LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY “As a woman, and mother, I understand how protesters feel.Today we pledge that the victim will get justice.” Sonia Gandhi, president of India’s governing Congress Party, after police said the six men accused of raping a young woman on a bus have been charged with murder Article, 11A
Chavez gets surprise visitor in Cuba
HAVANA - Venezuela’s vice president arrived in Havana on Saturday in a sudden and unexpected trip to visit President Hugo Chavez as he recovers from cancer surgery.
Communist Party newspaper Granma published online a photo of a smiling Vice President Nicolas Maduro being greeted at the airport in the Cuban capital by the island’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez.
“From there, [Maduro] went directly to the hospital where President Hugo Chavez Frias is receiving treatment to greet his family members and Venezuelan Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza Monserrat, and to discuss with doctors the adequate moment to visit the President the same day,” the paper said.
Granma added that Maduro was accompanied by Venezuelan Attorney General Cilia Flores.
Maduro’s trip comes amid growing uncertainty about Chavez’s health.
The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery Dec. 11, and government officials have said he might not return in time for his scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration for a new six-year term.
Mexican marines kill 4 gunmen
MEXICO CITY - Mexican marines have slain four gunmen who apparently were trying to steal the body of a Zetas cartel chieftain killed by the military a day before in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz.
The state government said the gunmen evidently wanted to take the body of Angel Enrique Uscanga, identified as the leader of the brutal gang in that region.
The gunmen shot at marines from a vehicle after they arrived late Friday in the city of Cordoba at the building where authorities were keeping the bodies of Uscanga and four others who had died in a firefight with the military. The marines shot back and killed the four armed men, said a government statement. Authorities confiscated a grenade and other weapons.
Veracruz officials say Uscanga and the other four men had been killed in a confrontation with the military last Thursday, but the government didn’t offer many details of that gunfight other than it also happened in the city of Cordoba. The marines there seized six rifles, a rocket and a rocket launcher.
Building materials arrive in Gaza
EL-ARISH, Egypt - Thousands of tons of building materials such as cement and steel began crossing into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said, temporarily easing a 5-year-old blockade on the coastal territory.
An Egyptian security official said the shipment was made in consultation with Israeli officials, who were in Cairo Thursday to discuss security in the Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreed upon by Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel last month. The Egyptian official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The director of Gaza’s border authority, Maher Abu Sabha, confirmed that a total of 20 trucks carrying materials were expected to arrive in the coastal strip Saturday through the Rafah border crossing.
Qatar is paying for the raw materials that were bought in Egypt, the official added.
France rejects 75 percent tax plan
PARIS - France’s Constitutional Council on Saturday struck down the Socialist government’s plan to impose a 75 percent marginal income tax rate on upper-income earners, a measure that figured prominently among the campaign promises of President Francois Hollande and that had become a divisive emblem of his approach to cutting the budget deficit.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault quickly pledged that the government would reintroduce a revised version of the tax for next year to address the criticisms of the Constitutional Council, which ruled that the measure did not tax affected households equally.
The 75 percent rate was always a symbolic political gesture, as Hollande himself has acknowledged. It was to expire in two years and would have applied only to annual income above about $1.3 million, and so would have affected no more than a few thousand taxpayers.
Front Section, Pages 10 on 12/30/2012