Washington – Calls for the resignation of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz grew Wednesday as the European Parliament voiced its displeasure over allegations that he showed favoritism in arranging a promotion and pay package for his girlfriend.
The demand by the European Union’s legislature that the development chief step down comes as a special bank panel is probing whether Wolfowitz violated bank rules in his handling of the 2005 promotion of bank employee Shaha Riza to a high-paying State Department job.
The World Bank’s 24-member board, which was meeting Wednesday, will ultimately decide what action, if any, to take.
Additional nation/world news briefs:
NEW YORK
Forgiveness for man who sawed into him
A man who cut into another’s chest with a power saw in a subway station while other people fled for their lives won the victim’s forgiveness Wednesday, just before being sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Tareyton Williams, 34, was sentenced on his guilty plea to second-degree assault for an attack on Michael Steinberg last summer. The attack occurred July 7, 2006, shortly after 2 a.m., when Steinberg was on his way to work as a postal clerk. Williams grabbed a power saw from a cart used by workers in the station.
Williams carved through three of Steinberg’s ribs, punctured his lungs and stopped cutting about 3 inches from his heart without saying a word, Steinberg said. Williams then took his money and credit cards, “and he left me to die,” he said.
Steinberg said city transit employees watched and never tried to help him. “I forgive Mr. Williams,” Steinberg said. “I want him to be aware of that. He must have major problems in his life.” He quickly added: “I don’t forgive the transit authority.”
RALEIGH, N.C.
Hog farm quarantined due to tainted feed
A farm in western North Carolina has been quarantined after a chemical blamed for more than a dozen pet deaths was found in its hogs, state officials said Wednesday. None of the hogs have entered the food supply.
The farm received a shipment of contaminated feed last week, officials said. Urine samples from 13 hogs tested positive for melamine, a chemical used to manufacture plastics and foam. The feed, which came from a Diamond Pet plant in Gaston, S.C., contained a rice concentrate that has been recalled by its manufacturer in California.
Also Wednesday, a Wisconsin company issued a precautionary recall of some pet foods. Foster & Smith Inc. recalled its Doctors Foster and Smith Adult Dry Lite Dog and Adult Dry Lite Cat food after supplier Wilbur-Ellis Co. recalled rice protein concentrate. Preliminary tests found no melamine, and final tests are expected within two weeks, the company said in a statement.
ANKARA, Turkey
Progress seen over Iran’s nuclear policy
Senior Iranian and Western envoys signaled Wednesday that they may have made progress in trying to break a deadlock over Tehran’s defiance of a U.N. demand to suspend uranium enrichment, saying they planned to meet again in two weeks.
In announcing the additional talks, neither European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana nor Ali Larijani, Iran’s top international negotiator, revealed details of their two meetings Wednesday.
But an official based in a European capital said the two touched on having discussions of what would constitute a suspension. A more flexible definition of a freeze acceptable to both sides is “the key issue,” said the official, who was briefed on the day’s talks.
There was also mention of a “double timeout” – a simultaneous freeze of Iranian atomic activities in exchange for a commitment not to impose new U.N. sanctions, said the official.
MEXICO CITY
Opposition vowed if abortion legalized
Mexico’s leading anti-abortion group vowed Wednesday to block pregnant women from entering hospitals and clinics and publicly identify abortion doctors if a measure legalizing the practice in the capital is signed into law.
Abortion-rights activists, for their part, prepared to confront a Supreme Court challenge and to push for all government hospitals to offer abortions without restrictions to adult women in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. They also want similar laws passed elsewhere in the heavily Roman Catholic country.
