THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012
PAGE 3A
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Press
AFRICA
Thousands of African troops hunting guerilla leader in wake of Internet campaign
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, speaks with government officials in Congo near the Sudan border July 31, 2006. The African Union said Friday, March 23, 2012, that it will send 5,000 soldiers to join the hunt for Kony, who is accused of war crimes. The mission comes amid a wildly popular Internet campaign targeting the guerrilla leader.
ENTEBBE, Uganda — The African Union says it will send 5,000 soldiers to join the hunt for notorious rebel leader Joseph Kony, a new mission that comes amid a wildly popular internet campaign targeting the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.
Friday's announcement comes the same month an Internet movie campaign by the U.S.-based advocacy group Invisible Children sought to make Kony
The mission is to be launched in South Sudan on Saturday and will last until Kony is caught, United Nations and African Union officials said at a news conference in Uzanda.
"We need to stop Kony with hardware — with military hardware in this case," said Francisco Madeira, the African Union's special envoy on the LRA, on Friday. "We are on a mission to stop him."
"famous" so that policymakers would make it a priority to remove him. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times.
"The awareness has been useful, very important," he said.
Abou Moussa, head of the U.N.'s office in Central Africa, said soaring international interest in Kony had spurred regional efforts to eliminate the LRA.
The hunt for Kony has primarily been carried out by troops from Uganda, who received a boost last year when President Barack Obama deployed 100 U.S. forces to help regional governments in the mission. American soldiers are now based in Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Congo.
The LRA is responsible for 2,600 civilian deaths since 2008, according to the African Union.
EUROPE
MOSCOW — A U.S. led NATO missile defense plan that Washington says is aimed at deflecting potential Iranian threats will break existing
Russia opposes missile defense plan
nuclear parity with Russia and prompt it to retaliate. President Dmitry Medvedev warned Friday.
Moscow rejects Washington's claim the
Medvedev
plan is solely to deal with any Iranian threat and has voiced fears it will eventually become powerful enough to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent.
"No one has explained to me why we should believe that the new missile defense system in Europe isn't directed against us." Medvedev said in a speech at a security conference.
NATO has said it wants to cooperate with Russia on the missile shield, but has rejected Moscow's proposal to run it jointly. Without a NATO-Russia cooperation deal, the Kremlin has sought guarantees from the U.S. that any future missile defense is not aimed at Russia and threatened to retaliate if no such deal is negotiated.
Earlier this week, he told the top Russian military brass that the armed forces must prepare to counter U.S. missile defense plans even as talks between Moscow and Washington are continuing.
Speaking at Friday's conference, he reaffirmed that Russia isn't "shutting the door to dialogue" but warned that "time is running out."
MIDDLE EAST
Families of 17 Afghan murder victims receive extra compensation from U.S.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed and $11,100 for each person wounded in the shooting spree allegedly committed by a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday.
The sums, much larger than typical payments made by the U.S. to families of civilians killed in military operations in Afghanistan, come as the U.S. tries to mend relations following the killing rampage.
Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of sneaking off his base on March 11, then creeping into houses in two nearby villages and opening fire on families as they slept.
U. S. investigators believe the
gunman returned to his base after the first attack and later slipped away to kill again, American officials have said. Bales has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. That would seem to support the U.S. government's assertion that the shooter acted alone, since the killings would have been perpetrated over a longer period of time than assumed when Bales was detained outside his base in Kandahar province's Panjwai district.
The families of the dead, who received the money Saturday, were told that the money came from U.S. President Barack Obama, said Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai.
CENTRAL AMERICA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
From left, Panama's President Ricardo Martinelli, Guatemala's President Otto Perez Molina, and Costa Rica's President Laura Chinchilla, pose for pictures Saturday during a Central America presidential summit in Antigua, Guatemala. Presidents from Central America are meeting ahead of the Summit of the Americas in Colombia in April.
Guatemalan president calls for U.S. to pay for drug interdiction efforts
GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala's president proposed Saturday that the United States and other "consumer" countries pick up the tab for the cost of drug seizures.
Otto Perez Molina made the comment during a Central America meeting that he called to discuss his earlier proposal to legalize drugs, a meeting that drew only two of his counterparts from the region.
"For every kilo of cocaine that is seized, we want to be compensated 50 percent by the consumer countries," he said.
The Guatemalan leader said the United States has a "responsibility" because it has one of the highest rates of drug use.
Drug cartel activity has been increasing in Central America, both as a smuggling route and a base for operations.
Perez Molina said the fight against drug trafficking has failed and governments need to look for alternatives.
The presidents of Panama and Costa Rica did attend Saturday's meeting in Guatemala, and two of the other four Central American nations sent lesser representatives.
Perez Molina first made the drug legalization proposal in February. It has received lukewarm response in the region and opposition from the United States.
He said Saturday that legalization of drug use should be accompanied by a system to regulate the production and consumption of drugs. He also suggested the region decriminalize drug trafficking and instead set up a specific transit corridor with border controls for the registration of drug shipments.
LAW
Attorneys argue killing of Florida 17-year-old
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI - Attorneys for the family of Trayvon Martin and the Florida neighborhood watch captain who fatally shot the unarmed teen joined the national chorus of voices calling Saturday for justice in the case.
As demonstrators took to the streets in major cities such as Washington and Chicago to voice outrage over Martin's death, an attorney for the Martin family told board members of the National Association of Black Journalists that federal and local officials have assured the family that the case is a priority.
Meanwhile, an attorney representing the neighborhood watch captain, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, broadly defended his client and said he believes evidence will show that Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law was properly applied.
Zimmerman has not been charged in the Feb. 26 shooting that has ignited racial tensions and raised questions about the Sanford police's handling of the case. Martin was black, and Zimmerman's father is white and his mother is Hispanic.
"Is George a racist? The answer is no, absolutely not. He's not a racist," attorney Craig Sonner
said about his client. "The incident that transpired is not racially motivated or a hate crime in any way. It was self-defense."
Sonner declined to detail what transpired between Zimmerman and the 17-year-old Martin, but he said he believes the case falls under the "Stand Your Ground" law, which dictates that a person has the right to stand his or her ground and "meet force with force" if attacked.
"I believe what the evidence will show is that this case does fall under that," Sonner said. "I believe we have a good case."
If charges are brought against his client, Zimmerman would be willing to turn himself in to police, Sonner said. "We will follow the law," Sonner said.
A spokeswoman for the Maitland mortgage risk-management firm where Zimmerman reportedly works, Digital Risk, said she couldn't confirm anything about Zimmerman's employment, but that he had not been at work since the shooting.
"Our utmost concern is for the safety of our employees, specifically based on the potential turmoil that could arise from the recent announcement of a bounty for his capture," Brandie Young
Sonner would not say where Zimmerman was.
said Saturday.
Indeed, President Barack Obama weighed in Friday, calling the shooting a tragedy and saying, "When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids."
Amid the outcry over the lack of charges against Zimmerman, the Sanford police chief and state's attorney in the case have both stepped aside.
But Parks added "it was clear from Justice's statements that charges of a hate crime are going to be a challenge."
A woman wipes away tears next to a photograph of Trayon Martin during a rally in support of the slain teenager at Freedom Plaza in Washington, on Saturday. Martin, an unarmed young black teen, was fatally shot by a volunteer neighborhood watchman.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Parks also said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has told the family's legal team that they know Zimmerman's whereabouts, but that it was not
About 400 people rallied Saturday in downtown Chicago to protest Martin's killing.
Martin's parents also met Friday with the newly-appointed special prosecutor in the case, and the family's legal team plans to pursue a civil case against the Twin Lakes homeowner's association, Parks said.
"It's a precedent that with the right excuse it's OK to gun down black males," protester Ashten Fizer said of Martin's killing. "It's a return of Jim Crow."
clear whether they are offering protection to Zimmerman, who has been in hiding and has received death threats in recent weeks.