Ethiopia

South Sudan rebel leader OK’s deal

ADDIS ABABA — South Sudan’s rebel leader said Saturday that he has accepted his appointment by President Salva Kiir as vice president and will return to the country to take up the position when adequate security arrangements are made. Riek Machar called for the demilitarization of the capital, ­Juba, adding that the first phase of integrating government and rebel forces should be done before his return. Sporadic fighting has continued between government forces and rebels in some parts of the oil-producing East African country. Machar had been ­Kiir’s deputy until July 2013, when his firing triggered a political crisis that later boiled over into a rebellion following a violent split among the security forces in Juba. Some of the fighting was along ethnic lines, and both sides have been accused of carrying out serious human rights abuses. (AP)

India

Abusive priest’s suspension lifted

NEW DELHI — The Roman Catholic church in southern India has lifted the suspension of a priest convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the United States more than a decade ago, a spokesman said Saturday. The suspension of the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was lifted last month after the bishop of the Ootacamund Diocese in India’s Tamil Nadu state consulted with church authorities at the Vatican, said the Rev. Sebastian Selvanathan, a spokesman for the diocese. Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund had referred Jeyapaul’s case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the suspension was lifted on the church body’s advice, Selvanathan said. Jeyapaul was sent to Minnesota in 2004 and served at the Blessed Sacrament Church in Greenbush, near the Canadian border. He was suspended in 2010 after being charged with sexually assaulting two 14-year-old girls who were both 14 at the time of the alleged abuse. (AP)

Greece

Farmers end their Athens blockade

ATHENS — Greek farmers protesting planned tax hikes and pension changes have left a central Athens square where they had been camped out since Friday but are vowing to keep protesting until the government listens. The farmers, who had set up 68 blockades with tractors and agricultural vehicles on highways across Greece, will convene Monday to decide how to proceed, farmers’ representative Vangelis Boutas said. He said they also want measures to lower production costs. Earlier Saturday, police estimated that 12,000 protesters marched to Athens’ Syntagma Square outside Parliament to support the farmers. The march was called by unions allied with Greece’s Communist Party. (AP)