Sudan turns down U.N.’s resolution on peacekeepers
United Nations – The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution Thursday that would give the United Nations authority over peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as Sudan’s government gives its consent – which it has so far refused to do.
The resolution is meant to give more power and funding to a force, now run by the African Union, that has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur.
The violence has killed more than 200,000 people and continues to worsen.
The document passed 12-0, with China, Russia and Qatar abstaining.
Yet the council cannot take any significant action on the resolution until Sudan reverses its opposition to a U.N. force.
Dimming the prospects for the resolution to actually go into effect, Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir rejected it, the official SUNA news agency said.
“The Sudanese people will not consent to any resolution that will violate its sovereignty,” the agency quoted al-Bashir’s government as saying.
The ruling party leadership called on the Sudanese people to “strengthen further their cohesion and ranks and prepare to face any development.”
MOSCOW
Former cop sentenced to death for murder
A former police officer was sentenced to death and nine other men were given long prison sentences Thursday for the murders of a leading opposition politician in Kazakhstan.
The bodies of Altynbek Sarsenbayev, 43, a former government minister, his bodyguard and his driver were found on the edge of Almaty, the commercial capital of the Central Asian republic, on Feb. 13, two days after they were kidnapped.
Prosecutors said Yerzhan Utembayev, chief of staff in Kazakhstan’s Senate, paid for the killings because he felt insulted by a newspaper article in which Sarsenbayev criticized him.
Utembayev hired Rustam Ibragimov, a former employee of the Interior Ministry, for $60,000 to organize the assassination, prosecutors said.
Opposition leaders insist there was a wider conspiracy that reached into the administration of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
VIENNA
Kidnapped woman “reserved” to parents
The young woman who endured 8 1/2 years in captivity has adopted a “reserved attitude” toward her parents since her dramatic escape from her kidnapper last week, psychologists treating her said Thursday.
Experts who have been meeting with 18-year-old Natascha Kampusch since she bolted to freedom on Aug. 23 told reporters she has been in regular telephone contact only with her mother and has not had any further contact with her father.
Monika Pinterits, a lawyer who specializes in representing traumatized young people, said Kampusch might not decide for weeks or months whether to live with one of her parents.
They divorced after her abduction as a 10-year-old schoolgirl in March 1998 – a case that until last week was one of Austria’s greatest unsolved mysteries.
WASHINGTON
IRS allows NAACP to remain tax exempt
Nearly two years after a controversial decision to investigate the NAACP for criticizing President Bush during the 2004 presidential campaign, the Internal Revenue Service has ruled that the remarks did not violate the group’s tax exempt status.
In a letter released Thursday by the NAACP, the IRS said the group, which is the nation’s oldest and largest civil-rights organization, “continued to qualify” as tax exempt.
If the NAACP were stripped of the status, donors would not be allowed to claim contributions to the group on income tax returns.
NAACP chairman Julian Bond reiterated his belief that the investigation was politically motivated. He said the IRS decision “meant that they thought they had harassed us enough and they could stop.”
WASHINGTON
DeLay to publish book on career, life
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, with his career in elective office behind him, said Thursday he has a deal to publish a book.
“This is a book that’s going to be the history of my career, how it furthered the conservative cause, with my spiritual walk and what I think the conservative cause ought to do next,” said DeLay, a born-again Christian.
DeLay said he’ll explain how “everything I’ve done in my career furthered the conservative cause” and helped change the culture of Washington.
DeLay said the working title is “No Retreat, No Surrender: The American Passion of Tom DeLay.” He declined to reveal how much he’ll be paid. “Not as much as I wanted,” he quipped.
WASHINGTON
Farmers’ aid dollars waiting on harvest
The Bush administration wants to wait for the harvest of this year’s crops before deciding whether to increase the millions of aid dollars going to drought-stricken farmers.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday he wants to “see what the combines tell us” about the coming harvest.
Earlier this week, Johanns promised aid that includes $50 million to hard-hit livestock producers. In all, the drought money would provide $79 million in relief funds and accelerate $700 million in planned payments to cotton, grain sorghum and peanut farmers.
