St. Louis

City’s murder rate dips below 100 a year, lowest since 1962

In a city that averaged 145 killings a year in the past decade, many St. Louis officials thought their goal of fewer than 100 slayings in 2003 was impossible.

But by year’s end, St. Louis had done better than that. The death toll was 69, matching the city’s lowest total since 1962.

Police, prosecutors and others say the chief explanation is that they put the squeeze on the city’s most violent neighborhoods.

During the past couple of years, the city has added 100 police officers. Stepped-up patrols concentrated on the dozen neighborhoods that once accounted for half of the city’s homicides. From there, police systematically zeroed in on specific streets and troublemakers.

Moscow

U.N.: Russia’s HIV rate among highest in world

Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic nation of Estonia have some of the world’s fastest HIV growth rates, the United Nations Development Program said in a report Tuesday. The world body said one in every 100 adults of the three countries was infected.

According to the report on HIV and AIDS in the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS — the former Soviet Union — and Eastern Europe, the HIV crisis poses a threat to the region’s economic growth, placing new pressure on already threadbare social welfare programs.

“It is already too late to speak of avoiding a crisis,” said Kalman Mizsei, the program’s assistant administrator for Europe and the CIS.

Berlin

Europeans seek new push to rival U.S. economic power

German, French and British leaders agreed Wednesday on broad proposals aimed at making Europe the world’s premier economic power this decade, but they drew criticism from countries who were left out of the summit.

Demonstrating unity after last year’s divisions over Iraq, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a fresh push to cut red tape, promote new technologies and avert a crisis in social programs that Europeans hold dear.

All three leaders emphasized the need for changes to make Europe more business-friendly and reduce unemployment — but also to uphold welfare-state comforts financed by a shrinking pool of working people as Europe’s population ages.

Washington

Rumsfeld, Tenet to testify publicly in Sept. 11 probe

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet will testify publicly next month in a federal probe into who should be held accountable for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The two-day hearing in late March, to focus on U.S. counterterrorism policy, will be unprecedented in its review of high-level officials in the administrations of both Presidents Clinton and Bush, Philip Zelikow, executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, said Tuesday in an interview.

Also scheduled to testify are Secretary of State Colin Powell; his predecessor Madeleine Albright; and Clinton’s defense secretary, William Cohen.