A round-up of today's other world news stories in brief
Violent protests against IMF in Turkey
ISTANBUL – Turkish police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse hundreds of people protesting against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank during their annual meetings in Istanbul yesterday.
Riot police armed with shields and firing gas canisters rushed to disperse protesters in Taksim square, only a few hundred metres from the IMF-World Bank meetings.
“Long live freedom. IMF get out of our city,” protesters chanted.
Police detained about 100 people, some for throwing petrol bombs near the convention centre where finance ministers, central bankers and economists have been meeting to discuss the global economy, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.
The front windows of several banks were smashed. The screens of cash machines at several banks were also smashed. – (Reuters)
Swiss reject request to release Polanski
ZURICH – Swiss authorities have denied a request to release film director
Roman Polanski (76) on bail after he was arrested in September after fleeing sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13- year-old girl in 1977, a government spokesman said yesterday.
“In our view, there is still a very high risk that he will flee and that a release on bail or other measures after a release cannot guarantee Polanski’s presence in the extradition procedure,” Swiss justice ministry spokesman Folco Galli said.
The Oscar-winning director, who holds dual French and Polish citizenship, was arrested at the request of the United States when he flew into Switzerland on September 26th to receive a lifetime achievement prize at a film festival. – (Reuters)
Russian court rejects lesbian marriage
MOSCOW – A Russian court yesterday threw out a request by a lesbian couple to force a registry office to marry them, a court spokeswoman said.
Irina Fet and Irina Shipitko had asked the Tverskoi district court to overrule a decision by a registry office that refused to endorse their marriage in May. It quoted Russian laws that describe a marriage as a “union between a woman and a man”.
“The judge refused their request,” spokeswoman Alexandra Berezina said without giving further details.
Although post-Soviet Russia no longer prosecutes homosexuals as criminals and many high-profile Russians manifest their same-sex alliances, gays and lesbians remain public outcasts.
In the past few years, Moscow authorities have consistently banned gay parades.
It was not clear if the couple were planning to appeal against yesterday’s ruling in a higher court. – (Reuters)
Suspect in Rwanda genocide to face trial after arrest in Uganda
KAMPALA – Police in Uganda have arrested one of the most wanted suspects in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, a senior police source said yesterday.
Nizeyimana, a former army captain and senior intelligence officer, had entered Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo on October 1st and was detained in Kampala on Monday, the source said.
He had been extradited to Arusha, northern Tanzania, to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, he said. Tribunal officials did not immediately confirm the news.
Nizeyimana was among the dozen most wanted suspects sought by the UN court over the genocide, in which about 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed.
The US had offered a $5 million reward for his capture. He is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal with genocide, complicity in genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
The tribunal says Nizeyimana and others prepared lists of Tutsi intellectuals and those in authority before handing the lists to troops and militia who then killed them.
He is also accused of setting up roadblocks where Tutsis were slaughtered and of providing weapons and transport to militia.– (Reuters)