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Colombia has passed a controversial law which aims to compensate an estimated four million victims of the country's long-running armed conflict. Gucc Messenger Bags The Victims' Law, described by President Juan Manuel Santos as "historic", allows damages to be paid to relatives of those killed. It also seeks to restore millions of hectares of stolen land to its rightful owners. Analysts say implementing the law is a huge challenge that may take a decade. Marxist rebels continue their 47-year struggle to overthrow the government, while drug cartels ship hundreds of tonnes of cocaine out of the country, using the billions of dollars of earnings to undermine the state. Violent response fears Gucci Abbey Bags The BBC correspondent in Colombia, Jeremy McDermott, says the compensation bill could total $20bn (￡12.3bn). He says that is a sum of money that the country just does not have at the moment. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the signing ceremony in the capital Bogota, described the law as an "important advance" for Colombia. But he cautioned that the work had only just begun, and promised that the UN would help Colombia implement the legislation. Last month, the Colombian government said owners had lost nearly seven million hectares (17m acres) of land over the past 25 years of armed conflict. Gucci Belt Bags Agriculture Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo said paramilitaries, rebels and drug traffickers had used a mixture of violence and fraud to take control of land, which had made them immensely rich. Some armed groups - which still occupy much of the stolen land - have already tried to undermine the process. There are fears that they will respond violently to attempts by the rightful owners or the state to repossess the land. On Tuesday, a campaigner for land restitution, Ana Fabricia Cordoba, was shot dead in the city of Medellin. Gucci Babouska Bags
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A Russian colonel who was jailed for murdering a Chechen teenager has been shot dead in central Moscow. Gucci Jungle Bags Yuri Budanov was killed on Friday by an unidentified gunman on Komsomolsky Prospekt, a busy avenue in the capital, state prosecutors said. In 2003 a court upheld his 10-year jail sentence for strangling an 18-year-old girl in war-torn Chechnya in 2000. But he was released early from jail in January 2009 - a move that angered human rights activists. Russian media say the gunman, wearing a blue jacket and hood, attacked Budanov at about 1230 (0830 GMT), shooting him six times with a pistol, then fled by car. The Mitsubishi Lancer getaway car was later found abandoned and on fire, the reports said. A pistol and silencer were found inside. Gucci Jolicoeur Bags High-profile case The Budanov trial was big news in Russia, where very few officers have been prosecuted over abuses committed during Russia's two campaigns against Chechen separatist rebels. He was the only senior officer to be jailed for crimes committed in Chechnya. He was found guilty of the kidnapping and strangling of Elza Kungayeva in 2000. An allegation that he had also raped her was dropped. The murder provoked outrage in Chechnya, where many civilians have died at the hands of Russian forces and the local pro-Moscow militia, during the long war against rebels. Gucci New Jackie Bags At his re-trial in 2003 Budanov accused Russian media of having swayed the judge, insisting that he was "a Russian soldier who defended his country for the past 20 years". Budanov was acquitted at his first trial in December 2002, when the court accepted his plea that he had been temporarily insane at the time of the killing. But the Russian supreme court ordered a re-trial, where he was found to have been of sound mind at the time. He was found guilty and stripped of his rank and the Order of Courage, which he had won in breakaway Chechnya. Budanov told the court he believed that Kungayeva was a Chechen sniper and that a fit of rage had come over him as he interrogated her. Gucci Princy Bags The lawyer representing Kungayeva's family, Stanislav Markelov, was shot dead in Moscow in January 2009, along with a journalist, Anastasia Baburova, who was with him at the time. Last month a court in Moscow sentenced a Russian nationalist to life imprisonment for the double murder. His partner was also jailed.
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The Colombian military has launched a major operation to rescue four Chinese nationals kidnapped by Marxist rebels. Gucci Wallet The four men were working for the British oil company Emerald Energy, a subsidiary of China's Sinochem. They were intercepted in the southern province of Caqueta by Farc, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. This is the second mass kidnapping of oil workers by the guerrillas this year and is an embarrassment to the government. The rebels have long used kidnapping as a source of income, although in the last 10 years the number of cases has fallen from eight abductions a day to under one. Gucci Belt However this is not the first time the Farc have targeted oil companies this year. In March rebels snatched 23 workers in the eastern province of Vichada. All but one were later released. The latest kidnapping is further embarrassment for the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, who has made foreign investment one of the cornerstones of his economic policy. Farc numbers are thought to have fallen from around 16,000 fighters to 8,000 today. Gucci Hats However they still engage the security forces every day and just celebrated their 47th anniversary, with no end in sight for the civil conflict.
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Japanese car giant Toyota has said it expects profits for this financial year to be sharply lower than last year, due in large part to the massive earthquake in March that disrupted production. Gucci 2010 Fall Winter Thereafter, business is expected to pick up, although the effects of the earthquake and resulting tsunami would be felt for a long time, the world's largest carmaker said. "The Japanese economy is expected to pick up gradually. However, the damage done by the Great East Japan Earthquake was widespread and serious, and will continue to affect the Japanese economy," the company said. It added that emerging markets should continue expanding, particularly China and India, while more developed economies such as the US and those in Europe should "continue recovering at a modest pace". In the calendar year 2010, Toyota sold 8.42m vehicles, just beating its closest rival General Motors, which sold 8.39m. Gucci_2010_New As a result of the earthquake, Toyota is likely to lose its position as the world's best-selling car brand, a position it has held since 2008. Some analysts have speculated that it may even slip to third place behind Volkswagen, due in part to issues that existed before March's disaster. "Toyota is in a period of restructuring its production after years of expansion," said Kazuyuki Murai at Plaza Asset Management in Tokyo. "It is still not equipped with the ability to deal with rising demand in emerging markets. I think Toyota will be in for a sluggish period." Gucci_Sunglasses The earthquake also hit the carmaker's performance during the last financial year, with profits between January and March down 77% to 25.5bn yen from a year earlier.
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Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, will deliver the 2011 BBC Reith Lectures. Gucci Belt Bags Her two lectures will discuss the themes of dissent and liberty and will be broadcast on BBC Radio from 28 June. The lectures are part of a wider series, entitled 'Securing Freedom', reflecting on global events of the past year. Former MI5 Director-General Baroness Manningham-Buller will present three further lectures in September. Aung San Suu Kyi said: "When I was under house arrest, it was the BBC that spoke to me - I listened. "I am so grateful for this opportunity to exercise my right to human contact by sharing with you my thoughts on what freedom means to me, and others across the world who are still in the sad state of what I would call 'unfreedom'." Gucci Babouska Bags BBC Radio 4 Controller Gwyneth Williams said "I am thrilled to have as our 2011 Reith lecturers Aung San Suu Kyi, addressing the themes of dissent and liberty, and Eliza Manningham-Buller who, on the tenth anniversary, will reflect on intelligence and foreign policy since 9/11. "These are two very different sides of a familiar story - the struggle for liberty and its defence." Aung San Suu Kyi's first lecture will examine the notion of dissent, and will draw on her personal experience as a campaigner for democracy. In 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the Burmese election by a landslide. She then spent 15 of the next 20 years under house arrest, and was finally released on November 13, 2010. Gucci Britt Bags The Nobel Peace Prize winner's second lecture will explore the notion of democracy, and the responsibility of the international community towards authoritarian regimes, with reference to recent events in the Middle East. Normally the Reith Lectures are delivered in person in front of a live audience, but due to the exceptional circumstances, Aung San Suu Kyi's lectures were recorded in Burma this week. Writing on the Radio 4 blog, controller Gwyneth Williams said it had been a "tense" few days while a BBC team secretly made its way into Burma to record with Ms Suu Kyi, before smuggling the material out for broadcast. Post-9/11 world The lectures will be played to public audiences at two events to be held at BBC Broadcasting House in London on 20 and 27 June.Gucci Canvus Bags The second phase of this year's Reith Lectures will be broadcast in September 2011 to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC.
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The Colombian military has launched a major operation to rescue four Chinese nationals kidnapped by Marxist rebels. Gucci Joy Bags The four men were working for the British oil company Emerald Energy, a subsidiary of China's Sinochem. They were intercepted in the southern province of Caqueta by Farc, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. This is the second mass kidnapping of oil workers by the guerrillas this year and is an embarrassment to the government. The rebels have long used kidnapping as a source of income, although in the last 10 years the number of cases has fallen from eight abductions a day to under one. Gucci Jungle Bags However this is not the first time the Farc have targeted oil companies this year. In March rebels snatched 23 workers in the eastern province of Vichada. All but one were later released. The latest kidnapping is further embarrassment for the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, who has made foreign investment one of the cornerstones of his economic policy. Farc numbers are thought to have fallen from around 16,000 fighters to 8,000 today. However they still engage the security forces every day and just celebrated their 47th anniversary, with no end in sight for the civil conflict Gucci Jolicoeur Bags
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