Must-Reads from Around the World

Guatemala's highest court overturns the genocide conviction of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the European Parliament will hold talks to fight tax evasion and a three-month dip in hog prices in China is poised to come to an end

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Luis Soto / AP

Guatemala's former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt arrives for the continuation of his trial on genocide charges in Guatemala City, Wednesday, April 17, 2013.

Guatemala Genocide Conviction — Guatemala’s highest court has overturned the genocide conviction and prison sentence of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, reports the New York Times. The move, according to the paper, “is a dramatic legal victory” for the 86-year-old general and “a blow to human rights advocates who called his conviction a sign that Guatemala’s courts would no longer allow impunity for the country’s powerful.” On May 10, Ríos Montt was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison. The Constitutional Court’s latest ruling rewinds the trial to April 19 instead of throwing it out entirely.

Lord’s Resistance Army — The United Nations has said the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the guerrilla group led by Joseph Kony, has killed upwards of 100,000 people over the past 25 years in Central Africa, notes the AFP. Kony, who launched an uprising against the Ugandan government in the 1980s, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. The LRA is believed to have also abducted between 60,000 to 100,000 people, allegedly using its hostages as sex slaves and porters.

E.U. Tax Evasion — The BBC reports that members of the European Parliament will convene Wednesday in Strasbourg, France to discuss ways to clamp down on tax evasion, ahead of an E.U. summit on the matter. Roughly 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) a year – seven times the E.U. budget – are lost in the 27 member states via tax evasion. MEPs are expected to call for “a blacklist of tax havens, a system of automatic exchange of banking information and for resources to be channeled into the prosecution of tax evaders and recovering lost revenue,” according to the BBC.

Feminist Arrested – A Tunisian feminist who scandalized the country earlier this year by posting topless photographs of herself online has been arrested after a new protest at a religious center, reports the AP. On Sunday, Amina Tyler went to the central Tunisian city of Kairouan, where around 11,000 security forces prevented the hardline Ansar al-Shariah group from holding a conference after it was deemed a threat to public order. She allegedly wrote the word “Femen” (the name of a Ukrainian feminist group of which she claims to be a member) on the wall near the city’s main mosque, and may have aimed to hang a banner on the building before an angry crowd gathered and forced her to leave. In March, Tyler, 19, was forced to go into hiding after she posted photos of her topless body with the phrase “my body is my own” written on it, which led to death threats, writes the AP.

China Pig Prices – Following a huge food safety scare after the discovery in March of thousands of dead pigs floating in Shanghai’s Huangpu river, a three-month dip in hog prices in China is poised to come to an end, reports Bloomberg. China is the world’s biggest consumer of pork, with the plunge in prices resulting in a loss of profits for pork producers and reduced demand for soybean-laden animal feed. Increased consumer confidence as shoppers look past the Huangpu river incident is partly credited with halting the dip in prices, writes Bloomberg, together with the government’s stockpiling of frozen meat to help stop the decline in prices.

Russia Interpol Appeal – Interpol will decide this week whether to approve a request from Russia to monitor the travel and location of Bill Browder, a British hedge fund boss who has led a campaign for justice for Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who died while in custody at a Moscow prison, reports the Independent. Russia has issued a warrant for Browder’s arrest in absentia over tax evasion charges – which the hedge fund boss claims are motivated by a personal vendetta against him by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s request is potentially in breach of Article Three of Interpol’s constitution which forbids “the organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character,” notes the daily.