The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution Saturday that sought to condemn an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and demand Israeli troops pull out of the territory. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the Arab-backed draft resolution was biased against Israel and politically motivated. “This resolution does not display an evenhanded characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace to which we aspire and for which we are working assiduously,” he told the Security Council.
Mexico: Police chief murdered
A district police chief in Tijuana was shot and killed a day after surviving another attempt on his life, Mexican media reported on Saturday. Hector Gaxiola, chief of one of the city’s nine police districts, was found shot to death in a vacant lot on Friday, newspapers reported. On Thursday, he survived another shooting attack in which he was grazed by a bullet. Seventeen Tijuana police officers have been killed so far this year, many of them in violence believed to be related to turf battles between drug gangs.
Iraq: Reward offered on translator
The U.S. government offered a $50,000 reward Saturday for information leading to the recovery of an Iraqi-born American Army translator kidnapped in Baghdad almost three weeks ago. Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich., was abducted by gunmen on Oct. 23 while visiting his Iraqi wife at her family’s home. His whereabouts remain unknown despite an extensive search operation. Al-Taayie, who was born in Iraq and moved to the United States as a teenager, joined the Army Reserve in December 2004 and was deployed to Iraq in November 2005.
Turkey: Former leader mourned
Tens of thousands of mourners helped bury Turkey’s late Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Saturday – a funeral that was disrupted when some in the crowd began booing the current premier to protest a feared rise of political Islam. Ecevit, an ardent secularist and respected political force in Turkey for almost half a century, died Nov. 5 after nearly six months in a coma following a stroke. He was 81. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is opposed by many pro-secular Turks was booed by thousands upon his arrival, chanting “Turkey is secular and will remain secular!”
West Bank: Teachers end strike
Palestinian students filled schools that had been empty for months, happily greeting friends as classes resumed Saturday after a 70-day teachers’ strike that interrupted studies across the West Bank and Gaza. About 800,000 students returned to class after the Hamas-led government agreed to pay the teachers partial salaries, ending the work stoppage by 40,000 instructors. International sanctions on the government that came to power in March have made it nearly impossible for the government to pay its 165,000 civil servants, causing widespread hardship in the West Bank and Gaza.
From Herald news services
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