Peruvian President's Sister Is Ordered Held
• LIMA, Peru -- An anti-corruption judge has placed the sister of President Alejandro Toledo under house arrest for allegedly masterminding the mass falsification of petition signatures in 1997 and 1998 to register his political party, her attorney said.
Judge Saul Pena Farfan found sufficient evidence to proceed to trial against Margarita Toledo and 25 others and ordered her house arrest late Monday, her attorney, Marcelo Allemant, told reporters.
The legal action came one month after the return to Peru of Carmen Burga, the initial witness to come forward last year. In July, Burga abruptly retracted her accusations, issued a videotaped apology to President Toledo and hastily left the country.
She now says she and her family were kidnapped by eight men wearing ski masks who threatened to harm her husband and children if she refused to make the videotaped disclaimer.
On Monday, Channel 2 television broadcast an interview with Burga in which she said she and her family were taken to Peru's immigration department, provided passports and visas and bustled out of the country.
THE AMERICAS
• BOGOTA, Colombia -- Gunmen on a motorbike in northern Colombia killed a radio reporter known for his tough talk against corruption, police said. Julio Hernando Palacios, who hosted a program on independent Radio Lemas, was shot in the head and stomach as he drove to work in the city of Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela, said the city's police chief, Col. Jose Humberto Henao.
Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with at least 156 reporters killed from 1977 to 2004, according to government figures.
• LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Anti-government protests paralyzed two of Bolivia's main cities and cut off access to La Paz, the capital, as authorities accused "radical groups" of trying to destabilize the nation.
A two-day civic strike called by business, labor and neighborhood groups to protest a rise in gas prices brought Santa Cruz, Bolivia's richest and largest city with 1.2 million people, to a halt. Streets were blocked and public transport was grounded.
THE MIDDLE EAST
• JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon telephoned Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president-elect, to congratulate him on his landslide victory in an election to replace Yasser Arafat, signaling Israel's readiness to work with the new Palestinian government after years of refusing to deal with Arafat. Both sides said a meeting would take place, but no date was set.
Sharon congratulated Abbas "on his personal achievement and his victory in the elections and wished him luck," a statement from Sharon's office said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said plans for a Sharon-Abbas meeting were still in an early stage. "When the right time comes, we will go for a well-prepared meeting. We will not go just for a meeting, but for a useful one," he said.
