Kenya Loses U.S. Funds For Anti-Graft Effort
NAIROBI -- The United States is suspending $2.5 million in funding for anti-corruption work in Kenya, U.S. Ambassador William Bellamy said Tuesday, citing what he called President Mwai Kibaki's faltering commitment to fighting graft.
Bellamy's announcement came one day after a presidential anti-corruption adviser, John Githongo, resigned because he was frustrated with the government's efforts at dealing with corruption.
Fighting corruption needs more than a few "honest and exemplary" public servants who are no match "for an executive branch of government in whose ranks the kingpins of corruption operate," Bellamy told the British Business Association during a luncheon.
Githongo's resignation "sounds the death knell" on the government's fight against corruption, Kenyan human rights activists and business leaders said in a statement.
EUROPE
• TBILISI, Georgia -- Georgia's president nominated his finance minister as the new head of government, nearly a week after the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvaniya from carbon-monoxide poisoning.
President Mikheil Saakashvili picked Zurab Nogaideli, 40, as prime minister after days of consultations with aides and cabinet officials, a spokeswoman said. Parliament has 10 days to approve or reject the nomination, but could vote as soon as Thursday.
• COPENHAGEN -- Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's center-right government won a second term as Denmark voters embraced plans to keep immigration in check and taxes from rising. With nearly all 4 million ballots tallied, the governing bloc of Liberals, Conservatives and the anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party had 55 percent, giving it 96 seats in the 179-seat parliament.
• BELFAST -- Police charged a 34-year-old man with involvement in the 1998 car bombing in Omagh that killed 29 people, Northern Ireland's deadliest terrorist attack. Police arrested the suspect in the border town of Newry and charged him with stealing the car that was used by IRA dissidents in the bombing. Police withheld his name pending his formal court arraignment Wednesday. He is the third person to face charges stemming from the attack in which the dissident group, calling itself the Real IRA, asserted responsibility.
AFRICA
• LOME, Togo -- The African Union threatened sanctions against Togo as opposition grew to the army's installation of the son of the West African nation's longtime leader as president.
The United States endorsed a call by the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to bring about a peaceful resolution in Togo that "will lead to free and fair elections to select a new president."
A general strike closed markets, schools and businesses in southern parts of the capital.
• HARARE, Zimbabwe -- A top official in Zimbabwe's ruling party denounced Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel peace laureate from South Africa, saying his criticisms of the government played into the hands of white racists.
