World Briefs: Europe/Africa
VATICAN
CITY
Appeals
for mention of Christian heritage in EU constitution ignored
The Vatican
expressed "surprise" Friday at the failure to include an
explicit mention of Europe's Christian heritage in the draft
of an European Union constitution.
It
asked that the draft be modified to make the text "more
balanced."
The drafting committee
ignored repeated appeals by Pope John Paul II and other
Vatican officials for recognition of Europe's Christian
heritage.
Friday's statement by papal
spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls did express satisfaction that
the draft spoke of the need for dialogue with the various
religious communities.
LITHUANIA
Remains of soldiers who fought
in Russian invasion to be buried
VILNIUS -- The
remains of some 3,000 soldiers who died during Napoleon
Bonaparte's catastrophic invasion of Russia nearly two
centuries ago will be laid to rest in a cemetery in Vilnius
this weekend.
The ceremony includes
re-enactments of battles during the ill-fated French attack on
the Russian Empire in 1812.
The remains
will be buried today in the Atakalnis Cemetery, a forested,
hillside graveyard in the capital traditionally reserved for
Lithuanian independence heroes, writers and leading
politicians.
A monument paid for by
France and designed by Lithuanians will be unveiled during the
ceremony, which is expected to be attended by diplomats from
across Europe.
Bulldozers uncovered the
remains at a housing development in 2001.
BRITAIN
LONDON -- A
British explorer who trekked alone to the North Pole defended
his actions Wednesday, denying that he started recklessly late
in the year and endangered the plane crew that retrieved him
from an ice floe.
Pen Hadow also took
issue with the characterization that he had been rescued.
"'Rescued' is a silly word because I'm
a guide, I actually run a guide service," Hadow said.
A plane picked up the 41-year-old Hadow
on Tuesday after he became stranded on a drifting ice floe
near the North Pole with rations running low. Two earlier
attempts to reach him failed because of breaking ice and dense
clouds.
A spokesman for Kenn Borek
Airlines, which fetched Hadow, criticized him for staging his
expedition in late spring when the ice was melting.
"I wish it hadn't taken place at this
time of year. This is the latest we have ever done a pickup,"
the spokesman, Steve Penikett, told Sky News TV. "Going to the
pole at this time of year is just a bit stupid and you are
putting a lot of people's lives at risk doing it."
But Hadow, who works as a guide on
arctic expeditions, said there was nothing unusual about the
timing of his latest trip and said Penikett was talking
"absolute nonsense."
"I've organized
teams that have been out there later than that," he told
British Broadcasting Corp. radio, speaking from the Eureka
Weather Station in northern Canada. "Even last spring, I think
there were three teams that were picked up after May 26."
Hadow began his 480-mile trek on March
17 from Ward Hunt Island in northern Canada, 63 days later
became the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
TOGO
President faces five candidates who seek to
topple him after 36 years
LOME -- In his 36 years as Togo's
president, Gen. Gnassingbe Eyadema has survived assassination
attempts, a plane crash, international isolation and
uprisings. Come today's elections, he hopes to endure the
challenge of democracy.
Five candidates
have lined up to deny a fourth decade in power to the
military-backed Eyadema, Africa's longest reigning ruler. And
some, including the president's cousin, have a fighting chance
of winning.
Millions of dollars in
international support are at stake for this tiny west African
nation. Aid was cut off after Eyadema's forces killed hundreds
of people in past attempts at elections in the 1990s.
At stake for the president: His
distinction as world's second-longest-serving head of state,
after Fidel Castro. Having led what was post-colonial Africa's
first coup, Eyadema took over in 1967.
CONGO
International armed force created
to protect people from ethnic battles
The U.N.
Security Council on Friday unanimously authorized the
deployment of a French-led international force in northeastern
Congo, where ethnic fighting has killed more than 400 people.
The international force will be made up
of 1,400 troops, France's Defense Minister Michele
Alliot-Marie said.
France's U.N.
Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said the first French
soldiers will start arriving in the Ituri province next week
and the force will be at its full strength by June. The
deployment, he stressed, was temporary and a Bangladesh-led
U.N. force will take over in September.
The armed troops will be charged with protecting thousands of
civilians in and around the provincial capital of Bunia.
Brian Mac Intyre
was a reporter in his native Dublin. bmac@sltrib.com
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