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US requests extradition of
another Colombian rebel leader
The United States
requested Colombia to extradite
another chief of the illegal
armed group United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia (AUC),
official sources of the
Colombian government said
Tuesday.
Second top chief of the AUC
Jesus Giraldo Serna, whose alias
was Mono Viejo, was accused by
Washington of producing and
trafficking drugs to the United
States from January 1998 to
March 2004, said the sources.
The Colombian government earlier
Tuesday authorized the
extradition of Juan C. Sierra of
the AUC.
Both Serna's brother and Sierra
participated in the ongoing
peace negotiations with the
Colombian government beginning
in July.It is said the US
government will also seek to
extradite AUC's top leader
Salvatore Mancuso.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe
said the extradition of these
paramilitary leaders was not
part of the negotiations with
the AUC.
The right-wing AUC was created
to attack leftist guerrillas who
have been fighting with
Colombia's government for 40
years. But the AUC and other
rightist paramilitaries quickly
began a war of their own and
finance themselves through drug
trafficking and extortion.
Guatemalan troops to go to Haiti
for UN mission
Seventy Guatemalan troops will
go to Haiti on Oct. 15 for a UN
stabilization mission there, a
military official said Tuesday.
Chief of the Military Police
Brigade, Col. Hugo Flores, said
that the 70-strong contingent
comprises 12 officers, 23
soldiers and 35 military
policemen, according to reports
from Guatemala City.
The troops, including six women,
will stay in the Caribbean
country for at least six months
and they will help enforce law
and order, guard officials, and
carry out police investigations.
Guatemalan Foreign Minister
Jorge Briz said that if decided
by the United Nations, the
troops could also help the
reconstruction work badly needed
in the storm-hit Caribbean
nation.
In late April, the UN Security
Council approved the deployment
of a peacekeeping mission
comprising 6,700 soldiers and
1,622 civil policemen to replace
a US-led peacekeeping force,
which arrived in Haiti after
former Haitian President Jean
Bertrand Aristide resigned on
Feb. 29.
Brazil denies
contamination of blood by mad
cow disease
Brazil's Health Ministry on
Tuesday denied reports that the
country's blood supply could
have been contaminated by bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)
or mad cow disease.
The denial came after local
media reports that blood
by-products purchased in the
1990s from Britain could contain
the protein that produces the
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the
human form of mad cow disease.
Brazil was one of the five
countries alerted by the British
government of the possibility
that blood donated by infected
individuals could have reached
the South American country.
However, according to reports of
the State-run National Sanitary
Vigilance Agency, the presumably
contaminated shipments only were
purchased for lab tests.
The Health Ministry, however,
said it will investigate the
possibility of by-products
having entered Brazil "by a
different mean."
According to the official
report, since 1998, Brazil has
purchased British blood
by-products only if they are
proven to be produced from
plasma imported from the United
States or other countries.
"There is no evidence that
contaminated shipments had
entered the country," the report
said.
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