The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Although it may be a thin line, these two places are worlds apart.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,

referring to the buffer zone between the Koreas Article, 4ASudan leader risks arrest, visits Chad

N’DJAMENA, Chad - Sudan’s president, who faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, traveled to neighboring Chad on Wednesday, the first time he has risked arrest by traveling to a member state of the International Criminal Court.

Omar al-Bashir has traveled abroad only to countries that are not court members since he was first charged in connection with violence in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2009. The court has no police force and depends on member states to enforce its orders.

Chadian officials said they would not detain al-Bashir.

The mayor of N’djamena also gave the president a warm welcome by presenting him with a key to the city upon his arrival.

“Chad and Sudan had a problem in the past. Now this problem is solved. We are brothers,” al-Bashir told reporters in N’djamena.

Spaniard sees U.S.-EU thaw with Cuba

MADRID - Spain’s foreign minister predicted Wednesday that Cuba’s release of dozens of political prisoners could eventually lead to a thaw in U.S. relations and the lifting of a decades-old embargo against the communist-run island.

Speaking in Parliament, Miguel Angel Moratinos said the freeing of some 52 Cuban prisoners would prompt a shift in European Union policy toward Cuba “and it will have political consequences in U.S. relations with Cuba, [such as] the lifting of the embargo.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid said that while the U.S. welcomed the release of the Cuban political inmates, it was too early to say whether that would have any effect on the embargo. And officials from France and Germany didn’t share Moratinos’ optimism that the release of the 52 would trigger an EU policy shift.

President Barack Obama once suggested it was time for a new beginning with Cuba, but his administration wants to see the island embrace more political or social changes.

Former Kosovo premier to be retried

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Kosovo’s former prime minister must be retried on murder and torture charges related to the country’s 1998-99 war with Serbia, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal ruled Wednesday, calling his acquittal two years ago “a miscarriage of justice.”

The original trial for Ramush Haradinaj and two former Kosovo Liberation Army comrades was marred by intimidation that left two prosecution witnesses too scared to testify, tribunal President Patrick Robinson said.

Haradinaj had been accused along with Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj of abusing Serbs or their supporters in 1998 as Kosovo battled for independence from Serbia, which it eventually declared in 2008.

Judges originally threw out all charges against Haradinaj and Balaj for lack of evidence but convicted Brahimaj on charges of torture and sentenced him to six years.

Appeals judges had later upheld Brahimaj’s sentence.

A date for the retrial has yet to be set, and it is unclear if the frightened witnesses would testify at the new hearings.

Attackers kill 2 at Russia power plant

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia - Two carloads of assailants attacked a hydroelectric station in southern Russia early Wednesday, killing two workers and setting off bombs.

The attack took place in Kabardino-Balkariya, one of the republics in Russia’s restive Caucasus region where clashes with insurgents are frequent.

A spokesman for the republic’s police, Adlan Kakakuyev, said two cars carrying a half-dozen assailants attacked the Baksan plant about 4:30 a.m., killing two guards and wounding three others in gunfire. The attackers then set off explosives in several parts of the 25-megawatt plant and detonated them before fleeing.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 07/22/2010

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