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| Experts demand end to immunity for U.N. peacekeepers over sex abuse | |  Sex abuse by U.N. peacekeeping personnel has been a problem for decades, and it is still happening despite the world body's official policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, a group of former diplomats and U.N. officials said on Wednesday. The group, including Graça Machel, author of the landmark study "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children", is joining with AIDS-Free World in a campaign called Code Blue to demand that the United Nations remove the immunity that protects sexual abusers within peacekeeping missions. Several senior United Nations officials, however, told reporters ahead of the event that there is already a policy of waiving immunity in most cases for civilian staff and U.N. police when they are accused of crimes like rape or sexual abuse. Over the past 20 years, a succession of media accounts and U.N. reports have exposed the sexual exploitation and abuse by both civilian and military U.N. peacekeepers in places from Bosnia to West Africa, Haiti to Democratic Republic of Congo.
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| Hezbollah, Syrian army make big gains in border battle | |  By Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny and Laila Bassam BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah and Syria's army made big advances against insurgents in mountains north of Damascus on Wednesday, Hezbollah and Syrian state media said, shoring up President Bashar al-Assad's grip on the border zone. The gains in the crucial Qalamoun region close to Lebanon against groups including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front follow significant defeats for Assad elsewhere, notably in Syria's northwest near the Turkish border. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shi'ite group with a powerful militia, has been a vital ally for Assad in the four-year-long conflict that has become a focal point for the struggle between Tehran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, which has backed the insurgency.
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| Five-hour siege at guest house in Afghan capital ends | |  Authorities at the scene of a five-hour attack on a guest house in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday said the standoff between armed attackers and police was over. The police chief of Kabul was expected to speak to reporters soon about casualties, details of which remained unclear. An army commander said at least 16 people were rescued from the Park Plaza guest house in an area popular with foreigners and wealthy Afghans. Police on the scene cited witnesses saying dozens had been trapped inside the guest house.
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| Exclusive - Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran: sources | | | By Louis Charbonneau and Robert Muller UNITED NATIONS/PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, U.N. experts and Western sources said. The incident could add to Western concerns about whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal being negotiated with world powers under which it would curb sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief. The negotiators are trying to reach a deal by the end of June after hammering out a preliminary agreement on April 2, with Iran committing to reduce the number of centrifuges it operates and agreeing to other long-term nuclear limitations. |
| Syrian opposition armed groups reject U.N. invitation | |  By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian armed groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad have rejected an invitation to U.N. consultations in Geneva, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday, dealing an blow to hopes of reviving talks to end the conflict. The letter from 30 opposition armed groups to the U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is presiding over the consultations, accused him of abandoning his neutrality and "standing on the side of one party without the other". De Mistura's low-key process, which involves him talking separately to scores of interested parties, follows failed attempts by his predecessors to stop the fighting. De Mistura's spokeswoman Jessy Chahine said he had taken note of the letter.
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| Life on the line as Boston bombing jury weighs Tsarnaev's fate | |  By Scott Malone and Elizabeth Barber BOSTON (Reuters) - The jury in the Boston Marathon bombing trial on Wednesday began deliberating whether to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death or to life in prison for the 2013 attack that killed three people and injured 264. Federal prosecutors wrapped up their case by arguing that the 21-year-old ethnic Chechen was a terrorist who wanted to punish America in one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. Defence attorneys, meanwhile, contended Tsarnaev was in the thrall of his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, who conceived and drove the attack and that he deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of release but not to die by lethal injection. Citing a note that Tsarnaev wrote while hiding in a boat, bleeding, after a gunfight with police four days after the April 15, 2013, attack, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Mellin said Tsarnaev had turned against the country he moved to from Russia with his family a decade before the bombing.
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| Suspected Boko Haram militants attack Nigeria's Maiduguri | | | By By, Lanre and Ola MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram militants attacked Nigeria's northern city of Maiduguri in Borno state on Wednesday from a cashew plantation a few kilometres from the Giwa barracks, military sources said. Abdul Musa, a resident, said the intense fighting had dwindled to a few intermittent gunshots. The city of around two million people is the birthplace of Boko Haram, which has killed thousands in its attempt to carve out an Islamist state in the country's northeast. Maiduguri has not been attacked since two major takeover attempts in late January and early February and several bombings in March. |
| Derailed Amtrak train was not fitted with latest U.S. safety controls | |  By Patrick Rucker and Jarrett Renshaw WASHINGTON/PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The commuter rail route where an Amtrak train left the track on Tuesday was not governed by an advanced safety technology meant to prevent high-speed derailments, officials familiar with the investigation said on Wednesday. Positive train control (PTC) automatically slows or even halts trains that are moving too fast or heading into a danger zone. Regulators are examining whether excessive speed led to the derailment on an Amtrak line in Philadelphia, said officials familiar with the investigation. Amtrak has begun installing components of a PTC system but the network is not yet functioning, federal officials said.
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| Crowds cheer as Burundi army officer says he has deposed absent president | |  By Njuwa Maina BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - A Burundian general said on Wednesday he had deposed President Pierre Nkurunziza for seeking an unconstitutional third term in office and was forming a transitional government, after more than two weeks of protests against the re-election bid. With Nkurunziza having gone to Tanzania to discuss the crisis with East African leaders, the presidency dismissed the declaration by Niyombare, who had been fired as Nkurunziza's intelligence chief in February, saying on Facebook that the coup had been "foiled". "We consider it as a joke, not as a military coup," presidential aide Willy Niyamitwe told Reuters. A Tanzanian official said he had not attended the talks in Dar es Salaam, and had left to return to Burundi.
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| Brotherhood leader dies in detention in Egypt - sources | | | An imprisoned leader of Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood died on Wednesday, security sources said, with supporters claiming his death was caused by authorities' failure to provide proper medical attention. Farid Ismail, 57, was a parliamentarian under president Mohamed Mursi, the Brotherhood leader overthrown in mid-2013 by then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following mass protests. Sisi, now president, pledged to eradicate the Brotherhood and launched a security crackdown that has landed thousands of Mursi supporters in prison. The security sources said Ismail had died of liver failure in a Cairo hospital, where he had been moved days earlier from a jail in the Nile Delta town of Zagazig. |
| White House says concerned about Syria chemical weapons allegations | | | The White House on Wednesday said it is concerned that international inspectors have received "credible allegations" that chemical weapons are still being used in Syria. The government of Bashar al-Assad had pledged to hand over its chemical weapons stockpiles after the United States threatened military intervention in 2013 following sarin gas attacks that killed hundreds of residents in a Damascus suburb. |
| Barca chiefs to stand trial in Neymar tax fraud case | |  A Spanish judge has ordered Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu, his predecessor Sandro Rosell and the club to stand trial on charges they committed tax fraud in the signing of Brazil forward Neymar. Judge Jose de la Mata has given the defendants, who deny any wrongdoing, 10 days in which to present their defence in writing, according to court documents published on Wednesday. Bartomeu was a vice president under Rosell when Neymar was signed from Santos in 2013 in a complex deal involving multiple contracts with the player and his father. In total, Bartomeu, Rosell, who resigned over the allegations, and the club have been accused of defrauding the tax office of nearly 13 million euros ($14.77 million).
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