Manila, Philippines

A man suspected of al-Qaida links has been detained after arriving at the Manila airport from Saudi Arabia and may have been handed over to U.S. officials, Philippine immigration officials said today.

The man, identified by the officials as Saudi Arabian national Abdullah Nassar al-Arifi, 34, appears on an FBI list of terror suspects, and may have links to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States as well as the 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, the officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

He was detained shortly after arriving on a Philippine Airlines flight from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Wednesday, the officials said.

An immigration official said U.S. federal agents took custody of the suspect, but other officials said he was still being held by the Philippine immigration bureau and U.S. officials were taking part in an investigation.

China has released a political prisoner and allowed her to fly to the United States for medical treatment and to join her husband in exile, fulfilling a long-standing request of the U.S. government just three days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's scheduled visit here, a San Francisco-based human-rights group announced yesterday.

And hours later, the Bush administration announced it would not seek a resolution criticizing China's human-rights record at a United Nations meeting in Geneva.

Rebiya Kadeer had served 5 ½ years of an original eight-year prison sentence ostensibly for releasing state secrets abroad, or trying to send copies of newspapers from her native region of Xinjiang to her husband, an outspoken advocate for the rights of ethnic Uighurs, Muslim separatists in the region.

Kadeer's release appears to be an attempt to set a positive tone for Rice's first visit to China as secretary of state.

Havana, Cuba

Castro blasts claim he's worth millions

Cuban President Fidel Castro criticized Forbes magazine yesterday for listing him among the world's richest people, with a net worth of $550 million.

"Once again, they have committed the infamy of speaking about Castro's fortune, placing me almost above the queen of England," Castro said in a speech to top officials of Cuba's ruling Communist Party, military and police.

"Do they think I am [former Zairian President] Mobutu [Sese Seko] or one of the many millionaires, those thieves and plunderers that the empire has suckled and protected?" he said in reference to the United States.

The magazine said Castro derived his fortune from a web of state-owned companies that included retail and pharmaceutical businesses and a convention center.

Jakarta, Indonesia

Deadline extended for aid groups' exit

Indonesia has extended a March 26 deadline by which it planned to ask some foreign-aid agencies working in tsunami-devastated Aceh province to wrap up operations and leave the country, the government said.

More than 160 relief organizations are operating in Aceh nearly three months after the strongest quake in 40 years and the biggest tsunami on record swamped the Indian Ocean rim, leaving nearly a quarter-million people dead or missing and some 400,000 homeless.

The extended deadline — temporarily set at 30 to 60 days — also applied to foreign troops, who had previously been asked to pull out by March 26, Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab said in an interview published in the Jakarta Post newspaper on Friday.

The presence of foreign troops, particularly the Americans, has been a sensitive issue in the world's most-populous Muslim country.

Also

Bolivian politics: President Carlos Mesa decided yesterday to remain in office after Congress' rejection of his request this week to call a presidential election two years early. Mesa also threatened to quit last week, changing his mind after Congress voiced its support in the face of a sweeping rights movement by Bolivia's impoverished indigenous majority over his plans to open the country's energy sector to more foreign investment.

Passenger detained: A passenger on a Tokyo-Moscow flight was detained yesterday after he tried to get into the cockpit of the Aeroflot Boeing 777, Russian news agencies reported. One report said the man threatened to blow up the plane carrying 214 passengers but suggested he did not have explosives.

Activist freed: Myanmar's military government has freed a prominent former student activist, Ko Ko Gyi, more than 13 years after he was jailed in the country, also known as Burma, Radio Free Asia reported yesterday. The station is funded by the U.S. government.