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THE WORLD TODAY
Troops, rebels start surrendering weapons in Liberia
12/8/2003
CAMP SCHIEFFELIN -- Liberia's fighters began surrendering weapons to United Nations peacekeepers, a major step toward ending 14 years of bloodshed in one of West Africa's most vicious conflicts. The UN-supervised campaign to disarm 40,000 rebel and government troops opened with government soldiers lined up at an army barracks outside the capital, Monrovia. One by one, more than 1,000 government and allied militia fighters, among them boys at least as young as 12, handed automatic rifles toblue-helmeted UN peacekeepers from Bangladesh. They then headed off in trucks to disarmament camps, toting sleeping mats and other belongings. "I'm ready to disarm -- some of us have a future," 19-year-old soldier Papa Monger said amid crowds of cheering fighters. (AP)
ARGENTINA British apology sought on Falklands warshipsBUENOS AIRES -- Argentina's president said Britain should apologize for using nuclear-armed ships during the 1982 Falklands War. Britain's Ministry of Defense has said that some of its ships carried nuclear weapons during the war. But the ships did not enter Latin American waters, and Britain did not consider using the weapons, the ministry said a day after Argentina's president requested an apology from Britain. "The United Kingdom should apologize," President Nestor Kirchner said Saturday. The Argentine leader added that he hoped the incident "will not damage the bilateral relationship." (AP) NIGERIA Zimbabwe withdraws from CommonwealthABUJA -- A defiant Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth yesterday, hours after the 54-nation bloc of Britain and its former colonies upheld its 18-month suspension of the southern African nation for alleged abuses of civil liberties. "It's quits, and quits it will be," President Robert Mugabe's government said in a statement from Zimbabwe. In a major defeat for Zimbabwe's leader, Commonwealth heads of state had declared earlier yesterday that Mugabe's outcast status would stand until he made democratic and human rights reforms. The suspension was imposed last year after Mugabe was widely accused of using force and fraud to steal reelection, maintaining his more than two-decade rule. (AP)VENEZUELA Dictatorship profited Chile, Chavez chargesCARACAS -- President Hugo Chavez, deepening a diplomatic rift, said yesterday that Chile's economic success had resulted from a military dictatorship that killed thousands of people. He was referring to the 1973-1990 rule of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, under whose military regime 3,000 suspected leftist opponents died and thousands more were imprisoned and tortured. "May God deliver me from this formula," Chavez said. Venezuela already is locked in a diplomatic battle with Chile over a remark by Chavez last month in which he defended landlocked Bolivia's claim for access to the sea, which it lost in an 1879 war with Chile. Santiago and Caracas each have withdrawn their ambassadors for consultations over the furor. (Reuters)
SOUTH KOREAJoint nuclear proposal to be sent to N. KoreaSEOUL -- A broad-brush proposal to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis will be handed to China today to pass on to Pyongyang, Seoul's deputy foreign minister said yesterday. The proposal was hammered out by top US, South Korean, and Japanese diplomats. Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo Hyuck told a briefing, "South Korea, the United States, and Japan will report the proposal to their own governments and then notify China of the same document by no later than [today] to have it delivered to North Korea." The three countries, along with China and Russia, are trying to organize a second round of talks with impoverished North Korea, possibly this month, in the hope of persuading it to scrap its nuclear programs.(Reuters)
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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