In brief: Guatemalan president to back legalizing drugs
Guatemala City – Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said Saturday he will propose legalizing drugs in Central America in an upcoming meeting with the region’s leaders.
Perez Molina said in a radio interview that his proposal would include decriminalizing the transportation of drugs through the area.
“I want to bring this discussion to the table,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a crime to transport, to move drugs. It would all have to be regulated.”
Perez Molina, a former army general who took office last month, didn’t give any other details about his proposal. He said he will bring the subject up with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes when Funes visits Monday.
U.S., Egyptian generals meet
Cairo – The Pentagon’s top general met Saturday with the head of Egypt’s ruling military council amid the fraying of bilateral relations over a criminal case against 16 American civil society workers.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey spoke with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and other members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has ruled Egypt since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak last year.
Official statements on the meeting gave no details on their talks about the grim backdrop of the visit – Egypt’s crackdown on American nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Egypt is prosecuting 43 NGO workers from such U.S.-funded groups as the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.
Sun staff deny risk of being shut down
London – Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper was fighting to contain the damage after five employees at the Sun tabloid were arrested Saturday in an inquiry into the alleged payment of bribes to police and other officials.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which owns the newspaper, said police had searched their homes and the group’s London offices, potentially deepening the scandal over British tabloid wrongdoing.
Executives moved quickly to reject claims that Murdoch could decide to close down the newspaper. In July, he shuttered the 168-year-old News of The World tabloid amid public outrage when the extent of its phone hacking of celebrities, public figures and crime victims was exposed.