News briefs: “Painful lessons” and Nobel nominations

Annan: War created “painful lessons”

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan… Annan: War created “painful lessons”

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the British Broadcasting Corp. last week that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was illegal and that it contravened the U.N. charter. He said the decision to go to war in Iraq should not have been made unilaterally, but by the Security Council.

Annan told the BBC World Service that “painful lessons” had been learned from the deteriorating security situation in Iraq.

“These are lessons for the [United States], the [United Nations] and other member states,” he said. “I think, in the end, everybody’s concluded it’s best to work together with our allies and through the [United Nations].”

Pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said, “Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. charter from our point of view; from the charter point of view, it was illegal.”

Russia creates press concerns

The Associated Press reported that test results indicate Russian authorities drugged a Georgian journalist who was traveling to Beslan to cover the school hostage situation.

Nana Lezhava and another journalist from the former Soviet republic of Georgia’s independent Rustavi-2 television were detained and accused of violating visa rules when they entered Russia. In the past, the two had issued critical reports of the Russian government’s aggressive military campaign in the separatist region of Chechnya.

Lezhava said that, after drinking coffee in a holding cell, she slept for 24 hours and woke up feeling weak. Urine tests taken after the journalist’s release showed traces of tranquilizers.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has also expressed concern about reports that a prominent Russian journalist and critic of Russia’s involvement in Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaya, had fallen to a deliberate case of food poisoning as she tried to travel to Beslan.

International watchdogs said this week that the detention of journalists traveling to and from the site of the school siege, which resulted in the deaths of more than 320 people, raised new concerns about freedom of the press in Russia.

Genocide tribunal to try priest

A Catholic priest accused of participating in the Rwandan genocide appeared in court on Monday, at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in Tanzania.

Father Athanase Seromba is the first Catholic priest to stand trial, and will revive a heated debate about the Catholic Church’s role in the genocide. Seromba stands accused of directing the massacre of 2,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic group.

The Rwandan genocide in 1994 resulted in the killing of as many as one million people in just less than 100 days. Although tribunal has attempted to try ringleaders, the genocide was mostly carried out by members of the Hutu majority, many of whom have been released. In modern Rwanda, victims and killers commonly live alongside each other.

BBC correspondent Robert Walker reports that the Catholic hierarchy in Rwanda had close ties to extremist politicians in the time before the genocide, and some priests, like Seromba, are accused of actively assisting the Hutu militias.

Nobel Committee announces names

The secretive Nobel Committee has met in Oslo to pick the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize from a record field of 194 candidates.

Reuters News Network reported that the top contenders include anti-weapons campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei, South African AIDS treatment campaigner Zackie Achmat and Israeli anti-nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

The winner of what many consider the world’s top accolade will be announced Oct. 8.

Stein Toennesson, head of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, said the prize would likely reward work against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The committee aims to select the laureate in a politically neutral fashion. The 2002 prize was awarded to ex-President Jimmy Carter in what the head of the Nobel committee declared at the time was a direct criticism of President George W. Bush’s policies in Iraq.

Tax havens may take money

Billions of dollars — enough money to pay the health and education needs of the world’s developing countries — are being siphoned off through offshore companies and tax havens, according to Tax Justice Network, a body formed to expose the offenders.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported that aid organizations are alarmed that money intended to be used for building the infrastructure of the poorest countries is being hidden in tax havens by politicians and multinational companies; these companies are, in turn, exploiting tax loopholes through which the money slated for re-investment is removed.

In April, the U.S. general accounting office revealed that 61 percent of U.S. corporations paid no federal income tax in the late 1990s. Although tax havens contain only 1.2 percent of the world’s population and 3 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, they account for 26 percent of the world’s assets. Thirty-one percent of the profits of U.S. multinationals are held there.

Bush, Kerry (not kissing) cousins

A Boston genealogist has traced George W. Bush’s and John F. Kerry’s lineages and discovered they are distantly related. Gary Boyd Roberts said the Bush and Kerry family trees cross eight times; at the closest point, they are ninth cousins.

The Guardian reports that the presidential candidates have a common ancestor by the name of Edmund Reade, who was born and died in Essex, England. Although Reade never saw the New World over which his offspring would fight 400 years later, his daughters traveled to the colonies and married into separate, powerful families.

Switzerland in Afghanistan

Former warlord Izatullah Atif Rooz plans to build a $100 million mini-Switzerland — complete with a ski slope and alpine chalets — on a mountain range that has been a killing field for the last two decades. Rooz’s tribe fought the Soviets, then the fundamentalist warlord Hekmatyar, then the Taliban.

The British newspaper The Independent reports that Rooz plans to embark on a new life as a venture capitalist, after disbanding his 2,000-strong, private army and handing over 700 weapons, eight tanks and 20 cannons to the United Nations.

His business partner, Zemarey Hakimi, spent 34 years in Switzerland after falling in love with a woman while traveling the to India in 1972. Hakimi said that he was sure his partner could do it, and that he will provide an example to other warlords that hard work and enterprise can be more effective than seeking government handouts.

“The problem with a lot of warlords is [that] they fear they will lose respect and importance if they give up their armies, but people like Izatullah Atif Rooz will rebuild this country,” Hakimi said.