The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s a moment of crisis for the church, so we

have to show support of the new pope.”Veronica Herrera, a real-estate agent from Mexico who traveled to Rome

for the conclave with her husband and daughter Article, 5A2 bodies revive ex-Mandela wife’s case

JOHANNESBURG - Forensic scientists on Tuesday exhumed two bodies believed to belong to young activists last seen 24 years ago at the home of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and police said they have opened a new murder investigation.

The case reopens a dark chapter in the life of the thenwife of Nelson Mandela. Many South Africans still revere the 76-year-old as “the mother of the nation,” but others have feared her as a vengeful and heartless operator. She had “the blood of African children on her hands,” her former friend, Xoliswa Falati, told South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In the late 1990s, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Madikizela-Mandela was responsible for the disappearances in November 1988 of 21-year-old Lolo Sono and his friend Sibuniso Tshabalala, 19. But nothing was done to pursue allegations she was directly involved in their killings, even though her chief bodyguard Jerry Richardson told the commission he and a colleague stabbed the young men to death on Madikizela-Mandela’s orders.

Mortuary records indicate the two bodies that were unearthed on Tuesday had multiple stab wounds.

In front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Madikizela-Mandela denied all knowledge of the two and said allegations she was involved in six other killings were rubbish.

Egypt turns down emergency IMF loan

CAIRO - Egypt has rejected an offer of a $750 million rescue loan from the International Monetary Fund, the finance minister said Tuesday, ruling out a fallback on emergency measures.

The emergency credit offer came after delays in finalizing a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF to bolster Egypt’s battered economy and help counter a growing budget deficit.

Negotiations over the larger loan have been stalled during political turmoil in Egypt, which has often deteriorated into violent clashes between protesters and police and widespread unrest in the form of labor and police strikes. The two years of unrest have contributed to a severe economic downturn.

Finance Minister El-Morsi Hegazy said Egypt has started implementing a full economic program, entitling it to a larger loan from the IMF, instead of emergency measures. Hegazy insisted that Egypt’s economy is on the path to recovery.

The stopgap loan, part of the body’s Rapid Financing Instrument, would not have been a substitute for Egypt’s multibillion-dollar loan request.

Forced kiss not rape, Dutch court says

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The Dutch Supreme Court narrowed its definition of rape Tuesday, saying that a “forced tongue kiss” should no longer be considered among the worst forms of sexual assault.

In one of the court’s more unusual cases, a panel of three men and two women overturned a lower court’s rape conviction of a man for forcing his tongue into the mouth of a woman in a hospital restroom.

The ruling reversed a 1998 Supreme Court decision that broadly defined rape as any unwanted sexual penetration.

The court said that a forced kiss, while still illegal, is not as serious as forced sexual intercourse.

Instead, the judges said that a forced kiss should be considered an indecent assault, which carries a maximum sentence of eight years, as opposed to rape, which has a maximum 12-year sentence.

In France, a forced kiss in which the offender’s tongue is pushed into a victim’s mouth could qualify as rape but is almost never prosecuted as such, while according to Germany’s Justice Ministry a forced tongue kiss would not constitute a rape in that country. In Britain, where rape carries a life sentence, an unwanted tongue kiss would not qualify as rape under the 2003 sexual offenses act.

Pigs in Chinese river hit 5,916, city says

BEIJING - The number of dead pigs found floating in a river flowing into Shanghai has reached nearly 6,000.

The Shanghai municipal government said in an online announcement that 5,916 swine carcasses had been retrieved from Huangpu River by 3 p.m. Tuesday, but added that municipal water remains safe.

The surge in the dumping of dead pigs - believed to be from pig farms in the upstream Jiaxing area in the neighboring Zhejiang province - has followed police campaigns to curb the illicit trade of pork products harvested from diseased pigs.

Shanghai authorities said the city has taken proper measures to safely dispose of the pig carcasses and that the city’s water plants are stepping up efforts to disinfect public water and testing for six common swine viruses.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/13/2013

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