Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Digest

U.S. raises limit on refugees from Mideast

WASHINGTON

The Bush administration increased more than fivefold Tuesday the number of Middle Eastern and South Asian refugees the United States can admit as it seeks to accept 12,000 Iraqi refugees during the next 12 months. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 2-million Iraqis have fled their country; the United States admitted 1,608 Iraqi refugees over the past 12 months. Overall, President Bush said that up to 80,000 refugees from around the world can be admitted to the United States in the next year. That's up 10,000 from last year's ceiling. The maximum refugees by region are:

Middle East and South Asia: 28,000, up from 5,500.

East Asia: 20,000, up from 11,000.

Africa: 16,000, down from 22,000.

Europe and Central Asia: 3,000, down from 6,500.

Latin America and the Caribbean: 3,000, down from 5,000.

The remaining 10,000 can be allocated by the State Department as the need arises. Last year, the reserve was 20,000.

MONTREAL

Quebec levies tax on energy industry

Quebec enacted Canada's first carbon tax on energy companies this week. The green tax - imposed Monday - will be used to help Quebec reach its Kyoto Protocol targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The tax is expected to raise about $200-million yearly (in U.S. dollars) to finance the province's green plan. Companies will have to pay the tax according to their emission coefficient, and oil companies will be on the hook for most of it. It's also not clear if the carbon tax will be passed to consumers. Canada, which ratified the Kyoto accord, is failing to meet its Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Last month, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that the target is impossible to achieve and is endorsing a call for setting targets for reducing the country's total greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 60 to 70 percent by 2050.

BRASILIA, Brazil

Court won't indict five in air crash

A military court on Tuesday declined to indict five Brazilian air traffic controllers in a collision in September 2006 between an airliner and an executive jet over the Amazon rainforest that killed 154 people. Military prosecutors' request for an indictment did not specify what regulations the controllers allegedly violated, making it impossible to mount a proper defense, Judge Zilah Maria Callado Fadul Petersen said in explaining the ruling. The military prosecutor's office said it may appeal. The proceedings are separate from those initiated by a civilian court in June against four of the controllers and the two U.S. pilots who flew the executive jet and landed safely.

ROME

Getty returns first artifacts to Italy

Four prized artifacts from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California were returned Tuesday to Italy, the first of 40 works to be handed over by the Getty as a result of Italy's efforts to recover antiquities it says were looted and sold to museums. One was a highly prized vase attributed to the 5th century B.C. painter Euphronios. The Getty denies knowingly buying illegally obtained objects, and Italy's deal with the museum includes no admission of guilt.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 01:20:49]