Buenos Aires/La Paz - These are difficult times for US diplomacy in South America. Bolivia and Venezuela expelled the US ambassadors from their countries, in aggressive and often abusive, televised announcements by their presidents.

It started with Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president and an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. In a dramatic television appearance Wednesday he said: "Without fear of the empire, I declare today to the Bolivian people that Mr Goldberg, the ambassador of the United States, is persona non grata."

Taipei - A Taiwan-based Chinese dissident on Saturday blasted the United States, calling the country "as crooked as China" for rejecting an asylum request made by him and two other Chinese dissidents.

Cai Lujun made the denouncement in an open letter, following the rejection of his asylum request by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy in Taiwan.

La Marque, Texas - Hurricane Ike Friday stalked hungrily across the Gulf of Mexico with its victim firmly in its sights.

By early Saturday morning, Galveston, a barrier island of 60,000 residents, faced certain devastation from Ike's 165-kilometre-an-hour winds. Those who refused to evacuate faced nearly certain death, forecasters warned.

"Galveston could disappear," said John Dennis, who was waiting in line at one of the only operating petrol stations in La Marque, the first town on the Texas mainland from Galveston.

La Marque, Texas - It was still a half day before the eye of Hurricane Ike was due to make landfall, there was little more than a strong breeze and the sky seemed reluctant to turn from white to grey, but the picture Friday had elements to promote panic.

Many roads and streets in Galveston, Texas, were already under water. And high tide was still hours away.

"Galveston could disappear," said John Dennis.

He was not joking - his jeans, wet to his knees, spoke for themselves.

"I just picked up my wife, and now I have to return to pick up my in-laws," he added. "They don't want to go, but we are going to get them out whatever it takes."

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rode a Swiss-made, fully solar-powered vehicle to work at UN headquarters on Friday as part of his efforts to raise awareness of dangers of climate change.

He has already raised the thermostat by 3 degrees Celsius at UN headquarters during the summer to set an example of UN responsibility to save the climate by lowering emissions of carbon dioxide from the old UN structure built in the early 1950s.

Ban rode the so-called "Solartaxi" from his residence just a few blocks from his office on the 38th floor at the UN.

Washington - The United States on Friday froze the assets of two high-ranking Venezuelan intelligence officials accused of arming rebels in neighbouring Colombia, amid a growing diplomatic standoff between Caracas and Washington.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday expelled the US ambassador to Venezuela and recalled his own from the United States. The move was out of solidarity with Bolivia, which has accused the US of fomenting unrest in the country and pulled its own ambassador from the US this week.