APEC leaders' touchy palates

APEC leaders' touchy palates

THAILAND: Pity poor Vichit Mukura. He's the chef at Bangkok's
plush Oriental hotel who has been working for a year on the
preparations for Monday's slap-up gala dinner for the 21 leaders
and their spouses attending the annual Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation summit.

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai has personally
tasted the delicacies, which include the country's signature dish
-- spicy tom yam kung soup (served in carved pumpkins) -- and
smoked barbecue duck red curry.

Some leaders have requested favorite Thai dishes. But others
have been hard to please. The wife of Singapore Prime Minister
Goh Chok Tong has specified no flour or cream, according to The
Nation newspaper, while South Korea's first lady is not keen on
peaches.

But it's the Chinese who must be making Vichit and his 42-chef
brigade cry into their tureens. President Hu Jintao has said he
doesn't want anything too spicy, while his wife is bringing her
own food. -- Reuters

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ANPAi..r..
Aglance-RP-U.S.-Bush
RP communists not to attack Bush
JP/11/ASEAN

RP commies vow to let Bush live

PHILIPPINES: Communist guerrillas pledged on Friday on the eve of
President George W. Bush's stopover visit to the Philippines that
they will refrain from mounting an assassination attempt on the
U.S. leader.

"If you are asking if we will mount a military action, after
the military and the police warned that an NPA (New People's
Army) team will assassinate George Bush, that is not among our
plans today, tomorrow or in the coming days," Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP) spokesman Gregorio Rosal said over DZBB
radio, referring to his party's armed wing.

Bush is to make an eight-hour state visit to the Philippines
on Saturday.

"It is true that George Bush is our enemy, but that step is
not among the protest actions that we are eying," said Rosal.

The CPP and the 9,000-member NPA has been waging a 34-year
Maoist campaign in this former U.S. colony. The U.S. State
Department considers the CPP-NPA a "foreign terrorist
organization".

Rosal urged Filipinos to join street protests against the
"imperialist United States" and its "puppet" Philippines
President Gloria Arroyo. -- AFP

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Aglance-Politics-Cambodia
Cambodian parties to hold talks
JP/11/ASEAN

Cambodian parties to hold talks

CAMBODIA: Cambodia's three feuding political parties will hold
face-to-face talks next week to try to resolve the stalemate
following July's disputed general election, a government
spokesman said on Friday.

The Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen,
a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been in power for nearly 20
years, came a clear first in the July 27 poll, but failed to win
the two thirds majority of seats needed to run the country alone.

With the royalist FUNCINPEC and opposition Sam Rainsy parties
refusing to join a Hun Sen-led coalition, the war-scarred
southeast Asian nation has been without a government ever since.

A similar deadlock after the 1998 general election dragged on
for months, culminating in mass riots on the streets of the
capital. Several protesters were killed in clashes with riot
police before the CPP and FUNCINPEC formed a coalition.

CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the three parties would
meet on Monday under the aegis of Cambodia's revered King Norodom
Sihanouk to discuss the possible formation of a new government.

"The CPP's position is that we want to solve all the problems
of the political crisis ahead of the King's birthday (Oct. 30),"
he told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. -- Reuters