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Czech appeals court rejects sterilization pay

PRAGUE, Czech Republic: A hospital does not have to compensate a Gypsy woman it sterilized without her consent, an appeals court ruled yesterday. In overturning the Czech Republic's first monetary award for forced sterilization, the court said the statute of limitations had expired. Human rights groups believe hundreds of women from the Czech Republic's Gypsy minority of about 250,000 people were sterilized against their will. Under communism, which ended in the Czech Republic in 1989, sterilization was a semiofficial tool to limit the population of Gypsies, or Roma as they prefer to be called, whose large families were seen as a burden on the state. The practice ended only recently, according to a 2005 investigative report by the national ombudsman. Iveta Cervenakova, now 32, was illegally sterilized without her consent in 1997 after she gave birth to her second daughter by Caesarean section.

Rice continues Mideast peacemaking efforts

WASHINGTON: Fighting irrelevance and a ticking clock, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarked yesterday on yet another Middle East peacemaking trip, hoping to secure fragile Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and leave a viable process for the incoming Obama administration. With just 77 days left in office, Rice will be making her eighth trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories since the parties set a year-end goal of reaching a peace deal at last November's Annapolis peace conference. She will also visit Egypt and Jordan to shore up Arab support for the talks. Meeting the target date for an agreement is now highly unlikely, especially with political uncertainty in Israel and the lame duck Bush administration's waning influence, but Rice intends to press the two sides to carry on and, if possible, come up with an outline of how they can move ahead after Jan. 20.