THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2012
PAGE 3
NEWS OF THE WORLD
MIDDLE EAST
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrive before signing a strategic partnership agreement Tuesday in Kabul, Afghanistan. The meeting took place on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death.
KABUL, Afghanistan President Barack Obama slipped into Afghanistan Tuesday night on an unannounced visit on the anniversary of the killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Obama and Afghan president Hamid Karzai signed an agreement to set the terms for US-Afghanistan relations after US withdrawal.
Obama visits Kabul, sets withdrawal terms
The partnership spells out the US relationship with Afghanistan beyond 2014, covering security, economics and governance. The deal is limited in scope and essentially gives both sides political cover: Afghanistan gets its sovereignty and a promise it won't be abandoned, while the U.S. gets to end its combat mission but keep a foothold in the country.
Associated Press
in Afghanistan after the war ends for two specific purposes: continued training of Afghan forces and targeted operations against al-Qaida, which is present in neighboring Pakistan but has only a nominal presence inside Afghanistan.
Officials have previously said as many as 20,000 U.S. troops may remain after the combat mission ends, but that still must be negotiated.
The deal does not commit the United States to any specific troop presence or spending. But it does allow the U.S. to potentially keep troops
The United States does promise to seek money from Congress every year to support Afghanistan.
Air Force One touched down late at night local time at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base here.
Obama is joining Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign the agreement that will broadly govern the U.S. role in Afghanistan after the American combat mission stops at the end of 2014 — 13 years after it began.
ASIA
BURABURI, India — Rescuers on Tuesday had recovered 103 bodies from a turbulent northeastern river after a heavily packed ferry capsized, saying they feared that dozens of others had been swept by the current to neighboring Bangladesh.
Divers recover more than 100 bodies from capsized ferry in remote Indian river
The overloaded ferry overturned and broke into two pieces in stormy weather late Monday. About 100 people were still missing Tuesday evening.
Abdul Mazid, a local villager, was among grieving relatives and survivors gathered on the banks of the Brahmaputra River in Assam state.
He had rushed there soon after the boat ferrying about 350 people — including his sister — capsized. Some passengers swam to safety or were rescued by villagers, but Mazid was still waiting in silence on the crowded river bank for news of his sister 24 hours later.
Rescuers said they feared that the swift-moving currents had carried dozens of bodies downstream into neighboring Bangladesh.
The ferry was a daily service that connected several small riverside villages and islands to the main district town.
Survivors told television channels how the ferry had been packed tight with passengers and cargo, with about 150 people riding on the ferry's roof.
The accident occurred near Fakiragram village in west Dhubri district, about 215 miles west of the state capital, Gauhati, and close to where the Brahmaputra River enters Bangladesh.
Deep sea divers and disaster rescue soldiers worked through the night to help survivors to shore and retrieve bodies from the river.
Rescuers pull out the wreckage of a ferry that capsized in the Brahmaputra River at Buraburi village, about (215 miles) west of the state capital Gauhati, India on Tuesday. Army divers and rescue workers pulled more than 100 bodies out of a river after a packed ferry capsized in heavy winds.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AFRICA
Fighting continues to plague Bamako
BAMAKO, Mali — After fierce fighting in Mali's capital Tuesday, troops loyal to the junta overran the main camp of the soldiers who tried to oust them in a countercoup.
Gunfire echoed across Bamako as Malian government troops battled each other, killing at least 12 people.
Mali's coup leaders who took power over a month ago and ostensibly handed control over to an interim civilian government on April 12, said they control the state broadcaster, the airport and a military base, fending off attacks by opposing forces.
Coup leader Capt. Amadou Sanogo told a private radio station Monday night that the countercoup had failed and that his soldiers have captured
foreign fighters.
A senior Western diplomat based in Bamako told The Associated Press that the fighting apparently started Monday when forces loyal to the junta tried to arrest the former head of the presidential guard. The presidential guard is part of Mali's parachutist regiment, known as the Red Berets, part of the faction that was seen as the most reluctant to submit to the authority of the junta. The regiment was the most loyal to ex-President Amadou Toumani Toure when he was in power.
AFRICA
Anti-junta forces tried to take over the country's state broadcaster and attacked the airport and the junta's main military base on Monday.
islamist sect bombs newspaper office
LAGOS, Nigeria — A radical Islamist sect published a video Tuesday showing a smiling suicide bomber drive into the offices of a major Nigerian newspaper and blow himself up, an attack that killed at least three people and made journalists a new target of the extremist group.
The 18-minute video posted on YouTube includes new threats against journalists and major Nigerian newspapers, as well as the Hausa language services of Voice of America and Radio France International. The video shows the suicide bomber drive a sport utility vehicle on April 26 into the Abuja offices of ThisDay, an influential newspaper.
As a man softly prays, the car blows up, sending a massive fireball into the air.
The attack killed at least three people at the offices in Nigeria's capital. A separate bombing at offices the newspaper shared with other publications in the city of Kaduna killed at least four people.
In the video, a narrator blames ThisDay for publishing inaccurate and biased information about the sect known as Boko Haram. "The punishment for that is the person should be killed, especially when you're talking about Prophet Muhammad," the narrator says.
The reporter who wrote the article later fled Nigeria for Europe.