International court issues first warrants

The Hague, Netherlands The International Criminal Court has issued its first arrest warrants, calling on three African nations to help capture five Ugandan rebels it said were responsible for killing thousands of civilians and enslaving thousands of children.

Judges issued the warrants on July 8 and sent them to the government in Kampala, but they were kept secret until Friday to protect witnesses and victims.

The warrants capped a nine-month investigation of more than 2,200 killings and 3,200 abductions in 850 separate attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army between July 2002 and June 2004, chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said.

Their issuance was a milestone for the court, created in 2002 over the strenuous opposition of the United States, which feared the court would be politicized and used as a tool against Americans.

The warrants named Joseph Kony, who claims mystical powers and has led the uprising in Uganda for 19 years, and four of his commanders. Kony faces 33 counts, including 12 counts of crimes against humanity for rape and sexual enslavement. His four deputies have been charged with between four and 32 counts.

Richardson to talk with North Koreans

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is heading to North Korea next week for talks aimed at persuading that country to give up its nuclear arms program.

The Democratic governor said Friday he won’t represent the United States as an official negotiator. He said the trip is intended “to move the diplomatic process forward” after an agreement last month in which North Korea said it would give up the arms program in return for economic aid and security assurances.

In return for North Korea agreeing to end its nuclear arms program, the United States and the five other nations involved in the talks agreed to discuss giving North Korea a light-water nuclear reactor “at an appropriate time.” Doubts were later raised about the accord when North Korea said it would not dismantle its nuclear program unless Washington gives it civilian nuclear reactors to generate power.

Richardson said he was invited by the North Koreans in June, and asked State Department officials if he should go. They said at the time they did not want his trip to interfere with the six-party talks then being arranged. This time, Richardson is being provided an Air Force plane for the trip. “I want to be helpful as an American citizen,” he said.

Dutch police disrupt suspected plot

The Hague, Netherlands Police detained seven people in raids and placed a protective cordon around parliament and other government buildings Friday in an operation to disrupt an alleged plot to attack politicians and public buildings.

Among those reportedly seized in the sweep in three cities was a young Dutch-Moroccan who had been acquitted of terrorism-related charges earlier this year.

The raids, staged just weeks before the first anniversary of the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic radical, underscored what officials believe to be an ongoing threat by cells of extremists targeting prominent Dutch personalities.

Officials said the suspects, ranging in age from 18 to 30, were detained in The Hague, Amsterdam and Almere. They will be brought before a judge Monday.

Public diplomacy chief traveling to Indonesia

Karen Hughes, the Bush administration’s public diplomacy chief, will follow up her recent visit to the Middle East with a trip next week to Indonesia and Malaysia.

Hughes made a brief reference to the trip during an appearance Friday at George Washington University. In late September, she visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and was dogged by criticism about American policies toward Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Contrary to some news accounts of her trip, Hughes said she was not at all “taken aback” by the criticisms of U.S. policy that she heard during the trip, especially from a group of women in Turkey. “I suspect that, if I met with a similar group in the United States, I would probably hear the same thing,” she said.