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World in brief

U.N. report: Syrian chief threatened Lebanese who was later killed

By wire services
Published March 25, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - Syrian President Bashar Assad threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri with "physical harm" last summer if Hariri challenged Assad's dominance over Lebanese political life, contributing to a climate of violence that led to the Feb. 14 slayings of Hariri and 17 others, according to testimony in a report released Thursday by a U.N. fact-finding team.

The report, which calls for an international investigation into Hariri's murder, describes an August meeting in Damascus at which Assad ordered the Lebanese billionaire to support amending Lebanon's constitution, according to testimony from "various" sources who discussed the meeting with Hariri. The amendment, approved Sept. 3, allowed Emile Lahoud, the Syrian-backed Lebanese president, to remain in office for three more years.

The U.N. team was headed by Ireland's deputy police commissioner, Peter FitzGerald. He stopped short of accusing Syria and its Lebanese allies of detonating the 1,000-kilogram bomb that killed Assad's major political rival in Lebanon. But he charged that Syria "bears primary responsibility for the political tension that preceded" Hariri's assassination.

PEACEKEEPERS FOR SUDAN: After weeks of negotiations, the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Thursday to send 10,700 peacekeepers to Sudan to monitor an accord ending a 21-year civil war between the government and southern rebels.

The Security Council hopes the move will not only create lasting peace in southern Sudan after the civil war but help end current violence in the country's western Darfur region, where the number of dead from a conflict between government-backed militias and rebels is now estimated at 180,000.

ABUSE BY PEACEKEEPERS: A report to the U.N. on Thursday proposed forcing peacekeepers to submit to DNA tests to establish whether they have sexually abused women or girls and to ensure that those who father children while on mission pay child support.

The initiative is part of a broader set of reforms aimed at halting an ongoing sexual abuse scandal plaguing U.N. operations in Congo, Liberia, Burundi, Haiti and other parts of the world.

The 41-page report, written by Prince Zeid Hussein, Jordan's U.N. ambassador and a former U.N. peacekeeper, also calls for compelling countries that provide peacekeepers to prosecute soldiers responsible for sex crimes.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Police opened fire Thursday during a street march in Haiti's capital to demand the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Witnesses said at least one person was killed.

The shooting follows a week of violence that saw two U.N. peacekeepers and two ex-soldiers killed in clashes. The violence has heightened tensions ahead of fall elections and underscores the shaky security climate more than a year after Aristide's ouster.

PINOCHET CASE: Chile's Supreme Court on Thursday refused to strip Gen. Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution, blocking yet another attempt to try him on charges of human rights abuses during his dictatorship.

[Last modified March 25, 2005, 01:01:16]