LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If the rain continues, for sure we’ll have more people die.The earth cannot hold the rain.”
Morgue deputy Joseph Franck Laporte
in the western Haitian town of Grand Goave Article, 1AKin see Pakistani, 15, cheer recovery
LONDON - The father of a Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban for her opposition to their hostility to education for girls said Friday that she was “recovering at an encouraging speed” at the British hospital where she is being treated for her wounds.
“They wanted to kill her,” Ziauddin Yousufzai, the father of the girl, Malala Yousufzai, said with emotion, news outlets reported. “But she fell temporarily. She will rise again. She will stand again.”
The 15-year-old was shot while riding a school bus on Oct. 9 in the Swat Valley. She had become a symbol of resistance against the Taliban, advocating access to education for girls in an area that has been one of the Taliban’s main strongholds in Pakistan. She was flown to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the Midlands city of Birmingham on Oct. 15.
Her father and mother, Toorpekai Yousufzai, arrived in Birmingham on Thursday, accompanied by her two younger brothers, Atal Khan, 8, and Khushal Khan, 12.
When the family was reunited Thursday, for the first time since the teenager was flown to Britain, “there were tears in our eyes out of happiness,” her father told reporters. “We all cried a little bit.” He added: “It’s a miracle for us. She was in a very bad condition.”FBI helps French police nab developer
PARIS - An FBI tip helped French police track down and arrest an 87-year-old real-estate developer and his wife wanted by U.S. authorities, more than a year after the couple quietly settled near an Alpine lake, French officials said Friday.
French police arrested former Seattle real-estate developer Michael Mastro and his wife, Linda, on Wednesday at their apartment in the town of Doussard near Lake Annecy. A day later, U.S. authorities handed them a 43-count grand jury indictment on charges of money laundering and bankruptcy fraud - including purportedly lying about the whereabouts of two huge diamonds, valued together at $1.4 million, as part of a bankruptcy proceeding.
Patrice Guigon, a regional state prosecutor based in nearby Chambery, said the couple will remain in custody until a judge rules Nov. 7 on their lawyer’s request for their provisional release. U.S. authorities have 60 days in which to present a formal extradition request. He said the couple had not yet met with American consular officials.
The arrests were made possible after the FBI informed French authorities that Michael Mastro had sought a reimbursement from his U.S. insurance provider for medical care he received in France, according to Julien Duhamel, a judicial police chief in Annecy.
Burma strife’s dead put at 67, not 112
SITTWE, Burma - Authorities on Friday revised downward the death toll from this week’s ethnic violence in Burma’s west, after warning that the strife risks harming the country’s reputation as it seeks to shift to democratic rule.
State television reported Friday night that 67 people had died, 95 were injured and 2,818 houses burned down from Sunday through Thursday in seven townships of Rakhine state.
Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing told reporters shortly before the broadcast that the previous count he had given of 112 dead in violence involving the Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya communities was based on a mistaken tally of figures received by his office. His revised figures of 64 dead and 68 wounded was slightly lower than that given by state television.
Muslims stone ‘devil,’ complete hajj
MINA, Saudi Arabia - Millions of pilgrims in Saudi Arabia on Friday furiously cast pebbles in a symbolic stoning of the devil, carrying out a final rite of hajj, as Muslims around the world celebrated the start of Islam’s biggest holiday, the Feast of Sacrifice.
After stoning three walls symbolizing Satan in a rejection of sin and temptation, male pilgrims changed out of the seamless terry-cloth robes of pilgrimage and shaved their heads, as a sign of renewal. Women and those men who prefer not to undergo a complete shave had a lock of hair clipped.
Though pilgrims will repeat the stoning ritual for at least two more days, they could now call themselves “hajjis,” referring to those who have done the pilgrimage.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 10/27/2012