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22 foreigners kidnapped in Colombia in nine months
Colombia's illegal armed groups have kidnapped a total of 22 foreigners in the first nine months of this year, a Colombian army report said on Tuesday.
Most of the hostages are from the United States, Israel and Britain. The largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has abducted 15 people from different countries this year, said the report.
Other hostages are Germans, Cubans, Spaniards, French, Italians, Mexicans, Peruvians, Swiss and Venezuelans.
The 17,000-strong FARC has held hostage about 60 politicians and law-enforcement servicemen over the past five years.
Among them are former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, five parliamentarians, a former minister and a former governor.
Colombia has been bogged down in a decades-long civil war that pits government forces, leftist guerrillas and far right paramilitaries against one and another. An average of 3,500
people, mostly civilians, are killed every year in the conflict.
Cuba's report to UN urges lifting of US trade sanctions
Cuba presented a report to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, urging the United States to lift the economic blockade on the island.
The document, "The Need to Put an End to the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States Against Cuba", contains, in 55 pages, references to the damage caused to the country by the hostile policy of Washington.
The text, which responds to Resolution 57/11 of the UN General Assembly, is divided into six chapters citing concrete examples
of the negative effects on the economic, health, food, education and culture sectors.
"The principal goal of the embargo has not been other than imposing economic and social asphyxia on Cuba, depriving it of
its essential subsistence means," says the document sent to UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan.
It terms the actions of Washington as an act of genocide that violates the Geneva Conventions and constitutes a "crime in the international law."
Last year, the sanctions caused 685 million US dollars of damage to Cuba, 41.8 million more than that in 2001.
The document also pointed out that the total losses caused by Washington's unilateral measure amounted to more than 72 billion dollars over the past 44 years.
There is also a call on the international community to
"clearly express in favor of the end of the economic, trade and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba."
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez reiterated on Tuesday that the US blockade against the Caribbean country, imposed 40 years ago, must be lifted.
"The aggressive policy against Cuba must end," said the diplomat.
He stressed that the embargo was a token of the irrationality of the US government, which responds to the base interests of a minority of the US far-right, and anti-Cuban groups based in Miami.
Since 1992, the UN General Assembly has approved most of the resolutions presented every year by Cuba demanding an end to the unilateral measure.
Last year, the Cuban project was approved with 173 votes in favor, four abstentions and the only negative votes were those of the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands.
Argentina's "Blond Angel" arrested for extradition to France
Argentine federal judges on Tuesday ordered the arrest of former navy captain Alfredo Astiz, who was accused of murdering opposition members during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship and was found guilty by a Paris court of murdering two French nuns, judicial officials said.
Alfredo Astiz, dubbed the "Blond Angel of Death" by the media, was detained at the naval headquarters in Buenos Aires after two judges ordered his arrest, one in response to a French
extradition request.
Astiz was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by a
Paris court for killing Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet. Their bodies
were found on a beach near Buenos Aires two months after they were abducted allegedly on an order by Astiz in December 1977.
It was not clear whether he would be transferred to France to serve the life term in prison or whether he would receive a new trial.
Astiz had said before the judges he did not recognize the jurisdiction of the French court to handle acts committed in Argentina.
It was the second time in recent months Astiz had been taken into custody. In July, he was arrested to face a possible trial
in Spain over rights abuses committed under the former military regime, but he was released on Sept. 1, after Spain withdrew its extradition request.
Astiz is said to have been one of the most notorious agents
for the dictatorship during the "dirty war" against leftists.
Earlier this year, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner
repealed a ban on extradition of people accused of war crimes during the military regime.
Government officials say 11,000 people disappeared during the dictatorship, but human rights groups have put the figure at 30,000.
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