CAL to launch this year's 1st charter flight during Lunar New Year
January 16, 2006Taiwan's China Airlines said Monday it will launch the first of this year's cross-strait charter flights to be operated during the Lunar New Year holidays on Friday. The Shanghai-bound Airbus 330-300 aircraft will take off from Taipei at 7:45 a.m. Friday and arrive in the Chinese city at 10:55 a.m., the state-run company said.
Malaysia says ASEAN will prod Myanmar on reform in 'acceptable' ways
January 16, 2006Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill on Monday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will work in ways ''acceptable'' to Myanmar on the issues of human rights and democratic reforms. ''Everybody, when they see us, will always express their concern about democracy in Myanmar and the human rights issues,'' Syed Hamid told reporters after an hour-plus meeting with Hill in his office in Malaysia's federal administrative capital of Putrajaya. ''But I think, the most important (thing) for ASEAN, we want to do it in a way that is acceptable to Myanmar.''