South Africa: Victims group seeks apartheid reparations

A South African support group for victims of apartheid has sued several top international banks and businesses for supporting the racist regime.

The lawsuit was filed late Monday by the Khulamani group in federal court in New York City on behalf of the group’ 33,000 members and 85 individuals.

The plaintiffs allege Citigroup, the largest financial institution in the United States, and Swiss banking giants UBS and Credit Suisse aided the “in the commission of crimes of apartheid, forced labor, genocide, extrajudical killing, torture, sexual assault, unlawful detention and cruel, unusual and degrading treatment.”

The apartheid class-action lawsuit seeks billions of dollars in damages from as many as 100 corporations, most unidentified.

South Africa’s apartheid regime, which began in 1948, was held together by an oppressive web of racist laws that classified all citizens by race and stripped even the most basic rights from those who were not white.

Venezuela: Police fire tear gas to end office siege

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to free dozens of people, including Caracas’ mayor and other key opposition figures, from armed protesters at city hall Tuesday. The mayor blamed President Hugo Chavez’s supporters for the violence.

The shooting and tear gas forced dozens of stores to close and people to flee downtown Caracas’ Plaza Bolivar area. National Guard troops joined police in quelling the melee.

The approximately two dozen demonstrators also vandalized shops and occasionally fired at police after abandoning their siege of city hall. Officers rescued citizens hiding inside stores. Some, including infants, suffered tear gas exposure.

Yugoslavia: U.N. police officer sentenced for killing

A U.N. police officer in Kosovo was sentenced Tuesday to 13 years in prison for killing his ethnic Albanian girlfriend during an argument.

Sherif Abd Elaziz, a 33-year-old Egyptian, admitted killing Vlora Berbati, 23, but said it was an accident. Berbati worked for the United Nations police as a translator in Pec, 55 miles west of the provincial capital, Pristina.

Elaziz is the first international police officer convicted of a serious crime in the province, which has been run by the United Nations and NATO since a 78-day alliance air war in 1999.

The United Nations waived Elaziz’s immunity, allowing a trial before two international judges and a local one.

Afghanistan: Student protests end with four dead

Helmeted police formed a cordon around Kabul University on Tuesday after deadly protests, guarding angry students who returned to their dorms.

Student protests over a food shortage erupted in violence Monday when police fired on the unruly crowd. As many as four students were killed and dozens injured in the melee.

It was the first time since U.S. and British bombing ousted the Taliban one year ago that a university protest turned violent. The uprising reflected a general frustration in Kabul over poverty that residents and the government had hoped the international community would ease.

Germany: Four feared dead in weapons dump blast

An explosion at a munitions disposal plant in eastern Germany on Tuesday killed one employee, and three people missing in the blast were also feared dead, police said.

The Spreewerk Luebben plant, 50 miles southeast of Berlin, employs about 70 people in an area of forests and swamps with little industry.

Under communism, Spreewerk made most of East Germany’s small-arms ammunition. The plant was converted for munitions destruction after German reunification in 1990, disposing of about a third of the former East German army’s cache.