QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The current priority is to save lives.We should grasp the golden period for saving lives and waste not a moment.”
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, overseeing relief work after a deadly earthquake in China’s Sichuan province Article, 1A
Tobacco magnate Paraguay’s leader
ASUNCION, Paraguay - Paraguayans elected a tobacco magnate as their new leader Sunday, returning the conservative Colorado Party to the presidency that it held for 61 years before former Roman Catholic Bishop Fernando Lugo won the office in 2008.
Horacio Cartes won a five-year term with 46 percent of the vote over 37 percent for Efrain Alegre of the Radical Liberal party, the Electoral Court announced after most votes were counted. Five other candidates trailed far behind.
“I’ll need help from all the Paraguayans to govern in the next five years. Poverty, the lack of jobs for young people and international issues await us,” Cartes said Sunday night.
Alegre recognized his defeat despite saying earlier that he might challenge the outcome. “The Paraguayan people have spoken. There’s nothing more to say,” he said in a brief concession speech.
Doctors upgrade raped girl’s condition
NEW DELHI - The condition of a 5-year-old girl who was purportedly kidnapped, raped and abused by a man and then left alone in a locked room in India’s capital for two days has improved, a doctor said Sunday, as protests continued over the authorities’ handling of the case.
The girl was in critical condition when she was transferred Thursday from a local hospital to the largest government-run hospital in the country. But D.K. Sharma, medical superintendent of the state-run hospital in New Delhi where the girl was being treated, said Sunday that she was responding well to treatment and that her condition had stabilized.
Police say the girl disappeared April 15 and was found two days later by neighbors who heard her crying in a locked room in the same New Delhi building where she lives with her family. The girl was alone when she was found, having been left for dead by the man after the attack, police say.
A 24-year-old man was arrested Saturday in the eastern state of Bihar, about 620 miles from New Delhi, in connection with the attack. After being flown to New Delhi, he was in custody Sunday and was being questioned, police said.
2 attacks leave 9 dead in Afghanistan
KABUL - Insurgents killed six police officers at a checkpoint and a suicide bomber killed three civilians at a shopping bazaar in separate attacks Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, while an independent security group warned 2013 is on track to be one of the most violent years of the war.
April already has been the deadliest month this year for security forces, and Afghan and foreign civilians as the U.S.
and other countries prepare to end their combat mission by the end of next year. According to an Associated Press tally, 222 people have been killed in violence around the nation this month, including Sunday’s nine fatalities.
The Taliban ambushed the checkpoint in the Dayak district of Ghazni province, killing six police officers, wounding one and leaving one missing, said Col. Mohammad Hussain, deputy provincial police chief. The checkpoint was manned by Afghan local police, forces recruited at the village level that are nominally under the control of the Afghan Interior Ministry.
The second attack on Sunday hit Paktika province, which borders Ghazni. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a shopping bazaar around midday, killing three people and wounding five civilians and two police officers, said Mokhlis Afghan, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Among the dead was Asanullah Sadat, who stepped down as the district’s governor two years ago.
Serbian leaders to accept Kosovo deal
BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia’s ruling parties pledged Sunday to support an agreement to normalize relations with former province Kosovo that could end years of tensions and put both states on a path to European Union membership.
Kosovo, considered by nationalists to be the medieval cradle of the Serbian state and religion, declared independence in 2008. Belgrade had pledged never to recognize the secession.
The EU brokered the tentative deal in Brussels on Friday in talks with the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo. The agreement would give Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership authority over rebel Kosovo Serbs. In return, the minority-group Serbs would get wide autonomy within Kosovo.
During an urgent session that started late Sunday, Kosovo’s parliament voted in favor of a resolution to support the initial agreement.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/22/2013