Singapore toughens
law to better combat SARS
Singapore
parliament Friday approved an amendment to the
Infectious Disease Act to better tackle the outbreak
of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Under the amended
act, anyone who knows or suspects he has an
infectious disease must go to a designated treatment
center and cannot go to public places or he will
face stiff fines and even jails.
People who break home
quarantine order will be tagged or even arrested and
detained at a hospital or some other place.
In addition, they can
be fined up to 5,000 Singapore dollars (about 2,800
US dollars and repeat offenders will be referred to
court.
The amended law also
allows for contaminated areas to be quarantined and
any suspected sources of infection can be destroyed.
The amendment gives
health authorities more teeth to deal with
irresponsible and recalcitrant people who breach
quarantine orders and disregard the advice of
doctors.
Under the amended
law, people who refuse to cooperate with disease
control measures or provide false or misleading
information face a fine of 10,000 Singapore dollars
(about 5,600 US dollars) and jail up to 6 months,
and repeat offenders can be fined up to 20,000
Singapore dollars (about 11,200 US dollars) and
jailed up to a year.
The law also says
that because SARS may be masked by other medical
conditions, health authorities can in some suspect
deaths order a post-mortem, insist on special
precautions in handling the body, and also not allow
for a funeral wake.
German bus
hijacking ends without bloodshed
An armed man
hijacking a bus Friday morning in Bremen surrendered
after several hours of negotiation with police,
according to reports reaching here.
No one was wounded in
the bus which had 15 passengers on board.
The gunman boarded
the bus in Bremen and ordered the driver to drive
the bus towards Hanover, which was later stopped and
surrounded by police cars in a highway between the
two cities.
The 25-year-old
highjacker fired a shot of pistol in the air to warn
the police in pursuit. German TV reports said that
among the hostages were several children.
There was no
immediate report about the motivation of the
highjacker.
It was the second
such incident happened in Germany in two weeks. On
April 11, an armed man hijacked a Berlin city bus
after a bank robbery. Police stormed the bus and
freed hostages aboard over four hours later.
Ousted Saddam
unable to celebrate birthday
The Iraqis, who had
been accustomed to festivities on birthdays of
former President Saddam Hussein, have to consider
exploring a new path -- living for their own
euphoria.
There will be no
cheerful celebrations, no holidays and even no
perceived reluctance, given the absence of the main
character -- Saddam, a man who was toppled on April
9 following his 24-year rule of the oil-rich
country.
In the capital city
of Baghdad, which has since been under US troops'
occupation, Baghdadis could for the first time
ignore the date -- April 28, when Saddam will turn
66 years old this year. Defying international
opposition, the United States and Britain launched a
war against Iraq on March 20, and the coalition
troops ousted Saddam after 20 days of offensives.
The US troops have
been still searching for Saddam, who has vanished
since April 9.
Saddam has liquidated
all his rivals in the ruling Baath party and set up
a dictatorial regime since the Iraqi strongman
ascended to power in 1979. During his rule, he
involved the Iraqi people in three devastating wars.
Iraq was involved in
a bloody war with neighboring Iran in 1980-1988. Two
years later, Iraq invaded the small emirate of
Kuwait. Finally, Saddam went into war with the
United States.
In those wars, Iraq
lost its army, millions of people and billions of
dollars, and eventually it lost independence.
The Iraqis under
Saddam's rule have been living in abject poverty due
to strict UN sanctions imposed after the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait.
While people fought
their ways for living, Saddam snatched Iraqi wealth
and spent a huge amount of money on arms industry,
his palaces and luxurious lives of his own and his
next of kin.
Previous celebrations
throughout the country on April 28 every year were
part and parcel of the plunder.
The ousted regime had
asked famous singers and dancers to perform on the
birthdays, while Baathists had forced shop owners to
lift banners to hail Saddam.
Moreover, front pages
of newspapers and magazines used to issue special
supplements on such occasions. Radio and TV stations
used to make special programs to mark them.
These programs
usually dealt with Saddam's heroism and his alleged
victories despite the fact that during his stay in
power, 5million Iraqis were left homeless. They fled
the country for political and economic reasons.
Penalties used to be
executed against political foes who criticized
Saddam's rule.
Why has Iraq become a
wasteland and been occupied by US troops -- a
question the Iraqis ask.
American Airlines
CEO resigns
American Airlines
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Donald J.
Carty resigned on Thursday after the world's largest
airline finally reached an agreement with its unions
over cost-saving plans to avoid bankruptcy.
The company on
Thursday released the news on its website,
announcing that Gerard Arpey, the company's
president, will replace Carty as the CEO, while
board member Edward A. Brennan will take over as the
chairman.
Analysts said the
shake-up could be attributed to a string of events
related to cost-cutting inside the company, which
happened over the past weeks. Carty had been sharply
criticized for his silence over executive perks --
the airline's unions of special pension trust
funding and retention bonuses for executives --
while workers were accepting deep wage cuts.
The company said that
Carty's successor, Arpey, 44, has devoted his entire
professional career to American Airlines, where he
began as a financial analyst in 1982 and became a
corporate officer in 1989. Brennan, 69, is the
retired chairman, president and CEO of Sears,
Roebuck and Co..
In order to stay in
business at a time when almost the whole US airline
industry is in financial difficulties, American
Airlines announced to carry out a 1.8 billion-dollar
cost-cutting package earlier this month.
Because the flight
attendants union did not agree to deep pay cuts by a
deadline on Thursday afternoon, the American
Airlines may still file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in New York in recent days.
The timing depends on
whether the flight attendants go ahead and accept
the concessions.
Analysts said that if
the flight attendants approve the cuts, it was still
possible the airline could avoid a quick bankruptcy
filing.
Airlines have been
suffering through the worst crisis in their history
since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against
the United States hurt travel. Since then the
airlines have suffered one setback after another,
including higher fuel prices, the Iraq war and a new
pneumonia-like virus that has crippled travel.
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