The nation’s security chief told a congressional panel on Tuesday that the intelligence agency was not behind the alleged wiretapping of several top officials, but that rogue elements within the organization may be to blame. General Jorge Felix, head of the Institutional Security Ministry, was summoned to testify about illegal monitoring of the phones of top officials — including Gilmar Mendes, the president of the Supreme Court, senators and close advisers to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
■COLOMBIA
Rebel on strike for reward
Former rebel Pablo Montoya, who killed a member of the leftist FARC leadership, said on Tuesday in Bogota he had been on hunger strike for nine days because the government had not kept its promises. Montoya killed Ivan Rios — part of FARC’s seven-member leadership — and his partner on March 3. He cut off the late boss’s right hand and turned it in to the Colombian Army as proof of the killing. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said at the time that the government would give Montoya the promised reward — not for the killing, but for the information he provided about FARC.
■CANADA
Atomic veterans to get paid
The government said on Tuesday it would spend up to C$24 million (US$22.4 million) compensating veterans forced to be exposed to Cold War-era nuclear blasts but never recognized for their sacrifices. The recognition of the so-called atomic veterans, which comes days before an expected election call, also extends to military personnel who decontaminated an Ontario nuclear plant in the 1950s after two reactor accidents. Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said as many as 1,000 veterans, or their estates, could be entitled to payments.
■MEXICO
Policeman, suspects killed
A police officer and four suspected kidnappers died in a shootout on Tuesday during an operation to rescue two kidnap victims in central Mexico, the ministry for public security said. The shootout in Mexico State began on Tuesday after police surrounded a house where a woman and her son had been held for eight days, news reports said. Police also arrested 20 suspects, including the leader of the kidnapping gang, the ministry said.
■UNITED STATES
‘Preppie killer’ sentenced
The man known as New York’s “preppie killer” for his looks and private school background has been sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to a drug charge. Robert Chambers, 41, was previously imprisoned for 15 years for strangling a young woman in New York City during what he called rough sex. The slaying made headlines as a story of a handsome, privileged youth gone bad. Chambers was sentenced Tuesday after reaching a plea agreement on charges of selling drugs and assaulting a police officer.
■UNITED STATES
Old trail rediscovered
A wildfire that damaged or destroyed nearly 20 homes in Idaho last month also revealed remnants of the Oregon Trail, a famous path left more than 100 years ago by pioneers as the US expanded west. Members of the Idaho Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association plan to mark portions of the Oregon Trail now visible after the Aug. 25 fire. Before the blaze, two parallel paths totaling about a kilometer had been covered by sagebrush and cheatgrass.
RSS