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Tribune Friday, 6 May, 2011
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WORLD NEWS
Swiss freezes . U $81m linked to Gbagbo WITZERLAND has frozen 70 million Swiss francs ($81 million) linked to former Ivory f:oast president, Laurent Gbagbo, and his associates, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said, on Thursday. Gbagbo had refused to leave power after an election last November that United Nations-certified res ults showed he had lost. Switzerland ordered h is assets seized in January to prevent them being diverted before the ivory Coast cou ld launch domestic crimina l proceedings, the min istry's statement said. T h e election victor, Alassane Ouattara, finally took control in April when h is forces, backed by French and UN soldiers, captured Gbagbo after days of heavy fighting. The funds are blocked for up to three years under the Swiss cabinet's order, pendi n g a request from Ivory Coast for lega l assistance, on the basis of its own criminal proceedings against Gbagbo. Folco Galli, spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry, said no such request had been received yet. Oua ttara's government said on April 27 th at it h ad begun crimi na l investigations against Gbagbo, his wife and 100 other people in h is close circle, b u t gave no details. In recen t years, Switzerland has worked ha rd to improve its image as a h~ven for ill-gotten assets. On Mon day, it said it had blocked nearly $1 billion ·linked to, three North African strorigmen. Some 410 mi ll ion Swiss francs was traced to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubanik; 360 mil li on Swiss francs to Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and 60 m illi on Swiss.francs to ousted Tunisian president, Zine alAbidine Ben Ali, it said.
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NITED States secre tary of state, Hillary Clinton, said on Thursday, that ousting Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, would be the best way to protect Libya's civ ilians. "We h ave made it abundantly clear that the best way to protect civilians is for Gaddafi to
UN: World food prices edged upward in April
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ahead of a dip loma tic meeti ng on Libya . The meeting of the Libyan Contact Group at the Ita li an Foreign Ministry , on Thursday, was expected to seek ways to give financia l su pport to the rebels, who have indicated they need
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$1.5 billion in the coming months. • The meeting of 22-nations involved in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ' s Libya campaign also included the NATO chief, the Arab League, the leader of Libya's opposition coun-
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HE United Nations said world food p rices edged upward again in April as the higher cost of grains offset lower prices for other coo1modities.
The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation said, on Thursday, that gra i n costs rose last month to their highest level in nearly three years. With the price of grains accounting for a quarter of the agency's index of 55 commodities, overa ll food costs moved closer to February's reco rd prices. The price index rose one-half of one percent in April after falling 2.6 per cen t in March.
Ex·Presiaent Ben Alii wife to face char~es over aeaths UNISIA'S ex-presi. de n t, Zin e alAbidine Ben Al i, and his wife are to face new charges linked to the killings of some p rotesters during january's uprising. Mr Ben Ali was ousted after weeks o'f protests and fled to Saudi Arabia. He already faces 18 different charges, including voluntary manslaughter and drug-trafficking. These new charges include "instigating disorder, murder and looting" and "plotling against the internal securi ty", the justice ministry said.
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Body from Air France that crashed intoAtlantic in 2009 raised body from the 2009 Air France crash that killed all 228 people aboard has been raised from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean . . A statement from the French Gendarmerie, which has experts on the recovery boat, says tha t the bod y was pulled up .• ~~... Thursday mornin g. Re. covering the remains, still attached to the plane seat, involved great technical difficulty, and it's unclear if all
Clinton callsA on Gaddafi to bleave power 'd 1 t f d L'b 1
cease his ru th less, brutal attack on civil ians from the west to the east, to withdraw from the cities that he is 'sieging and attacking and to leave power," Clinton said . "This is the ou tcome we are seeking." Clinton spoke after ho ld in g bilateral ta l ks with Italian foreign ministe r, Franco Frattini,
bodies found in the latest search can be recovered. The raising of a body comes two days after the cockpi t voice recorder was pulled from the ocean. The data memory unit had been found days earlier. If in good shape, the two black boxes cou ld reveal th e mystery about w hy the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris fell into the Atlantic. Fifty bodies were fo u nd early on, du ring the first search effort.
°A Sou African court ruled, on of South A frica 's state security m inister, of drug traff~cking. Photo: SA PA
cil , and the lead e r of Libya's opposition council, Mustafa Abdel-Jali l, who used to be Gaddafi's justice minister. Clinton said the meeting would seek " the most effective ways to delivery fina ncial assistance " and other support to the rebels. " Everyone is always impatient. We e xpec t things to be done immediately in our vel'y fas t world," Clinton sa id. Clinton said she would be formaU y presenting the United States' pledge to provide $25 million in surpl us, nonletha l goods and commodities to support and protect the rebels Meanwhi le, Britain has expelled two more Libyan diplomats, declaring that their activities were contrary to the interests of the United Kingdom. Foreign Secretary William Hague 's decision came only a week after Britain expelled the Libyan ambassador to Britain. That move followed attacks on the British embassy in Tripoli. A ministry statement sa id the diplomats and their dependents had until next week to leave the country. Hague said the status of the Libyan Embassy and its staff is under consta n t review and that he judged the behaviour of these individuals to have become unacceptable.
Wife of 5IAfrkan minister guilty of drug trafficking -Court IFE of South Africa's s tate security minister was, on Thursday, found guilty of drug trafficking by the Pietermaritzburg High Court SheryICweleli,;tmedattenlively as a Pietermaritzburg High Court judge began delivering judgment in her drug trafficking case, on Th ursday. Judge Piet Koen started delivering his verdict just before 11am by summing up evidence presented during the triaL He earlier ruled against the State's app lication to have its case against Cwe le an d her co-accused Frank Nabolisa reopened, to allow new witnesses to take the stand . Koen said no sa tisfactory reasons were given as to why th ese witnesses were not called du ring the trial. Siyabonge Cwele ' s w ife and Nabolisa had pleaded not guilty to dea ling or conspiring to deal in drugs, procuring Cha rmaine Moss to collect drugs in Turkey, and
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procuring Tessa Beetge to smugg le cocaine from Sou th America. Beetge was arrested when lOkg of cocaine was found in her luggage in Brazil in 2008. She is serving a jail sentence in Sao Paolo. Moss turned State witness. In papers opposing the State's application to reopen its case, Cwele
says she had spent a fortune on legal fees. Her emp loyer, th e Hibiscus Coast Municipali ty, was also not paying her for taking leave to attend court proceedings. "That means that each time I atten d the court proceedings I have to pay for my legal team and lose income. I have lost a for-
tune as a result of my attendance," she says, submitting that reopening the case would make the situation worse.
She describes the case as a high-profile matter whi ch had attracted much media attention, and had found some of the repo rts hurtful to her and her family.
Mubarak's top security official jailed 12 years
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N Egyptian court, on Thursday, .. convicted a top official in the former governmen t of ex-Presiden t Hosn i Mubarak of corruption. Former interior minister, Habib al Adli , was jai led for 12 years for money laund0ng a nd profiteering, a judicial
force during the uprising tha t deposed the forme r President in February. Al Adli was also facing separate charges of ki ll ing pro-democracy protesters during the revo lt and sq u andering public funds. He was accused of ordering the use of live am-
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armed p rotesters during the 18-day demonstrations that toppled the regime. If convicted, he faced the death penalty. The conviction was the first against some two dozen Cabinet ministers or regimelinked businessmen who have been held since Mubarak's overthrow.
The cou rt also fined al Adli '£15 million and ordered that his assets be seized. Many Egyptians have been closely watching the fa te of one of the most hated members of the adinin istration because of the brutality of his police
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They included the former President and his two sons, a former Prime Minister and the speakers of Parliament's two chambers, all of whom are suspected of corruption. Mean while, hundreds of diehard supporters of ousted Mubarak clashed with his foes in central Cairo, on Wednesday, leaving dozens injured, a security official told AFP. Mubarak loyalists had gathered outside the state television building in the city centre to mark the strongman 's birthday -Mubarak turned 83, on Wednesday, -- and to denounce calls for his prosecution .