QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m convinced that there will not be any terrorists left soon in Donetsk and other regions and they will find themselves in the dock - this is where they belong.”
Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov after the country’s military launched its first attack against a pro-Russian uprising in the east Article, 1A
Robot sub scans again at lesser depths
PERTH, Australia - A robotic submarine looking for the lost Malaysian jet began its second mission Tuesday after cutting short its first because the ocean waters where it was sent were too deep, officials said.
Monday’s planned 16-hour search lasted just six hours, and none of the data collected by the U.S. Navy’s Bluefin 21 submarine offered clues to the whereabouts of the plane.
The unmanned sub is programmed to hover 100 feet above the seabed, but it started searching atop a patch that was deeper than its maximum operating depth of 15,000 feet, the search coordination center and the U.S.
Navy said.
A built-in safety feature returned the Bluefin to the surface and it was not damaged, they said.
The data collected by the sub were later analyzed and no sign of the missing plane was found, the Navy said.
Crews shifted the search zone away from the deepest water before sending the Bluefin back for Tuesday’s mission, the Navy said.
Iraqis move prisoners from Abu Ghraib
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s justice minister said authorities have closed down a prison west of Baghdad over security concerns.
Hassan al-Shimmari said Tuesday that 2,400 inmates have been transferred from Abu Ghraib to other prisons in safer areas of the country. He said it was a precautionary measure because the Abu Ghraib facility is in “a restive area.”
The prison is at the edge of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which has been engulfed in clashes between an al-Qaida-splinter group and government forces.
Last July, militants attacked Abu Ghraib and another prison, setting free hundreds of inmates, including many militants. Dozens of other inmates and security personnel were killed in the attack.
9/11-trial judge to look into FBI’s probe
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A judge agreed Tuesday to look into how FBI questioning of a defense team member will affect the trial of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Army Col. James Pohl, presiding over the trial by military commission, rejected a prosecution argument to go forward with a scheduled hearing into the mental competency of one of the defendants or deal with other pending matters.
Pohl agreed with the defense that he must at least explore whether the revelation of an FBI investigation could create a potential conflict of interest for defense members.
The judge said he would reconvene court Thursday to consider the next step in the case.
James Harrington, a lawyer for defendant Ramzi Binalshibh, said Monday that FBI agents questioned a member of his defense team about the release in January of an essay by the lead defendant in the case, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to two media outlets.
Prosecutors acknowledged in court papers that they triggered the investigation by alerting the FBI that the essay, as well as two letters written by Mohammed, had not gone through a required security review. Lawyers for Mohammed say the documents were released under the rules as they understand them.
Chile plan to rebuild excludes hill homes
VALPARAISO, Chile - President Michelle Bachelet vowed Tuesday to reconstruct the port city of Valparaiso according to a master plan that would prevent many of the 12,500 victims of devastating wildfires from rebuilding on hills that cannot be protected from disasters.
The fires that started Saturday and leapt from hilltop to densely populated hilltop may take 20 days to extinguish, Chile’s forestry agency said.
Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo said authorities hope to have them fully controlled by today.
By Tuesday night, the fires had consumed 2,900 homes and killed 15 people while injuring hundreds more, he said.
“We think this is a tremendous tragedy, but … it is also a tremendous opportunity to do things right,” Bachelet said in an interview with El Diario de Cooperativa. “What we’re looking at in terms of reconstruction is how to rebuild in a more orderly manner, better and more worthy” of Valparaiso’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage City.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/16/2014