THE UNIVERSITY DAILY NANSAN
MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2012
PAGE 3A
NEWS OF THE WORLD
ASIA
Red Cross worker's body found after ransom was not paid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pakistani volunteers and hospital staff transport the body of British Red Cross worker Khalil Rasjed Dale at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan on Sunday. Dale had been held captive in Pakistan since January. His body was found Sunday.
Associated Press
QUETTA, Pakistan — The body of a British Red Cross worker held captive in Pakistan since January was found in an orchard Sunday, his throat slit and a note attached to his body saying he was killed because no ransom was paid, police said.
Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was managing a health program in the city of Quetta in southwestern Pakistan when armed men seized him from a street close to his office. The identities of his captors are unknown, but the region is home to separatist and Islamist militants who have kidnapped for ransom before.
"All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil's family and friends," said Yves Daccord.
Dale's throat had been slit, according to Safdar Hussain, a doctor who examined the body.
The director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross condemned the "barbary act."
Quetta police chief Ahsan Mahbooob said the note attached to it read: "This is the body of Khalil who we have slaughtered for not paying a ransom amount."
Militants and criminal gangs often kidnap wealthy Pakistanis and less commonly, foreigners.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned Dale's killing, and said "tireless efforts" had been under way to secure his release after he was kidnapped.
Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, the group said.
Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, lies close to the Afghan border and for decades has hosted thousands of refugees from that country. The Red Cross operates clinics in the city that treat people wounded in the war in Afghanistan, including Taliban insurgents.
ASIA
Children's book illustrations of bombs and knives upset parents
LUCKNOW, India Angry parents are demanding to know why their kids are being taught about bombs and knives at nursery schools in a northern Indian state.
They complain that a book on Hindi language alphabets for children aged 4 to 5 says that "B" stands for bomb and "Ch" for "Chaku," or knife. Pictures accompany the words.
Ram Authar Dixit, president of the Parents-Student Welfare Association of Gurukul Academy in Uttar Pradesh state, said Sunday that the national
education board was investigating how such a book was cleared for private nursery schools.
More than 100 schools in the state have been using the book.
"It is the responsibility of the education board to provide clean books to the students," said Dixit, a parent.
The publisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Federal Board of Secondary Education issues broad guidelines to state and private schools relating to books, but leaves the content to publishers. It steps in in case of complaints, Alam said.
"Children have an impressionable mind. If students are taught about bombs and knives at this stage this would develop a negative mindset for them,' Ananya Tiwari, a child psychologist, told The Associated Press in Lucknow, the state capital.
AFRICA
Sixteen worshippers gunned down at university in Nigeria
KANO, Nigeria — Gunmen attacked church services on a university campus Sunday in northern Nigeria, using small explosives to draw out and gun down panicking worshippers in an assault that killed at least 16 people, officials said.
The attackers targeted an old section of Bayero University's campus where religious groups use a theater and other areas to hold worship services, Kano state police spokesman Ibrahim Idris said. The assault left many others seriously wounded, Idris said.
"By the time we responded, they entered (their) motorcycles and
disappeared into the neighborhood." the commissioner said.
After the attack, police and soldiers cordoned off the campus as gunfire echoed in the surrounding streets. Abubakar Jibril, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, said security forces refused to allow rescuers to enter the campus. Soldiers also turned away journalists from the university.
Andronicus Adeyemo, an official with the Nigerian Red Cross, said a canvas of local hospitals and morgues showed the attack killed at least 16 people. A number of people suffered injuries, though the aid agency did
not immediately have an exact figure. Adeveno said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility. However, Idris said the attackers used small explosives packed inside of aluminum soda cans for the assault, a method previously used by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.
Diplomats and military officials say Boko Haram has links with two other al-Qaida-aligned terrorist groups in Africa. Members of the sect also reportedly have been spotted in northern Mali which Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamists seized control of over the past month.
Anti-Kremlin activist beaten after trying to enter cathedral
EUROPE
MOSCOW — An opposition activist was detained and beaten Sunday after he tried to enter Moscow's landmark Christ the Savior Cathedral to pray to deliver Russia from Vladimir Putin.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Several riot police officers forced Roman Dobrokhotov into a police car just meters (feet) from Russia's largest church, widely seen as a symbol of resurgent Orthodox Christianity after seven decades of atheist Communist rule. Dobrokhotov, who leads a small anti-Kremlian youth movement, heckled President Dmitry Medvedev during his speech in the Kremlian in 2008.
Members of an Orthodox militant group stand in front of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral to prevent access of opposition activists, Sunday. The activists planned to pray to Holy Mother to deliver Russia from Vladimir Putin.
Another activist, Mariya Baronova, of the Resistance anti-Kremlin group, entered the cathedral, but was cornered by a group of Orthodox priests and men who tried to escort her out.
Russia and burning Harry Potter books.
A dozen activists from the militant Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers group lined up in front of the cathedral, shouting obscenities at Dobrokhotov and Baronova. The group is known for dispersing gay rallies, and for protesting against pop star Madonna's shows in
Hours later, when Dobrokhotov was leaving a police station where he was held, seven men assaulted him, damaging his ear, he said.
"They looked like soccer fans," he
said, referring to burly and aggressive young men who are often involved in street fights and violence after soccer matches across Russia. "Luckily, police interrupted them and detained one of them."