Written on 7:47 PM by yahoo
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MANILA to former first lady Imelda Marcos that was seized after her husband was deposed from the presidency in 1986.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said on Monday that the government had not taken legal action to claim ownership of the jewellery.
"Evidently, Mrs. Marcos remains to be the legitimate owner of said prized jewellery," he said in a letter to the Presidential Commission on Good Government, the anti-graft agency, adding it was also not proved the items were ill-gotten.
Gonzalez said the state agency which aims to recover about $10 billion worth of alleged ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family failed to file a criminal or civil suit to claim the jewellery.
In 2006, the government tried to auction the jewellery collection, estimated to be worth 15 billion pesos , which has been kept in a vault at the Philippines' central bank since 1990.
Marcos, famous for her huge collection of shoes, jewellery and jetsetting lifestyle, went to a local court to stop the sale, arguing the gems were not acquired illegally using public funds.
"Thank God that after more than 23 years of relentless persecution and deprivation initiated by the government in 1986, President Gloria Arroyo's government has now started efforts for the Marcos' truth and justice to prevail," Marcos said in a statement issued through a spokeswoman.
"Many of those jewellery pieces were intended for religious images, like tiaras for the Blessed Virgin Mary."
The jewellery collections were seized at Malacanang Palace when the Marcoses fled the country in February 1986 after the dictator was toppled by a civilian-backed army coup.
Another set of jewellery was seized by U.S. authorities when the Marcoses settled in Hawaii, where the strongman died in 1989.
Imelda returned in the early 1990s and sought the presidency in 1992 but was defeated. She later won a congressional seat but gave it up after serving one three-year term.
Human rights advocates Rosetta Ann Rosales and Frank Chavez told reporters they would go to court to stop the government from returning the jewellery to the Marcoses, arguing about 10,000 victims of rights victims under Marcos' 20-year iron rule are still awaiting court-imposed compensation.
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Written on 8:17 PM by yahoo
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UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir may be charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court.
The U.N. estimates 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in Darfur.
Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has scheduled a news conference Monday, just after he is expected to filed the warrant with the court.
The Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations told CNN said Friday that the ICC has indicated to Sudanese officials that al-Bashir may be charged over the five-year campaign of violence in the country's Darfur region.
"We have been hearing that this prosecutor is going to announce some names, possibly the leadership of the country, that will be indicted," said Adbalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad. "It is a criminal move that should be resisted by all."
Such an indictment, Mohamad said, would be a destabilizing move that would "take us back to square one." Sudan, he said, is "condemning it in the strongest possible terms" and urged the international community to do likewise. "We will resist it by all possible legal means," he said.
If the warrant is issued by Moreno-Ocampo it would make al-Bashir the first sitting president to be indicted by the ICC for genocide.
The prosecutor said in a progress report last month to the Security Council that Sudan's "whole state apparatus" has been mobilized "to plan, commit, and cover up crimes" in Darfur.
"For the last five years, the whole Darfur area has been a crime scene," Moreno-Ocampo said last month.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when Darfurians rebelled against the central government over its alleged favoritism to Arabs over Africans.
The government in Khartoum fought back allegedly unleashing the janjaweed militia to quell the uprising -- a claim the government denies.
The authorities armed and cooperated with Arab militias that went from village to village in Darfur, killing, torturing and raping residents there, according to the United Nations, western governments and human rights organizations. Militias targeted civilian members of the tribes from which the African rebels draw strength.
Human rights groups blame the janjaweed for most atrocities, including the use of rape as a weapon of war.
Meanwhile, the chief U.N. humanitarian coordinator said aid workers are preparing for the effects of an indictment.
"We are taking precautions to make sure that people are aware of the risks and what we need to maintain our operations at the same time," said John Holmes. "We're taking sensible precautions hoping nothing will happen, because humanitarian aid should continue whatever the political situation, whatever the political arguments."
The United Nations estimates that some 300,000 people have died in the conflict and more than 2.5 million have been forced from their homes since 2003.
Sudanese officials say only 10,000 have died in the fighting and have rejected claims from the U.S. and others that genocide is taking place.
Witnesses who spoke to CNN Correspondent Nic Robertson in May said that just four months ago, government airplanes and helicopters attacked defenseless civilians in their Darfur villages.
They said the government struck in coordination with militiamen riding horses and camels -- a classic pattern that has unfolded around Darfur. More than 115 people were killed in that attack, they said, and nearly 58,000 people fled.
In 2005, the Security Council cleared the way for possible Darfur war crime prosecutions by the ICC, a permanent tribunal set up to handle cases related to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The court is based on a treaty signed by 106 nations -- excluding sudan.
Once the court indicts someone, authorities in that person's native country -- or the country in which the indicted person is located -- have the power to detain the indicted person for trial at the Hague.
The ICC has already indicted two men for Darfur crimes -- one a government official and the other a militia leader.
The cases are against Ali Kushayb, a militia leader, and Ahmad Harun, former minister of state for the interior in Sudan, who is now in charge of humanitarian affairs for the Sudanese government. Both face charges accusing them of murder, rape, forced displacement and other offenses in Darfur.
An arrest warrant for Harun charges that he was involved in the murder, rape, torture and forced displacement of civilians. The court also says he encouraged such illegal acts in public speeches during his tenure as minister of state for the interior.
The criminal court says Kushayb led several thousand militia members and personally participated in attacks against civilians. An arrest warrant outlines numerous cases of murder, rape and inhumane acts.
Senior Sudanese government leaders have previously told CNN that reports of atrocities in Darfur are exaggerated.
"Yes, there has been a war and some people have died, but it's not like what has been reflected in the media," Interior Minister Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid said last month.
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Written on 10:02 PM by yahoo
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a last-minute nudge to North Korea, the U.S. State Department said Sunday it was "unfortunate" that Pyongyang had not supplied a complete declaration of its nuclear programs before a Monday deadline but signaled it would continue disarmament talks with its allies.
A satellite image of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility.
Under a deal struck in February, North Korea began to disable its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon -- which produced weapons-grade plutonium for the bomb it tested in 2006 -- in exchange for economic and energy assistance. But it has yet to document its past and present nuclear secrets, another condition of the deal.
"It is unfortunate that North Korea has not yet met its commitments by providing a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs and slowing down the process of disablement," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a written statement Sunday evening.
"We will continue to work with our close allies Japan and South Korea, and partners China and Russia, as we urge North Korea to deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs and nuclear weapons and proliferation activities and complete the agreed disablement."
Washington has signaled that it was willing to let that deadline slide by a few days, saying the most important goal was a full and complete declaration.
"The United States is committed to fulfilling our obligations under the Six Party agreements as North Korea fulfills all its obligations," Casey said.
Sunday's statement follows a December 1 personal letter from U.S. President George W. Bush to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, urging his government to fulfill its end of the bargain.
North Korea responded two weeks later in a verbal statement, restating its plans to follow through with the deal and calling on the
United States to do the same, according to senior State Department officials
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