Chávez, allies create $100m food plan

CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez joined with his leftist allies yesterday to create a $100 million program to fight the rising cost of food for Latin America's poor. Chávez and leaders from Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua said they would set up a Food Security Fund, including a food distribution network. (AP)

Britain is circulating a draft resolution calling for the United Nations to move its Somalia political operation to the conflict-racked nation, step up efforts to restore peace, and keep planning for a UN takeover of peacekeeping from the African Union. It calls on all countries in the meantime to provide aid to beef up the AU force. It is authorized to have 8,000 soldiers but has only 2,600. (AP)

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin led the political elite yesterday in paying respects to Boris Yeltsin on the first anniversary of his death, unveiling a patriotic monument to the man who brought unprecedented freedoms to Russia. Putin praised his predecessor in a short address at Yeltsin's grave in the Novodevichy Cemetery. The ceremony was attended by President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, government ministers, and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. (AP)

LONDON - Londoners gathered yesterday in Trafalgar Square to celebrate England's patron saint, a third-century Turkish soldier who supposedly had the power to slay a dragon but probably never set foot in Britain. St. George's Day is not a public holiday, and for decades it passed largely unnoticed, but the celebration has been experiencing a revival, according to pubs and party-supply companies. (AP)