey Holes and dated to 3030-2880 B.C., about the time with the first ditch-and-bank monument was being built.
Remains from the surrounding ditch included an adult dated to 2930-2870 B.C., and the most recent cremation, Parker Pearson said, comes from the ditch's northern side and was of a 25-year-old woman. It dated to 2570-2340 B.C., around the time the first arrangements of large sarsen stones appeared at Stonehenge.
According to Parker Pearson's team, this is the first time any of the cremation burials from Stonehenge have been radiocarbon dated. The burials dated by the group were excavated in the 1950s and have been kept at the nearby Salisbury Museum.
In the 1920s an additional 49 cremation burials were dug up at Stonehenge, but all were reburied because they were thought to be of no scientific value, the researchers said.
They estimate that up to 240 people were buried within Stonehenge, all as cremation deposits.
Team member Andrew Chamberlain suggested that that the cremation burials represent the natural deaths of a single elite family and its descendants, perhaps a ruling dynasty.
A clue to this, he said, is the small number of burials in Stonehenge's earliest phase, a number that grows larger in subsequent centuries, as offspring would have multiplied.
Parker Pearson added: "I don't think it was the common people getting buried at Stonehenge _ it was clearly a special place at that time. One has to assume anyone buried there had some good credentials."
The actual building and purpose of Stonehenge remain a mystery that has long drawn speculation from many sources.
And not all archaeologists agree with Parker Pearson's theory.
Indeed, the June issue of National Geographic Magazine quotes Mike Pitts, editor of the journal British Archaeology, as saying some details of the theory are problematic with gaps remaining to be filled. Uses of the landscape in the area for farming and grazing, for example, do not seem compatible with a ritualized place.
"The value of this interpretation is not just the idea of linking stones and ancestors, but that it works with the entire landscape," Pitts was quoted as saying.
10:14 AM
LIMA (AFP) - - Most of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" takes place in Peru, but many Peruvians are suffering heartburn after seeing the movie's many clumsy -- and often insulting -- mistakes about their country.
Viewers here cringed when the world's most famous fictional archaeologist arrives in Peru and announces that he learned to speak Quechua, the language of indigenous people across the Andes, when he was captured by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.
Villa and his revolutionaries raided the US town of Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 -- and in an episode of the 1990s TV show, "The Young Indiana Jones," the young Jones is kidnapped.
But Villa's men spoke Spanish, not Quechua, which is spoken by some 10 million people in places like Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
"This is outrageous," said Hugo Neyra, who heads Peru's National Library.
Neyra and others are also angry at seeing Maya warriors from Central America speaking Quechua in the Peruvian jungle, where hundreds of native languages, but not Quechua, are spoken.
The movie also shows quicksand, man-eating ants and enormous Hawaiian waterfalls, all of which do not exist in the Peruvian Amazonia.
In what is perhaps the biggest insult, director Steven Spielberg and writer George Lucas place the Maya pyramid of Chichen Itza, located in Mexico, in the Peruvian jungle.
Another mistake: the location of the Nazca lines -- which give clues to Jones in the movie -- created by the Nazca culture sometime between 200 BC and 700 AD.
Visible only from aircraft, the lines representing stylized animals are etched on a patch of coastal desert some 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of Lima -- and not next to the Incan capital of Cuzco, smack in the southern Peruvian Andes.
The Maya civilization thrived in southern Mexico and northern Central America between 250 and 900, while the Quechua-speaking Incas thrived across the Andes from 1200 to the 1533.
Historian Manuel Burga, the former head of the University of San Marcos, said that Spielberg and Lucas were given bad advice.
"Even if it is fiction there are many incorrect facts," Burga said. "This is going to be damaging to many people who do not know our country, because it shows a Peruvian landscape that is not real.
"It is not possible to mistake the Amazon region with the Yucatan jungle in Mexico."
Neyra said that many informed Americans and Europeans will realize that it is "an aberration" to mix Maya and Inca archaeology. "They know that Machu Picchu is in Cuzco, and that Chichen Itza is in Mexico," he said.
Historian Teodoro Hampe is scathing in his view of they way Americans view the geography of Latin America: "For them Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia or Peru are all the same."
10:12 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - US President George W. Bush's former chief spokesman charges in a harsh new book available Wednesday that the Iraq war was unnecessary and sold to the US public with a deceptive "propaganda campaign."
Released five months before November elections to decide Bush's successor, Scott McClellan's stunning memoir "What Happened" sent shockwaves through Washington and drew immediate and very personal attacks from former colleagues.
"As I have heard Bush say, only a wartime president is likely to achieve greatness," he writes in brutal book that Bush aides quickly branded a coarse betrayal. "In Iraq, Bush saw his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness."
But "war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary. Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake," McClellan, Bush's second of four press secretaries to date, says in the 341-page work.
The former aide writes that history and the US public seem to agree that the March 2003 invasion "was a serious strategic blunder" and accuses top Bush aides of sidelining inconvenient truths in their rush to sell the war.
The US president wanted to topple Saddam Hussein "primarily for the ambitious purpose of transforming the Middle East," but knew that the US public would never agree to send troops into harm's way for that purpose, he says.
So "the administration chose a different path -- not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth; downplaying the major reason for going to war and emphasizing a lesser motivation that could arguably be dealt with in other ways (such as intensified diplomatic pressure)," he said.
They pumped up the case for war with "innuendo and implication" while "quietly ignoring or disregarding" evidence against it.
The former spokesman also denounced the response to Hurricane Katrina and the outing of a covert CIA agent by top Bush aides, a scandal that embroiled McClellan and eventually led to his departure from the White House.
McClellan, a Texas native from a political family, went to work for Bush when the future president was the state's governor, was a spokesman for Bush's 2000 campaign, and served as deputy White House press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003, when he became the president's lead spokesman.
He resigned -- or was pushed out -- in April 2006 and left a month later, his credibility battered amid the scandal over the leak that Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a covert CIA agent.
McClellan accuses former top White House political strategist Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, once a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, of misleading him into publicly denying they played any role in the revelation.
Bush was also deceived, "but the top White House officials who knew the truth -- including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney -- allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie," says McClellan.
The usually cheerful former spokesman is equally savage regarding the White House's early "state of denial" in the face of the devastation from Katrina in August 2005 and the botched government response to the killer storm.
Current White House spokeswoman Dana Perino charged in a statement that McClellan, 40, had revealed himself as "disgruntled" and added, "It is sad -- this is not the Scott we knew."
The president "is puzzled, he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years, and disappointed," she added.
Former colleagues also circled the wagons in response to published accounts from the memoir.
Rove and former Bush homeland security adviser Frances Townsend charged in separate yet strikingly similar television interviews that McClellan had raised no objections to strategies he now assails and was not present at key meetings to shape those policies.
McClellan also denounces the US media as "complicit enablers" of the Iraq war and self-flagellates: "I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be."
"I still like and admire President Bush," he says.
"But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war," he says.
4:49 PM
LONDON (AFP) - - An international watchdog should be set up to urgently investigate child sex abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers, the Save the Children said on Tuesday.
The group said action was needed after its researchers unearthed what they called "widespread" evidence that children as young as six were being traded for food, money, soap and even mobile phones in war zones and disaster areas.
Save the Children's findings was based on work with hundreds of youngsters from Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, said the charity's chief executive Jasmine Whitbread.
"This research exposes the despicable actions of a small number of perpetrators who are sexually abusing some of the most vulnerable children in the world, the very children they are meant to protect," she added.
"It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children's rights."
The charity said "endemic failures" in responding to the abuse that was officially reported were letting down the abused, and better reporting mechanisms should be introduced.
Whitbread said the United Nations, the wider world as well as humanitarian and aid agencies have made important commitments to tackle the problem in recent years.
But most had failed to turn their promises into action, she added, calling for all agencies working in emergencies, including her own, to "own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on".
The reputation of UN peacekeepers has been tarnished in the past by cases of sexual abuse against women, notably in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Haiti.
In November last year, the UN said that more than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers were to be sent home over charges that they paid for sex while stationed in Haiti.
After turning a blind eye for decades to cases of abuse by its peacekeepers -- the world body recommended in 2005 that erring soldiers be punished, their salaries frozen and a fund set up to help any women or girls made pregnant.
The "zero tolerance" policy towards sexual misconduct includes a "non-fraternisation" rule barring them from sex with locals.
It was brought in after revelations in December 2004 that peacekeepers in DRC were involved in the sexual abuse of 13-year-old girls in exchange for eggs, milk or cash sums as low as one dollar.
3:11 PM
ALINGTON, Va., May 26, 2008 – Under sunny skies and before a multitude gathered at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Arlington National Cemetery here, President Bush today honored the sacrifices of American men and women in uniform who gave their lives in the service of their country.
Hundreds packed into the amphitheater near the tomb nestled among green, rolling hills dotted with white crosses and headstones. Some waved miniature flags, others donned patriotic garb. All came on this Memorial Day to pay tribute to servicemembers who have fought and died.
Just before his remarks, the president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
“Today, we gather to honor those who gave everything to preserve our way of life. The men and women we honor here served for liberty. They sacrificed for liberty. And in countless acts of courage, they died for liberty,” Bush said.
“From faraway lands, they were returned to cemeteries like this one, where broken hearts received their broken bodies -- they found peace beneath the white headstones in the land they fought to defend,” he said.
Bush said that the fresh headstones in the cemetery are a solemn reminder of the cost of freedom that is paid by those “who serve a cause greater than themselves.”
“Today we mourn and remember all who have given their lives in the line of duty. Today we lift up our hearts especially those who've fallen in the past year,” he said.
In his address, the president highlighted the service of Army Spc. Ronald Tucker of Fountain, Colo., and Chief Petty Officers Nathan Hardy of Durham, N.H., and Michael Koch of State College, Penn.
Bush called Tucker “a dutiful son who called his mother every day” from Iraq. Less than a month ago, Tucker and other members of his unit built a soccer field for Iraqi children. As he drove back to his base, he was killed by an enemy bomb.
Hardy and Koch were Navy SEALs and close friends who shared a battlefield tradition of going on missions with American flags underneath the shirts of their uniforms. They died in Iraq Feb. 4 after being ambushed by terrorists. Hardy and Koch are buried next to each other in Arlington National Cemetery.
“The men and women of American armed forces perform extraordinary acts of heroism every single day. Like the nation they serve, they do not glory in the devastation of war. They also do not flinch from combat when liberty and justice are embattled,” Bush said.
“We will forever honor their memories. We will forever search for their comrades …. And … we offer a solemn pledge to persevere and to provide the security for our citizens and secure the peace for which they fought,” he said.
Bush received two standing ovations during the speech. He got the he first one when he took the stage, and he got the second when he spoke about his feelings for those who serve in the military.
“On this Memorial Day, I stand before you as the commander-in-chief and try to tell you how proud I am at the sacrifice and service of the men and women who wear our uniform. They're an awesome bunch of people and the United States is blessed to have such citizens,” he said.
The president was introduced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who also made remarks. He said that those who died still remain near.
“We hold them to us, every day, and especially on this day.
We gather to remember,” Gates said.
Gates said the nation’s war dead come from every part of America and from every generation, and that we owed our liberty to those who have fought and died.
“We have our liberty because of what they did. Liberty has come to other peoples because of what they did, and are doing, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in other places around the world,” he said.
“Mourning the war dead calls forth many emotions: remorse that they suffered; awe at how they bore that suffering; pride in the fine people they were; gratitude for their willingness to be the guarantors of our freedom,” Gates said. “Their sacrifice is a reminder that we must go on, and be worthy of them, and finish their work.”
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also spoke briefly at the service. He called the freedoms earned by those who died precious but fragile.
“The precious gift of freedom they have given us is fragile and has to be safeguarded, worked for, fought for, and … even died for,” he said.
The chairman said every headstone in the cemetery represents a promise, a commitment, and a willingness of every one buried there to give their lives to preserve our way of life.
3:08 PM
As of Monday, May 26, 2008, at least 4,082 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,328 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is the same as than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Georgia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.
___
The latest deaths reported by the military:
_ A soldier was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in Salahuddin province.
___
The latest identifications reported by the military:
_ No identifications reported.
3:08 PM
SINGAPORE (AFP) - - Singapore has sacked the superintendent of a detention centre where an alleged extremist leader escaped through a toilet window, the interior minister said Monday, while his deputy has been demoted.
Two elite Nepalese Gurkha guards who had escorted Mas Selamat Kastari to the toilet were also demoted, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng told parliament.
Kastari, the alleged Singapore leader of the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), made his escape from Whitley Road Detention Centre on February 27 after asking for a break during a visit by family members.
His flight punctured Singapore's reputation for solid security and sparked the biggest manhunt in the country's history.
Kastari remains at large and is believed to have fled to neighbouring Indonesia, where other JI leaders are suspected to be based.
The superintendent and his deputy were the two most senior officers in charge of "ground management" at the centre, which is run by the Internal Security Department, Wong said.
The pair were "held accountable for the lack of supervision over the subordinate officers implicated, which resulted in lapses" that enabled Kastari to escape, the minister said.
A special duty operative, her supervisor, two other officers and the chief warder were also disciplined, Wong said.
An inquiry into the escape cited windows without grilles, surveillance cameras that were not working and a slow reaction from guards as likely contributing to Kastari's flight.
Kastari was accused of plotting to hijack a plane in order to crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport in 2001 but was never charged. He was being held in the city-state under a law that allows for detention without trial.
3:06 PM
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The government will ban people in foreign-registered vehicles from buying gasoline in border areas of Malaysia, where heavy subsidies have kept petroleum costs low despite soaring prices internationally.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Abdul Samad said a day earlier that the ban was aimed at keeping foreigners from driving into Malaysia from Thailand and Singapore to fill up on cheap gasoline and diesel, which cost up to twice as much in the neighboring countries.
The ban was "a stern act by the government to reduce the leak in subsidy," national news agency Bernama quoted Shahrir as saying. His aide, who declined to be named citing protocol, confirmed his comments Tuesday.
The fuel subsidies, which were expected to cost the government 45 billion ringgit (US$14 billion; �9 billion) this year, "should actually be enjoyed by the lower-income group in the country" and not foreigners, Shahrir said.
"This move is temporary until we come up with better management of our subsidy system," The Star daily quoted him as saying.
Shahrir said the ban could take effect as early as Friday at up to 300 stations within 30 miles (50 kilometers) of the borders with Thailand and Singapore.
Alang Zari Ishak, president of a local petroleum dealers association, said the ban may hurt tourism and relations with Malaysia's neighbors.
"It's a very harsh decision," he said. "There are other ways to curb this subsidy money being utilized."
Enforcement officers will monitor gasoline stations and signs will inform motorists of the new rule, Shahrir said. Those found breaking the rule could be fined or face up to three years in jail, said another official in Shahrir's ministry. He declined to be named, citing protocol.
Currently, foreign registered vehicles are allowed to buy only up to 5.3 gallons (20 liters), he said.
Although oil prices have soared globally, the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has not raised retail gasoline, diesel or gas prices.
3:05 PM
LONDON - Tributes poured in on Sunday for a teenage actor who was stabbed to death during a fight outside a pub that left three other men with serious knife wounds.
I Am: A Man A Woman Looking for: A Woman A Man Robert Knox, 18, was fatally wounded during the "large disturbance" outside the Metro Bar on Station Road, Sidcup, Kent, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Friends and relatives left bunches of flowers outside the bar, and a stream of messages were posted on social networking Web site Facebook and the International Movie Database Web site.
The teenager had a small part in the forthcoming film Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince.
His parents Sally and Colin Knox, of Maidstone Road, Sidcup, said in a statement: "Rob was kind and thoughtful and would always help out others -- he would always spend his last penny on other people instead of himself.
"The life and soul of the party, he was very outgoing, loved sports, and would always strike up a conversation with people.
"He was respectful to others and adored by all his family and friends. He was asset to the family."
Three of his friends also sustained serious injuries in the incident: a 21-year-old was stabbed in the neck, a 16-year-old in the chest and a third man, aged in his late teens or early 20s, sustained stab wounds to his hand.
The 21-year-old is still receiving hospital treatment, while the other two have been discharged.
A fifth man, 21, was taken to hospital suffering facial injuries. He was later discharged, and has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Scotland Yard said they did not believe the incident to be gang-related.
Knife crime has blighted London in recent months.
Earlier this month, a man was knifed to death on Oxford Street, one of the busiest shopping areas in the country, and 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen died after his throat was slashed after declining to become involved in a fight with a man in a bakery.
11:45 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - NASA's Phoenix spacecraft successfully landed on Mars' frigid north pole region in a risk-fraught mission to search for signs the planet could have supported life, the US space agency said.
"Phoenix has landed," a NASA official said as the safe touchdown was confirmed.
The Mars Phoenix Lander successfully deployed a parachute and then thrusters to brake in a tense seven minutes from 20,400 kilometers per hour (12,700 miles per hour) to manage a soft landing on its three legs.
Mission officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, were seen on television cheering and giving each other hugs and high-fives after signals sent back from the craft confirmed the arrival of the first spacecraft ever to land on the Martian arctic.
The 420-million-dollar spacecraft is designed to help scientists assess whether the Martian arctic has ever had conditions favorable to microbial life.
Given that Mars ' polar region is subject to Earth-like seasonal changes, the scientists are looking to see whether there is a point where the region warms and changes into a water-rich soil with organic, life-supporting minerals.
"Our whole mission is about digging," said Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator at the University of Arizona.
"We find that the arctic region is really sensitive to climate change on a planet ... it also preserves the history of life," Smith said.
"We think that organics must have existed at least at one time" from meteorite and other impacts, he said. The presence of liquid water and organics would signify a "habitable zone," he said.
Phoenix managed an almost perfect landing in a relatively rock-free, flat target area in the flat circumpolar region known as Vastitas Borealis -- akin to northern Canada in Earth's latitude, according to Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at JPL.
The team had been worried about the high risk of the project, with a roughly 50 percent failure rate on all Mars missions since the Russians launched the first one in 1960.
"Frankly, this was by far the hardest part," Goldstein said on NASA TV. "In my dreams it couldn't have gone as perfectly as it did tonight."
NASA will only know that the landing and deployment of Phoenix's equipment went well after pictures from the probe reach the Earth via NASA's Odyssey Mars orbiter, two hours after the landing.
The first pictures will be of the craft itself, to show NASA if all the equipment deployed in working order, and then, possibly shots of the surface.
Phoenix is equipped with a camera and a 2.35-meter (7.7-foot) robotic arm that can dig as deep as one meter to find ice, and can heat up samples to detect carbon and hydrogen molecules, essential elements of life.
It also has meteorological equipment to study the Mars atmosphere.
9:13 PM
OSLO (AFP) - - More than 150 workers were evacuated off an oil rig in Norwegian waters in the North Sea on Saturday after a leak was detected, the rig's operators said.
"With the worst case scenario in mind, in which there could be an explosion, we are taking the necessary security precautions," said Ole Morten Aanestad, a spokesman for Norwegian energy giant StatoilHydro.
Two helicopters had been used to evacuate 156 of the 217 people working on the Statfjord A platform, located some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the Norwegian coast, to nearby oil rigs, another company spokesman, Gisle Johanson, told AFP.
"We are keeping 61 people on board to try to stop the leak," he said.
Oil was still leaking inside a shaft in the rig where there was a danger of it slowly evaporating and creating gas that could cause an explosion if ignited.
"We definitely don't want oil in there, so we have begun pumping oil out into the sea," Aanestad told AFP, adding that clean-up crews were on their way to help remove the oil from the water.
"The volume (of leaked oil) is limited, so in that respect the situation is under control, but we have not managed to stop the leak inside the shaft ... It is of course serious when there is out-of-control petroleum on an oil platform," he said.
It remained unclear exactly how much oil had been pumped into the North Sea, he said.
A total of three rigs work in the Statfjord field, which produces 150,000 barrels of oil a day. Production from the affected rig had been suspended while the leak was dealt with.
Other rigs are also connected to Statfjord: around six million cubic meters of natural gas and between 470,000 and 480,000 barrels of oil transit the field every day, according to statistics provided by the Norwegian oil authorities.
The Statfjord A platform was last in trouble when more than 4,000 cubic metres of oil poured into the sea as it was being piped from the rig to a loading buoy last December, creating the second largest oil spill in Norway's history.
The Scandinavian country is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the third largest exporter of gas.
11:48 PM
THE HAGUE: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague in the Netherlands has awarded sovereignty over Pedra Branca island to Singapore, while the sovereignty of Middle Rocks has been awarded to Malaysia.
The world court delivered the judgement on Friday, after several rounds of written and oral pleadings by the two disputing countries. The ICJ last heard arguments from both sides in November 2007.
For Pedra Branca, ICJ’s 16—member bench voted 12—4 in favour of Singapore. Ownership of Middle Rocks, a maritime feature 0.6 nautical miles from Pedra Branca, was voted 15—1 to Malaysia.
As for the island’s other maritime feature, South Ledge, Awn Shawkat Al—Khasawneh, the Acting President of International Court of Justice, said: "The Court has not been mandated by the parties to draw the line of delimitation with respect to the territorial waters of Malaysia and Singapore in the area in question. In these circumstances, the court concludes that for the reasons explained above, sovereignty over South Ledge, as a low tide elevation, belongs to the State in the territorial waters of which it is located."
The verdict brings to a close a 28—year row between the two neighbours. The dispute arose in 1980 when Singapore protested against a new Malaysian map of its maritime boundaries, which claimed the islet for itself.
Years of bilateral talks failed to resolve the matter and the parties agreed to seek the intervention of the UN court.
Pedra Branca, which Malaysia calls Pulau Batu Puteh, is located some 24 nautical miles to the east of Singapore and it commands the entire eastern approach to the Singapore Strait, through which almost 900 ships pass daily.
Pedra Branca also houses the Horsburgh Lighthouse, the oldest feature on the island which was built by the British between 1847 and 1851.
Leaders from both Singapore and Malaysia had said they would accept the ICJ’s decision and stressed that whichever way it went, it would not affect bilateral ties.
A joint technical committee has been set up to implement the terms of the judgement.
Diplomat and Dean of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Barry Desker, said the judgement indicates that Southeast Asia is moving to accept the broader norms of international law.
He added that it augurs well for the dispute settlement mechanism of the ASEAN Charter and will set precedence for the way Singapore and Malaysia deal with their other outstanding bilateral issues.
Mr Desker said: "In the past, the tendency in ASEAN was to try and resolve issues purely by mediation or negotiations between two parties. The result was that issues or disputes between parties in the region tended to go on and on without completion, without successful negotiation.
"I think we are now moving in the direction of accepting a turn to international law — a willingness to accept international arbitration and this bodes well for issues in which there are bilateral differences."
Mr Desker also described the verdict as "win—win" for both sides because no party can claim it has won everything.
Moving forward, he said the technical committees of both countries will need to put into action the decision of the International Court of Justice. These include working out the necessary protocols to ensure the navigation safety of fishing vessels and pleasure crafts around Pedra Branca.
9:25 PM
KATHMANDU (AFP) - - A 48-year-old Nepalese Sherpa broke his own world record Thursday by conquering Mount Everest for a breathtaking eighteenth time.
Appa Sherpa, who hails from a village at the base of the world's highest peak, topped out in the early hours of the morning, the head of Nepal's Mountaineering Association told AFP.
"Appa Sherpa summitted Everest at 5:45 am (0000 GMT) this morning. He has set the new world record as it is the eighteenth time he has got to the top," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
"This is another proud moment for the whole mountaineering fraternity."
Appa Sherpa, known as one of Nepal's "Super Sherpas" -- hardened local climbers with almost superhuman stamina -- was among 37 climbers taking advantage of the good weather to reach the summit Thursday morning.
Twenty-seven others reached the peak Wednesday.
Appa's closest competition -- trailing at 15 ascents -- is 42-year-old Nepalese climber Chhewang Nima.
This spring's other aspiring recordbreakers include 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura of Japan and 77-year-old Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan, who are both vying to become the oldest person to conquer Everest.
Retired Japanese schoolteacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa, 71, set that record last year. The youngest climber was 15-year-old Nepalese Temba Chheri in 2001.
Appa Sherpa bagged his first Everest summit in 1990, and has been making the climb into the "death zone" look like child's play ever since.
The communities living around the mountain are essential for commercial expeditions.
They lay out kilometres of ropes and prepare camps, and Appa Sherpa -- who started climbing in 1987 -- was quickly recognised as someone who foreign expeditions wanted on their team.
This year he reached the summit with the Eco Everest expedition, an international team aiming to highlight the effects of global warming in the Himalayas as well as test ecologically sound mountaineering practices.
"He wasn't planning on trying for another summit, but he joined the Eco Everest expedition as he wanted to raise awareness about melting glaciers and the fragility of the mountain environment," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
Since it was first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) mountain has been conquered more than 3,000 times.
Last year 557 people -- 254 via Nepal and 303 via Tibet -- reached the highest point on earth, which was a record.
The numbers are expected to be lower this year because of a climbing ban Nepal imposed up to May 11 to allow a protest-free path for the Chinese Olympic torch, which was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.
2:40 PM
MOSCOW (AFP) - - Goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was Manchester United's hero as Sir Alex Ferguson's side claimed the club's third European Cup with a penalty shoot-out win over Chelsea on a night of almost unbearable drama in Moscow.
As many had predicted, the competition's first all-English final ended in penalties and ultimately it was van der Sar's full-length save from Nicolas Anelka that ensured United won the shoot-out 6-5 after the match had ended 1-1 after extra-time.
The triumph ensured ensured a season that has seen United mark the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster ended with both the Premier League and Champions League trophies back at Old Trafford.
Ferguson too believed that Fate had played a role in the win.
"There is a certain sense of fate about this (50 years after the Munich air disaster and winning it in 1968)," said Ferguson.
"It is the first penalty shootout in a big game I've won!"
England midfielder Frank Lampard claimed that the wrong side had won the trophy.
"A small small detail that loses you the game," said Lampard, who has had a tough time of late with his mother dying.
"John slipped for the penalty. No-one could deny that after 3Oth minutes we dominated the game. But we have to take it on the chin."
Chelsea had their chance to claim the trophy for the first time after Cristiano Ronaldo had had his effort saved by Petr Cech. But captain John Terry pushed his spot-kick - Chelsea's fifth - wide of the target.
It was hard on the London club, who could justifiably claim to have come closest to winning the match in the two hours that preceded the dramatic finale.
It was also debatable whether Terry would have taken a penalty had Didier Drogba not been sent off shortly before the end of extra-time for tapping Nemanja Vidic on the face as several players on either side squared up to each other.
United's early domination had yielded a deserved opener in the form of Ronaldo's 26th-minute header, the Portuguese winger's 42nd goal of an extraordinary season.
But after failing to take the chances that followed, Ferguson's men were pegged back by Lampard's equaliser on the stroke of half-time.
Chelsea went on to dominate after the break and almost claimed a winner when Drogba's 25-yard shot came back off the post with van der Sar beaten.
Chelsea struck the woodwork again in the opening period of extra-time, Lampard's cute shot on the turn bouncing off the bar with United's goalkeeper once more struggling.
Substitute Ryan Giggs then had a glorious chance to mark his record-breaking 759th appearance for United in style but the veteran winger never really connected with Patrice Evra's cutback and Terry was able to head the ball to safety.
With the exception of Park Ji-Sung's exclusion from United's match-day squad, there were no suprises in the personnel on display, although Ferguson did tweak United's usual shape.
Owen Hargreaves was deployed on the right side of midfield with Ronaldo in the left-sided role that Park had been tipped to fill.
With Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez alongside each other in attack, Ferguson also departed from the lone-striker policy that has served United well in getting to the final, notably in the semi-final win over Barcelona.
Michael Essien's relative inexperience at right-back may have influenced United's thinking and it was the Ghanaian's poor positioning that enabled United to take the lead.
From his own throw-in on the right, Wes Brown combined with Scholes to escape from Lampard and the rightback was allowed to drift infield before curling a cross to the back post. Ronaldo had peeled off Essien and, with the luxury of an unchallenged header, directed the ball just inside the post.
The goal every neutral and television director had hoped for had the desired effect of bringing the match to life.
Michael Ballack fired a chance to equalise over the bar and United enjoyed a greater let-off minutes later when only an instinctive reflex save from van der Sar prevented Rio Ferdinand from heading into his own net as Ballack strained to reach Drogba's knockdown.
United hit back with Rooney sending Ronaldo clear on the left. The winger's cross was met by Tevez with a diving header that Cech blocked at close range but could not hold.
Terry scuffed the loose ball into the path of Michael Carrick but by the time the midfielder had driven it goalwards, Cech was on his feet and able to palm a poorly directed drive to safety.
United went close again three minutes from the break. Rooney's low cross from the right was cleverly directed into the space between Cech and his centrebacks and Tevez got a boot to it at full stretch but the ball spun wide of the target.
As the half drew to a close it was Chelsea who were in the ascendant but they still required a generous slice of luck to claim their equaliser as a result of a long-range shot from Essien that looked unlikely to trouble van der Sar.
After deflecting off the boot of Vidic, the ball rebounded off Ferdinand's back to leave Lampard with the simple task of tapping in from six yards.
Chelsea continued to dominate after the break, forcing Ferguson to pull Hargreaves into the middle of midfield with Rooney dropping deep on the right.
Still Chelsea pressed and Drogba, largely anonymous until then, almost conjured up a winner with 12 minutes left, his 25-yard drive curling beyond van der Sar's dive and onto the post.
Five minutes later, United finally produced a second-half shot. Tevez's effort was close but not close enough to prevent the match slipping towards the conclusion many had regarded as inevitable.
2:39 PM
YANGON (AFP) - - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Myanmar on Thursday in a high-profile bid to convince the regime to welcome a major international relief operation three weeks after the cyclone disaster.
With around two million desperate survivors still facing dire shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine, the junta's isolationist leader Than Shwe has stunned the world with his refusal to accept a major aid effort.
He was to meet with Than Shwe on Friday in the regime's remote capital of Naypyidaw. Ban repeatedly failed to get the general to take his phone calls after the May 2-3 storm, which left at least 133,000 people dead or missing.
"Our focus is on saving lives," he said in Bangkok on the eve of his trip, aimed at winning a bigger role for the international community in the relief effort. "This is a critical moment for Myanmar."
The secretary general began his official programme by making an offering for the storm's victims at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest Buddhist shrine in Myanmar.
Keeping with tradition, he removed his shoes and socks as he walked around the site, offering flowers to a golden statue of Buddha and donating money for the catastrophe's survivors.
Ban also met Prime Minister Thein Sein in the main city Yangon before he was to set off to overfly some of the most devastated regions of the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the storm.
It is the first visit to Myanmar by a UN secretary general since 1964. The last trip was by U Thant, a Myanmar national, who led the world body when this country was still known as Burma.
Armed police lined the roads leading from the airport before Ban's arrival, while soldiers busied themselves cleaning the storm-damaged streets of Yangon.
The United Nations estimates that only 25 percent of those in need have been reached by international aid.
Although the United Nations has been critical of Myanmar's human rights record, Ban has insisted the aid effort should not be politicised.
The impoverished nation has accepted tonnes of donations from around the world, and has allowed US military planes to airlift supplies into the Yangon airport.
The regime this week also agreed to allow nine UN helicopters to work in remote regions hit by the storm, but still refuses to allow five US and French ships laden with relief supplies to enter the country.
Scores of medics from around Asia have been allowed to begin treating victims of the tragedy, but Myanmar has refused to issue visas to most disaster relief specialists, whose skills are needed to run a complex aid operation.
Ban said he wanted a logistics hub inside Myanmar, which has agreed to a joint mechanism between the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to coordinate the emergency effort.
Exactly how that mechanism would work remains unclear, but the United Nations and ASEAN are set to host a donor meeting Sunday in Yangon to raise money for the operation.
Despite the tragedy and the intense diplomatic manoeuvring, Myanmar's junta is pressing ahead with its own political agenda.
Just days after the storm, the regime held a first round of voting on a new constitution, which dissidents say will entrench military rule.
The regime now insists on holding a second round of voting in the referendum Saturday in towns and villages that were devastated by the cyclone.
The regime's main foe, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest, and her detention is expected to be extended by Monday.
Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy to a landslide victory in Myanmar's last national elections in 1990, but the regime has never recognised the result and instead has kept her locked up for more than a decade.
Her detention is a key reason for years of sanctions by the United States and European countries, which tightened their restrictions last year after Myanmar staged a deadly crackdown on anti-junta marches led by Buddhist monks.
3:23 PM
BEIJING (AFP) - - On a day when Deng Xiaoping's widow gave her entire life savings to China's earthquake relief, it didn't pass unnoticed here that sporting icon Yao Ming was a little less generous with his own donation.
I Am: A Man A Woman Looking for: A Woman A Man China's richest celebrity donated 500,000 yuan (70,000 dollars) to a relief fund, sparking fierce criticism on the Internet that it was too little from a basketball hero known for his charity work.
"A bit stingy isn't it?" one fan wrote.
The 7.9-magnitude quake in China's southwest Sichuan province likely killed some 50,000 people, according to government estimates, with the official toll already nearly 29,000 but countless thousands missing or believed buried under the rubble of devastated towns.
Yao, the 2.26-metre (seven-foot-six-inch) Houston Rockets centre, has been at the top of the Forbes magazine list of richest Chinese celebrities for the past five years.
Last year he earned some 55 million dollars from basketball and sponsorship activities.
His initial offer of 500,000 yuan triggered its own "earthquake of protest,' Maopu (www.mop.com), a top entertainment website, said.
Critics maintain that the donation was loose change to a man who makes more than that with one promotional photo shoot.
"If 500,000 dollars -- not to mention 500,000 yuan -- disappeared from his bank account, he wouldn't even notice," said one fan.
Internet criticism of Yao forced the basketball star to up his donation to 2,000,000 yuan later in the week, according to media reports.
Criticism of sporting heroes is unusual in China where they are often seen as national icons.
Yao is known for his charity work, raising more than a million dollars for under-privileged Chinese children last year and devoting time and energy toward helping stage the 2007 Special Olympics in his home city of Shanghai.
But some Chinese are not slow to attack Yao when it comes to money, accusing him of not giving enough of his enormous wealth back to his home country.
"He's been drinking milk and eating bread (like an American) for a while and he's forgotten where he comes," one posting said. "You are Chinese!"
Though supporters were outnumbered by critics, many people agreed with one commentator who said that contributions were a personal matter, and "whatever Yao gives is his business."
On Friday, China's state media reported that Zhuo Lin, 92-year-old widow of China's late leader Deng, had emptied her life savings totalling 100,000 yuan to give to earthquake victims.
It said she found it hard to sleep and eat after hearing of the tragedy.
State media have played up donations by leaders, business entrepreneurs and others, but donations by the poor have also caught the public eye.
A migrant worker, at the bottom rung of China's labour market, donated 600 yuan which amounted to his entire monthly salary.
"It might not seem like much, but when you consider it's his whole month's income he gave far more than Yao Ming," said one commentator.
10:14 PM
CHENGDU, China (AFP) - - A man who survived China's earthquake by drinking sweetened water through a straw was pulled from the rubble Tuesday after eight days, but hopes faded for others as the death toll topped 40,000.
With flags at half-mast on the second day of official mourning, tens of thousands of jittery residents in the major city of Chengdu ran for cover after authorities warned that more strong aftershocks could shake southwestern China.
Beijing also put out another urgent appeal for tents as foreign medical teams began to arrive on the scene to help care for the nearly 250,000 people injured in last Monday's earthquake, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale.
Despite the overwhelming odds against finding any more survivors under the rubble, rescue workers Tuesday saved a man, Ma Yuanjiang, who had been buried for an amazing 179 hours, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Workers spent more than 30 hours trying to dig the 31-year-old power plant executive out of the rubble of a destroyed building, during which they fed him sugary water through a straw, Xinhua said.
Ma was surprisingly able to speak, eat and drink small amounts as he was rushed to hospital treatment, but his left forearm had to be amputated, it said.
Another man, Peng Guohua, was saved Monday in a lime mine after he drank his own urine to survive, according to state press.
Such improbable survival stories have inspired many Chinese, who on Monday came to an unprecedented three-minute standstill to honour the victims of the earthquake.
But the number of rescues has tapered off, and the frantic pace of searching for survivors in the endless rubble has slowed, as the reality sets in that finding any more people alive after so long is almost impossible.
The government said on Tuesday that the death toll from the earthquake had risen to 40,075. A cabinet spokesman said hours earlier the number of dead and missing was nearly 66,000.
Across southwestern China, tens of thousands of residents ran for safety early Tuesday on fears of another earthquake, carrying bedding, chairs, clothes and other possessions.
Giant traffic jams formed in Chengdu , the capital of Sichuan province with a population of over 11 million people, as drivers headed toward the suburbs or the city's open spaces such as parks, construction sites and stadiums.
"Anyone who says he is not afraid is just kidding," said Zhu Yuejin, a 23-year-old saleswoman who spent the night in a car.
A warning on the Sichuan government website, quoting seismological authorities, said that a strong aftershock of 6.0 to 7.0 magnitude would strike the same area ravaged by last week's massive tremor.
But Du Jianguo, a Beijing-based researcher with China's Institute of Earthquake Science, said it was impossible to predict aftershocks so accurately.
"I don't know who made such a forecast, but personally I don't believe it," he told AFP.
Fuelling fears among the superstitious, residents of the southern city of Zunyi reported a massive migration of frogs and toads, which also covered Sichuan towns days before the May 12 earthquake, according to state media.
China has been hit by more than 150 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or higher on the Richter scale since the initial tremor, including one overnight that measured 5.0.
That tremor appeared to cause further damage in the quake zone, which spans across 100,000 square kilometres (40,000 square miles) of mountainous Sichuan, an area roughly three times the size of Belgium.
In Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas, cranes that were being used for rescue work the previous day were tipped on their side, according to an AFP reporter there.
The warning of the powerful aftershock set off nerves on China's stock markets , contributing to a nearly 4.5 percent drop in share prices, dealers said.
China has seen a wave of sympathy over the earthquake, but international criticism started to build over China's decision to let in foreign rescuers only three days after the earthquake.
"There was a delay in the decision-making. It would have been better if the decision was quicker," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in Tokyo.
The Japanese team, the first official foreign team on the scene, were heading home without finding any survivors, although another Japanese unit left Tuesday to provide medical relief.
Huang Qiong, a Chinese surgeon who has completed 100 operations since the earthquake, told the state-run China Daily that she had to stop herself crying as she worked.
"But when I go back home and lie down on my bed, I just cannot help shedding tears," she said.
8:25 PM
JAKARTA, Indonesia: A powerful 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook the western coast of Indonesia's North Sumatra province on Monday, the meteorology office said.
The quake struck at 9:26 pm (1426 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometres in a mountainous area 35 kilometres northeast of Padang Sidempuan, meteorologists said.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
A resident of Padang Sidempuan, Pardomuan Bangun, contacted by telephone, said that the quake was strongly felt in town, causing people to rush out of buildings in panic, some shouting.
"But so far I have not seen or heard of any serious damage or victims," Bangun said.
The US Geological Survey clocked the quake at 5.9 magnitude.
Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the quake-triggered Asian tsunami in December 2004, which killed 168,000 people in the country's Aceh province alone.
The Indonesian archipelago sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire where continental plates meet and cause frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
7:32 PM
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7:37 PM
YANGON (AFP) - - Even after the twin catastrophes of the cyclone here and the earthquake in China, the outlook for Myanmar, and the rest of Asia, is not good for the remainder of this year, Yangon's revered astrologers agree.
Across from Yangon's golden Shwedagon Pagoda, Khin Myint Myat sits under her newly repaired roof and sketches a star chart that she says explains both the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China.
"This is the year with the combination of three bad factors -- the dangerous planet Mars, the dark planet Kotu, and the watery side," she said, drawing a diagram of the stars while thumbing through an astrology book.
"There will be another wave of natural disasters -- either powerful storms or devastating earthquakes -- in the region again before the end of this year," Khin Myint Myat said, amid the din of hammers working to repair the home next door.
Khin Myint Myat's own roof was blown off when Cyclone Nargis ripped through Myanmar on May 2 and 3, but she retrieved the tin sheets and hammered them back on.
Less fortunate victims of the storm have been trekking to visit astrologers like her in the desperate hope of learning the fate of loved ones who were swept away in the storm, which left more than 66,000 dead or missing.
Numerology plays an important role in the daily life of this devoutly Buddhist country, where people turn to astrologers to determine the most auspicious times for weddings, travelling or making business deals.
Faced with the incomprehensible destruction of the cyclone, many people are now turning to astrologers to help start rebuilding their lives.
In the town of Hmawby, north of Yangon, 70-year-old astrologer Min Theinkha receives at least 200 visitors a day at his "Full of Blessings" compound, including many who made the long journey from the hardest-hit regions of the Irrawaddy Delta.
Min Theinkha has little comfort to offer them. He says the cyclone was part of the universe's karmic balance, a tragedy written into the nation's fate.
"Disasters are unavoidable in astrology. All we can do is pray for the victims," he said.
"Disasters like this can happen when numbers in the year add up to 10," he said, adding that after 2008, the next dangerous year is 2017.
"There could be another storm this year, but it will not be a big disaster like this," Min Theinkha said.
In Myanmar, years ending with an eight are particularly significant.
In the year 888, ancient Burmese texts say that three kings died, ushering in a 20-year reign by a tyrant despised by the people for executing a group of Buddhist monks.
Thailand-based Myanmar analyst Aung Naing Oo says many inside the country believe this ancient history has parallels with the current political crisis.
Myanmar's previous dictator Ne Win was toppled during a pro-democracy uprising that began on August 8, 1988 -- a date now remembered as 8-8-88.
The ruling junta, including the current leader Than Shwe, seized power during the bloody unrest that followed.
Last September, Buddhist monks led new anti-government marches, which were again suppressed by the military as security forces fired on and beat the protesters.
The historical similarities have raised cosmic concerns of new turmoil as August 8 approaches this year.
"The year 888 symbolises the death of kings, the installation of bad kings," Aung Naing Oo said. "Than Shwe has been in power for about 20 years now, he has killed monks, he has been a bad king."
Buddhist teaching lays out 10 rules for monarchs, including values such as compassion and impartiality, he said.
"When a natural disaster like Cyclone Nargis hits Burma, or when there's an outbreak of disease, the Burmese blame it on the rulers," he said, referring to Myanmar by its previous name.
"People always say the king or the rulers have not adhered to their principles of governance."
7:37 PM
YANGON (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will travel to Myanmar this week to try to speed up troubled cyclone relief, his spokeswoman said on Sunday, as signs mounted of a breakthrough in getting aid to survivors.
Ban's spokeswoman Michele Montas also said she expected there would be an international conference in Bangkok on May 24 to marshal funds for the relief effort in the former Burma.
Ban should arrive in the military-ruled Southeast Asian country on Wednesday evening and travel to the Irrawaddy delta, the area hit hardest by Cyclone Nargis on May 2, she said.
"The objective of the trip is to dramatically accelerate the flow of disaster relief," Montas said.
Britain's Asia minister, Mark Malloch-Brown, said a turning point could be near on a framework to accelerate international aid to up to 2.5 million desperate survivors of the cyclone that left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
"But, like all turning points in Burma, the corner will have a few 'S' bends in it," Malloch-Brown told Reuters.
Than Shwe, the reclusive leader of junta, made a public appearance on Sunday for the first time since the disaster.
Ban hoped to meet senior members of Myanmar's government, Montas said, but she could not immediately say whether Than Shwe would be one of them. The general has refused to talk to Ban by telephone since the cyclone.
Aid has been trickling in but the junta, suspicious of the outside world, has been reluctant to admit major foreign relief operations and the workers to run them.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had managed to get rice and beans to 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need.
DEATH TOLL COULD RISE
State television showed Than Shwe meeting in Yangon with ministers involved in the rescue effort and touring some cyclone-hit areas in the immediate vicinity.
The junta, which has ruled Myanmar in various incarnations for 46 years, moved the capital to Naypyidaw, 400 km (250 miles) north from Yangon, the former Rangoon, in 2005. Than Shwe has rarely been seen in public since.
The United Nations' chief humanitarian officer, John Holmes, arrived in Yangon on Sunday night and was expected to deliver a message from Ban to the generals.
Ban previously proposed a "high-level pledging conference" to deal with the crisis, as well as having a joint coordinator from the United Nations and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to oversee aid delivery.
Analysts speculated Than Shwe's appearance in Yangon meant he was likely to meet Holmes or possibly Ban.
Thousands of children could die within weeks if food does not get to them soon, the aid organization Save the Children said on Sunday. Malloch-Brown said the United Nations estimated that help had reached less than 25 percent of those in need.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded the human toll of Nargis -- a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighboring Bangladesh and another that killed 143,000 people in 1991, also in Bangladesh.
If Myanmar's junta does not open its doors to a large-scale aid operation like the one after the Asian tsunami in December 2004, disaster experts say the death toll from Nargis could climb dramatically.
At least 232,000 people were killed when the tsunami struck nations bordering the Indian Ocean.
Malloch-Brown, who came to Yangon after visiting some ASEAN members, said the Asian/U.N.-led process had already begun.
Asian nations considered friendly by Myanmar were sending in aid teams and an ASEAN assessment team was on the ground, he said. That team is due to report to a meeting of foreign ministers from ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, in Singapore on Monday.
Other countries would make their contributions through this channel, Malloch-Brown said.
Despite his optimism about a possible breakthrough, he said that, because of the junta's suspicions, operations were still unlikely to involve numbers of foreign aid workers comparable to other recent disasters in Asia.
7:36 PM
JIANGYOU, China (AFP) - - China on Sunday declared three days of mourning and suspended the Olympic torch relay nearly a week after a massive quake struck the country's southwest, as the death toll continued to mount.
The announcements came after a powerful aftershock rattled devastated Sichuan province, killing at least three people and hampering China's efforts to help nearly five million homeless facing the threats of disease and floods.
From Monday, the government ordered the national flag to fly at half-mast for three days and called for three minutes of silence nationwide at 2:28 pm (0628 GMT) Monday, exactly one week after the massive quake struck.
During the period of national mourning, the Olympic torch relay -- eagerly awaited across China -- has been suspended, organisers of the Beijing summer Games announced.
Authorities on Sunday raised the number of confirmed deaths to 32,476 from the quake and revised upward the strength of the quake to 8.0 on the Richter scale. The US Geological Survey has put its strength at a magnitude of 7.9.
Sunday's aftershock, with a magnitude of 6.0, shook some of the worst-hit parts of Sichuan, killing at least three people in the town of Jiangyou, local government official Liao Boxun told AFP by phone.
People in the town, which was dotted with thousands of blue tents for quake homeless, said the aftershock had spread new fears among a population already traumatised.
"When the aftershock hit, mothers hugged their crying children and tried to comfort them, telling them everything would be OK," Dai Yong, who works in Jiangyou, told AFP.
The region has suffered at least 24 aftershocks of 5.0 or above on the Richter scale since Monday's quake, amid all-out efforts to rescue more than 9,500 people still buried under the rubble of collapsed structures.
Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday urged scientists at the China Seismological Bureau to improve research on earthquakes and develop better warning systems, the Xinhua state news agency said.
Two more people were pulled to safety after improbably surviving six days under the chunks of concrete and other debris, but the pace of such miracle rescues slowed markedly.
Officials have estimated the final death toll could eventually top 50,000.
In a bid to help quake survivors, two US military planes packed with food, power generators and other goods flew into Sichuan province, the first aid that China has accepted from foreign armed forces.
Rescue experts from Japan, Russia, Singapore and South Korea, as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong, have been allowed in to help the effort.
Rain also compounded the misery for many of the estimated 4.8 million who have been left without homes.
Tens of thousands of people huddled in appalling conditions in the town of Maoxian under leaky makeshift rain covers, in dire need of food, medicine and shelter, the Sichuan News Online site reported.
"The people have gone from one disaster to another," the report said.
Flood fears also persisted, with the Sichuan government saying landslides triggered by Monday's earthquake had blocked rivers and streams in at least 21 places, causing water levels to swell dangerously behind the rubble.
China had already on Saturday evacuated thousands of people in devastated areas near the quake epicentre due to one such blocked river.
Worse is possibly to come, with China's national meteorological centre predicting torrential rains later this week in the quake disaster zone, warning they could trigger landslides.
The World Health Organisation said Saturday that the lack of safe drinking water or proper waste disposal along with cramped conditions in makeshift camps was "conducive" to disease outbreaks.
The military, however, said that nuclear facilities in the region had been checked for signs of any damage and were confirmed safe.
Relief workers by Saturday had finally restored land connections with the worst-hit counties of Beichuan and Wenchuan, allowing the full horror of the quake to begin to emerge.
Luo Hong, a 22-year-old woman who sells beer, learned that her 55-year-old father, Luo Zaiping, was killed at the coal mine where he worked.
"He worked hard his entire life. Originally he wasn't supposed to work Monday and then this happened," she said.
Xinhua reported that five employees were killed and at least three pandas were missing at the world-renowned Wolong panda breeding centre, which was heavily damaged.
The news appeared to contradict early reports that more than 80 giant pandas at the centre were confirmed safe.
12:00 PM
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border on Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats.
The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
The junta flew 60 diplomats and U.N. officials in helicopters to three places in the Irrawaddy delta where camps, aid and survivors were put on display. The diplomats were not swayed.
"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see."
The relief group Save the Children UK warned that thousands of children could die of starvation within two or three weeks unless more aid gets into the country quickly.
"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid many of these children will not survive much longer," the charity said in a statement. "Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food."
Meanwhile, a French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water was given the now familiar red light, a response that France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called "nonsense."
"We have small boats which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said a day earlier at U.N. headquarters. "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."
The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well. U.S. Marine flights from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday — bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered — but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.
Britain's prime minister accused authorities in Myanmar of behaving inhumanely by preventing foreign aid from reaching victims, and said the country's regime cares more about its own survival than the welfare of its people.
"This is inhuman," Gordon Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. in his strongest criticism yet of Myanmar's authoritarian government.
Brown said a natural disaster "is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do."
Britain's Ministry of Defense said it had dispatched a Royal Navy frigate to the area "as a contingency." The HMS Westminster broke away from an exercise with the French and Indian navies, a ministry spokesman said, speaking anonymously in line with military policy.
The spokesman said the ship carried a crew of 98 and was equipped with a communications facility, a Merlin helicopter, two sea boats, a doctor and a paramedic. The spokesman added that crew members are all trained in disaster relief.
Myanmar's media, which has repeatedly broadcast footage of generals reassuring refugees calmly sitting in clean tents, announced Friday that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis had nearly doubled to 78,000 with about 56,000 missing.
Aid groups say even those estimates are low.
According to the international Red Cross, the death toll alone is probably about 128,000, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation unless help gets quickly to some 2.5 million survivors of the disaster.
But seeing that help gets to the victims is not the first priority of Myanmar's rulers. The military, which took power in a 1962 coup, says all aid must be delivered to the government for distribution and has barred foreigners from leaving Yangon, putting up a security cordon around the country's main city.
Myanmar has been slightly more open to aid from its neighbors.
It has accepted Thai and Indian medical teams, which arrived in Yangon on Saturday. The 32-member Thai team was expected to travel to the delta in the coming days, said Dr. Surachet Satitniramai, director of Thailand's National Medical Emergency Services Institute.
The Indian team consists of 50 doctors and paramedics from the Army Medical Corp., said Indian Air Force spokesman Wing Cmdr. Manish Gandhi. He could not immediately say if they will be allowed to go to the delta.
With the monsoon season coming, Myanmar was bracing for a long haul ahead.
Though patches of hot sun broke through Saturday, heavy rains since the cyclone have hampered relief efforts. Despite the overabundance of water in the flooded delta, shortages of water that is fresh enough to drink grew more severe by the day.
Access to regular supplies of safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for preventing waterborne diseases like cholera. Malaria and dengue fever outbreaks also will be a major concern in the coming weeks after mosquitoes have time to breed in the stagnant water.
In one town, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts awaiting food and water. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious supplies, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share.
They were among the lucky ones — aid was actually coming.
"The further you go, the worse the situation," said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of the country's largest city, Yangon, helping a locally organized relief effort there.
"Near Yangon, people are getting a lot of help and it's still bad," said the doctor, who refused to give her name for fear of being punished by the regime. "In the remote delta villages, we don't even want to imagine."
11:59 AM
DONGHEKOU, China - Two rivers blocked by landslides threatened to flood towns shattered by China's massive earthquake, sending thousands of survivors fleeing Saturday in a region still staggering from the country's worst disaster in 30 years.
A mountain sheared off by the mighty tremor cut the Qingzhu river and swallowed the riverside village of Donghekou whole, entombing an unknown number of people inside a huge mound of brown earth.
Compounding the horror for survivors, a lake rising behind the wall of debris threatens to break its banks and send torrents cascading into villages downstream.
Pannicky residents streamed out of the entire county on the northern edge of the quake zone, spurred on by mobile phone text messages sent en masse by local government officials warning that the water level was rising and people downstream were being evacuated.
In the town of Beichuan, 60 miles to the south, thousands fled as the reports circulated.
Rescue work resumed later in the day and experts were monitoring the river above Beichuan, the People's Daily newspaper said on its web site. The swift exodus underscored the jitters running through the disaster zone. A strong aftershock — the second in two days and measured by the U.S. Geological Survey at magnitude 5.7 — shook the area early Sunday for 45 seconds, causing people to run into the streets.
In all the devastation wrought by the quake, little looks as bleak as Donghekou.
The road to the village ends in a tangled twist of metal and tar. In the small valley below, the village itself has disappeared when the mountain collapsed. Locals said two other villages further upstream, Ciban and Kangle, had suffered the same fate. The three villages were home to about 300 families, locals said.
Eerie and still, the remaining landscape has few signs of human life — a soiled green floral scarf, a rubber pipe, a log.
"Oh God! I have lost everything," said Wen Xiaoying, 32, whose voice shook as she surveyed the valley below for the first time since returning from far-off Guangdong province where she worked.
She held up one hand as she ticked off the family members that died — her father, her mother, her sister and her brother-in-law — all of them buried somewhere in the muck before her.
"When I saw them the last time, we celebrated together," said Wen, a glimmer of a smile showing through as she remembered happier days. "I didn't expect it would be the last time I saw them."
Su Ciyao trudged over the bend in plastic slippers, carrying a plastic rice bag stuffed with salvaged clothes.
"My village is over there," the 44-year-old said, gesturing to the swollen earth behind him. Asked where his family was, he could only shake his head.
"Only me," he said, and then set off without a backward glance.
Drizzling rain in the valley added to the gloom, and to the fear of carloads of people who clogged the twisting mountain roads as they streamed out of the region.
The government's daily update added another few thousand bodies to the death toll as it continued climbing toward an expected final tally of at least 50,000. Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin said 28,881 deaths have been confirmed so far.
The official Xinhua News Agency, citing regional officials, said more than 10,600 people were known to be still buried almost one week after the 7.9 magnitude quake hit, shattering thousands of buildings in dozens of towns and cities in Sichuan province.
The number of security forces helping victims rose to almost 150,000, and the government added cash payments to victims to its response.
The government would give $715 in compensation to each family that lost a member in the earthquake, China National Radio reported Saturday on its web site. At a State Council meeting hosted by Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, the government also decided it would also hand out a daily ration of food and $1.40 to survivors, the report said.
Almost a week after the quake struck, rescues were still occurring.
Rescuers pulled at least seven more survivors from collapsed buildings, the last a man saved after 128 hours. Both of his legs had to be amputated. Another, 20-year-old highway worker Jiang Yuhang was pulled free shortly after his mother arrived from a neighboring province.
"I was expecting to see my son's body. I never expected to see him alive," his mother, Long Jinyu, said on state television.
Experts say buried earthquake survivors can last a week or more, depending on factors including the temperature and whether they have water to drink, but that the chances of survival diminish rapidly after the first 24 hours.
Rescue teams from Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Russia worked alongside Chinese troops, and more international aid was arriving, including a U.S. Air Force cargo plane loaded with tents, lanterns and 15,000 meals.
9:48 PM
SHIFANG, China (AFP) - - China ramped up efforts on Saturday to stave off disease for millions of earthquake victims, as more miracle rescues amid the rubble offered hope in an increasingly desperate battle to save lives.
Five days after the enormous earthquake that the government estimates killed more than 50,000 people, there were rising concerns over potential disease outbreaks among the nearly five million survivors who have lost their homes.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the 7.9-magnitude quake continued to climb as authorities cleared their way through pulverised towns and gained better access to isolated areas -- gaining a better picture of the full scale of the horror.
The government raised the confirmed death toll by more than 6,000 to 28,881. But many expect the eventual figure could surpass even the government's estimate of over 50,000.
Entire towns in mountainous Sichuan province were flattened in Monday's quake, with the main zone of destruction spreading across 100,000 square kilometres (40,000 square miles) -- an area three times the size of Belgium.
The tremor, which could be felt as far away as Bangkok, saw mountainsides in Sichuan sheared off, roads split in two, and countless thousands of buildings toppled or in danger of collapse.
Since the quake, the most pressing priority has been to rescue those trapped amid the mass of twisted metal and concrete, and three more people, including a German tourist, were pulled out of the rubble on Saturday.
In Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas, a 69-year-old man was hauled out of the rubble after 119 hours, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, marking the longest time that a person is known to have survived in the debris.
Five hours earlier, 20 Chinese soldiers pulled out the German tourist from the wreckage of a building in a remote village that was just a few kilometres from the quake's epicentre, according to Xinhua, which did not identify him.
The miracle rescues on Saturday defied the warnings of experts that chances of survival were extremely small after 72 hours, and showed the determined statements from China's leaders and rescue workers had foundation.
"Giving up is excluded from our dictionary," the Xinhua quoted one rescue worker as saying.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who state media reported was personally leading rescue efforts, earlier said: "Where there is a beam of hope, we will spare no efforts to save the trapped."
China initially rebuffed offers of help from foreign rescue experts, but teams from Japan, Russia, Singapore and South Korea have now all begun operating in the disaster zone.
Teams have also headed in from Taiwan -- which China considers to be part of its territory -- and Hong Kong.
The international experts have brought in sniffer dogs, fibre-optic scopes, life detector systems and hydraulic cutters and spreaders.
As the rescue effort pressed on, other authorities focused on supplying fresh drinking water and improving sanitary conditions for the 4.8 million people who lost their homes and are living in tent cities or in the open.
Chian's health ministry said supplying clean water to the survivors was vital if the disease outbreaks were to be prevented.
Huge water purification machines capable of providing for up to 10,000 people a day were being taken into some of the most remote areas of Sichuan province, while authorities were frantically distributing portable toilets.
In Shifang city, where more than 2,500 people have been confirmed killed and thousands more remain missing, leaflets were being given to the shell-shocked, homeless survivors advising on hygiene and how to prevent disease.
In Dujiangyan city, hundreds of people living in tents had access to just one toilet.
"That toilet is too crowded, so maybe some people are going outside," said one woman who did not want her name to be used.
Amid the grief and shock, there was also increasing anger at how towns and cities could be felled in a matter of minutes.
The government said close to 7,000 schools -- a disproportionately high number of buildings -- were destroyed in Sichuan by the quake, which struck in the afternoon when many children were in class or taking their daily naps.
"Look at the building materials they used," said one resident in the rural community of Juyuan where the four-storey middle school was destroyed, blaming poor workmanship for the collapse.
"The cement wasn't mixed with water in the right proportion. There are not enough steel beams." Up to 900 children were killed at the school, while nearby buildings remained standing.
