World Briefs

06-30-2009 |

Panama Star BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentina's health minister has resigned despite the growing swine flu epidemic, reportedly after failing to persuade the government to declare a health emergency. Graciela Ocana also failed to persuade President Cristina Fernandez to declare an emergency over the spread of dengue fever this year, and lost battles with unions for control of social funds.

LAGOS – Nigeria's main militant group said its fighters had attacked an oil facility belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the Niger Delta on Monday, days after President Umaru Yar'Adua proposed an amnesty. Shell said it had shut in some production as a precautionary measure while it investigated reports of attacks on two well clusters in its Estuary Field in the western Niger Delta.

JERUSALEM – Israel has approved 50 new houses in a West Bank settlement just as Israel's defense minister left Monday for Washington to try to defuse growing tension with the Obama administration over such construction.

The US wants settlement construction to stop completely to help revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but Defense Minister Ehud Barak hopes to work out a compromise.

Barak aide Eitan Broshi told Army Radio Monday that approval has been given to build 50 houses in the settlement of Adam for settlers from an outpost called Migron, which will be removed.

Migron squatters would be moved to the Adam settlement to avoid the kind of violence that accompanied the dismantling of nine houses in another outpost three years ago.

TORONTO – Toronto reluctantly agreed on Friday to pay about C$400 million more than it had planned to buy streetcars from Bombardier Inc after the Canadian government refused to help fund the C$1.2 billion ($1.04 billion) project. The deal with Bombardier would have expired if Toronto had not completed arrangements to fund the fleet of 204 streetcars by Saturday, and the city would have had to issue another call for bids.

Councilors in Canada's biggest city agreed in a raucous eleventh-hour meeting on Friday to defer other transit projects to beyond 2018 in order to cover the funding gap. Toronto will now pay nearly C$800 million toward the streetcar project, while the province of Ontario has pledged C$416 million. The city had initially expected about one-third of the money to come from Ottawa, but federal politicians said the project did not meet the requirements of its infrastructure stimulus fund