ITALY
Berlusconi not to run again
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would not run again when his term expires in 2013 and nominated Justice Minister Angelino Alfano as his successor to lead the center-right into the next election. In an interview with the daily La Repubblica published yesterday, Berlusconi, 74, who is fighting allegations of corruption and of paying for sex with an underaged prostitute, repeated his intention to stand aside from official duties. “Absolutely not,” he said, when asked whether he would stand again. “The candidate for prime minister on the center-right will be Alfano. If I could, I would give it up now.” Berlusconi has made similar remarks on a number of occasions recently and has already named the 40-year-old Alfano, appointed earlier this month as secretary-general of the ruling People of Freedom party, as his successor.
FRANCE
Lagarde issue delayed
The Court of Justice of the Republic said yesterday it was delaying until Aug. 4 its decision on whether to launch a legal inquiry into the role of IMF managing director Christine Lagarde in a 2008 arbitration payout. It was the second time the decision had been postponed, a court official said. Lagarde, who was the finance minister until she took up her IMF post this week, has denied any misconduct in her approval of a 285 million euro (US$408.7 million) payment to a businessman friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy to settle a dispute with a former state-owned bank.
SOMALIA
US warns of famine risk
The US government has warned that a drought in the Horn of Africa is likely to worsen by the end of the year, putting parts of war-ravaged Somalia at risk of famine. “Our experts ... expect the perilous situation in the Horn of Africa to worsen through the end of the year,” Nancy Lindborg, a senior official at the US Agency for International Development, said at a US House of Representatives commission hearing on Thursday. Lindborg said an initial assessment found that this year’s harvest would be a “failure” in the southern Lower Shabelle region and “well below normal” in the neighboring region of Bay. She said in a normal season the two regions account for 71 percent of the total cereal production of southern Somalia. With the situation expected to decline, “famine conditions are possible in the worst-affected areas,” she said.
GERMANY
Merkel lags in survey
Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel would be defeated by two opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) rivals if an election were held now and the post could be directly voted for, a survey said yesterday. Former finance minister Peer Steinbrueck and former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier each nosed out the chancellor, who has long been one of the country’s most popular politicians, the monthly poll by ARD TV and Infratest dimap showed. The two former ministers have not publicly declared their intention to stand as a candidate for chancellor in the 2013 election, but are seen by many as front-runners. When asked if they would choose Merkel or the blunt-talking Steinbrueck, who is credited with steering Germany out of the 2008 financial crisis, 48 percent of potential voters chose him over 37 percent for the chancellor. Current SPD floor leader Steinmeier, who had served under Merkel, earned 43 percent versus 39 percent for the chancellor in a head-to-head poll.
IRAQ
Two US soldiers killed
Two US soldiers have been killed during operations in the center of the country, the US military said yesterday, without saying how or where they had died. The latest deaths come after 14 US soldiers were killed in attacks last month, the deadliest month for US military fatalities since 2008. The latest deaths bring the full number of US military deaths in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion to 4,471, according to an AFP count based on the Web site www.icasualties.org.
MEXICO
Four convicted of massacre
Judges on Thursday convicted four men of killing 15 people in a shocking attack last year in Ciudad Juarez that prompted President Felipe Calderon to alter the government’s anti-drug strategy in the area. The victims of what became known as the Villa Salvarcar massacre were mainly teenagers at a birthday party. At least eight others were wounded in the attack on Jan. 30. The three judges will sentence Juan Alfredo Soto, Aldo Fabio Hernandez, Jose Dolores Arroyo and Heriberto Martinez on Monday. Prosecutors are seeking more than 100 years in prison each. Three suspects remain at large.
ARGENTINA
Sex ads in papers banned
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has banned classified newspaper advertisements by sex workers, in the latest episode of a long-running and acrimonious dispute with the country’s opposition media. Kirchner said the measure represented “a giant step forward in the defense of women,” although many of the ads feature transvestites and male escorts. Minister of Justice and Human Rights Julio Alak also announced plans to block Internet sites advertising sexual services. Prostitution is legal in the country, and observers see the ban as the latest swipe by the president at Clarin, a mass-circulation paper that publishes about 200 sex ads daily. Kirchner and Clarin fell out three years ago when the paper sided with farmers during a long-running strike that eventually forced the president to back-pedal on an increase in agricultural taxes. Free-speech advocates protested against the ban, enacted not by Congress but by a stroke of the presidential pen.
UNITED STATES
Anthony jailed for lying
Casey Anthony, a Florida woman, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in jail for lying to police after her two-year-old daughter disappeared. Anthony, 25, was acquitted of her daughter’s murder on Tuesday. She will be let out of jail on July 17, four days later than was previously announced after her release date was recalculated, court spokeswoman Karen Levey said. Anthony received credit for the 1,043 days she spent behind bars since her daughter Caylee’s death in 2008. She received the toughest possible sentence for lying to police during the investigation. Each of the four misdemeanor counts she was convicted of carried a maximum of one year in jail. Judge Belvin Perry ordered the one-year terms to run consecutively and imposed a US$1,000 fine for each count.
CUBA
Gross’ appeal to be heard
State television has announced that a court will consider an appeal by imprisoned US contractor Alan Gross on July 22. Gross was working on a USAID-funded democracy-building program when he was arrested in December 2009. Havana has called Gross a spy. In March he was sentenced to 15 years after being convicted of illegally importing communications equipment.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in