The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“People know these elections were rigged.”

Sobhi Saleh, an opposition candidate in Egypt,

alleging cheating by the ruling party Article, this page

Fall of drug slum lifts Rio officials

RIO DE JANEIRO - Rio’s top security official hailed the taking by authorities of what was long the most dangerous slum in the city that will host the 2016 Olympics, as operations continued Monday to locate drug gang members thought to be hiding inside.

Meanwhile, authorities, jubilant at the sudden, dramatic shift that saw them take control of two gang strongholds long thought untouchable, were already setting their sites on the next targets.

Rio state public security Director Jose Beltrame, who has been criticized by human-rights groups in the past for tough policing methods, was humble, emotional and thrilled after police and soldiers seized control of the Alemao complex of about a dozen slums. For decades, it had been the key territory of Rio’s biggest drug gang, the Red Command.

“The Alemao was the heart of evil,” Beltrame said at a late Sunday news conference.

But he emphasized that his 2-year-old program to push gangs out of the city’s sprawling shantytowns and replace them with permanent police posts was only beginning, and that he was now looking ahead to the next huge slum that police will go after - Rocinha, a sprawl of shanties and narrow alleys that is one of Latin America’s largest slums.

Punishment ruled out in stampede

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia’s prime minister said Monday that no one will be punished for last week’s stampede in which at least 351 revelers died after the swaying of a suspension bridge cause mass panic.

Hun Sen said many people share responsibility for not anticipating the problems that caused the Nov. 22 disaster but rescue efforts were adequate and, without them, the death toll would have been higher.

“No one will receive punishment for this incident,” Hun Sen said at the opening of a new government building. “We have to learn a lesson from this for solving such problems in the future.”

Preliminary findings by an official investigation committee found that the natural swaying of a suspension bridge ignited fears it would collapse among an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people on the structure. In frantic efforts to escape, the crowd crushed hundreds of people.

Ivory Coast waits for voting results

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - Rival parties in Ivory Coast traded accusations of voter intimidation, violence and fraud on Monday as the world’s leading cocoa producer awaited results from the country’s first presidential election in a decade.

Electoral commission spokesman Bamba Yacouba announced a tiny smattering of results from residents living abroad - a tally of about 10,000 ballots from millions cast in the West African nation. He said more results would be issued today.

Voters chose between President Laurent Gbagbo, who has been in power since violent street protests swept him into power during the last election in 2000, and Alassane Ouattara, the man Gbagbo accuses of being behind the rebellion that sought to topple him in 2002.

U.N. envoy Young-jin Choi said three people were killed during balloting Sunday as multiple clashes erupted between partisans in the west of the country.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 11/30/2010

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