THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012
PAGE 3
NEWS OF THE WORLD
EUROPE
Russian president criticizes Romney's comments
MOSCOW — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday sharply suggested that Mitt Romney use his head and remember what year he's living in after the Republican presidential contender said Moscow was America's "No. 1 geopolitical foe."
Romney described Russia in those terms while criticizing President Barack Obama for his caught-on-tape remarks to Medvedev that he would have more room to negotiate on missile defense if he is re-elected in November.
During a briefing Tuesday in Seoul, where he and Obama were attending a nuclear security summit, the Russian leader said Romney's remarks "smacked of Hollywood" and sounded as if they came from the Cold War era.
Medvedev advised the White House hopefuls, including Romney, to "rely on reason, use their heads," adding, "that's not harmful for a presidential candidate." He further said, "It's
2012, not the mid-1970s, and whatever party he belongs to, he must take the existing realities into account."
NATO's U.S.-led missile defense plans have long been an irritant in relations with Moscow, which has rejected the U.S. assurances that the shield is needed to fend off an Iranian missile threat and voiced concern that it will eventually grow into a threat to Russia's nuclear deterent.
In a Monday meeting on the sidelines of the summit, Obama's remarks to Medvedev were picked up by a microphone without either apparently knowing.
"This is my last election," Obama was heard telling the Russian president. "After my election, I have more flexibility."
Medvedev replied in English that he would convey the message to Vladimir Putin, who reclaimed the presidency in an election earlier this month and will formally take office in May.
AFRICA
South Sudan bombing derails political summit
JUBA, South Sudan — Sudan's military bombed an oil field in South Sudan on Tuesday, a South Sudan official said, as a dangerous flare-up in border violence appeared to scuttle plans for a presidential summit between the two countries.
Unity State Minister of Information Gideon Gatpan said Sudan dropped at least three bombs near oil fields in the town of Bentiu. Gatpan said the extent of any damage wasn't immediately known.
The attack comes one day after Sudan and South Sudan clashed in the disputed border town of Jau, prompting Sudan to cancel President Omar al-Bashir's trip to meet with South Sudan President Salva Kiir next week.
South Sudan broke away from Sudan last year, but tensions between the longtime foes have remained high.
Despite the increased violence, South Sudan held out hope the presidential meeting could still happen. South Sudan Minister of Information Barnaba Benjamin Marial said the south still expects al-Bashir to attend the meeting next week, saying South Sudan had not received an official cancellation from Khartoum.
Among the unresolved issues is the demarcation of the border and an agreement to share oil revenue. South Sudan earlier this year stopped pumping oil because it said Sudan — which owns the pipelines the south's oil must travel through — was stealing its oil.
Marial said the south believes that "forces of war" in Khartoum were trying to derail the peace process, but not al-Bashir himself. He said the south would not take the bait.
Nuclear weapon storage worries world leaders
ASIA
SEOUL, South Korea — Material that can be used to make nuclear bombs is stored in scores of buildings spread across dozens of countries. If even a fraction of it fell into the hands of terrorists, it could be disastrous.
Nearly 60 world leaders who gathered Tuesday in Seoul for a nuclear security summit agreed to work on securing and accounting for all nuclear material by 2014. But widespread fear lingers about the safety of nuclear material in countries including former Soviet states, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and India.
"It would not take much, just a handful or so of these materials, to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and that's not an exaggeration, that's the reality that we face." President Barack Obama told world leaders at the meeting, a follow-up to a summit he hosted in Washington in 2010.
There's an "immense difference between the difficulty of making safe, reliable weapons for use in a missile or combat aircraft and making crude, unsafe, unreliable weapons for delivery by truck." Matthew Bunn, an associate professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based nonproliferation group that tracks the security of world nuclear stockpiles, said in a January report that 32 countries have weapons-usable nuclear materials. Some countries, such as the United States, maintain strict controls already. However others, including Russia and other former Soviet republics, have struggled to secure their stocks, raising fears of "loose nukes" falling into the hands of terrorist groups.
It's unclear how nations will enforce the summit's goal of securing nuclear material by 2014.
SOUTH AMERICA
Brazil works to stop sexual exploitation of minors
BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil has taken on more than 2,000 websites that promote Latin America's biggest country as a sex tourism destination, the Tourism Ministry said Tuesday.
In 2011, the ministry identified 2,169 websites with photos of women in sensual poses and invitations for sexual encounters with minors, the ministry said in a Tuesday statement. Many of the sites were hosted in the United States.
The ministry said that 1,100 of the websites have eliminated their sex-oriented content and that it was trying to convince the remaining sites to do the same.
Early last year, Brazil started distributing posters and ads warning that sexual exploitation of minors is a crime. They were distributed in countries from where most tourists to Brazil come from — the United States, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
Tackling the websites is part of an ongoing campaign to combat the sexual exploitation of minors during the 2014 World Cup.
"The exploitation of sex is a crime and those responsible for it must be punished," Tourism Minister Gastao Vieira said in the Tuesday statement.
He said the ministry's campaign that focused on Brazil's "natural beauties, cultural diversity and friendly people" helped attract more than 5 million foreign tourists in 2011.
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