THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012
PAGE 3A
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Press
EUROPE
MOSCOW — Russia's top investigative agency has launched a probe regarding videos on Internet that purport to show fraud during the country's presidential election, even though it hasn't taken place yet.
Investigative committee questions claims of election fraud
Kremlin critics have accused authorities of secretly producing the videos themselves to discredit genuine evidence of what the opposition fears will be a fraud during Sunday's vote.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is
The Investigative Committee said Thursday that it is looking for the authors of the videos, which are dated March 4 — the day of the presidential vote.
all but certain to reclaim the presidency in the election and he already has claimed that the opposition is preparing to fake evidence of voting rigging to discredit the balloting.
During Russia's parliamentary election in December, authentic videos taken at polling stations by volunteer observers showed vote rigging. Those videos angered the public and helped fuel a series of gigantic anti-Kremlin rallies, the biggest show of discontent since the Soviet collapse 20 years ago.
Despite those rallies, Russian authorities continue to stonewall opposition demands to punish the officials who have been accused of
carrying out the vote rigging then.
Last month, the Investigative Committee claimed that many of the videos showing fraud in December also were fake and that they were posted from a server in California. That statement followed Putin's claims that the U.S. has been behind the opposition protests.
Golos, Russia's leading independent election monitoring group, checked the only December video identified by the Investigative Committee as fraudulent and said the investigators doubted its authenticity because they had made a mistake in identifying its location.
MIDDLE EAST
Two more Americans killed in Afghanistan, tensions rise
KABAL, Afghanistan — Two American soldiers were killed Thursday in a shooting by an Afghan soldier and a literacy teacher at a joint base in southern Afghanistan, officials said, the latest in a series of deaths as anti-Americanism rises following the burning of Qurans by U.S. soldiers.
Both were killed on the same day that the top NATO commander allowed a small number of foreign advisers to return to work at Afghan ministries after more than a week of being locked down in secure locations because of the killing of two other Americans.
Afghan security forces — or militants disguised in their uniforms —
Thursday's killings raised to six the number of Americans killed in less than two weeks amid heightened tensions over the Feb. 20 burning of Qurans and other Islamic texts that had been dumped in a garbage pit at Bagram Air Field near Kabul. More than 30 Afghans also were killed in six days of violent riots that broke out after the incident.
have staged a number of attacks against Americans and other members of the international alliance in recent years. But the recent deaths have been linked to the Quran burnings.
The U.S. has said it is committed to staying the course in Afghanistan despite the recent riots and killings, but Thursday's deaths are bound to impact the pivot training and mentoring program as foreign combat forces prepare to withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.
ASIA
U.S. plans to help rid North Korea of nuclear weapons
SEUL, South Korea in another sign of warming relations between two wartime foes, a senior North Korean nuclear negotiator will attend a security conference in the United States, a U.S. official confirmed Thursday.
Word of RI Yang Ho's visit to the forum held by Syracuse University comes on the heels of a breakthrough agreement that will provide much-needed U.S. food aid to North Korea in exchange for a rollback of its nuclear programs.
The agreement announced
Wednesday sets in motion a plan laid out by North Korean leader Kim Jong II before his death in December: to improve relations with the U.S. and to get back to six-nation disarmament-for-aid negotiations. Significant challenges remain, however, in achieving the long-term goal of the U.S. and other nations: to persuade Pyongyang to end its nuclear ambitions altogether.
The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Robert Willard, said Thursday he is hopeful but not optimistic about the latest efforts to get North Korea to end its nuclear
weapons program.
Still, there was cautious hope that North Korea's relations with the U.S. and its allies have turned a corner after years of tensions. The agreement calls on Pyongyang to suspend uranium enrichment and place a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.
The U.S. and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations, but the measures laid out in the deal announced Wednesday include facilitating "people-to-people" exchanges.
ASIA
Endangered snow leopards found in remote mountain range
SRINAGAR, India — A pair of rare, reclusive snow leopards have been photographed wandering a remote, mountain region once ravaged by conflict between India and Pakistan.
Infrared camera traps set up months ago by World Wildlife Fund-India filmed the adult snow leopards in Kargil district just a few miles from the heavily militarized Line of Control that runs through the disputed territory of Kashmir.
WWF-India says it is the second photo sighting of endangered snow leopards in Kargil, after one was photographed
hunting a herd of Asiatic Ibex in 2009.
The recent sighting has encouraged environmentalists as it suggests the big cats were not scared away from the Kargil mountains by the 1999 India-Pakistan conflict that killed hundreds of soldiers on both sides before a cease-fire was established with U.S. mediation.
Snow leopards are considered the most endangered of big cats and face threats from poaching, habitat loss and retaliatory killings by farmers for lost livestock.
They live in regions of extreme
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND
A rare sight of a snow leopard, known as Pantheria Uncia, photographed in the Kargil district of India's Jammu and Kashmir.
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND
cold and harsh terrain and are difficult to study. Between 4,000 and 6,500 are believed left in the wild in the Himalayan regions of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Siberia, Mongolia, Pakistan and India.
GOVERNMENT
Gay marriage legalized in Maryland
ASSOCIATED PRESS
_BELTSVILLE, Md. — With Maryland legalizing gay marriage, some conservative opponents and religious leaders are counting on members of their congregations, especially in black churches, to upend the legislation at the polls this fall.
Many African American church leaders oppose gay marriage in the liberal-leaning state that's nearly one-third black, and President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is expected to drive many of their congregants to the polls. Opponents submitted draft language for a ballot referendum to overturn the measure just after it passed the Legislature last week.
Gov. Martin O'Malley signed the bill into law Thursday, and it takes effect in January 2013.
Rep. Maggie McIntosh, D-Baltimore City, center, poses for a picture with her partner Dianne Stolenwerk, left, and Stolenwerk's son, Dylan Thomas, right, before Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed the Civil Marriage Protection Act in Annapolis, Md., Thursday, Maryland is the eighth state to legalize gay marriage
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Religious freedom was the very reason for our state's founding and at the heart of religious freedom is the freedom of individual conscience" O'Malley said just before adding his signature to the legislation.
TELEVISION
rschlichting@kansan.com
REBEKKA SCHLICHTING
rechlighting@kansan.com
Student Union Activities (SUA) is hosting KU's own Dancing with the Stars.
Nominated students and faculty in the University community have been nominated to be the "stars". These individuals are paired up with Rock Chalk Dancers and other professional dancers from different studios in Lawrence.
"it's kind of like the actual TV show," said Alex Chamberlain, event programs assistant of student union activities. Chamberlain said SUA will play a video clip of each
couple practicing, and then the couple will perform live.
Over the weekend, some pastors at predominantly black churches were already using their sermons to shop the referendum effort to their congregations, asking members to sign up for email alerts, put their name on petitions and overturn the law now November. The Catholic Church, which has 1.2 million parishioners in Maryland, has also openly opposed the bill.
The judges and audience will select the winners. The first place couple will receive a disco ball trophy, which is a replica of the trophy from "Dancing with the Stars."
The show will start Friday at 7 p. m. at the Kansas Union in the Ballroom located on the fifth floor. Free vouchers are available with a KUID at the Student Union Activities Box Office on the fourth floor of the Kansas Union. The event is also open to the public for $5.
—Edited by Nadia Imafidon
The dancing stars are 10 familiar faces of KU:
Daymond Patterson, KU football player
Libby Johnson, Student Body President
Tim Schlosser, assistant athletic director
Alex Ross, co-founder of KU Dance Marathon
Cody Charles, assistani director of Sabbati Multicultural Resource Center
Emily Lamb, Center for Community Outreach director
Eileen Remley, Big Event director of International Affairs
Jay Lewis, Hillel executive director
Kerry Benson, Journalism lecturer
Lauren Lacy, team leader of Jayhawk Motorsports
When a gay marriage bill fell short in the legislature last year, black pastors were given much of the credit for pressuring lawmakers to oppose it. The measure was pulled from the floor of the House as leaders realized it fell short of the needed votes.
A Sunday service at the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville was filled with murmurs of agreement as a spokeswoman for the Maryland Marriage Alliance rallied the mostly black congregation against the law.
"We will have the last say on how marriage will be defined in Maryland." spokeswoman Dee Powell shouted repeatedly to the audience of several hundred.
"It's a personal value and opinion. It has nothing to do with President Barack Obama," said 54-year-old DeBorah Martinez, who has attended Hope Christian for three years.
Some churchgoers said they are bound by their faith to vote against gav marriage.
Opposition from black pastors in
Opponents will need to collect nearly 56,000 valid voter signatures, equivalent to 3 percent of the people who cast ballots in the 2010 gubernatorial election, to put the measure on the November ballot. Even gay marriage advocates expect the referendum to end up on the ballot.
Maryland belies an overall political stance that routinely includes their endorsement of Democratic candidates and support for their agendas.
S six states and the District of Columbia currently recognize gay marriages. The state of Washington has also legalized gay marriage, and its law takes effect in June. Voters there are expected to petition the measure to referendum this fall.
Maine legalized the unions for same-sex couples in 2009, but later that year became the only state overturn a such a law passed by a legislature.
Meanwhile, about 30 states have constitutional amendments that seek to prohibit gay marriage, most by defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Donald Norris, chairman of the department of public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County, said black churches could heavily influence the referendum, but liberal voters who come out to support Obama could offset the votes against same-sex marriage.
A number of factors could tip the vote on a referendum, Norris said. For example, a weak Republican presidential candidate could mean conservative voters stay home and don't cast ballots against the law.
"It's going to really depend upon a variety of things that are going to happen between now and November," Norris said.
Gay marriage advocates are hoping that young voters — whom they expect to support their cause — will turn out for Obama as they did in 2008.
"I think Obama's election turns out a number of different people," said Sultan Shakir, campaign manager for Marylanders for Marriage Equality, a coalition of gay rights groups that worked to get the bill passed. "(There is) a lot of attention around people who attend church, but there are plenty of other demographics who are going to be turned out."
KU UNIVERSITY
THEATRE
The University of Kansas
Reserved seat tickets are on sale in the KU ticket offices University Theatre, 864-3982; Lied Center, 864-ARTS, and online at www.kutheatre.com. Tickets are $18 for the public, $17 for senior citizens and KU faculty and staff, and $10 for all students. All major credit cards are accepted. The University Theatre is partially funded by the KU Student Senate Activity Fee. The University Theatre's 2012 season is sponsored by the KU Credit Union.
STUDENT SENATE
ENGLISH SENATE
KU CREDIT UNION