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World in brief

U.N. condemns Zimbabwe slum evictions

By wire services
Published July 23, 2005

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's government defended itself Friday in the face of a U.N. envoy's report denouncing a crackdown that has forced thousands of poor from their homes and jobs.

Anna Tibaijuka, head of the Nairobi based U.N. Habitat agency, wrote that Operation Murambatsvina - Drive Out Trash - is a "disastrous venture" that has left 700,000 people without homes or jobs, violated international law and created a grave humanitarian crisis. The countrywide campaign began with little warning on May 19 and has seen thousands of ramshackle markets and makeshift homes demolished.

The report, using unusually harsh language for the United Nations, demanded that the government immediately stop the destruction. Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi called it "biased and wrong" at a news conference for state-controlled media.

The Zimbabwean government allowed Tibaijuka to visit at the request of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"That is wonderful - music in my ears," said Trudy Stevenson, a legislator in the main opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change.

Stevenson said the evictions left at least 20,000 of her constituents without shelter in the midwinter cold. Sick and elderly people had died, children had been left orphaned, she said.

The opposition alleged Operation Murambatsvina aimed to victimize those who voted for them in March 31 parliamentary elections and drive their supporters back to rural areas, where they could be intimidated by blocking access to relief food.

AID TO NIGER: Donations to fund United Nations humanitarian work in drought-stricken Niger where some 3.5-million people face hunger have jumped dramatically in the last week because of increased media attention, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Friday. Since the start of this week, the United Nations has received $2.8-million in donations, almost doubling the total received in the last two months to $6.6-million, according to Jan Egeland's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

BAGHDAD - Police tightened security in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood Friday as the search intensified for two Algerian diplomats kidnapped there. At least 16 people died in attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.

More police were on the streets and motorists reported extra checkpoints Friday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, where top Algerian envoy Ali Belaroussi, 62, and fellow Algerian diplomat, Azzedine Belkadi, 47, were seized the day before. They were not traveling with bodyguards, officials said.

Also in Baghdad, gunmen fired on a car carrying a newlywed couple and their families on Friday, killing the 23-year-old bride and wounding the Iraqi army captain she had just married.

Four people - one Iraqi soldier and three civilians - were killed in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, during clashes there, police said. The other 11 victims were Iraqi police or soldiers killed in scattered, small-scale attacks throughout Baghdad.

Also Friday, the U.S. military announced that a Marine was killed the day before in a roadside bombing while conducting combat operations west of Baghdad.

JERUSALEM - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday pressed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to work closely with the Palestinian Authority to prevent next month's planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip from being delayed or deteriorating into chaos.

Rice also made a brief and unannounced side trip to Beirut to show support for the new Lebanese government formed in the wake of Syria's withdrawal of troops nearly three months ago. It was the first such visit by a senior U.S. official in more than two years.

Security was extremely tight for Rice's trip to Lebanon, which this year has seen a string of assassinations of anti-Syrian figures, including former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose grave she visited.

Hours after the secretary of state flew back to Israel, an explosion in a bustling nightlife area in a Christian neighborhood in Beirut killed at least one person and wounded a dozen others.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - More than 2,000 supporters of a coalition of radical Muslim groups rallied Friday in the Pakistani capital to condemn a crackdown on Islamic militants that has netted more than 200 suspects.

Chanting "God is great," and "Down with America," the protesters - mostly Islamic students and members of a coalition known as Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Forum - marched on a main road in Islamabad, briefly clashed with police, and demanded the release of all detainees.

Earlier, Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, a senior leader of the coalition, said the government has arrested a large number of innocent people to appease Western countries.

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Franklin headed north away from Florida and the Bahamas on Friday, though forecasters said its path remained uncertain.

The storm had sustained winds near 50 mph, above the 39 mph threshold for a tropical storm.

Franklin was moving north at 9 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The storm was expected to continue offshore from Florida to the Carolinas through the weekend, forecasters said.

At 5 p.m., Franklin's the poorly-defined center was near latitude 27.8 north, longitude 76.7 west or about 100 miles north-northeast of Great Abaco Island in the northwestern Bahamas.

The storm may drop 2 to 4 inches of rain over the northern Bahamas, the hurricane center said.

EMILY CAUSES DEATH IN MEXICO: Mexican authorities on Friday reported the first death from Hurricane Emily, which destroyed thousands of buildings and drove 90,000 people from their homes as it tore through northern Mexico this week. The report of a woman swept away by floodwaters in the northern city of San Pedro Garza Garcia came just as President Vicente Fox toured the devastation.

HAVANA - Several dissidents were detained Friday, including three organizers of a hotly contested opposition meeting, according to a longtime human rights activist.

Martha Beatriz Roque, who spearheaded the May 20 gathering of dissidents, was among those rounded up by state security agents, said Elizardo Sanchez of the nongovernmental Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

He said as many as 20 dissidents were detained, including two other lead organizers of the meeting, Rene Gomez Manzano and Felix Bonne.

ELIAN GONZALEZ: President Fidel Castro said in a speech published Friday that he's honored to be friends of Elian Gonzalez, 11, the boy at the center of an international custody dispute five years ago. "I have the privilege to be his friend," Castro said during Elian's sixth-grade graduation in Cardenas, east of Havana.

NORTH KOREA TREATY: The North Korean government reiterated a call Friday for a peace treaty with the United States formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War as a way to resolve the standoff over its nuclear program.

[Last modified July 23, 2005, 01:02:13]