The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I believe that faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

addressing the U.N.

General Assembly Article, 1A

Burma president

praises Suu Kyi

UNITED NATIONS - Burma’s president Thursday said that his country has taken irreversible steps toward democracy and paid unprecedented public tribute to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

President Thein Sein told the U.N. General Assembly that the country is leaving behind five decades of authoritarian rule.

It was a speech that reflected the momentous changes in the country over the past year, as Suu Kyi has been elected to parliament after 15 years of house arrest, and the country has shed its pariah status.

For the first time, Burma’s speech to the U.N.’s annual gathering of world leaders was broadcast live on state television at home. Never before had such a speech even mentioned the opposition leader, whose peaceful struggle against military rule won international admiration but only the ire of the former junta.

While Thein Sein, a former general, has orchestrated Burma’s political opening, he has not publicly praised Suu Kyi before, nor referred to her as “Nobel laureate” as he did Thursday.

Burma is often called Myanmar, a name that ruling military authorities adopted in 1989.

Mother said to kill 5 of her newborns

BERLIN - A woman killed five of her infants shortly after giving birth in secret at home and in the woods because each time she got pregnant she worried that her husband would leave her if she had any more children, authorities said Thursday.

The woman, 28, who has been arrested on five counts of manslaughter, made a “comprehensive confession” to the killings after turning herself in as a six-year investigation closed in on her, said Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt, the head prosecutor in Flensburg, on Germany’s border with Denmark.

Stahlmann-Liebelt said the woman, whose name was not released in accordance with German privacy laws, has two living children, 8 and 10. But then in 2006 she began hiding her pregnancies, staying away from doctors and hospitals and killing the infants after giving birth to two at home and three in the woods, she said.

The husband has told police that he knew nothing about the pregnancies, Stahlmann-Liebelt said.

Catalans favor

separatism vote

BARCELONA, Spain - The parliament of the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia approved Thursday a resolution foreseeing a vote on independence, while Spain vowed to do “whatever it can” to prevent it.

Catalans will be “consulted” on the “collective future” of the region of 7.6 million residents, preferably during the four-year legislature after the Nov. 25 regional elections, the resolution said.

It was approved with the votes of regional Prime Minister Artur Mas’ Catalan nationalist formation CiU and several smaller parties. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative People’s Party voted against, while the Socialists abstained.

The two parties accuse Mas of fueling separatism to divert attention from economic problems in the heavily indebted region. Mas has adopted unpopular spending cuts in health and education, while regional unemployment has topped 20 percent.

Front Section, Pages 7 on 09/28/2012

Upcoming Events