Terror Ring Busted and more

[Around The World]
The riots are still going strong in France, Utah wants to keep the separation between church and state, and more. David Scherrey writes.
April 3, 2006 - Want to sound like the smartest person around the water cooler today? Then you've come to the right place. Around the World takes a look at what's happening - from Toronto to Tokyo. From business, to politics, to culture, and beyond, we like to keep an eye on the world around us.

Terror Ring Busted

A smuggling ring organized by the terrorist group Hezbollah has been busted, according to FBI Director Robert Mueller. The group apparently had operatives cross the Mexican border to carry out terrorist attacks inside the US.

"This was an occasion in which Hezbollah operatives were assisting others with some association with Hezbollah in coming to the United States,” Mueller told a House Appropriations subcommittee during a Tuesday hearing on the FBI's budget.

In a stunning revelation, Mueller admitted that Hezbollah had succeeded in smuggling some of its operatives across the border. As he told the House committee, "That was an organization that we dismantled and identified those persons who had been smuggled in. And they have been addressed as well.”

Mueller said this was the only instance in which a terrorist group, Hezbollah, used the southern border to help "associates" enter the United States. Hezbollah was responsible for the single most deadly terrorist attack against the US before 9/11 – the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 243 US troops.

France Council Approves Youth Job Law

France's Constitutional Council recently approved a controversial youth jobs law, leaving President Jacques Chirac with the need to sign it, possibly causing massive civil disruption or withdrawing it and losing his prime minister.

The First Employment Contract (CPE), which allows employers to sack workers under 26 years of age without explanation at any time during a two-year trial period, has triggered a general strike and record demonstrations across the country. From the time the council ruled the law valid last week, President Chirac was given nine days to sign it. The council's decisions are binding, with no appeal allowed.

Universities have been disrupted for weeks by student protests over the CPE. Last week, seventeen schools were still closed by protesters and 41 were disrupted, out of a total of 84.

Police arrested 70 protesters on the Paris ring road. In Marseilles, they used tear gas to disperse 400 students and school pupils who blocked the Saint-Charles railway station for two hours. In Paris, 2,000 students blocked the tracks at the Gare de Lyon, holding up 10,000 passengers for almost three hours.

More than 550 secondary schools were also either closed or disrupted. The education minister, Gilles de Robien, appealed to university heads to ensure their students were able to attend classes, blaming "a small minority" for "preventing the great majority from pursuing their studies".

Mr. de Villepin, the architect of the law, argues the CPE is an essential reform to boost youth employment in a country where those between the ages of 18 and 25 suffer sky-high unemployment rates of 23 per cent – more than twice the national average – a figure which soars to 50 per cent in some deprived suburbs.
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