During his first visit to Chile, US President George W. Bush rescued a bodyguard scuffling with local security and -- with a slip of the tongue -- moved Iraq's newly announced elections from January to June.
Bush enjoyed a some diplomatic victories during this three-day stay here, from a deal to shave billions of dollars from Iraq's debt to rallying key US partners behind his efforts to drag North Korea back to nuclear crisis talks. And if it was not all smooth sailing, he was hardly the only one making waves.
First, a White House briefing book distributed to reporters said Bush would meet with "President Megawati Soekarnoputri" of Indonesia on Saturday, even though she handed power to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Oct. 20.
Then, Bush took part in an unusual incident after a platoon of Chilean security blocked his lead Secret Service protector from following him into a dinner, leading to an unusual scuffle caught by television cameras.
The president, who had been posing for photographs with wife Laura Bush,noticed the shoving match, doubled back, reached into the scrum, and pulled the agent out, then walked away shaking his head and adjusting his shirt cuffs.
"The president is someone who tends to delegate, but every now and then he's a hands-on kind of guy," White House press secretary Scott McClellan joked a day later.
Another security squabble, this one over US plans to run the 400 guests at a banquet in Bush's honor through a metal detector, led Chile to scrap the feast and replace it with a 20-person working dinner, a Chilean official said.
"I won't let them do that to my guests," Chilean President Ricardo Lagoswas quoted as saying by a foreign ministry official. US officials did not dispute the thrust of that account.
Some of the miscues were minor head-scratchers stemming from Bush's famed tendency to mangle the English language.
In a joint public appearance with Lagos, Bush meant to take note of plans for Jan. 30 elections in Iraq, but said instead: "I noticed today that the elections are on schedule for June the 30th."
And Bush said he and Lagos were determined "to bring drug trafficking to bear," presumably a mix-up with his frequently stated eagerness to crush that global scourge.
Referring to the relative innocence of the days before the Sept. 11, 2001 strikes, Bush told executives on Saturday: "We thought we were protected forever from trade policy or terrorist attacks because oceans protected us."
In that same speech, Bush meant to praise the APEC meeting here, but instead declared: "Our nation is a Pacific country, as well. And that's why the OPEC conferences are so important."
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to