World
UN security personnel destroyed sensitive documents, gathered up their computers, and abandoned border posts in Kosovo Tuesday after furious ethnic Serbs attacked them in the wake of the province's declaration of independence. Other Serbs set off small bombs in the stronghold of Kosovska Mitrovica. In Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, the government ordered its ambassadors home from the US and other nations that had extended diplomatic recognition to Kosovo.
The inflation rate in China rose last month to 7.1 percent, its highest level in almost 12 years, the government said, blaming the devastating winter storms that worsened food shortages. Analysts warned that pressure for wage increases and the rising costs of fuel and construction materials could push inflation near double digits in the months to come. Still, a new wave of buying by investors raised the Shanghai Composite Index, China's most widely watched stocks benchmark, by another 2.1 percent at Tuesday's close.
Negotiations resumed in Kenya between representatives of President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga on sharing power, but no early resolution appeared likely.A senior aide to Kibaki bristledwhen he was reminded that as she ended her visit Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "The time for a political settlement was yesterday." Said the aide: "Those are her views. [But] this is not America; this is Kenya."
Coup leader and interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama appointed himself as head Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs Tuesday, a move that analysts said tightens his control over the Pacific island nation.Bainimarama suspended the council early last year after it refused to endorse his seizure of power in 2006. The panel chooses Fiji's president and vice president. Bainimarama has pledged to hold an election that would return democratic rule by March of next year.
Under armed guard Tuesday, a convoy of 36 tanker trucks brought the first supply of fuel to Nepal's capital since ethnic groups began a blockade of highways in the Himalayan nation last week. The groups are seeking increased autonomy for the region bordering India, where half the population lives. The cutoff had caused car and motorcycle owners (some of them above) to line up for hours at filling stations in Kathmandu in hopes of buying scarce gasoline and diesel fuel.
Soldiers and police began a manhunt along the border in southern Guyana for the attackers who killed 12 people Sunday night in the second incident of its type in three weeks.Three of the victims were police officers, and the attackers escaped with their weapons and vehicles.Eleven people died in the earlier assault. Both have been blamed on criminal gangs, but it was unclear whether they were connected.
Police in southern Italy arrested the "No. 1 boss" of the organized crime syndicate 'Ndrangheta in a raid on the house where he had been hiding, reports said Tuesday. Pasquale Condello (second from l., above) had been on the run since being convicted of murder in 1987. He surrendered without a struggle. 'Ndrangheta, which is believed to control cocaine trafficking in much of Europe, is considered more powerful than the Sicilian mafia.
Two of the four impressionist paintings stolen last week from an exclusive Swiss museum have been recovered in good condition, police in Zurich said Tuesday. "Poppy Field at Vetheuil" by Claude Monet and "Blooming Chestnut Branches" by Vincent van Gogh were discovered in an unlocked car at a hospital less than a mile from the museum. Together, they are valued at $64 million. The other paintings, by Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas and valued at a combined $99 million, remain missing.
