THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2012
PAGE 3A
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Press
EUROPE
Four Russian police officers accused of torturing detainees
MOSCOW — Russia's top investigative agency filed new charges Thursday against police officers accused of torturing detainees amid growing public outrage over police brutality.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Investigative Committee said it had charged four officers in the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk in the torture death of a detainee. It also leveled new accusations against a police officer in the Volga River city of Kazan who is already in custody on charges of torturing a man to death.
Police officers in Russia have faced public scrutiny for torturing detainees.
Victims and human rights activists say Russian police routinely use torture to extract false confessions from those they have arbitrarily rounded up. They say police reforms undertaken by President Dmitry Medvedev have failed to stop or even contain police crimes and achieved little beyond changing the force's name.
Kazan resident Sergei Nazarov died earlier this month of injuries suffered when police officers allegedly sodomized
him with a champagne bottle. His case has caused outrage across Russia and drawn calls for an urgent overhaul of a force long accused of corruption and brutality.
The four officers charged in Novokuznetsk were accused of causing a detainee's death by asphyxiation by putting a gas mask on him and cutting off the access to air — a torture technique popular among Russian police, according to rights groups.
Police regulations still require officers to report a certain quota of solved crimes, a practice that encourages police to make arbitrary arrests and extract false confessions to make their numbers. Police from across Russia also learned cruel interrogation practices during tours of duty in Chechnya and other restive provinces in Russia's Caucasus, contributing to the culture of brutality.
Activists have urged the Kremlin to change regulations that encourage
police brutality, oust Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, conduct a thorough cleansing of the police force and set up a separate independent body that would investigate police crimes.
Alexei Navalny, a popular anti-corruption blogger and a key organizer of massive opposition protests in Moscow, said the government should dismiss all Kazan policemen and recruit new ones as a model of how to conduct a future nationwide reform of the police.
Indian police detains hundreds of self-immolating Tibetans
ASIA
NEW DELHI — The Tibetan who burned himself alive on the eve of a visit by China's president left a letter that urged the world to stand up for his homeland, activists said, while Indian authorities detained more Tibetans on Thursday in the Indian capital.
Police have taken hundreds of Tibetans into custody since Monday's selfimmolation by Jamplhel Yeshi, 27, and have effectively closed off New Delhi's Tibetan neighborhoods, fearing embarrassing protests during the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The Tibetans are expected to be released after Hu leaves New Delhi on Friday. He is in the city for the BRICS summit with the leaders of India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa.
"At a time when we are making our final move toward our goal. If you have
money, it is the time to spend it. If you are educated it is the time to produce results. If you have control over your life, I think the day has come to sacrifice your life," wrote Yesi, who died of his burns Wednesday.
The letter was released by activists and translated on the website Burning Tibet. Activists said he wrote the letter about 10 days ago, and left it in his apartment where friends found it after the self-immolation. The letter's authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
"The fact that Tibetan people are setting themselves on fire in this 21st century is to let the world know about their suffering," the letter stated. "People of the world, stand up for Tibet."
Hundreds of police are manning barricades along roads throughout the city,
ASSOCIATED PRESS
About 30 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to show their disapproval of China's power in their region.
About 30 self-immolations have occurred over the past year in ethnic Tibetan areas of China in protest of Beijing's heavy-handed rule in the region.
some carrying blankets soaked in water to quickly smother the flames if anyone else sets themselves alight.
MIDDLE EAST
Sunni rulers snub Iraq at Arab summit
BAGHDAD — Sunni Muslim rulers largely shunned an Arab League summit hosted by Shite-led Iraq on Thursday, illustrating how powerfully the sectarian split and the rivalry with Iran define Middle Eastern politics in the era of the Arab Spring.
The crisis in Syria is the epicenter of those divisions. The one-day summit closed with a joint call on Syrian President Bashar Assad to stop his bloody crackdown on an uprising seeking his ouster. But the final statement barely papered over the differences among the Arab nations over how to deal with the longest-running regional revolt.
"What disturbs the breeze of our Arab Spring and fills our hearts with sadness is the scenes of slaughter and torture committed by the Syrian regime against our brothers and sisters in Syria," said Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, leader of Libya's National Transitional Council.
In a snub to Iraq, only 10 heads of state from the Arab League's 22 members attended, with the rest sending lower-level officials. Especially notable were the absences of the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and most other Gulf countries, as well Morocco and Jordan — all of them headed by Sunni monarchs who deeply distrust the close ties between Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government and their top regional rival, Iran.
The Gulf countries also see Iraq as too soft on Syria. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have talked of armed Syria's
opposition, apparently eager to bring the fall of Assad and break the Sunni-majority country out of its alliance with Iran.
Speaking to the gathering, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged restraint, saying Baghdad opposes any military intervention and citing his country's years of turmoil as an example of what happens when outside forces get involved in national struggles. U.S. forces left Iraq just over 100 days ago after nearly nine years of war and occupation.
"Iraq is afraid of the attempts to militarize the Arab uprisings, because this will deviate them from the right course and push toward the wrong position," al-Maliki said. "Dialogue between the government and the opposition is the right option to solve the crisis."
Iraq's hosting of the annual summit for the first time since 1990 was touted by Baghdad officials as a victory in their efforts to show the country is moving toward stability after years of sectarian fighting that almost tipped the nation into civil war. Thousands of security forces cleared the streets and locked down the capital in one of the quietest weeks in years, although officials said two Katyusha rockets hit near the fortified Green Zone where the summit was held just as diplomats convened. No casualties were reported.
The summit was the first since the wave of Arab Spring uprisings began
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An Arab League summit in Iraq Thursday. Only 10 of the 22 members attended to oppose Iraq.
The new leaders of Egypt and Yemen — the other two countries whose rulers fell last year — did not attend, a reflection of their continuing domestic troubles.
sweeping the region more than a year ago, targeting its long-ruling strongmen. The 2011 summit was canceled because of the turmoil. There were two new faces at Thursday's collection of heads of state. Libya's Abdul-Jaili, who holds nominal power after the ouster and killing of Moammar Gadhafi, and Tunisia President Moncef Marouzi, a former human rights activist who was elevated after the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The session was dominated by the uprising in Syria, where the U.N. says more than 9,000 people have been killed in the regime's yearlong crackdown on its political opponents. The regime has sent tanks and troops into Syrian cities and towns, saying the country was under attack from the armed groups.
CENTRAL AMERICA
Fourteen inmates confirmed dead after riot prison fire
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras —
Honduran authorities say at least 14
people have died at a prison after
armed inmates started a fire during
a riot Thursday.
San Pedro Sula police commissioner Yair Maa says there are at
least 14 dead, but the riot has been brought under control.
Inmates began fighting among themselves and tossed the severed head of one prisoner over the walls of the jail as they held firefighters at bay.
The grisly scene at the prison in the rough northern city of San Pedro Sula came 1/2 months after Honduras' overcrowded prisons were hit by the worst prison fire in a century, a Feb. 14 blaze at the Comayagua farm prison that killed 361 inmates.
FLASHBACK TO 1920
TARA BRYANT/KANSAN
Employees wait for customers to arrive at Big 6, a new, 1920s-style bar at The Eldridge Hotel, 701 Massachusetts. The bar has been open on Thursday nights, but is switching to Friday nights next week.
1.
Lottery reaches record amount
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — People queuing up for Mega Millions tickets aren't the only ones salvating over the record $540 million jackpot that could be won Friday — some state governments struggling through lean times know a hometown winner would bring a tax bonanza.
Taxes on a lump-sum payment option to a single winner could mean tens of millions of dollars of badly needed revenue that could go to restore entire social service programs on the chopping block, pay for hundreds of low-income housing units, forestall new taxes or hire more state troopers.
So many tickets have been sold that the jackpot climbed Thursday to the largest in history, according to officials in Rhode Island, one of 42 states where Mega Millions is played. If a lone winner took the
lump-sum payout on the jackpots current amount, it would be an estimated $389.8 million.
"I'd love it if a Rhode Islander wins," said Rep. Helio Melo, the chairman of the House's Finance Committee.
In Rhode Island, when the tax man comes calling for his 5.99 percent, that would mean an estimated $23.3 million, forked over in a single payment.
With it, the state could pay for most of a $25 million bond for affordable housing that voters may be asked to approve this fall. It could also help Rhode Island reach its goal for aid to school districts for the first aid. The state, which has a $7.9 billion budget, is $22 million short.
A big lottery windfall wouldn't solve the state's fiscal woes, but it could help chip away at the debt, pay for one-time expenses or delay budget cuts or tax increases — including on expensive clothing, pet
States set their own tax rates on lottery winnings. New York, for instance, charges 8.82 percent, while several, including California, charge none.
grooming, car washes and taxi fares -- at least for a year, Mello said.
Ohio's share of the lump-sum payout would be $23 million, hardly pocket change but still a fraction of the state's $56 billion two-year budget.
"We're not holding our breath waiting for a tax windfall for the state, but we will always root for Ohio and Ohioans and hope lottery luck comes to a Buckeye," said Joe Testa, the state's tax commissioner.
The Rhode Island Association of School Committees has asked the state to use the $17 million for technology and wireless Internet in schools. That would be in place of a $20 million bond.