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World briefs: Aluminum plant director held
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DEVECSER, Hungary -- Hungarian police have detained the director of the aluminum company responsible for a flood of caustic red sludge that killed eight people when it burst from its reservoir last week, the prime minister said Monday.
Police said they were questioning managing director Zoltan Bakonyi on suspicion of public endangerment causing multiple deaths and environmental damage.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban told parliament that the government wanted to take over MAL Rt., the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Co., because the safe restart of production at the alumina plant was needed to save the jobs of thousands of workers.
Mr. Orban said his administration was also freezing the company's assets to ensure that funds were available to compensate for the damages caused by the disaster.
PARIS -- French police officers on Monday arrested a Rwandan believed to be a leader of a movement involved in a recent terrorist campaign in the Kivu region of Congo in which thousands of civilians have been killed and raped.
Armed with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the police detained Callixte Mbarushimana, 47, shortly after dawn at his home in Paris,. He is wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a statement from the court.
The Rwandan's activities had been tracked for more than 18 months in several countries, including France, Germany, Congo and Rwanda, a court official said.
A court must decide whether Mr. Mbarushimana, who has the status of political refugee and has lived in France for several years, will be transferred to the international court in The Hague. University targeted
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's leader issued a decree Monday paving the way for a hardline takeover of the country's largest private university, a crushing blow to the nation's moderates.
The Islamic Azad University is the center of power for former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, noted pragmatist and a key supporter of Iran's moderates. The institution, which was founded in 1982, was a major site for opposition protests against the 2009 disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which opponents say was fraudulent.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's decree declared the university's endowment, which keeps it financially independent, to be religiously illegitimate and therefore null and void.
The university, which has more than 1.3 million students in over 350 branches nationwide, allowed opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi free access to its huge resources during his election campaign, allowing his voice to be heard all over Iran.
JOHANNESBURG -- A woman accused of abusing teenagers at Oprah Winfrey's school for girls in South Africa was acquitted of the charges Monday, and Ms. Winfrey said she was "profoundly disappointed" by the trial's outcome.
Prosecutors had accused former school matron Tiny Virginia Makopo of trying to kiss and fondle girls at the school soon after it opened in 2007 outside Johannesburg. She also had been accused of assaulting one of the teens as well as a fellow supervisor.
Ms. Winfrey had called the allegations crushing given her own stated history of childhood sexual abuse and promised an overhaul of the school.
The lavish $40 million Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls aims to give girls from deprived backgrounds a quality education in a country where schools are struggling to overcome the legacy of apartheid.
-- Compiled from news services
First Published October 12, 2010 12:00 am
