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Security Council starts Haiti visit

By wire services
Published April 14, 2005

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The U.N. Security Council began its first visit to Haiti on Wednesday, seeking to evaluate the work of thousands of U.N. peacekeepers trying to stabilize the impoverished country more than a year after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Despite gunfights in recent weeks between U.N. troops and politically aligned gangs, Brazilian U.N. Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg said the council members are pleased the year-old peacekeeping mission is making progress in reducing violence before fall elections.

LONDON - Britain's cases against nine North Africans accused of plotting to spread the deadly toxin ricin in the British capital resulted in only one conviction - an Algerian linked to al-Qaida - with eight others either not brought to trial or acquitted, according to details released Wednesday.

Britain had forbidden reporting on the case until two lengthy trials were complete, and a judge lifted the prohibition after a court found four of the accused, all Algerians, not guilty Friday and dropped charges against four - three Algerians and a Libyan - on Wednesday. The only defendant convicted was Algerian Kamel Bourgass, 29, who was sentenced in June to life in prison for stabbing a policeman to death during a raid in northwest England on Jan. 14, 2003.

BEIJING - Thousands of people rioted Sunday in a village in southeastern China, overturning police cars and driving away officers who had tried to stop elderly villagers from protesting against pollution from nearby factories. By Wednesday afternoon, witnesses say, crowds in the village, Huaxi, in Zhejiang province, gawked at destroyed police cars and shattered windows. Local people reached by telephone said villagers controlled the riot area.

[Last modified April 14, 2005, 01:17:13]