News briefs
BY Wire reports
Saturday, December 08, 2012
12/08/12 at 2:41 AM
Minsk, Belarus : President bans some from leaving their jobs
The authoritarian president of Belarus signed a decree Friday banning some industrial workers in the ex-Soviet nation from leaving their jobs, threatening them with draconian fines if they do.
Alexander Lukashenko's decree follows a statement he made a week ago on a visit to a wood processing plant. The measure is intended to stem the exodus of workers to neighboring Russia, where salaries are higher.
About 1 million people in the nation of 10 million are estimated to be working abroad, most of them in neighboring Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.
Critics compare the measure to serfdom and warn that it will only deepen the ex-Soviet nation's economic woes.
Belfast, Northern Ireland : Clinton urges vigilance against extremists
Extremists still scheming to spoil Northern Ireland's fragile peace can be beaten through a commitment to political sacrifice, compromise and vigilance, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday as she visited a Belfast torn by rising sectarian passions and death threats.
Clinton stood shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of Northern Ireland's 5-year-old unity government to denounce this week's violence and intimidation fueled by arguments over flying the British flag.
"Peace does take sacrifice and compromise and vigilance, day after day. We've seen that again this week, that the work is not complete, because we have seen violence break out again," said Clinton, flanked by First Minister Peter Robinson, a British Protestant, and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, an Irish Catholic and former Irish Republican Army commander.
"All parties need to confront the remaining challenges of sectarian division peacefully and together," she said.
Guatemala City: Fugitive McAfee feeling better after chest pains
A lawyer for software company founder John McAfee says the self-styled fugitive is feeling better after suffering chest pain and hopes to stay in Guatemala despite the rejection of his political asylum request.
Attorney Telesforo Guerra told reporters outside the detention center where McAfee is being held that the creator of the McAfee antivirus program is in good health, and his team is filing four separate legal appeals in an effort to prevent his return to Belize, where police want to question him in connection with the fatal shooting of another U.S. expatriate. He expects McAfee to stay at least until Monday.
Nairobi, Kenya: Attack on worshippers leaving mosque kills 3
A grenade thrown at worshippers leaving a mosque in a Somali neighborhood in the Kenyan capital killed three people and wounded 15 on Friday evening, the city's police chief said. The explosion was the second in the same Nairobi neighborhood in three days.
Kenyan media reported that a Muslim member of parliament was among the wounded, but police Chief Moses Ombati did not confirm that.
Kenyan troops moved into Somalia in late 2011, prompting al-Shabab militants in Somalia to vow revenge attacks inside Kenya. Over the past year, Kenya has seen a series of small-scale explosions, many from grenades and other small improvised explosive devices. Friday's targeting of a mosque could suggest a retaliatory attack by a non-Somali Kenyan against the country's Somali community.
Paris: France to stop financial aid for expelled Roma
France will stop giving financial aid to Roma whom it has expelled to their native Romania after fears the money was being used to undermine the repatriation program.
The money - $390 for each adult - aims to help individuals settle in Romania. But it is believed many expelled Roma simply use the money to fly back to France.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls, speaking on RTL radio Friday, said "this aid has a perverted effect."
The initiative began in 2007, the year Romania entered the European Union.
Associated Images:
Workers clean a model replica of Cheops Pyramid of Giza after snowfall in landscape park Miniwelt (Miniworld) in Lichtenstein, eastern Germany, on Friday. The cultural park Miniworld presents about 100 original and true-to detail buildings and technical facilities at a 1:25 scale. JENS MEYER/Associated Press
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