Posted on Tue, Aug. 19, 2008
U.S. Peace Corps returns to Liberia
MONROVIA, Liberia - U.S. Peace Corps volunteers will return to Liberia for the first time since civil war broke out in the West African nation nearly two decades ago, officials said yesterday.
Liberia's Foreign Ministry said the two nations signed an agreement to resume the program because of improving security. The volunteer program in Liberia was suspended just after fighting broke out in the final days of 1989. U.S. Embassy Charge d'Affairs Brooks A. Robinson called the move an "important milestone" that reflects Washington's confidence in Liberia's recovery.
The war caused an estimated 250,000 deaths in a population of three million. Another round of fighting ended in 2003 with a peace agreement and the 2005 election of Africa's first freely elected president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
- AP
Israel to free 199 in goodwill move
JERUSALEM - Israel said yesterday that it would free two of its most prominent Palestinian prisoners - a militant mastermind from the 1970s and a gunman elected to parliament while behind bars - among 199 inmates to be released as a goodwill gesture to embattled Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
While the move will give an important boost to the moderate Abbas, it drew fierce criticism from some Israeli politicians, who said it could undermine attempts to free a captured Israeli soldier held in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
The release includes Said al-Atba, 57, who has served 32 years of a life sentence for planting a bomb and belonging to a banned group, and Mohammed Abu Ali, who was jailed in the 1980s for two killings and serves as a lawmaker from Abbas' Fatah party.
- AP
MI5 woos gays, women, minorities
LONDON - Britain's domestic spy agency wants gay recruits to know: It's time to come out of the closet.
After shunning them for decades over worries of blackmail, MI5 is asking gay and lesbian people to consider a career as a spy, promising the chance to fight terrorists and protect their country.
As part of a recruitment drive, MI5 is wooing women, minorities and people with language skills. That the agency is reaching out to the gay community is overdue, said Peter Tatchell, a gay rights activist. "Until a decade ago, gay people were seen as a security threat, and as recently as two decades ago, they were being witch-hunted," he said yesterday.
- AP
Elsewhere:
An Indian woman who was sold into forced labor as a girl became a member of Paraguay's new cabinet. President Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic bishop inaugurated Friday, named Margarita Mbywangi minister of indigenous affairs.
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