LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I tell the young men who carried arms to change and reform, take part in the dialogue for a new Syria and you will be a partner in building it.” Walid al-Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, offering representation in a new Cabinet to rebels who lay down their weapons and join a national conference Article, this pageGandhi gets party No. 2 post in India

JAIPUR, India - Rahul Gandhi, the descendant of India’s Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, was elevated Saturday to the governing Congress party’s No. 2 post, positioning him to lead the party that his family has long dominated in parliamentary elections next year.

Gandhi, a 42-year-old lawmaker, will be the party vice president, a position behind his mother Sonia Gandhi, who is the Congress party president, spokesman Janardhan Dwivedy told reporters.

Rahul Gandhi is now expected to be the party’s candidate for the post of prime minister in elections in mid-2014.

Manmohan Singh, a technocrat, was chosen to fill the prime minister’s seat in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi.

Singh was widely seen as a regent, keeping the seat warm until Rahul Gandhi - the son, grandson and greatgrandson of Indian prime ministers - was ready to take his birthright.

But Gandhi displayed little public sign that he is undergoing any sort of apprenticeship that would prepare him for running the country. He has never held a Cabinet-level position.

Gun pointed at speaker; Bulgarian held

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgarian police detained a man after he pointed a gas pistol at an ethnic Turkish party leader as the official was delivering a speech at a party caucus in the capital Saturday. No shots were fired.

The video from the Saturday event in Sofia shows the man climbing the podium where Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, was speaking, and pointing the gun at his face.

Dogan struck the man before he could pull the trigger, while other delegates wrestled the man to the ground.

Police arrested him and took him to a hospital. It wasn’t immediately clear if he suffered serious injuries or how he got past security guards to enter the hall with nearly 3,000 people attending.

The attacker was identified by police as 25-year-old Oktai Enimehmedov, a Bulgarian citizen and ethnic Turk from the coastal city of Burgas. He was carrying the gas pistol and two knives. A gas pistol is a nonlethal weapon used for self-defense, but experts say when fired from close range it can cause life-threatening injuries.

Vatican lauds Obama on gun control

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican praised President Barack Obama’s proposals for curbing gun violence, saying they are a “step in a right direction.”

The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Saturday that 47 religious leaders have appealed to members of the U.S. Congress “to limit firearms that are making society pay an unacceptable price in terms of massacres and senseless deaths.”

“I am with them,” Lombardi said, in an editorial carried on Vatican Radio, lining up the Vatican’s moral support in favor of firearm limits.

“The initiatives announced by the American administration for limiting and controlling the spread and use of weapons are certainly a step in the right direction,” Lombardi said.

Obama is trying to rally support for reinstating a ban on assault weapons and requiring background checks on all gun sales. He faces stiff opposition in the U.S. Congress and from powerful gun lobbies.

Pakistani’s death stirs march in Greece

ATHENS, Greece - Several thousand people marched through central Athens on Saturday to protest a spate of anti-immigrant attacks in Greece, including the fatal stabbing of a 27-year-old Pakistani immigrant by suspected right-wing extremists.

Earlier in the day about 150 members of Greece’s Pakistani community and a handful of Greeks gathered outside Athens City Hall to say prayers and pay their respects to Shehzad Luqman, the Pakistani who died Thursday.

Greece has been suffering a surge in anti-immigration sentiment during its 3-year-old economic crisis, which has decimated living standards and led to high unemployment.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/20/2013