Lawmakers: East Timor President Ramos-Horta accepts top UN human rights job

Lawmakers: East Timor President Ramos-Horta accepts top UN human rights job : President Jose Ramos-Horta, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by rebel soldiers earlier this year, has accepted the top U.N. human rights job, members of East Timor's parliament said Thursday. U.N. officials were not immediately available to comment. But lawmaker Aderito Hugo da Costa and another legislator, who spoke off the record because a formal announcement had not yet been made, said Ramos-Horta told them last week he had "accepted the job." Ramos-Horta, a Nobel laureate who became president of Asia's youngest democracy in May 2007, was scheduled to give a press conference later Thursday. He would replace Canadian Louise Arbour, who steps down as human rights commissioner at the end of June. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony,... [read full story]