BOAO: China's Premier Wen Jiabao said Saturday that the country's stimulus package is working and the economy is``better than expected.''He also vowed to expand the country's domestic demand and pull China out of the global economic slump. Wen spoke at the Boao Forum, an annual gathering of government and business leaders on the southern island province of Hainan.Wen said he is confident China can overcome the crisis but cautioned that global economic recovery will be a ``long and torturous process.'' ``We should not lose sight of the fact that the international financial crisis is still spreading, the basic trend of world economic recession is not reversed,'' he said.China has sufficient capital and rich labor resources, as well as institutional advantages to overcome the crisis, he said. Wen's comments came just days after China announced its economy expanded at its slowest pace _ 6.1 percent _ in at least a decade in the first quarter.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments