THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012
PAGE 3
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Because the world is bigger than your oyster
NORTH AMERICA
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The former Haitian dictator known as "Baby Doe" has been summoned to court to be scolded for violating the terms of his house arrest by venturing outside the capital, a judge said Thursday.
Former dictator violates house arrest
Duvalier's attorney argued that his client wasn't violating the law, because no such law exists. He also said he may file a complaint against the judge.
The law "is fantasy," lawyer Reynold Georges said by telephone. The judge "can do whatever he wants but he also has to pay the consequences. I'm a snake. I don't play."
Duvalier faces criminal charges that include embezzlement, torture and murder.
"Jean-Claude Duvalier needs to be in my office by 11:05 a.m." on Friday, Judge Carves Jean told the Associated Press at his courthouse office in downtown Port-au-Prince. "If he's not, he'll be arrested by 11:10 a.m."
After making an unexpected return to his homeland last year, Duvalier was
placed under house arrest, meaning he wasn't authorized to travel outside the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area without legal consent.
The former dictator, always dressed in a navy blue suit, has been seen traveling the country, often at the wheel of a SUV. He delivered a commencement speech to law school graduates at a university in the countryside last month and has been spotted lounging on the beach.
Duvalier attended a memorial service last week that marked the two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake. The event was hosted by President Michel Martelly and guests included former Haitian president Proper Avril and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the United Nations' special envoy to Haiti.
The prosecution of Duvalier has made little headway since it began last year and rights groups fear he will go unpunished.
Captain sinking with ship is traditional
EUROPE
STOCKHOLM. Sweden
Seafaring tradition holds that the captain should be last to leave a sinking ship. But is it realistic to expect skippers to suppress their survival instinct amid the horror of a maritime disaster? To ask them to stare down death from the bridge, as the lights go out and the water rises, until everyone else has made it to safety?
From mariners on ships plying the world's oceans, the answer is loud and clear. Aye.
"It's a matter of honor that the master is the last to leave. Nothing less will do in this profession," said Jorgen Loren, captain of a passenger ferry operating between Sweden and Denmark
and chairman of the Swedish Maritime Officer's Association.
Seamen have expressed almost universal outrage at Capt. Francesco Schettino, who faces possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his crippled cruise ship off Tuscany while passengers were still on board. The last charge carries a possible sentence of 12 years in prison.
Jim Staples, a captain for 20 years, who spoke Wednesday from the 1,000-foot (300-meter) cargo vessel he was captaining near New Orleans, said captains are duty-bound to stay with the ship until the situation is hopeless. When they bail early, everything falls apart.
AFRICA
Refugee men return home to crops
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Six months after the U.N. declared Somalia's capital a famine zone, the number of refugees in the capital is dwindling, as most of the men have gone home to try to revive devastated herds and withered crops.
The women — and the kids — would like to join them, but many don't have enough money. That means fewer hands on the farm and a smaller harvest.
At a sprawling Mogadishu refugee camp that holds 2,700 stick huts, one woman said she was grateful for a plastic sheet over her ramshackle stick hut that keeps her children dry. For another woman, it's a daily cup of porridge for everyone in her family. A third woman says there are fewer problems than there used to be.
But hardship — and danger
— remain. U.N. security personnel say there have been six improvised explosive devices found or detonated in Mogadishu the last two days,
including a blast Thursday at a police checkpoint near a refugee camp that exploded shortly after U.N. personnel and international journalists visited a nearby feeding site. Two police and four refugees were killed in the blast, which did not appear to be aimed at the visiting delegation.
But one promising sign is a lack of men in the refugee camps. Many have gone home to plant crops and try to resurrect herds devastated by a crippling drought. The drought in the parts of Somalia controlled by al-Shabab militants — who allow few aid groups in — turned into famine. Seasonal rains have fallen in drought areas in recent weeks, raising hopes that the situation will improve.
Somali police forces have been fighting each other at a key intersection, and Somali government soldiers in a highly contested Mogadishu neighborhood have abandoned their posts because they have not been paid.
MIDDLE EAST
Syrians stop assaults on small town
BEIRUT, Lebanon
Syrian government tanks and armored vehicles have pulled back from an embattled mountain town near Damascus, activists and witnesses said Thursday, but at least 16 people were killed by security forces elsewhere as a month-long Arab League fact-finding mission expired.
The pullback from Zabadani left the town under the control of the opposition, activists said. The besieged town of Zabadani has witnessed heavy exchanges of fire between army troops and anti-government military defectors over the past six days.
The 10-month uprising against
Syrian President Bashar Assad has
turned increasingly militarized and chaotic as more frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against government forces. The capital has seen three suicide bombings since late December, which the government blamed on terrorist extremists.
Arab League foreign ministers will consider extending the League's observer mission in Syria in a meeting Sunday in Cairo, officials said Thursday.
POLITICS
AP PHOTO/DAVID GOLDMAN
Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pauses while announcing he is suspending his campaign yesterday in North Charleston, S.C. He endorsed Newt Gingrich.
Perry leaves race supports Gingrich
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry dropped out of the presidential race on Thursday, endorsed his old friend Newt Gingrich and returned home to Texas, where the failed White House candidate has three years left to serve as the chief executive.
"I have come to the conclusion that there is no viable path to victory for my candidacy in 2012," Perry said in North Charleston, S.C., just two days before the primary there. "I believe Newt is a conservative visionary who can transform our country."
Money also was a factor, with spokesman Ray Sullivan saying: "We have spent the bulk of our funds." He added that Perry hasn't ruled out running again for governor or the White House in 2016 if President Barack Obama is reelected.
Perry ended his campaign where he launched it last August, when tea party and evangelical Christian leaders hailed him as a charismatic conservative and some early polls showed him as a front-runner for the Republican nomination. But
soon after, Perry's verbal gaffes and poor debate performances sent his campaign into a tailspin from which it never recovered.
It was too soon to tell whether Perry's rocky turn on the national stage had damaged him politically at home. But already there were signs of his diminished clout.
Several Texas donors who fueled his bid indicated they were likely to back Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is considered the more moderate candidate in the race. And South Carolina House speaker David Wilkins, who had supported Perry, ignored the governor's recommendation and shifted his support to Romney, too.
Short of a Gingrich victory leading to a job for Perry in Washington, Perry will most likely stay in Austin where — despite his dismal presidential campaign — he's still considered the most powerful politician in the state. He has appointed more than 1,000 people to key government positions since becoming governor in 2000. State lawmakers also depend on his support.