THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008
NEWS
5A
ODD NEWS Children's book to explain tummy tucks. nose jobs
There are books for children on just about every tough subject these days. But mommy's plastic surgery?
Michael Salzhauer, a Florida plastic surgeon, has written about just that in "My Beautiful Mommy," a picture book due out April 28 that tries to calm the fears of kids with parents getting tummy tucks, breast enhancement procedures and nose jobs.
In "My Beautiful Mommy," Salzhauer explains mommy's recuperation, changing look and desire for plastic surgery.
"Children are very perceptive," said the father of four, with his fifth child on the way. "You can't hide a major surgery from them."
A Tibetan nun pulls her friend as police offends to try detain her during a demonstrating outside the Chinese Embassy in Katmandu, Nepal, Thursday. Tibetan exiles in Nepal resumed their protests against China and the cultural genocide in Tibet.
Illustrations show a crook-nosed mom with loose tummy skin under her half-shirt picking up her young daughter from school one day and taking her to "Dr. Michael."
Mom explains she's going to have operations on her nose and tummy and may have to take it easy for a week or so. The girl asks if the operations will hurt, and mom replies,"Maybe a little," warning she'll look different after the handbags come off.
The girl asks:"Why are you going to look different?"
Mom responds: "Not just differ ent, my dear — prettier."
NATION
NATION Lethal injection ruled constitutional by court
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN, Texas — Many states wasted little time trying to get executions back on track following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the use of a three-drug lethal cocktail.
Almost immediately, Virginia lifted its death penalty moratorium. Mississippi and Oklahoma said they would seek execution dates for convicted murderers, and other states were ready to follow.
The ruling Wednesday "should put an end to the de facto moratorium on the death penalty caused by legal challenges to this method of execution," said Kent Scheideger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a nonprofit group that supports the death penalty.
The nation's high court voted 7-2 Wednesday to reject inmates' challenges to the procedure in Kentucky that use three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.
OLYMPICS Tibetan exiles arrested during protest in Nepal
KATMANDU, Nepal — Nepalese police detained more than 500 Tibetan exiles decrying a crackdown in their homeland in a protest near the Chinese Embassy on Thursday, police said.
Police officers in blue camouflage uniforms chased down red-robed Buddhist monks and nuns and other Tibetans, struggling with the protesters and dragging them along the ground as they resisted. They were tossed into vans and open trucks and driven to detention centers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This photo shows the entrance to the execution chamber and the lethal injection table at California's San Quentin State Prison. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow lethal injections for death row inmates affirmed California's capital punishment procedure and would allow executions to resume.
Police official Sarbendra Khanal said that 505 Tibetans were detained from at least three separate protests near the embassy in an upscale neighborhood.
It was so far the largest number of Tibetans detained in Nepal's capital, Katmandu, since the exiles began almost daily protests last month against a Chinese crackdown in Tibet.
Spanish officials call for cull of mischievous monkeys
WORLD
MADRID, Spain — A renegade group of Gibraltar's Barbary apes has annoyed residents so much that authorities announced plans Thursday to kill them.
A cluster of 25 Barbary apes — a species of monkey usually weighing about 15-25 pounds — moved to a popular beach-side area some months ago where they have been stealing food, entering rooms through open windows and harassing tourists, officials said.
The territory's tourism minister, Ernest Britto, has decided to kill the beach dwelling group, government spokesman Francis Cantos said.
"I can confirm that tourism minister Britto has decided to issue a license for a cull," said Cantos.
"The decision was not taken lightly. It is a last resort," Britto told the Gibraltar Chronicle newspaper.
The newspaper said two monkeys have already been captured and given lethal injections.
The pack, part of the territory's population of around 200, invaded a sandy beach area called Catalan Bay where they remained because they were able to rummage for
food.The area is popular with tourists and has a luxury hotel.
Britto said he determined that the monkeys posed a danger to public health.
The animals mainly inhabit the high ground of Gibraltar, a British colony off Spain's southern tip.
POLITICS
POLITICS Carter asks Hamas to halt violence against Israel
CAIRO, Egypt — Jimmy Carter held another meeting with officials from the Islamic militant group Hamas on Thursday, arguing it is necessary to talk to all parties to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
The former U.S. president said he urged Hamas leaders from the Gaza Strip to stop militants from firing rockets into southern Israel. The Cairo meeting came a day after Carter talked with Hamas officials in the West Bank, further angering Israelis when he embraced one of them.
Making what he calls a private peace mission, Carter was scheduled to be in Syria on Friday for talks with Hamas' exiled political chief, Khaled Mashaal, and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Carter's meetings with Hamas which Washington lists as a terrorist group, have drawn sharp criticism from Israelis, U.S. officials and some of Carter's fellow Democrats, including presidential candidate Barack Obama.
growth while drawing flak for claims of shady practices.
In carrying out their probe, however, prosecutors discovered what they said were serious irregularities, long alleged by civic groups, that Samsung engaged in dubious financial deals to ensure corporate control passes from Lee to his son.
Samsung vows to reform amid corruption charges
BUSINESS
SEOUL, South Korea — Scandal plagued Samsung Group vowed Thursday to reform the way it does business after its powerful chairman was indicted on criminal charges.
Special prosecutors earlier Thursday indicted Chairman Lee Kun-hee on charges of evading 112.8 billion won ($114 million) in taxes and breach of trust, ending a three-month probe prompted by allegations by a former Samsung lawyer.
But the prosecutors dismissed the most explosive claim — that Samsung used subsidiary companies to raise a slush fund to bribe influential South Koreans — saying there was no evidence.
Besides the top boss, nine other Samsung executives were indicted including the group's vice chairman.
That's a familiar refrain from South Korea's biggest conglomerate, which for decades has helped drive the country's economic
CRIME
ARAPAHO, Okla.— Authorities have charged a western Oklahoma sheriff with coercing and bribing female inmates so he could use them in a sex-slave operation run out of his jail.
Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess resigned Wednesday just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him, including 14 counts of second-degree rape, seven counts of forcible oral sodomy and five counts of bribery by a public official.
》 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Burgess, the top officer in the county of 26,000 since 1994, appeared in court Wednesday was released after posting $50,000 bail.
U.S., Britain leaders meet at White House President Bush, Prime Minister Brown discuss war in Iraq, global trade
"We are stunned," Undersheriff Kenneth Tidwell said Thursday.
Sheriff arrested in forced prostitution scandal
A federal lawsuit filed in October claims Burgess told one drug court participant he would have her sent to prison if she didn't comply with his sexual demands.
Among other things, Burgess is accused of having sex with a female drug court participant who was in his custody. The crimes are to have occurred between October 2005 and April 2007.
One prisoner alleged she became a jail trusty with more freedom after agreeing to perform a sex act on Burgess, but lost that status when she later refused.
The lawsuit, filed by 12 former inmates, alleges the sheriff's employees had them engage in wet T-shirt contests and offered cigarettes to those who would flash their breasts.
Attorney Steve Huddleston said that he has not had a chance to review all the allegations against his client, but that "Mr. Burgess is anxious to go to court and clear his name."
Burgess also faces two counts each of sexual battery, rape by instrumentation and subornation of perjury, and one count each of engaging in a pattern of criminal offenses, indecent exposure and kidnapping.
BY JENNIFER LOVEN ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tried to dispel doubts about their relationship on Thursday, showcasing personal bonhomme as well as common ground on a range of vexing issues, from the war in Iraq and a
Brown particularly appeared to make an effort to move beyond the leaders' frosty first meeting in July.
showdown with Iran to global trade and crises in Sudan and Zimbabwe.
prime minister, then only a month in office as successor to top Bush ally Tony Blair, was given a coveted invite to the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David. But he displayed stiff formality that led some to question whether he would work as closely as Blair — or much at all — with Bush.
GORDON BROWN Prime Minister of England
nearly 90-minute Oval Office session between the two.
On Iran, Brown offered staunch support for his host's tough stance on the need to rein in Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Brown said "I make no apology" for seeking to persuade European leaders to extend European sanctions against Iran, to include
The British
"Iran is in breach of a nonproliferation treaty. Iran has not told the truth to the international community about what its plans are."
That didn't seem in question in the Rose Garden after Thursday's
going to cook the intimate dinner the two leaders and their wives were to share in the evening in the White House residence.
investments and liquefied natural gas. "Iran is in breach of a nonproliferation treaty," he said. "Iran has not told the truth to the international community about what its plans are."
Brown announced shortly after taking office that he would reduce British troop levels in Iraq. But that plan, to drop British troop numbers from about 4,000 to 2,500 starting within weeks, is now on hold until Iraqi security forces
Blair's popularity plummeted because of his support for Bush, making Brown wary up to now about forging ties that are too close and suffering the same fate. But Brown even went so far as to
Likewise on Iraq, Brown's focus — like Bush's — was on the "substantial progress" being made by a U.S.-led coalition of troops.
ago; frustration with the slow pace of peacekeeping help for Sudan's violent Darfur region, and belief in the need for a global deal lowering tariffs and liberalizing trade.
make gains in driving out militias from the oil-rich southern city of Basra.
The two displayed no daylight in their views on other key topics as well, including criticism of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's refusal to release results of elections believed to have been won by opponents three weeks
There was even gentle ribbing about whether Bush actually was
The British
invoke Blair's name in promising to align himself with the U.S. leader.
GORDON BROWN Prime Minister of England
leader praised Bush's anti-terrorism leadership effusively, saying "the world owes President George Bush a huge debt of gratitude." He called the president's programs to battle AIDS and malaria in Africa "pioneering work." He labeled their session an "excellent meeting" that left the bond between the two nations "stronger than ever."
"The world owes President George Bush a huge debt of gratitude."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"As Tony Blair said, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the American people and
Even before his trip, Brown had said he hoped to strengthen ties through coordinated efforts to shore up the world economy and work on climate change.
with President Bush." Brown said. "And I continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in rooting out terrorism wherever we find it in any part of the world which puts freedom, democracy and justice at risk."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, right, meets with former U.S. President Carter at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday. Hamas said a delegation from Gaza had entered Egypt for a meeting with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The Islamic militant party, which rules the Gaza Strip, announced Wednesday two of its Gaza leaders, Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siyam, were going to meet Carter in Cairo either Wednesday or Thursday.
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