Ukraine

Yushchenko orders removal of tent camp

The winner of Ukraine’s presidential election ordered his supporters Friday to raze the tent camp in Kiev that had become a dramatic symbol of his victory over a Kremlin-backed opponent, saying conditions had become unsanitary.

But the camp’s occupants vowed to stay until Viktor Yushchenko is inaugurated — and when that might be is in doubt after his vanquished opponent, ex-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, filed an elaborate appeal with the Supreme Court contesting the election results.

Yushchenko’s order to his supporters showed his confidence the court will reject Yanukovych’s filing. The appeal asked for a repeat of the Dec. 26 presidential election, which itself was a rerun of a November vote in which Yanukovych was declared the winner. The Nov. 21 vote was annulled by the high court because of fraud.

Court spokeswoman Natalia Sarapyn said the court would begin considering the appeal Monday and that the law says the process should take no more than five days.

Toronto

D.C. insider named new U.S. ambassador

Canada’s prime minister on Friday named seasoned politician Frank McKenna as Canada’s new ambassador to Washington, a move designed to enhance relations between the prickly North American neighbors.

McKenna, 46, was premier of New Brunswick from 1987 to 1997 and for the last seven years practiced law and served on the boards of General Motors of Canada Ltd., the Bank of Montreal and CanWest Global Communications Corp., where he is chairman.

McKenna will have to deal with tough issues that have plagued Canadian-U.S. relations, such as the prolonged tariff dispute over softwood lumber and cases of mad cow disease found in Alberta, prompting the United States to close the border to cattle imports and costing the Canadian beef industry at least $3 billion.

Some McKenna critics say he is too closely tied to President Bush. They also don’t like that he’s on the advisory board of the Carlyle Group, an $18 billion private equity firm that boasts some of the most powerful men in Washington.

Ireland

Missouri tourist charged with dangerous driving

An American tourist who was critically injured in a car crash with an Irish government minister has been charged with driving dangerously, police said Friday.

John Corbett — who was on his honeymoon with his wife, Terri, when his rented car collided Nov. 15 with a car carrying rural affairs minister Eamon O Cuiv — has been ordered to appear in court in Killarney, southwest Ireland, probably in March, police said.

In Ireland, a conviction of dangerous driving commonly means a fine and suspended sentence. The crash was front-page news in Ireland, and happened on the Ring of Kerry, a popular tourist trail featuring coastal views on a single-lane road with little margin for error.

Corbett, 56, president of the Missouri State Council of Firefighters, suffered a crushed pelvis, a shattered right leg, a broken ankle and other injuries that have required several reconstructive operations. He spent four weeks in Irish hospitals, then traveled back to the United States by air ambulance. He remains hospitalized in St. Louis.

Tokyo

N. Korea says it’s willing to resume nuclear talks

The North Korea government this week indicated its willingness to return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks if the United States ceased acting in a “belligerent manner,” according to a delegation of U.S. congressmen who just returned from a rare series of high-level meetings in Pyongyang.

The delegation, headed by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said Friday in Seoul, South Korea, that North Korean officials earlier this week had signaled their readiness to return to negotiations aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s professed nuclear weapons program.

North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia have thus far held three rounds of nuclear talks, but North Korea has refused to return to the table since September. Most analysts have said North Korea was waiting for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, hoping that President Bush — who has taken a hard-line policy on North Korea — would lose.

Sri Lanka

Group: Rebels still enlist thousands of children

Tamil Tiger rebels have forcibly enlisted more than 1,000 child soldiers since agreeing in 2003 to release and rehabilitate child fighters already among their ranks, the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said Friday.

The report came a day after the U.N. Children’s Fund said the rebels forcibly recruited three tsunami-affected girls living in camps after the Dec. 26 disaster, although two of the three were later reunited with their parents. Nearly 31,000 Sri Lankans were killed in the catastrophe and 800,000 made homeless.

While the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam released more than 1,000 child soldiers since a 2003 agreement, “forcible recruitment of children has intensified, and new recruits outnumber those released,” Human Rights Watch said.

Paris

Kerry talks with Chirac

Sen. John Kerry’s French connection was treated as a liability during his bid for the U.S. presidency.

On Friday, with the electoral loss behind him and U.S.-French tensions on the ebb, Kerry visited Paris, meeting with French President Jacques Chirac in Elysee Palace.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who lost the November election to President Bush, has relatives in France and speaks French.

But this was no social call. Kerry is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his trip to Paris closes a European and Middle East tour that included trips to Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank.

Kerry met with Chirac after talks in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the prospect of Mideast peace.

“Succeeding in Iraq and winning the war on terror will take a global effort, and I have conveyed that in my meetings with heads of state in the Middle East and Europe,” Kerry said in a statement. “We all have a stake in the outcome of Iraq, and I believe they have a responsibility to do more.”

Puerto Rico

U.S. orders 13 to remain at Guantanamo Bay

U.S. military review tribunals have ordered 13 more detainees to remain in custody at the camp for terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an official said Friday.

Review tribunals determined the men were correctly classified as “enemy combatants,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daryl Borgquist, a Pentagon spokesman.

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals have ordered only two prisoners released or transferred to other countries from the U.S. Naval base. Another 254 have been ordered to remain in detention, including the latest 13.

Despite repeated requests, the military refuses to release details of the rulings, including the allegations against the prisoners and when tribunals were held.

Some 550 detainees from more than 40 countries are held as “enemy combatants” accused of supporting Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terrorist network. Human rights groups and defense attorneys complain the definition is vague and doesn’t afford the legal protections assured a prisoner of war.

Venezuela

Chavez freezes trade ties with Colombia

President Hugo Chavez said Friday that diplomatic and commercial relations with Colombia would be suspended until it apologized for paying bounty hunters to snatch a senior rebel from inside Venezuela.

But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe remained unapologetic Friday, defending his country’s “right to free itself from the nightmare of terrorism.”

The sharply worded statements came a day after Venezuela recalled its ambassador in response to Colombia’s admission that it sent police and bribed local authorities to act as bounty hunters to capture Rodrigo Granda, a leader in the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Chavez said the move included freezing a July agreement to build a $200 million natural gas pipeline from Venezuela to Colombia’s Pacific coast, which would allow Venezuelan fuel to be more easily shipped to the United States and Asia.

Germany

Strangulation suspected in designer’s death

German fashion designer Rudolph Moshammer, known in celebrity pages and on talk shows for his black bouffant and mischievous smile, was slain early Friday in his villa outside Munich, police said.

The 64-year-old socialite, who was never far from his Yorkshire terrier, Daisy, appeared to have been strangled, authorities said. A chauffeur discovered the body near a first-floor bedroom. A phone cord was found nearby, but police would not confirm whether it was the murder weapon.

Police, who say there was no sign of forced entry to the home, have not disclosed a suspected motive.

Moshammer’s death set off instant remembrances and eulogies for one of the nation’s more eccentric characters — a man with a perpetual tan and a gregarious laugh who designed clothes for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, tenor Jose Carreras, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and Siegfried and Roy.

Russia

Demonstrators protest reduced benefits

Pensioners and war veterans facing major cuts in their Soviet-era social benefits have launched demonstrations across Russia, the most sweeping protests in years and the first significant sign of public discontent with the government of President Vladimir Putin.

From rural Siberia to the teeming Moscow suburbs, aging protesters have blocked highways, marched on street corners and blockaded public buildings in an attempt to stop welfare reforms that would replace transit, housing, telephone and medicine subsidies with monthly cash payments ranging from $7 to $100.

Russia has about 30 million retirees, about half of whom qualified in the past for free bus travel or subsidized prescriptions. Many faced a sudden cutoff when a new law slashing their benefits took effect Jan. 1.

Federal officials in Moscow blamed cash-strapped regional governments for failing to manage the transition to cash-based benefits for their poorest citizens.

Turkey

Prime minister panned for accepting gift

A diamond-studded choker with coral- and amethyst-tipped sprays has tarnished the image of popular Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is facing widespread criticism after he and his wife accepted the piece from a Turkish jeweler earlier this week during an official trip to Moscow.

“Give it back,” screamed the liberal daily Radikal in a front page headline Friday. “The gift crisis,” said the pro-establishment daily Milliyet, which carried a close-up photo of the necklace and another of the prime minister’s wife, Emine, in a white fur-trimmed coat and matching Islamic style head scarf.

Striking a defiant tone, the 50-year-old prime minister said at a public rally Friday in the Black Sea city of Sinop that the necklace was worth “only $10,600” and not $30,000 as was reported by the Turkish media, which he accused of “flubbing big time.”