The world in brief

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“None of us are going to prejudge or precondition what they will choose to do in that process.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said he is confident the Western-backed coalition of Syrian rebels will agree to participate in talks with members of President Bashar Assad’s government Article, this page

Romanians admit theft of masterpieces

BUCHAREST, Romania - Three Romanians have pleaded guilty to stealing seven paintings, including works by Picasso, Monet and Matisse, from a Dutch museum in a nighttime raid.

Radu Dogaru, Alexandru Bitu and Eugen Darie told a Bucharest court Tuesday that they took the multimillion-dollar paintings from the Kunsthal Museum in October 2012. They were charged with theft and with taking the paintings, which have never been found, into Romania.

The suspects, who were arrested in January, said they took the paintings to Romania, tried to sell them on the black market, then left them with Dogaru’s mother, Olga Dogaru.

Olga Dogaru, who is charged with handling stolen property, told investigators she burned the paintings, but later denied it.

Radu Dogaru denied the paintings had been burned in his mother’s stove.

He told the court that the paintings were handed over to a Russian-Ukrainian man whom he identified for the court.

The name was not publicly confirmed.

S. Korean agency accused of politicking

SEOUL, South Korea - Military investigators raided South Korea’s Cyberwarfare Command on Tuesday after four of its officials were found to have posted political messages online last year in what opposition lawmakers have called a smear campaign against President Park Geun-hye’s opponents before her election in December.

Park defeated her main opposition rival, Moon Jae-in, by roughly 1 million votes in the election and took office in February. But prosecutors have since said that during the presidential campaign, agents of the National Intelligence Service posted thousands of Internet messages supporting Park and her governing Saenuri Party or berating opposition candidates and critics.

Last week, opposition lawmakers alleged in the National Assembly that the military’s secretive Cyberwarfare Command had carried out a similar online campaign, separately or in coordination with the spy agency, to help sway public opinion in favor of Park before the Dec. 19 election.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry confirmed that four cyberwarfare officials had posted political messages. But it quoted them as saying they had acted on their own.

Still, “the ministry will investigate whether there was command-level involvement,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Kim Min-seok.

Australian territory OKs gay weddings

CANBERRA, Australia - Provincial lawmakers for the territory that includes Australia’s capital voted Tuesday to allow same-sex marriage, a first for the country, but the federal government said it will try to stop gay weddings from happening.

The parliament of the Australian Capital Territory passed the law in a 9-8 vote, drawing a standing ovation from the crowd in the parliament’s public gallery.

Federal Attorney General George Brandis said his government has legal advice that the legislation is invalid.

“Irrespective of anyone’s views on the desirability or otherwise of same-sex marriage, it is clearly in Australia’s interests that there be nationally consistent marriage laws,” Brandis said.

Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Katy Gallagher refused a request from Brandis to wait on allowing any same-sex marriages until the High Court ruled on the law’s constitutional validity.

India charges 2 in 23 pupils’ lunch deaths

NEW DELHI - Police in India have charged a school principal and her husband with murdering 23 children after feeding them lunches laced with insecticide, officials said Tuesday.

The principal, Meena Kumari, and her husband, Arjun Rai, went into hiding almost as soon as the young children in Kumari’s care fell ill at the school in the village of Gandaman in the Saran district of Bihar, a state in India’s northeast.

Police arrested Kumari a week after the poisoning, which took place in July, while Rai avoided arrest for nearly two months.

Investigators have determined that Kumari provided the school’s cook with cooking oil laced with the same kind of insecticide that Rai sold to local farmers. Of the 52 children attending school July 16, 47 ate the poisoned food.

All 47 children became seriously ill and 23 died, said Raj Kaushal, a police officer who investigated the case. The children were between 6 and 12 years old, Kaushal said.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 10/23/2013