Around the world
SUMMIT: The Irish government announced Saturday that it was postponing a summit with Britain on Northern Ireland, reportedly because of what it sees as British foot-dragging in the peace process. The Irish Republican Army, whose long campaign of bombings and shootings aimed at making Northern Ireland a part of Ireland, declared a cease-fire Sept. 1. But neither side has laid down its arms, causing negotiations on the ultimate status of Northern Ireland to be stalled.LIBERIA: A cease-fire in the nearly six-year civil war went into effect Saturday, and the value of the Liberian dollar doubled. Jubilant shoppers in the central market in Monrovia, the capital, found prices for rice and other staples plummeting as the Liberian dollar jumped in value from about 60 to 25 against the U.S. dollar.
STORM: Homes were flooded by rising tides and warnings were posted throughout the eastern Caribbean Saturday as tropical storm Iris slipped between the islands of Martinique and Dominica. By late afternoon, the storm was headed toward the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, but there was no guarantee it would stay on that path.
TENORS: The three tenors have finally harmonized their busy schedules and will launch their first world tour next year, a British newspaper reported Sunday. Luciano Pavarotti told the Sunday Times that he, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras would announce the tour dates at a London press conference on October 11.
RELEASED: Sudan on Saturday released a former prime minister jailed for three months without charges, and declared that all political detainees are now free. The government promised Wednesday to release all political detainees who had not been charged. With the release of Sadiq el-Mahdi and 31 others since Thursday, Information Minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat told the official Sudanese news agency, "Sudan is now free of all political detainees."
PROTEST: President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe arrived in South Africa on Saturday to jeers and catcalls from hundreds of gay protesters angry over his recent condemnations of homosexuality. Mugabe, arriving for Monday's summit of the Southern African Development Community, brushed past reporters as he disembarked and ignored shouted questions.
Across the nation
FLOTILLA: The daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro says she plans to be in a flotilla for a protest off the coast of Cuba next Saturday. "This is the moment to go," Alina Fernandez Revuelta said at a planning meeting Friday. "It's time to show our love, unity and democracy." Fernandez, who defected in 1993 and now lives in Atlanta, said she will not violate Cuba's territorial limit.
PREDATORS: The nation's first state law aimed at confining sex predators after their sentences are finished is unconstitutional, partly because it punishes them twice for a single crime, a federal judge ruled. Based on the ruling in the case of Andre Brigham Young, public defenders quickly asked for the release of eight other inmates confined at the Special Commitment Center in Monroe, Wash.