LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Regarding ideological cliches, every time this or that side uses phrases like ‘enemy No. 1,’ this always alarms me.”
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,
on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney referring to Russia as “our No. 1 geopolitical foe” Article,this pageIndonesian fuel-price protests violent
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of rock-throwing Indonesians protesting plans to push up fuel prices by more than 30 percent. Several people were injured and rushed to hospitals.
Rallies were held under tight security in big cities all across the country Tuesday as the parliament debated the increase.
Some lawmakers said the government had no choice but to cut budget-busting fuel subsidies, which have for years enabled motorists to fill up for roughly $2 per gallon. Others argued raising prices could more than double inflation to 7 percent.
Thousands in the nation of 240 million, many of whom live in abject poverty, have taken to the streets in protest every day for the past week.
If a price increase is approved, it will go into effect Sunday.
Footage of French slayings won’t air
PARIS - The Al-Jazeera broadcaster said Tuesday that it would not broadcast footage received by its Paris bureau that appears to show the killings of three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French soldiers in southwestern France earlier this month.
President Nicolas Sarkozy had objected strongly to the idea of airing the images.
In a statement on its English-language website, Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, said it “will not air a video” of the French shootings because the video “did not add any information that was not already in public domain. It also did not meet the television station’s code of ethics for broadcast.”
Zied Tarrouche, the network’s Paris bureau chief, said earlier Tuesday that the footage showed the seven killings carried out by Mohamed Merah, who was killed Thursday in a shootout with the police in the southwestern French city of Toulouse.
New Senegal president runaway pick
DAKAR, Senegal - Senegal’s new president won a runoff in a landslide, garnering nearly twice as many votes as the incumbent of 12 years, according to provisional results released Tuesday.
Senegalese officials announced that Macky Sall had won 65.8 percent of ballots cast in Sunday’s runoff, benefiting from a united opposition in the second round of voting.
Incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade won 34.2 percent of the vote, slightly less than his percentage in the first round last month. It marked a sharp drop from the last presidential race in 2007, when he easily won the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
State media announced that Wade planned to hand over to Sall next Monday and said the 85-year-old incumbent was next headed to Saudi Arabia for a religious pilgrimage.
Wade’s decision to seek a third term in office was fiercely criticized by many Senegalese, and violent protests during the election season left at least six people dead.
False threat spurs Kabul lockdown
KABUL - The Afghan Defense Ministry was locked down for two hours Tuesday after an intelligence report warned that the highly secured compound in the heart of Kabul was under threat of attack. Afghan officials said later the report was false.
In other incidents across Afghanistan, a NATO serviceman died in an explosion in the south, and a militant who led operations for an al-Qaida-linked terror group was killed by Afghan and coalition troops in the north.
In Kabul, two Afghan officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the lockdown at the ministry, said the threat emerged from faulty intelligence.
Several news organizations reported that on Monday nearly a dozen vests packed with explosives were found, and more than a dozen suspects, including Afghan soldiers, were arrested in connection with a purported plot to attack the ministry.
The ministry issued two statements Tuesday, both calling the media reports baseless.
The second statement said, “Sixteen people have not been captured. Eleven suicide vests have not been recovered.”
Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/28/2012