QUOTE OF THE DAY
“All our feelings are the same:We demand to know the truth. It’s not about compensation, it’s about the truth.”
Xu Dengwang of Beijing, one of several protesters in Malaysia representing family members of passengers on a Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared March 8 Article, this page
Toronto mayor’s crack video detailed
TORONTO - Toronto police said a video first reported by media nearly a year ago shows Mayor Rob Ford apparently holding a glass cylinder and a lighter while smoking crack cocaine, according to court documents released by a judge Wednesday.
Ford, who is seeking re-election despite the drug scandal, acknowledged last year after months of denials that he smoked crack in a “drunken stupor” after police said they obtained the video, which has never been released to the public.
The documents hold the first official description of the video by police.
“Mayor Ford is holding what appears to be a glass cylinder in one hand and a lighter in the other hand while engaged in conversation with individual(s) off camera,” the documents state.
The video appears to have been filmed surreptitiously showing Ford “consuming what appears to be a narcotic while inside a residence,” according to the documents.
Ford is not facing criminal charges, but police said the investigation continues.
South African slams Zuma’s estate redo
LONDON - Less than two months before a national election, South Africa’s public prosecutor found Wednesday that President Jacob Zuma “benefited unduly” in a manner “inconsistent with his office” from state-funded improvements worth about $23 million to his rural estate that were supposed to enhance presidential security.
The expansion of the homestead in the village of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal province has been widely chronicled in newspaper reports showing a swimming pool, a visitor center, a cattle enclosure and an amphitheater, among other additions.
With Zuma’s dominant African National Congress facing the prospect of a reduced majority in the May 7 elections, the 444-page report by Thuli Madonsela, the public prosecutor, could deepen public disaffection.
The party has led South Africa since the first elections after the end of apartheid in 1994. But it has been associated with accusations of corruption and incompetence.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said Wednesday that it would seek Zuma’s impeachment.
U.N. OKs boarding militias’ tankers
TRIPOLI, Libya - The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday condemned the illicit export of crude oil from Libya and authorized U.N. member states to board suspect vessels and return illegally seized oil to the Libyan government.
The council unanimously adopted a resolution authorizing the ship inspections three days after U.S. Navy SEAL commandos seized a tanker off Cyprus containing Libyan oil that a militia controlling the country’s oil terminals was trying to export in defiance of the central government.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power posted on Twitter that the “Libyan government’s hand is now stronger in negotiations with militias threatening one of Libya’s most precious resources.” She said that the resolution “makes it hard for the illicit exporter of oil to profit from their actions.”
Militia commander Ibrahim Jedran, whose fighters control Libya’s oil terminals, denounced the U.S. seizure of the tanker, saying Tuesday that Washington was siding with the government in Tripoli against the aspirations in the eastern half of the country for greater autonomy.
U.K. probes possible link to missing girl
LONDON - British police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in May 2007 said Wednesday that they are seeking an intruder who sexually assaulted five girls in the region of southern Portugal where the British 3-year-old was last seen.
Police have linked 12 crimes between 2004 and 2010, in which a man entered holiday villas occupied by British families in Portugal’s Algarve region. In several of those cases, the man sexually assaulted young girls.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood acknowledged there were differences between the characteristics of the 12 incidents and Madeleine’s case - such as time of day and the fact that there were no abductions - but stressed the need to identify the intruder.
“This is an offender who has got a very, very unhealthy interest in young, white, female children who he is attacking whilst they are on holiday in their beds,” Redwood said.
Portuguese police made no comment. Cases that are under investigation in Portugal are covered by a judicial secrecy law, which forbids the release of information.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/20/2014