Guantanamo facility planned for trials

The U.S. military on Friday said it plans to build a $125 million compound at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base where it hopes to hold war-crimes trials for terrorism suspects by the middle of next year.

The compound, designed to accommodate as many as 1,200 people, would include dining areas, work spaces and sleeping quarters for administrative personnel, lawyers, journalists and others involved in trials at the isolated detention center in southeast Cuba. It would create a total of three courtrooms on the base to allow for simultaneous trials.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler, a Pentagon spokesman, said the government hopes to begin construction as soon as possible to be ready for trials no later than July 1.

The project has not yet been submitted for congressional approval.

Khartoum, Sudan

Official says Sudan to allow U.N. force

A top Sudanese official on Friday signaled that Khartoum would accept U.N. troops as part of an African-led peacekeeping mission in Darfur, but perhaps not as many as the West has asked for under an agreement aimed at ending the violence.

Khartoum backed off its previous fierce opposition to any U.N. troops in the region, but one Sudanese official said he expected African Union peacekeepers to supply most of the soldiers and another said the U.N. soldiers would only “assist” Union forces.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced Thursday night that the multilateral agreement – reached in a gathering of African, Arab, European and U.N. leaders in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa – could provide for a total of as many as 17,000 soldiers and 3,000 police officers.

Currently, the AU has 7,000 troops in the region.

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Groping inspires women-only buses

In an effort to curb rush-hour groping on crowded buses, a major Brazilian city is about to introduce women-only buses in its public transportation system.

The city council of Goiania, capital of the central state of Goias, unanimously approved a bill calling for women-only buses during morning and evening rush hours in the city of 1.1 million residents, Councilman Mauricio Beraldo said Friday.

“The beautiful women of Goiania are constantly being sexually harassed on our overcrowded buses by men who seem unable to control themselves,” said Beraldo, the bill’s sponsor.

Mayor Iris Rezende is expected to sign the bill into law by Dec. 15, and the all-female buses should be circulating by mid-2007, Beraldo said.

Rio de Janeiro’s subway system started using women-only cars in 2006 after several complaints of sexual harassment. The all-female cars circulate all day, while in Mexico City cars are designated for women and children only during rush hours.

In Japan, where groping of women is a long-standing problem, 26 lines operated by 12 companies have introduced women-only cars, mainly in big cities.