PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
U.S. citizen still aims to run for president
A wealthy U.S. businessman whose bid to run for president of Haiti was rejected by electoral authorities defiantly pledged Saturday to fight for a spot on the ballot in his native country’s first election since the February 2004 ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Dumarsais Simeus, owner of one of the largest black-owned businesses in the U.S., said he has appealed to the Provisional Electoral Council to reverse its decision to strike his name from the list of presidential candidates in the Nov. 20 election and will do “everything possible,” including filing a legal challenge if necessary, to participate in the race.
Simeus, the 65-year-old owner of a Texas-based food- services company, was rejected because he has U.S. citizenship, said Rosemond Pradel, the council’s secretary- general.
DUBLIN, Ireland
Adams: Disarming by IRA to be “huge”
The imminent disarmament of the Irish Republican Army will have “a huge impact” on Northern Ireland’s peace process, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams told thousands of supporters gathered in the capital.
Adams said he expected the IRA to scrap its stockpiled weapons in cooperation with international disarmament officials “in the near future.”
Adams, a veteran IRA commander who has spent the past two decades guiding his legal party into Ireland’s political mainstream, said Sinn Fein stood ready to make major electoral and diplomatic gains once the IRA disarmed.
He noted that Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority had repeatedly refused to share power with Sinn Fein – a major goal of the 1998 peace accord for the British territory – because of the IRA’s past determination to keep its truce open-ended and its arsenal hidden for potential future use.
MEXICO CITY
Probe begins into dealings of inmate
The Mexico City government announced Saturday that it has launched an investigation into whether prison authorities turned a blind eye to a notorious kidnapper who was directing kidnappings from his jail cell.
Antonio Ruiz Ortega, director of the city’s prisons, told local media that all employees at the Santa Martha Acatitla prison, on the city’s eastern outskirts, would be investigated.
Prosecutors say inmate Jose Luis Canchola had directed the kidnapping of prominent Argentine coach Ruben Omar Romano from within the prison, where he is serving decades- long terms for other kidnappings.
HORMIGUEROS, Puerto Rico
Man sought in 1983 Conn. robbery dies
A Puerto Rican nationalist leader wanted in the 1983 robbery of a Connecticut armored truck died during an FBI stakeout of the farmhouse where he was hiding, the island’s police chief said Saturday. The FBI found the body of Filiberto Ojeda Rios in the house in the western town of Hormigueros, Police Chief Pedro Toledo said.
The robbery of the Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Conn., is considered an act of domestic terrorism because it allegedly was carried out by 19 members of the Puerto Rican nationalist Macheteros, or Cane Cutters.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa
AIDS expert urges male circumcision
A South African AIDS expert Saturday advocated male circumcision as the best available “vaccine” against the virus in his country, where an estimated 6 million people are infected and more than 600 people die every day.
Francois Venter told a congress of health activists in the Treatment Action Campaign that a recent survey in the Soweto township indicated that circumcised men were 65 percent less likely to contract AIDS than those who had not been circumcised.
“We dream of a vaccine which has this efficacy,” said Venter, clinical director of Reproductive Health and HIV Research at the University of Witwatersrand. “The results are phenomenal.”
ORANJESTAD, Aruba
Vote keeps ruling party in the majority
Aruba’s ruling party kept its majority in parliament in legislative elections for all 21 seats, election board officials reported Saturday.
Prime Minister Nelson Oduber’s People’s Electoral Movement party won 43 percent of the vote and won 11 seats in Friday’s parliamentary election, while the main opposition Aruban People’s Party won 33 percent and now has eight seats in parliament.
