A round-up of today's other world news in brief ...
Merkel says Stasi tried to recruit her
BERLIN – German chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday communist East Germany’s Stasi secret police tried to recruit her when she was applying for a job at a university, but she quickly turned down the offer.
Dr Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, said the Stasi approached her after an interview for a job as a scientific assistant at the Technical University in Ilmenau.
“I said very quickly that it was not something for me,” she told Ard television.
It is the first time Dr Merkel has publicly mentioned such an approach. – (Reuters)
‘Concentration camps’ in Italy
L’AQUILA – Italy’s holding centres for immigrants are like “concentration camps”, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said yesterday, adding that it was more humane to send migrant boats back to Libya than let them enter Italy.
“I think it is much easier . . . to examine individual situations in the country of origin, otherwise they come here and go to a camp which, I should not be saying this, is very similar to a concentration camp,” Mr Berlusconi told reporters. – (Reuters)
DRC army accused of war crimes
NAIROBI – Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Democratic Republic of Congo’s army yesterday of rape and other abuses against civilians that it said amounted to war crimes.
The government rejected the charges as “lies”.
Congolese soldiers and the UN peacekeeping force Monuc have been conducting joint operations in eastern Congo targeting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) Hutu rebels, including leaders of neighbouring Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
But New York-based HRW said local troops were committing atrocities in the area’s remote North Kivu province. – (Reuters)
SA minister to return luxury car
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s transport minister promised yesterday to return a luxury car he was given by contractors, in a controversy seen as a test of new president Jacob Zuma’s promises to run a clean government.
Sbusiso Ndebele said that before deciding to give back the one million rand (€87,000) Mercedes Benz S500, he had consulted with Mr Zuma and had been told there would be nothing wrong with keeping it as long as it was properly declared. – (Reuters)
Cream of crop at flower show
LONDON – A design combining Swedish modernism with an English cottage garden and a display inspired by “Fen tigers” who lived off the landscape are among the winners at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.
A garden based on a perfume created for Elizabeth I also scooped a top award.
The award for best show garden was given to the Daily Telegraph’s architectural garden, designed by Swedish landscape artist Ulf Nordfjell. – (PA)