Squatter buildings ordered shut in Paris after new fire
Paris – French President Jacques Chirac promised “strong initiatives” to help families in inadequate housing, and all havens for squatters were ordered shut Tuesday in Paris after a second deadly fire in a week at an apartment house for immigrants.
The fire late Monday struck a dilapidated apartment building in the heart of historic Paris, killing seven African immigrants, firefighters said. Four children were among the dead, including a 6-year-old who was thrown by his pregnant mother from a fifth-floor window in an effort to save him. The mother was later found dead.
The deadly fire was the second since Friday at buildings housing immigrants in France’s capital and the third since April, bringing the death toll to 48 and focusing new criticism on immigrant housing.
Chirac expressed his “horror” over the fire and promised “strong initiatives” soon to help families in inadequate housing.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy ordered all squatter buildings shut. “because these are human beings housed in unacceptable conditions.” Paris’ police headquarters said it would begin evacuating the city’s “most dangerous” buildings in the coming days.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.
Lawmaker pleads guilty in bribe case
A state lawmaker pleaded guilty to taking bribes in exchange for legislative favors, saying he got snagged “by business as usual” at the Capitol.
State Rep. Chris Newton told a federal judge that he had sought and accepted bribes from undercover FBI agents, becoming the first lawmaker charged in the continuing federal investigation to admit guilt.
Newton and four current or former state senators were charged in May with taking payoffs to help a company called E-Cycle Management get favorable legislation passed in the General Assembly. The lawmakers all had pleaded not guilty.
After his plea, the Republican lawmaker said he “became caught up in business as usual in Nashville.” “It is time for us to acknowledge candidly that the legislative process has become saturated with money and special interests,” Newton said.
EL PASO
Castro opponent gets deportation hearing
An anti-Castro militant initially refused to answer questions from U.S. immigration attorneys Tuesday at his deportation hearing but later acknowledged using several aliases and passports with different names.
Luis Posada Carriles, 77, is wanted in several countries in connection with the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. He requested asylum in the U.S. after his May arrest in Miami on charges that he sneaked into the country illegally through Mexico.
His deportation hearing also will consider whether the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was an act of U.S. terrorism.
HARARE, Zimbabwe
Property-rights curbs receive final approval
Lawmakers approved sweeping constitutional changes Tuesday that prominent lawyers have called the greatest challenge yet to Zimbabwean civil liberties.
Ruling party representatives erupted into celebration after parliament voted 103-29 to endorse the constitutional overhaul that sharply restricts private-property rights and allows the government to deny passports to its critics.
The 22-clause Constitutional Amendment Bill now goes to President Robert Mugabe to sign into law.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa
Farm evictions up since ’94, survey finds
More workers have been evicted from South African farms since the advent of multiracial democracy in 1994 than in the 10 years before that, according to a new survey presented to Parliament on Tuesday.
The survey said that 1.7 million people – nearly all uneducated blacks with little knowledge of their legal rights – had been thrown off farms where housing often came with jobs in the past 20 years: 737,114 people between 1984 and 1994, and 942,303 people in the subsequent decade.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
Claim of police rape to be investigated
The prime minister ordered an investigation Tuesday into a woman’s claim that police kidnapped and raped her because she was trying to lobby lawmakers about alleged police corruption.
The 23-year-old mother of two came to national attention in April when she was briefly detained for mistakenly trespassing inside Parliament. She wandered through a security cordon seeking to contact lawmakers to help her husband, whom she alleges police framed in order to extort money.
The woman claims that after her detention, she was abducted by armed men in the eastern city of Lahore, blindfolded, handcuffed and driven to an unknown location, according to an interview with The News daily newspaper published Tuesday.
