Israel: Report: Little done to deter sex slavery

About 3,000 women, mainly from the former Soviet Union, are sold each year into Israel’s sex industry, which takes in about $1 billion annually, a parliamentary report said Sunday, slamming the country’s justice system for being lax on punishments.

The women, seeking to escape poverty at home, are usually smuggled in by traffickers who promise them legitimate jobs. Once in Israel, they are sold to pimps for between $3,000 and $6,000 each, the preliminary report said.

Israeli courts generally reach a plea bargain with the pimps and sentence them to either a few months of community service or up to an average of two years in prison, punishments which the committee said are too weak to serve as deterrents. It suggested that these crimes should have minimum prison sentences to deter the sex traders, who often jail, blackmail and enslave the women.

Russia: Chechen official survives ambush

A top Chechen administrator escaped unharmed after his car was ambushed by gunmen firing submachine guns and grenades, an official in the Chechen administration said Sunday.

Usman Masayev, Chechnya’s first deputy administration head, was traveling Saturday in the town of Mairtup in the Kurchaloi region, 18 miles east of the capital, Grozny, when three unidentified gunmen opened fire on his car, the official in the Kremlin-appointed administration said.

Masayev’s driver and bodyguard were wounded, but Masayev escaped unharmed, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. One of the attackers was killed by the bodyguard and the two others escaped, he said.

Colombia: Military says bombing kills 40 guerrillas

The Colombian air force said it bombed a rebel camp Sunday and killed about 40 guerrillas.

Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco told RCN television his forces discovered an arms factory at a camp belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the remote jungles of Guainia state, on the border with Venezuela and Brazil.

Intelligence reports indicated that 40 guerrillas had died in the bombing, though troops had not been able to reach the area, Velasco said. The FARC controls large portions of Guainia state.

Colombia’s 38-year civil war pits the FARC and a smaller rebel group against government forces and illegal right-wing militias. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, die in the fighting each year.

Philippines: Communists rule out Christmas cease-fire

Communist guerrillas ruled out a cease-fire this Christmas and warned on Sunday that Americans would be targeted if they participate in Philippine government offensives against the insurgents.

The Marxist guerrillas in the New People’s Army Encampment also said a new logistics agreement that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed with the United States could be used against the rebels, further endangering already-stalled peace talks and violating the sovereignty of the former American colony.

The deal signed in late November calls for supplies such as food, water and fuel, and support and services, to be exchanged or transferred between the two nations’ armed forces.

American soldiers are unlikely to fight under the deal. The Philippine constitution bars combat by foreign troops on its soil.