The world in brief

Friday, April 19, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Musharraf is relaxed, confident and happy. We were sipping coffee, and he was smoking a cigar.”

Ahmed Raza Kasuri, lawyer for former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf, rejecting reports that the ex-leader fled from court Thursday Article, 1A

IMF chief to appear in ’07 French case

PARIS - A French court has ordered Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, to appear at a hearing next month connected to an investigation of her handling of a financial scandal when she was the French finance minister.

The investigation, which has included a police raid of Lagarde’s Paris apartment last month, concerns her decision in 2007 to refer to an arbitration panel a decades-old dispute between a wealthy friend of France’s president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais. The panel ultimately brokered a settlement that awarded Sarkozy's friend, Bernard Tapie, former owner of the Olympique Marseille soccer team, about $580 million, including interest.

Lagarde has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the Tapie matter and has expressed her willingness to cooperate with investigators.

Cafe suicide blast kills 26 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a Baghdad cafe crowded with young people late Thursday, killing at least 26 and wounding dozens ahead of provincial elections this weekend.

The rare evening attack, which came at the start of the local weekend, raised to 30 the number of people killed across the country Thursday.

The cafe bomber struck about 9:30 p.m. Police said two children and a woman passing by at the time of the blast were among the dead.

More than 50 people were wounded.

The cafe is on the third floor of a building in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amiriyah. Police said the cafe was packed with young people enjoying water pipes and playing pool.

Venezuela OKs partial election audit

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela’s electoral council said Thursday that it would audit the 46 percent vote that was not scrutinized election night in a major concession to opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who said he accepted the decision because he believed the votes stolen from him were to be found among those votes.

Capriles had demanded a full vote-by-vote recount and said he would insist that every vote receipt be counted and compared with voter registries as well as with voting machine tally sheets.

He has maintained that Sunday’s election, which the National Electoral Council had declared won by Hugo Chavez’s designee, Nicolas Maduro, by 262,000 votes out of 14.9 million cast, was stolen from him through intimidation and other abuses.

Electoral council President Tibisay Lucena’s announcement came a day after the Supreme Court chief said the full vote-by vote recount Capriles had demanded was not legal.

Lucena said the council would begin auditing the results of 400 machines per day beginning next week and that it would take a month.

Maduro, who was sworn in as acting president after Chavez died last month, was meeting with South American leaders in Lima on Thursday night.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 04/19/2013