Government Officials

The CIA has removed its station chief in Algeria from his post amid an investigation by the Justice Department of allegations that the officer drugged and raped two Algerian women, according to current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the matter. The officer, identified in an affidavit as Andrew Warren, served as the agency's top official in Algeria until late last year, and previously held high-level positions in Afghanistan and Egypt, officials said.

A year ago, opposition leader Raila Odinga hit the streets to protest a flawed presidential election that sparked the deadliest political standoff in Kenya's post-independence history. Demonstrations led to riots and then ethnic clashes that spread across this East African nation, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and 350,000 homeless. It wasn't the first time Odinga had to fight to be heard.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is not likely to seek another term when his mandate expires at the end of this year, a senior official of his party said Saturday. But Talabani, 75, who underwent heart surgery last year in the United States, will remain head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said Fuad Masoum, head of the Kurdish alliance and a member of parliament. "It doesn't mean he will give up his political life. It just means he will not go for the presidential post," Masoum said.

If one question rises as yet another politician falls from the love nest and lands with a splat, it's this: What the heck was he thinking? Elizabeth Edwards has scarcely finished her book tour of scorn. Eliot Spitzer is energetically engineering his comeback from shame. And there goes South Carolina's governor, Mark Sanford, another of the political high and mighty, hurling himself into a pit of adulterous disgrace. This time it was a South American tryst with a lover reportedly named Maria.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is investigating allegations that the Temple City mayor and two City Council members solicited tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and a condominium from a developer in exchange for their support of a $75-million mall project. Randy Wang, developer of the proposed Piazza at Temple City, said in court documents that City Council members David Capra and Judy Wong solicited bribes as a condition of supporting the development.

Late on Christmas Eve, one last wish was sent, by e-mail: Please let NASA Administrator Michael Griffin keep his job. It was from his wife. Rebecca Griffin, who works in marketing, sent her message with the subject line "Campaign for Mike" to friends and family. It asked them to sign an online petition to President-elect Barack Obama "to consider keeping Mike Griffin on as NASA administrator."

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's conviction on money-laundering and conspiracy charges was upheld by a federal appeals court Friday, a judgment that will keep the long-incarcerated politician in U.S. prisons for at least several more years. Lazarenko, 56, was head of the Ukrainian government from May 1996 to June 1997, during which, prosecutors said, he siphoned at least $200 million from the nation's coffers through elaborate schemes of extortion, cronyism and kickbacks.

Members of Iraq's parliament are renewing efforts to strip immunity from a top Sunni Arab lawmaker, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki who has repeatedly been accused of involvement in incidents of violence. At least 30 lawmakers, most of them non-Sunnis, have signed a petition asking that Adnan Dulaimi be denied protection granted to all parliament members.

Even as community activists lobby to keep Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro in office as the Mexican consul in Santa Ana, the Mexican government has chosen a career diplomat to succeed him. Carlos Alejandro Rodriguez y Quezada, who has worked in Cuba and Lebanon, will begin work next month. Rodriguez y Quezada began his career with the Mexican Foreign Ministry in 1969. He currently works for the Foreign Ministry in a local government office, where passports are issued, in Mexico City.

A right-wing party quit Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's governing coalition Wednesday in protest of the revived peace talks with the Palestinians, but the move poses no immediate threat to his rule. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) faction, said he opposed an approach that sought peace through territorial concessions. "Negotiations on the basis of land for peace are a crucial mistake," he told reporters.