Darfur peacekeeping to get $125m from EU
BELGIUM
BRUSSELS -- Officials said the European Union will provide up to $125 million to back African peacekeepers in Darfur, as the United Nations warned yesterday that crucial relief convoys are in danger. Gunmen in Darfur are attacking relief convoys, civilians, and African villagers, the UN's World Food Program said in a statement yesterday. ''The security situation in all three states of Darfur remains highly volatile, with road closures because of insecurity cutting into WFP's ability to provide food," it said. Nonetheless, the agency said, it delivered 12,196 tons of food, enough to feed some 632,000 people since the beginning of October. (AP)
GAZA STRIP
Palestinian militants attack settlements
GAZA CITY -- Palestinian militants fired mortar rounds and a homemade rocket at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip yesterday after Israel killed one of Hamas's most important leaders and his aide in a missile strike. Tens of thousands of angry Hamas supporters threatened revenge against Israel during the funeral procession for Adnan al-Ghoul, 46, a founder and deputy chief of the Hamas military wing who had been on Israel's most-wanted list since 1990. Hamas, which opposes the Jewish state's existence, has killed hundreds of Israelis in the past four years of fighting. Israel has waged a relentless campaign of targeted killings against Hamas leaders, and Israeli analysts said Thursday's strike on Ghoul dealt a major blow to the militant group. Ghoul was a specialist in making bombs, anti-tank missiles, and the Qassam rockets the group has fired at Israeli communities. (AP)
FRANCE
Shock ads seek to fight nation's anti-Semitism
PARIS -- A new advertising campaign to fight anti-Semitism in France aims to shock. The campaign features serene images of Jesus and Mary with the slur ''Dirty Jew" scrawled across them as if in graffiti. Underneath the picture appears the slogan: ''Anti-Semitism: What if it were everyone's problem?" The advertisements, which will run in French newspapers beginning Tuesday over a period of about 10 days, were created by the Union of Jewish Students of France, or UEJF. The UEJF said it recognizes the startling nature of the images but that the goal is to grab people's attention. ''It's a way to wake people up and make them aware," said Yonathan Arfi, the group's president, in a telephone interview. (AP)
POLAND
Lawmakers reject return of death penalty
WARSAW -- Polish lawmakers narrowly voted yesterday against reintroducing the death penalty following a series of killings that outraged the nation, including the case of a young woman who was tortured and killed on a train, then dumped out the window. President Aleksander Kwasniewski had threatened to veto the proposal if lawmakers chose to bring back capital punishment seven years after the country abolished it to meet European Union human rights standards. Parliament's lower house voted, 198 to 194 with 14 abstentions, to reject the proposal by the opposition Law and Justice party. (AP)
VENEZUELA
Rape acquittal spurs widespread outrage
CARACAS -- A Venezuelan judge yesterday acquitted a man accused of torturing and raping a young woman, a decision condemned by state prosecutors and women's groups as a disgrace to Venezuela's justice system. The acquittal of Luis Carrera, 39, who was charged with rape and attempted murder, shocked the South American nation where the three-year-old rape case had become a cause celebre and a focus of public criticism of judicial incompetence. In 2001, the 19-year-old Linda Loaiza was found bound, burned, and beaten in a Caracas apartment rented by Carrera, who was arrested by police. Carrera, the son of a university president, denied the woman's accusations that he was a sadist who abducted, tortured, and raped her. (Reuters)
