QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You do not have any legal grounds to provide financial assistance to these bandits.”
Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s ousted president, who denounced the West for recognizing and pledging aid to a government he said took power in a coup Article, this page
Israeli airstrike kills 3 in Gaza Strip
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli airstrike killed three Gaza militants Tuesday near an area where an unmanned Israeli surveillance aircraft crashed earlier in the day, an official in the Palestinian territory said. The Israeli military said it was responding to mortar fire.
The Israeli military said the Skylark drone experienced a technical malfunction and it was investigating what caused it to go down.
Israel uses drones to gather intelligence on militant activity in Gaza, a territory governed by the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, and where several other armed groups also operate.
Hamas militants said they recovered the aircraft in southern Gaza and handed it over to security forces. No further details were immediately available. The Skylark is known to have safeguards to prevent disclosure of information to unauthorized personnel.
Shortly after the drone crashed, the Islamic Jihad movement said an Israeli airstrike hit the area, killing three members belonging to the group.
The Israeli military said it was responding to mortar fire that had just taken place toward Israel.
Libyan parliament ousts premier
TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya’s prime minister lost a vote of confidence Tuesday after a militia controlling an eastern port defied his government’s authority by trying to sell oil.
The parliament named the defense minister, Abdullah al-Thinni, as interim prime minister until a replacement for Ali Zidan is found.
The “no” vote won the support of 121 lawmakers out of the approximately 180 who remain in the legislature, lawmaker Hussein el-Ansari said.
Zidan, whose ouster had been seen as a matter of time to many Libyans, had no immediate public reaction to the vote.
Zidan was elected in 2012 as the first prime minister after the 2011 overthrow and slaying of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
He has had the backing of the liberal-leaning National Forces Alliance against a bloc led by the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, although parliament is divided as much on regional lines as ideological ones.
Gadhafi’s 40-year rule left Libya with few strong state institutions, and Zidan presided over a government that has little authority. In the absence of a strong military and police force, it relies on militias to keep order - but many defy the government, with one of them briefly abducting Zidan last year.
Guilt upheld for CIA 3 in Italy abduction
MILAN - Italy’s highest court upheld guilty verdicts Tuesday against the final three U.S. defendants in the 2003 extraordinary rendition kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect.
The decision, after a series of trials spanning 6½ years, ended the only prosecution to date against the practice by President George W. Bush’s administration of abducting terror suspects and moving them to third countries that permitted torture.
The court upheld guilty verdicts and confirmed the seven-year sentence against the CIA’s former Rome station chief, Jeff Castelli, and six-year sentences against two others identified as CIA agents. All three had been acquitted in the original trial because of diplomatic immunity.
The three are among 26 Americans, mostly CIA agents, who have been found guilty in absentia of kidnapping Milan cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003. They received sentences of six to nine years. Italy later pardoned the only military defendant.
In India, Maoist rebels kill 20 soldiers
NEW DELHI - Indian Maoist rebels ambushed paramilitary soldiers in a brazen daytime attack Tuesday, killing 20 at a camp in a remote central forest and putting authorities on alert just weeks before national elections.
A group of 44 soldiers was guarding road construction workers in the south of Chhattisgarh state when about 200 rebels circled its camp and opened fire, police inspector general Mukesh Gupta said.
Surviving troops fought the rebels in a three-hour gunbattle, but there were no immediate reports of rebel casualties. Police searched nearby jungles within Sukma district, but the rebels escaped, Gupta said.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/12/2014