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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WORLD
THURSDAY MARCH 3.2005
WORLD
Bombing suspect had sketch,data
MADRID, Spain — A suspect in the Madrid train bombings was found to possess a sketch and technical details about Grand Central Terminal in New York, U.S. officials confirmed yesterday.
The sketch and data were on a computer disk seized about two weeks after the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people last year, the newspaper El Mundo said.
Spanish police turned the disk over to the U.S. agents from the FBI and CIA in December once they understood the scope of the technical data, the report said.
The Associated Press
Gates becomes honorary knight
LONDON — Proclaiming himself "humbled and delighted," Microsoft founder Bill Gates received the accolade of honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace yesterday.
The 49-year-old billionaire was honored for his charitable activities around the world and his contribution to high-tech enterprise in Britain.
Microsoft's British facilities include Research Cambridge. In 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a donation of $210 million to Cambridge University.
The Associated Press
Hippo kills tourist at Kenvan resort
Hussein Malla/ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAIVASHA, Kenya — A hip-popotamus flipped and trampled an Australian tourist to death at a popular resort in central Kenya, police said Tuesday.
Opposition demonstrators wave Lebanese flags during a celebration one day after the government's resignation in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday. Lebanon's president was taking on the task of forming a new government Tuesday, while opposition leaders shook off the jubilation of using people power to force out a pro-Syrian Cabinet and sought to ensure the next one is less beholden to Damascus.
No one else was injured in the attack.
Vicky Elizabeth Bartlett, 50,
was with a group of 12 tourists
at Lake Naivasha on Monday
night when the hippo attacked,
said Simon Kiragu, the regional
police chief.
Wildlife experts say hippos can pose extreme danger to humans. The animals come on shore at night to graze and will attack anything that comes between them and the water, where they feel safe.
Bush insists Syria leave Lebanon now
The Associated Press
WORLD POLITICS
BY NEDRA PICKLER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARNOLD, Md. — President Bush yesterday demanded in blunt terms that Syria get out of Lebanon, and said the free world was in agreement that Damascus' authority over the political affairs of its neighbor must end now.
He applauded the strong message sent to Syria when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier held a joint news conference on London on Tuesday.
"Both of them stood up and said loud and clear to Syria, 'You get your troops and your secret services out of Lebanon so that good democracy has a chance to flourish." Bush said during an appearance at a community college in Maryland to toit his job training programs.
The world, Bush said, "is speaking with one voice when it comes to making sure that democracy has a chance to flourish in Lebanon."
The president's words, taken with those from Rice and others in the Bush administration this week, amount to the strongest pressure to date on Syria from Washington.
"Syria knows the concerns of the international community, and they know what they need to do to change their behavior
and become a constructive member of the region and the international community." White House press secretary Scott McClellan said earlier yesterday.
Turkish ambassador Osman Faruk Logoglu urged the administration to offer trade and other economic and diplomatic incentives to Syria.
"The chances of Syria withdrawing are greater than ever before," Logoglu told reporters. "But it is obviously going to take a long time."
Rice, in London to attend an international conference on Palestinian security and government reform, had said Tuesday that Syria is "out of step" with a growing desire for democracy in the Middle East.
The Bush administration also
on Tuesday blamed terrorists based in Syria for last week's deadly suicide attack in Israel.
McClellan said the White House had "firm evidence" that Syria was home base for the terrorist attack in Israel that rocked the latest efforts for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Bush made a similar point during a White House meeting with congressional leaders, participants said, and so did Rice while in London.
Yesterday, Rice returned to Washington and had lunch at the White House and an Oval Office meeting with Bush, McCellan said.
All key Lebanese political decisions are assumed to have a stamp of approval from the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Huge street demonstrations and Monday's resignation of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government marked the most serious challenge to Syrian authority in Lebanon since the end of the civil war that killed 150,000 and crushed the Lebanese economy in the 1970s and 1980s.
The events also are an opening for the Bush administration to press its wider goal of democracy across the Middle East and to throw a spotlight on what the United States contends is longstanding Syrian support for terrorists who are trying to undermine progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
WORLD POLITICS
Talks on Iraqi coalition government hit snag
BY RAWYA RAGEH THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Talks aimed at forging a coalition government faltered yesterday over Kurdish demands for more land and concerns that the dominant Shiite alliance seeks to establish an Islamic state.
The snag in negotiations between Shiite and Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq came as clashes and two car bombings in Baghdad killed at least 14 Iraqi soldiers and police officers — the latest in a relentless wave of violence since elections Jan. 30.
The group led by Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly claimed responsibility in an Internet posting for yesterday's clashes and at least one of the bombings, as it had for a suicide car bombing Monday that killed 125 people in Hillah, a town south of the capital.
"The bombings in Hillah and again in Baghdad this morning are not going to derail the political process that Iraq is embarked upon." National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said yesterday. "The Iraqi government will go after and hunt down each and
Shiite and Kurdish leaders, Iraq's new political powers, however, failed to reach agreement after two days of negotiations in the northern city of Irbil, with the clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leaving with only half the deal he needed.
The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which has 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly, hopes to win backing from the 75 seats held by Kurdish political parties so t can muster the required two-
thirds majority for post top posts in the new government.
Al-Jaafari indicated after the talks that the alliance was ready to accept a Kurdish demand that one of its leaders,jalal Tabali,become president.
However, he would not commit to other demands, including the expansion of Kurdish autonomous areas south to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Kurdish leaders have demanded constitutional guarantees fqr their northern regions, including selfrule and reversal of the "Arabization" of Kirkuk and other northern areas. Saddam Hussein
relocated Iraqi Arabs to the region in a bid to secure the oil fields there.
Politicians had hoped to convene the new parliament by Sunday. But Ali Faish, of the Shiite Political Council, said the date was now "postponed" and that a new date had not been set.
The Kurds, he added, were "the basis of the problem" in the negotiations.
"The Kurds are wary about al-Jaafar's nomination to head the government. They are concerned that a strict Islamic government might be formed," al-Faisal said. "Negotiations and dialogue are ongoing."
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