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World briefs: Panetta confers on troop levels
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made an unannounced visit Wednesday to Afghanistan to meet with senior commanders and discuss proposals for future troop levels that he said would be presented for President Barack Obama's consideration over the next few weeks.
Although it is traditional for a defense secretary to visit troops in December ahead of the holidays, Mr. Panetta said a central goal of this trip was to push forward deployment proposals now being prepared by Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Those options, designed to guide U.S. force levels after the NATO mission ends on the last day of 2014, should be presented to the president "within the next few weeks," Mr. Panetta told reporters.
Bosnia war criminal
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A former Bosnian Serb general was convicted of genocide and other war crimes Wednesday by a United Nations tribunal for his role in plotting and carrying out the murder of thousands of Muslim men in eastern Bosnia in 1995.
Zdravko Tolimir, 64, intelligence chief and deputy to wartime Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, was found guilty of murder, persecution, deportation and genocide by a 2-1 judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Bank officials probed
FRANKFURT, Germany -- Deutsche Bank said Wednesday that its co-chief executive, Juergen Fitschen, and chief finance officer, Stefan Krause, are under investigation as part of a tax evasion probe linked to the bank's emissions trading business.
The bank said Mr. Fitschen and Mr. Krause are being investigated because they signed off on the company's 2009 tax declaration. The bank said any errors in the declaration were corrected later in a timely way, adding that prosecutors say the changes were made too late.
McAfee deported to U.S.
GUATEMALA CITY -- Anti-virus software founder John McAfee was released from a detention center Wednesday and was escorted by immigration officials and police trucks to the Guatemala City airport, where he was put on a commercial flight bound for Miami.
The escort to the airport, accompanied by a throng of journalists and two police trucks with sirens blaring, marked the last chapter for Mr. McAfee's strange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the killing of an American expatriate in neighboring Belize.
Putin targets corruption
MOSCOW -- Russia's President Vladimir Putin stunned high-level officials Wednesday by proposing to hinder their abilities to possess Western bank accounts and own real estate abroad.
Mr. Putin, in his first state-of-the-union speech since returning to the presidency, focused largely on domestic issues, saying that fighting corruption is one of the key priorities of his third presidential term and that Russia should look for guidance in its own history as it moves forward.
Also in the world ...
The late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile is a suspect in 199 crimes recorded so far, including dozens of cases of rape, British police said Wednesday. ... Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is facing a "complex" recovery from cancer surgery in Cuba and may not be well again in time to be sworn in for a third term next month, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday.
First Published December 13, 2012 12:00 am
