Journalists’ group criticizes Russia
MOSCOW – Russia remains among the most dangerous countries for journalists because of the government’s failure to investigate thoroughly the murders of a dozen reporters and editors over the past five years, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists said here Friday.
There have been few arrests and no convictions in the murders of the 12 journalists, Ann Cooper, the executive director, said at a news conference, held a day before the first anniversary of the slaying of American journalist Paul Klebnikov.
Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes Magazine, was shot to death as he walked from his office toward a subway station.
The prosecutor general’s office closed its investigation of Klebnikov’s slaying two weeks ago, saying he was shot on orders from a Chechen separatist profiled in Klebnikov’s 2003 book, “Conversations with a Barbarian.”
Filipino president pressured to quit
Manila, Philippines Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo faced intense pressure Friday to step down as 10 of her cabinet members and former president Corazon Aquino added their voices to those demanding her resignation.
Arroyo had sought to preempt a cabinet mutiny earlier in the week by firing her entire team. But the month-old leadership crisis escalated dramatically when disaffected cabinet secretaries, including most of her top economic advisers, announced at a morning news conference that it was Arroyo who must go.
The president’s critics have been demanding she account for her role in a vote-fixing scandal.
Mother apologizes To Aruban people
Oranjestad, Aruba The mother of a missing Alabama teenager apologized Friday for any offense her remarks about the justice system here may have caused to Arubans.
Beth Holloway Twitty said she had been extremely distraught with the scarcity of clues to her daughter’s fate when she contended Tuesday that two brothers who have been tied to the case were guilty and should not have been freed from jail.
Her remarks were widely criticized as an unfair attack on the Dutch judicial system that governs this Caribbean protectorate of the Netherlands.
Remains of protest group leader found
Buenos Aires, Argentina Investigators have recovered the remains of the woman who founded a legendary protest group against Argentina’s Dirty War, nearly three decades after she was abducted, officials said Friday.
The remains of Azucena Villaflor and two colleagues were recently unearthed from a rural cemetery and identified through DNA tests, forensic anthropologist Carlos Somigliana said.
Villaflor helped to found the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which emerged during the country’s 1976-83 crackdown on dissent. The group has continued since then to demand an accounting of loved ones who disappeared.
More than 12,000 people died during the military junta’s fight against leftists known as the “Dirty War” and the vast majority have never been found or identified.