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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Kabila has to go.We want our country back.”

Col. Vianney Kazarama

of the M23 rebel army in Congo, pledging to topple the government of President Joseph Kabila Article, this pageIndia hangs last ’08 Mumbai gunman

MUMBAI, India - India executed the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack early Wednesday, four years after Pakistani gunmen killed 166 people in India’s financial capital, which was formerly known as Bombay.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani, was hanged in secrecy at a jail in Pune, a city near Mumbai, after Indian President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his plea for clemency.

News of the execution was widely cheered in India, with political parties organizing public celebrations and some people setting off firecrackers.

Indian officials accuse Pakistan’s intelligence agency of working with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba to plan the attack - an allegation Islamabad denies. India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since they were carved out of British India in 1947, suspended peace talks after the Mumbai attack.

Since 2011, the two countries have rekindled the peace talks, taken steps to bolster trade and signed a visa agreement to make cross-border travel easier, but New Delhi’s frustration with Pakistan’s failure to bring those responsible for the attack to justice has complicated efforts to mend relations.

Yemeni military plane crashes; 10 die

SANA, Yemen - A Yemeni military plane crashed early Wednesday during training over the capital, Sana, killing all 10 people on board, security officials said.

The Russian-made Antonov aircraft plunged from the sky and crashed into an empty market in al-Hassaba district at the heart of the Yemeni capital, destroying several shops, the officials said. The market has been abandoned since clashes between the country’s biggest tribal confederation and security forces during last year’s uprising.

The officials said the pilot tried to make an emergency landing after one of the plane’s engines failed, but instead the plane crashed and caught fire. The victims included the pilots and crew members, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the crash site.

There was no indication of sabotage in the crash, the officials said.

Top Iranian averts grilling of president

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s supreme leader has stopped the country’s parliament from grilling the president over the nation’s plummeting currency and economic crisis, the official IRNA news agency reported Wednesday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded that the parliament drop its plan to grill President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying such a session would benefit Iran’s enemies.

Khamanei and Ahmadinejad have been at odds for months, and it appeared that the president’s opponents in the parliament were doing the supreme leader’s bidding when they summoned him for questioning. Ahmadinejad was hauled before the parliament in March, the first time an Iranian president has been questioned by it.

Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, said the parliament’s concern about the economy was positive but that questioning the president before the body “is what the enemy seeks,” a reference to the West.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani wrote to Khamenei accepting his demand that “the respected representatives not continue” with the summons.

Cairo mob firebombs Al-Jazeera office

CAIRO - Egyptian protesters firebombed one of the offices of satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Wednesday and attacked a police chief who tried to negotiate an end to three days of violent protests in central Cairo.

The protesters hit the studio overlooking Tahrir Square with Molotov cocktails, setting it ablaze.

Reporter Ahmed el-Dassouki said protesters set the place on fire, stormed the building and looted the studio.

Many protesters had accused the channel of supporting the country’s most powerful political force, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities confiscated trucks carrying explosive warheads and a variety of small-arms ammunition smuggled from Libya, the interior minister said Wednesday.

The trucks were carrying 108 warheads for Soviet-designed Grad rockets near Marsa Matrouh, 270 miles northwest of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 11/22/2012

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