In brief: Americans likely to be released

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A Haitian judge said he will likely order the release of the last two Americans detained for trying to take 33 children out of the country after the earthquake.

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil tells the Associated Press he expects to resolve the case after a hearing today.

Saint-Vil said Monday he plans to have missionaries Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter in court for the closed hearing.

He will also take testimony from people who were helping them set up an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

Ex-rebel sworn in as new president

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – A former guerrilla leader who won the trust of voters with his homespun manner and promises to govern as a conciliator became Uruguay’s new president Monday.

Jose Mujica, 74, is the second consecutive leftist president in a country which, until 2005, had been ruled by right-wing parties or the military for 150 years.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was among dignitaries attending the inauguration.

Mujica, who helped found the National Liberation Movement-Tupamaros that carried out bombings, kidnappings and robberies to overthrow elected governments in the 1960s, says he now rejects the “stupid ideologies” of the past.

NATO destroyer sinks pirate ship

BRUSSELS – A NATO destroyer has sunk a pirate mothership in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast after allowing the crew to leave, the alliance said Monday.

Shona Lowe, an anti-piracy spokeswoman, said the HDMS Absalon – the Danish flagship of the three-vessel NATO flotilla in the region – disrupted a pirate operation by “scuttling” one of the large boats used by Somali gangs to transport attack teams to piracy hunting areas far off the coast.

The mothership was fired on and sunk after its crew members were transferred to a smaller boat in tow, which was allowed to return to the mainland, she said.