LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We are determined to continue with all peaceful means, whatever it takes to defend our legitimate rights.”
Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei,
addressing Egyptian protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Article, this page
Thieves grab 70 gold bars from boat
WILLEMSTAD, Curacao - Masked men in jackets emblazoned with the word “police” boarded a fishing boat Friday in Curacao and stole 70 gold bars worth an estimated $11.5 million, officials in the southern Caribbean island said.
The boat’s captain was struck in the head in the earlymorning assault before the thieves made off with the gold in three cars, police spokesman Reggie Huggins said. Authorities think there were at least six men involved in the heist. No suspects were in custody.
Huggins declined to say who owned the approximately 476 pounds of gold but he said it was a legal shipment that was being trans-shipped through Curacao and officials in the island had been advised in advance that it was arriving as part of normal security protocols. He declined to disclose the metal’s eventual destination.
Israel OKs building of 3,000 homes
JERUSALEM - Israel on Friday approved the construction of 3,000 homes in Jewish settlements on Israeli-occupied lands, a government official said, drawing swift condemnation from the Palestinians a day after their successful U.N. recognition bid.
The Palestinians reiterated their refusal to resume negotiations with Israel while building continues. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently poised for re-election to another four-year term and insisting that any negotiations begin without preconditions, prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian partition deal appear to be going into deep freeze.
The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem as a nonmember observer state, setting off jubilant celebrations among Palestinians.
Israel fiercely objected to the U.N. upgrade, saying Palestinian statehood could only come from direct negotiations and unilateral moves would harm that prospect.
The Palestinians said the U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war was an attempt to salvage a possible peace deal.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned Israel’s announcement, saying it was “defying the whole international community and insisting on destroying the twostate solution.”
Virus steals Japanese rocket data
TOKYO - Japan’s space agency said Friday that information on one of its newest rockets was stolen from a desktop computer by someone using a computer virus.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the virus, in a computer at its Tsukuba Space Center northeast of Tokyo, was found to be secretly collecting data and sending it outside the agency.
The agency said that after the virus was detected by anti-virus software Nov. 21, it conducted an emergency sweep for viruses that showed no other computers at the center had been infected.
The agency said it was unclear if the virus was a cyber-attack. Japanese defense companies, however, have been recent targets of similar information-stealing viruses, some previously traced back to China.
The data stolen from the space agency included information about the Epsilon, a solid-fuel rocket still under development. While the Epsilon is intended to launch satellite and space probes, solid-fuel rockets of that size also can have a dual military use as intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Bangladeshi workers protest fatal fire
DHAKA, Bangladesh - Hundreds of garment workers protested Friday outside a Bangladeshi factory where 112 people were killed in a fire, demanding compensation for their lost salaries, while relatives of those who did not survive gathered nearby, hoping against hope to find the remains of loved ones.
Sonia Afrin wailed in grief outside the factory gates, begging for word of her brother, Kabir Parvez. Dozens of bodies, too badly burned to be identified, were buried soon after the Nov. 24 fire.
Nearby, about 300 workers chanted “Want Justice” and “Want Compensation” in front of the closed Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory in a Dhaka suburb. They have been out of work since the fire in the impoverished South Asian country, which relies hugely on its $20 billion-ayear garment industry.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 12/01/2012