UNITED NATIONS

U.N. PROBES ALLEGATIONS AGAINST PEACEKEEPER

The United Nations is looking into fresh allegations that the current deputy chief of its peacekeeping force in Haiti, the Chilean general Eduardo Aldunate, was involved in a 1975 murder of a U.N. official, Carmelo Soria, a Spanish diplomat who was stationed in Santiago at the height of the Pinochet years.

The undersecretary general for peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, told reporters yesterday that the allegations are being investigated, but that no steps would be taken against Mr. Aldunate unless they are substantiated.

The allegations against Mr. Aldunate were made last week by the slain diplomat’s daughter, Carmen Soria. At the time of his disappearance in 1975, her father served at the Santiago-based U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

His body was found later, and an official report issued after civilian rule was restored in Chile in 1990 determined that the killing was the work of Pinochet’s secret police. Secretary-General Annan visited Ms. Soria in the late 1990s as a tribute to her father’s U.N. service.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WESTERN EUROPE

SINN FEIN TO REGAIN BRITISH FUNDING

DUBLIN, Ireland – Britain said yesterday it will restore taxpayer funding to Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army linked party, in response to an experts’ report confirming IRA peace moves, including a halt to so-called “punishment” shootings.

Northern Ireland’s secretary, Peter Hain, disclosed the step during a visit to Dublin, where he discussed a newly published report from the Independent Monitoring Commission with Irish government officials.

– Associated Press

SOUTH AMERICA

CHILEAN COURT STRIPS PINOCHET OF IMMUNITY FOR CORRUPTION TRIAL

SANTIAGO, Chile – Chile’s Supreme Court yesterday stripped former dictator General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution for corruption charges related to his multimillion-dollar bank accounts overseas.

Pinochet, 89, has been stripped of his presidential immunity at least four times before, but always in cases stemming from human rights abuses during his 1973-90 dictatorship. This time, the court decided that Pinochet can be tried on charges related to his bank accounts in America.

The charges presented by Judge Sergio Munoz include tax evasion, filing a false tax return, and using false passports to open bank accounts abroad.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

CHINA REPORTS 2,600 BIRDS DEAD OF BIRD FLU

BEIJING – Some 2,600 birds have been found dead of bird flu in northern China’s grasslands, the government said yesterday, amid reports of new outbreaks in Europe and Russia.

Preliminary tests detected the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in samples taken from a region south of Moscow where hundreds of birds died suddenly, the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday. If confirmed, the discovery would mark the first time the lethal strain has appeared in European Russia, west of the Ural Mountains.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

SADDAM’S NEPHEW ARRESTED Iraqi police arrested a nephew of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad yesterday, charging that he served as a top financier of Iraq’s insurgency, senior Iraqi security officials said.

Yasir Sabhawi Ibrahim, son of Saddam’s half brother Sabhawi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, was arrested in a Baghdad apartment, several days after Syrian authorities forced him to return to Iraq, the officials told the Associated Press in Cairo in a telephone interview. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to deal with the press.

– Associated Press