THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2012
PAGE 3
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Press
ASIA
Opposition leader tests travel freedom to travel to Britain and Norway
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi plans to travel to Britain and Norway in June on her first trip abroad in
24 years,
her party
spokes-
man said
Wednesday.
The e
66-year-old
democracy
icon has
not left
Mymanar
Kvi
for more than two decades because of fears the nation's authoritarian rulers would not allow her to return.
The junta that ruled the country for almost half a century ceded power to a new government last year that has embarked on a series of widely praised reforms, including opening a dialogue with Suu Kyi and allowing her to run for — and win — a seat
Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, said the trip would prove that Suu Kyi "can travel freely. This is a very positive indicator."
in parliament.
Suu Kyi has not left Myanmar since 1988.
ASIA
Since then, the daughter of national independence hero Aung San has spent 15 years under house arrest. For most of that time, she was separated from her husband Michael Aris and their two children, who still live abroad. In 1999, Suu Kyi refused to leave Myanmar to visit Aris as he was dying because of concerns that the former ruling junta would not allow her back.
Pakistani army chief says conflict over glacier should be resolved
During a brief visit to Myanmar on Friday, British Prime Minister David Cameron invited Suu Kyi to visit, saying it would be a sign of progress if she were able to leave and then return to carry out her duties as a lawmaker.
The Pakistan army chief calls for a peaceful resolution with India during a press conference on Wednesday. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani wants to spend more money on developing his country and less on defense.
SKARDU, Pakistan — Pakistan's powerful army chief on Wednesday called for the peaceful resolution of a Himalayan glacier dispute with rival nuclear power India, and suggested his country should spend less on defense and more on development.
AP PHOTO
Gen. Ashfaq Pavez Kayani's comments came after he visited the site of an avalanche near the Siachen Glacier that last week buried 140 people, including 129 Pakistani soldiers. The tragedy has refocused attention on what critics say is a futile standoff with India over an uninhabited stretch of ice where more troops have been killed by the elements than warfare.
Kayani noted that India began the conflict when its troops occupied the uninhabited Siachen Glacier in 1984. Pakistan sent in troops, and since then both armies have been facing each other on the glacier, which is located north of the disputed territory of Kashmir.
The Pakistani army chief said the conflict "should be resolved," and in order to do that "the two countries have to talk about" the issue.
India have warmed over the last year, especially regarding trade. But there has been little progress on other areas of disagreement.
Kayani did not set a timeframe, and his remarks were in line with Pakistan's general position that talks are needed to resolve all its disputes with its much larger neighbor.
sum in a country where many of the 180 million residents struggle to get by. While its economy has tanked in recent years, India is a fast emerging global powerhouse.
Pakistan's conflict with India has cost it billions of dollars, a significant
Relations between Pakistan and
AFRICA
Eight men arrested after video of rape emerges on Internet
JOHANNESBURG When a 17-year-old girl said to have the mental capacity of a 5-year-old was reported missing four weeks ago in the sprawling South African township of Soweto, police distributed her photo and asked neighborhood residents for help.
Then a video emerged of seven men and boys raping the girl. Within a day of media alerting them to the video, police said, they on Wednesday found the girl in a house across Soweto from her home. Eight men and boys were arrested on charges of kidnapping and rape.
The women's league of the governing African National Congress said the
video, apparently recorded on a cell phone, was widely circulated on the Internet and via cell phones. The league said it again raises questions about South Africans' attitudes toward rape and women in a country with horrifically high rape statistics.
"When does it become acceptable amongst a group of peas to rape a girl and laugh about it? It just makes one sick to the stomach," the league said in a statement Wednesday.
Police spokesman Kay Makhubela said soon after learning of the video Tuesday, police, with help from people in Soweto, arrested seven men who appeared in the video. Some of the
suspects identified the girl's possible location in sprawling Soweto, and police moved through that neighborhood Wednesday, announcing on loudspeakers that they planned to search every home.
The eighth suspect then surrendered and the girl was found in his home, Makhubela said. He described her as quiet and apparently traumatized, and said she was taken first to counselors and then to a hospital.
Makhubela said anyone found to have passed along the video could face criminal charges.
AFRICA
'Misunderstanding' leaves 22 dead at the Sudan border
JUBA, South Sudan — Soldiers from Sudan and South Sudan clashed at a river dividing their two countries, leaving 22 dead as fighting spread to a new area of the tense border. A Sudanese official demanded on Wednesday that South Sudan withdraw from an oil-rich area it occupied last week or face a concerted attack.
Tuesday's firefight began 'after a Sudanese soldier shot a South Sudan soldier who was getting water from the river, South Sudan government spokesman Barnada Marial Benjamin said Wednesday. In all, seven South Sudan soldiers and 15 Sudan soldiers died near the town of Meiram, along the border with Sudan's South Kordofan state and South Sudan's Northern Bahr e Ghazal state. he said.
Even as border violence was spreading to new regions, Benjamin labeled the fight as a "misunderstanding" and said he did not think violence would continue there.
The river battle comes amid wider violence along the shared border around the oil town of Heglig, which South Sudan troops took control of last week. Sudanese aircraft have been bombing South Sudan's Unity State as a part of that fighting.
Benjamin said there was no new fighting around Heglig on Wednesday.
But a Sudan official, Mustafa Osman Ismail, warned South Sudan that it must immediately withdraw from Heglig or face counterattacks. Ismail, a senior adviser to Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, spoke in Ethiopia's capital, where he met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and African Union officials.
He said the trip was intended to "ask those with influence" to persuade South Sudan to withdraw from Heglig.
He said Khartoum is under pressure from Sudan's public to liberate "the invaded territory" after South Sudan TV broadcast images of what he said are medical staff captured in Heglig.