Venezuela

Chavez foes submit signatures for recall

Thousands of Venezuelans celebrated in the streets after opposition leaders turned in 2.7 million signatures Wednesday to demand a referendum on ending Hugo Chavez’s tumultuous presidency.

Above, an opposition member waves a poster that reads “Out the crazy Chavez” during a rally Wednesday.

In Argentina, a defiant Chavez vowed to resist any attempt to remove him. He claimed some of the signatures were fake.

The signatures “appear in every light to be illegal. They don’t meet constitutional requirements,” Chavez said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press in Buenos Aires.

Tokyo

Japan wants abductions part of N. Korea talks

Talks among six nations next week in Beijing will focus on North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program. But Japan is unique in bringing another agenda to the table: the abduction of its citizens by North Korean spies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Japan’s chief negotiator said Wednesday that Tokyo wanted the talks to press North Korea on this issue, but Pyongyong said talk of the kidnappings would disrupt negotiations.

At home, the Tokyo government faces a Japanese public demanding that the fate of the kidnapped and their families not be shoved aside amid the international drive to halt the North’s weapons plans.

Pyongyang has repatriated five abductees but not their seven children.

British Columbia

WHO virologist to study SARS-like outbreak

A World Health Organization virologist has joined the Canadian investigation of a flulike illness in British Columbia that officials say could be a mild form of SARS or related virus.

Almost 150 residents and staff members at one nursing home fell ill with sniffles and other symptoms less severe than the pneumonia associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Most have recovered, but six of the nursing home residents have died of pneumonia-related illness.

Three of the dead and an unspecified number of others sickened at the Kinsmen Place Lodge in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb, tested positive for coronavirus, the kind associated with SARS, noted Dr. David Patrick of the B.C. Center for Disease Control.

Washington, D.C.

U.S. issues warning of terrorism in Yemen

The State Department said Wednesday the security threat to Americans in Yemen remains high “due to continuing efforts by al-Qaida to reconstitute an effective operating base.”

A department travel warning said the al-Qaida efforts could lead to possible attacks by “extremist individuals or groups against U.S. citizens, facilities, businesses and perceived interests.”

The statement was an update of a travel warning issued in May. The earlier warning contained no reference to al-Qaida activities in Yemen, an impoverished country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

The new statement was issued three weeks after Yemeni security forces arrested five alleged militants linked to al-Qaida who are suspected of involvement in an attack on a military convoy.