N.J. ex-governor recounts gay affair in his memoirs
New York – Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey says he seduced the Israeli man who forced him out of the closet while his wife was in the hospital recovering from the birth of their daughter.
“I was totally in love with this man,” McGreevey writes of Golan Cipel in “The Confession,” his long-awaited memoir, which appeared in bookstores Wednesday. “With Dina still in the hospital with our newborn, I’d been left to my own devices.”
It was during one of those visits that McGreevey says he first kissed Cipel.
McGreevey acknowledges there were pangs of guilt with his wife in the hospital recovering from a C-section.
But McGreevey says he couldn’t help himself. And when his wife, Dina Matos, came home with their baby, he would sneak out at night and jog over to Cipel’s apartment.
He goes on to say he was aware he might be exposed one day but that he didn’t care because he “felt invincible.”
McGreevey’s secret came out in 2004 when, under pressure from Cipel, who accused him of pressuring him for sex, he shocked the country by outing himself as “a gay American” and resigning. He and Matos are now divorcing.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
Government delays change in rape law
Pakistani human-rights and opposition groups expressed outrage Thursday after the government delayed a bill to reform an Islamic-based law that currently makes prosecuting rape cases almost impossible.
“They (the government) take on these initiatives with great fervor, and then chicken out,” said Asma Jehangir, chairwoman of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Rights workers say the current law, introduced by military dictator Zia ul-Haq in 1979, is discriminatory against women and is open to abuses that have led to unjust prosecutions of thousands of women.
Pakistan’s current law, based on Islamic tenets, requires a woman who claims she has been raped to produce four witnesses.
UNITED NATIONS
U.N. chief balks at disclosing finances
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused to fill out a new financial disclosure form, rejecting advice from his inner circle that it would send a good signal as the U.N. seeks to counter charges it is closed to public scrutiny, U.N. officials said Thursday.
The world body unveiled new rules last year that tightened requirements in effect since 1999 for U.N. staff to disclose their finances.
Annan is not covered by the rules because he is technically not a staff member.
But two U.N. officials said that several of Annan’s top aides had urged him to disclose his finances, arguing that as head of the organization he should embody its reform ideals.
DUBLIN, Ireland
British, Irish meeting to plot power-sharing
The British and Irish governments will hold a Northern Ireland summit today designed to plot a course for the revival of a Catholic-Protestant government in the British territory, the Irish government announced.
The office of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said he and other senior Irish government officials would meet Tony Blair at the British leader’s official country retreat, Chequers, west of London.
Ahern’s office said both premiers expected to work on a common strategy for a conference involving all Northern Ireland parties in Scotland next month and, ultimately, reviving Northern Ireland power-sharing by a Nov. 24 deadline.
WASHINGTON
Senate OKs boost in scanning port cargo
The Senate voted without dissent Thursday to tighten security at U.S. seaports by scanning nearly all incoming cargo for nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs.”
The bill, approved 98-0 in a pre-election push on national defense, would increase safeguards on the rail systems that pick up cargo from ports and authorize 1,000 new agents to screen containers coming off ships.
But the legislation does not go as far as some Democrats demanded in requiring inspections for all U.S.-bound cargo before it leaves foreign ports.
Almost 11 million containers are shipped annually to the United States.
