Calling it a "milestone" in the fight against corruption worldwide, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened what is being billed as the world's first anti-corruption academy late last week, promising that it will train a new generation of law enforcers and focus on new types of graft, especially in the financial and business arenas.
AFP - Seven armed Slovaks arrested in the Central African Republic over an alleged coup plot have been freed after proving they were tourists on a safari hunt, the foreign ministry in Bratislava said Monday. "There was a misunderstanding. The Slovaks were not plotting, they were hunters on a safari in the Central African Republic with legally-owned guns," ministry spokesman Lubos Schwarzbacher said.
AFP - Seven armed Slovaks arrested in the Central African Republic over an alleged coup plot have been freed after proving they were tourists on a safari hunt, the foreign ministry in Bratislava said Monday.
"There was a misunderstanding. The Slovaks were not plotting, they were hunters on a safari in the Central African Republic with legally-owned guns," ministry spokesman Lubos Schwarzbacher said.
AFP - At least 19 people were killed and 45 wounded when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police station in northwest Pakistan on Monday, destroying the building, police said. Nine policemen and four schoolchildren were among those killed by the attack in Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, not far from tribal areas that are a stronghold of the Taliban, police said. At least 110 people have been killed over the past week as militants step up their attacks across the country.
AFP - Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a "national tragedy" on Sunday after landslides killed at least 38 people and left rescuers digging in the mud for nearly two dozen still missing. Colom declared a state of emergency as fears grew the eventual toll from scores of landslides across the country set off by weeks of torrential rain could be far higher. "It's a national tragedy," Colom said as he visited a site where up to 40 people were feared to have been buried alive in a mudslide. "This weekend alone we have seen damage comparable to what we experienced with Agatha," he said, referring to a tropical storm in May that killed 165 Guatemalans and left thousands homeless.
AFP - Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a "national tragedy" on Sunday after landslides killed at least 38 people and left rescuers digging in the mud for nearly two dozen still missing.
Colom declared a state of emergency as fears grew the eventual toll from scores of landslides across the country set off by weeks of torrential rain could be far higher.
"It's a national tragedy," Colom said as he visited a site where up to 40 people were feared to have been buried alive in a mudslide.
"This weekend alone we have seen damage comparable to what we experienced with Agatha," he said, referring to a tropical storm in May that killed 165 Guatemalans and left thousands homeless.
AFP - At least 10 African heads of state and tens of thousands of Rwandans gathered Monday for the swearing in of Paul Kagame, who won a landslide victory in last month's presidential elections. Kigali's Amahoro stadium was packed to capacity, with an estimated 40,000 people inside and thousands of others set to follow the event on giant screens outside the stadium. Among the attending dignitaries is President Joseph Kabila whose Democratic Republic of Congo is the focus of a leaked UN report alleging that the Rwandan army committed widespread atrocities, possibly amounting to genocide, there between 1996-98. Kigali rejected the charges and threatened to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Sudan if the UN goes ahead and publishes the report.
AFP - At least 10 African heads of state and tens of thousands of Rwandans gathered Monday for the swearing in of Paul Kagame, who won a landslide victory in last month's presidential elections.
Kigali's Amahoro stadium was packed to capacity, with an estimated 40,000 people inside and thousands of others set to follow the event on giant screens outside the stadium.
Among the attending dignitaries is President Joseph Kabila whose Democratic Republic of Congo is the focus of a leaked UN report alleging that the Rwandan army committed widespread atrocities, possibly amounting to genocide, there between 1996-98.
Kigali rejected the charges and threatened to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Sudan if the UN goes ahead and publishes the report.
AFP - Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in comments published on Monday that he erred in accusing Syria of the murder of his father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, in a 2005 bombing in Beirut. "At some point, we made a mistake," Hariri told the Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat. "At one stage, we accused Syria of assassinating the martyred premier. "That was a political accusation, and that political accusation is over," Hariri told the London-based newspaper.
MANAGUA, Sep 6, 2010 (IPS) - An independent study has confirmed that extreme poverty in Nicaragua fell by 7.5 percentage points between 2005 and 2009, an achievement clouded by criticism of the environmental costs, a supposed lack of transparency and the paternalism of the country's social programmes.
Some news items from El Salvador this week.
Bolivia: Quiroga Conviction Controversy
Guatemala "Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne
"Support for flights without movies" is the name of a small group that several years ago encouraged Haredi travelers not to take regular flights unless they had cardboard that could cover the movie screens on the airplane seats in front of them. This year the idea caught on that immodest sights may also be a threat outside the airplane - in the airport terminal, for example. So pilgrims are being encouraged to bring scarves along. "In any cloth shop, ask for a thin lycra cloth 70 cm wide (blue, brown or black ) costing about 20 NIS," reads one instruction. "It needs to be about 1.5 meters long ... which is necessary so it will sit well and not flow in the wind." The leaflet notes that even if people laugh at someone wearing the scarf on his face, those covering their eyes "will be rewarded a thousand fold."
This year the idea caught on that immodest sights may also be a threat outside the airplane - in the airport terminal, for example. So pilgrims are being encouraged to bring scarves along.
"In any cloth shop, ask for a thin lycra cloth 70 cm wide (blue, brown or black ) costing about 20 NIS," reads one instruction. "It needs to be about 1.5 meters long ... which is necessary so it will sit well and not flow in the wind."
The leaflet notes that even if people laugh at someone wearing the scarf on his face, those covering their eyes "will be rewarded a thousand fold."
Third party intervention is clearly indispensable. To put it more simply, there can be no settlement unless America pushes Israel into a settlement. Playing the honest broker will not do the trick. In the first place, most Arabs regard the United States as a dishonest broker on account of its palpable partisanship on behalf of Israel. Moreover, honest brokerage is not enough. In order to bridge the huge gap separating the two sides, America must first redress the balance of power by putting most of its weight on the side of the weaker party.
