THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012
PAGE 3
S PHOTO
The
aggres-
cet on y, third e order property was not
ce man
p.m on
road on
duties
appear in
s set at
an man a.m. on e Street espass- He was
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SOUTH AMERICA
Uruguay's President Jose Mujica, 74, stands in a tractor on his flower farm on the outskirts of Montevideo. Uruguav. Sundav
Uruguay considers controversial laws
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguayans used to call their country the Switzerland of Latin America, but its faded grey capital seems a bit more like Amsterdam now that its congress has legalized abortion and is drawing up plans to sell government-grown marijuana.
Both measures would be unthinkable in many other countries. Cuba is the only other nation in the region that makes first-tri-mester abortions accessible to all women, and no country in the
And while lawmakers have yet to debate pot sales, Mujica's ruling Broad Front coalition staked its ground in August by openly declaring that the drug war has failed. Smoking pot — if not growing and selling it — is already legal in Uruguay, and supplying the weed is a $30 million business, the government said.
world produces and sells pot for drug users to enjoy.
But President Jose "Pepe" Mujica, a flower-farming former leftist guerrilla, vowed to sign whatever bill congress could settle on that can minimize the 30,000 illegal abortions his government says Uruguayan women suffer annually.
This is democracy "a la Uruguaya" — the Uruguayan way — a phrase that reflects both the pride and the unmet promises of a society where finding common ground is a highly shared value, in stark contrast to many other countries where voters are divided by us-and-them politics.
EUROPE
Court convicts experts for earthquake deaths
Great Risks Commission, and several are prominent scientists or geological and disaster experts.
LAQUILA, Italy — Defying assertions that earthquakes cannot be predicted, an Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter Monday for failing to adequately warn residents before a temblor struck central Italy in 2009 and killed more than 300 people.
The court in L'Acquila also sentenced the defendants to six years each in prison. All are members of the national
Scientists had decried the trial as ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting earthquakes. News of the verdict shook the tightknit community of earthquake experts worldwide.
case "hits you in the gut."
"It's a sad day for science," said seismologist Susan Hough, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, Calif. "It's unsettling." That fellow seismic experts in Italy were singled out in the
In Italy, convictions aren't definitive until after at least one level of appeals, so it is unlikely any of the defendants would face jail immediately.
"I am dejected, desperate," Enzo Boschi, former head of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, said after the verdict.
State TV noted that this was the first time prosecutors had brought a case based on the failure to predict an earthquake.
Associated Press
ASIA
Farmers fight for land against urban sprawl
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MINGALADON, Myanmar The landscape of Mingaladon township on the northern outskirts of Myanmar's main city tells a story of economic upheaval. Skeletons of factories for a new industrial zone rise from thick green rice paddies local farmers say were seized by one of Myanmar's most powerful companies.
One Sunday in July, some 200 farmers took to the streets of Yangon, the main city, to protest the Mingaladon land acquisition by the Zaykabar Company. It was the first legal protest to be held in Myanmar since a 1988 uprising against military rule was crushed and came just days after a new law allowing peaceful demonstrations was passed by parliament. In the past, protesters have been arrested or shot.
Myanmar means farmers and others are challenging land confiscations in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
"The farmers know their rights and dare to demand their rights," said Het Het Oo Wai, a former political prisoner who has joined the fight over Mingaladon. "They didn't dare do that kind of thing two years ago," she said.
The fight over land in Mingaladon is one of many such battles in Myanmar. Human rights groups say land battles are intensifying because companies tied to the military and business elite are rushing to grab land as the country emerges from five decades of isolation and opens its economy. Not only that. The political change sweeping through
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nay Myo Wai, chairman of Peace and Diversity, talks during an interview in Yangon, Myanmar.
Before Myanmar's political reforms began, its military junta exercised unfettered power and in the state dominated economy the ruling generals had the last word on who owned what.