US backs resolution for Liberian's arrest
The United States renewed a plea to the UN Security Council yesterday to authorize peacekeepers in Liberia to arrest former president Charles Taylor if he returns home after next week's elections. A draft resolution circulated among council members by Washington would empower the UN mission in Liberia ''to apprehend former president Charles Taylor in the event of a return to Liberia" and transfer him to a special court in Sierra Leone, where he is wanted for war crimes. A previous US effort to authorize peacekeepers to nab him failed when some African nations objected. Taylor, who has lived in exile in Nigeria since 2003, was granted asylum on condition he stay out of Liberian affairs. Nigerian officials have denied he was interfering in Liberian politics. (Reuters)
CANADA
Death toll from illness at nursing home hits 16
TORONTO -- A deadly outbreak of a respiratory illness at a Toronto nursing home for the elderly has claimed six more lives, raising the death toll to 16, health officials said yesterday. The cause of the outbreak at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged remains unknown, although officials insisted the situation was under control. Thirty-eight people remained hospitalized with the illness, and officials fear many of them are too frail to fully recover. Another 88 residents, employees, and visitors have been affected. (AP)
GERMANY
Parties moving toward power-sharing accord
BERLIN -- Germany's two biggest political parties moved closer yesterday toward a power-sharing accord, as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his conservative rival, Angela Merkel, agreed to hold a meeting over which of them would lead the country. Neither backed off a demand to be chancellor. Both, however, seemed upbeat after a third round of preliminary talks between their parties. Both indicated that they had made progress in building a new government to end Germany's leadership crisis, which was set off when no party won a majority in Sept. 18 parliamentary elections. (AP)
denied he was interfering in Liberian politics. (Reuters)
BRITAIN
Communication after tsunami criticized
LONDON -- Poor communication hampered the Asian tsunami relief efforts and led to large amounts of used clothing for victims in India going to waste, according to a report released yesterday by the British Red Cross. ''When a big disaster strikes, chaos is almost automatically what follows," said Matthias Schmale, international director of the British Red Cross. The agency's annual World Disasters Report is a collection of essays by specialists, commissioned and published by the charity. Following the Dec. 26 tsunami, relief agencies failed to communicate with one another and with survivors to accurately assess what supplies were needed and in what amounts, the charity said. Relief agencies could benefit from making joint assessments, said Alastair Burnett, a senior denied he was interfering in Liberian politics. (Reuters)
ZIMBABWE
2.2 million need food, government says
HARARE -- The government plans to assist at least 2.2 million people it says are incapable of feeding themselves until the next harvest, due in April 2006, according to the country's director of Social Welfare. The figure is far short of the minimum 4 million people estimated by United Nations agencies to be in urgent need of food aid. President Robert Mugabe has so far refused to appeal for assistance but said said foreign donations would be permitted, providing they carried no demands for political or economic reform, and contained no genetically modified foodstuffs. The state-controlled daily newspaper The Herald said Social Welfare Director Sydney Mhishi made the disclosure during testimony to an all-party committee of legislators on Monday. (AP)
