QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This is how someone talks to people to make them understand.”
Ernest Martinez, a Jesuit priest and retired professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, on Pope Francis’ first Sunday homily Article, 1A
Iran launches destroyer in Caspian Sea
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran launched a domestically built destroyer in the Caspian Sea on Sunday, its first deployment of a major warship in the oil-rich region, state TV reported.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the guided-missile destroyer Jamaran-2 in the port city of Anzali, about 150 miles northwest of Tehran.
He said the deployment aimed to bolster peace and friendship in the region. “The destroyer is there to meet those who want to jeopardize the security of surrounding nations,” he said, without elaborating.
There are multiple disputes between the nations that surround the Caspian - Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - on how the inland sea should be divided.
After final tests, the report said, Jamaran-2 will join Iran’s naval fleet in the sea in coming months.
The 1,400-ton destroyer, which has a helicopter landing pad, is about 102 yards long and can cruise at 30 knots. It is equipped with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles as well as anti-aircraft batteries and sophisticated radar and communications terminals, the report said.
Iran launched a previous version of the Jamaran destroyer in 2010 in the Persian Gulf.
Suspect in NYC woman’s death arrested
ANKARA, Turkey - A Turkish suspect in the killing of a New York City woman in Istanbul was arrested near the Syrian border on Sunday, officials said.
The suspect, identified by authorities only as Ziya T., had been on the run since the body of Sarai Sierra, a 33-year-old mother of two boys, was discovered last month. Authorities said Sierra died of a fatal blow to the head.
She had traveled to Turkey to explore her photography hobby. She did so alone after a friend who was supposed to join her canceled because of financial reasons. Sierra’s body was found hidden near Istanbul’s ancient city walls on Feb. 2, 12 days after her family reported her missing.
Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the suspect was detained in the province of Hatay, near the border with Syria, as he entered Turkey. “We had information that the suspect had escaped abroad. He was believed to be in Syria,” Guler told reporters. “He was detained today in Hatay as he was entering Turkey, and was handed over to court officials.”
Turkish news reports have described the man as a homeless scrap-paper collector who used to hang around the city walls.
N. Korea vows to retain nuclear arms
North Korea said it will never negotiate away its nuclear weapons in the face of hostility, after the U.S. disclosed plans to bolster missile defenses against a potential attack by the totalitarian regime.
“The U.S. is seriously mistaken if it thinks that the DPRK had access to nukes as a bargaining chip,” the official Korean Central News Agency said Sunday. North Korea has “no idea of negotiating with the U.S. unless it rolls back its hostile policy.”
The U.S. is taking several steps to bolster missile defenses and “stay ahead of the threat” posed by Iran and North Korea, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told reporters Friday at the Pentagon. The U.S. will add 14 interceptors to the 30 in its missile-defense system by fiscal 2017, he said.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula are at the highest since at least 2010, with North Korea threatening nuclear strikes and withdrawing from the 1953 armistice that established a ceasefire in the Korean War.
A North Korean military unit fired short-range missiles into the sea off the nation’s east coast, South Korea’s Yonhap News reported Friday, citing an unnamed military person in Seoul. South Korea and the U.S. on March 11 began their “Key Resolve” exercise.
2 car bombs kill 9, injure 24 in Iraq
BAGHDAD - Two car bombs went off Sunday in the Iraqi city of Basra, killing nine and wounding 24 in a rare attack in the Shiite-dominated city south of the country.
All nine deaths resulted from a blast near an outdoor market, said Ali Ghanim, the head of the security committee in the Basra provincial council. He said 19 were wounded in that explosion.
Fifteen minutes earlier, five people were wounded when another car bomb went off near a parking lot by the Tax Department in the port city’s downtown, said Ghanim.
Oil-rich Basra is 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Police and hospital officials confirmed the casualties.
Meanwhile, an al-Qaida-affiliated group in Iraq claimed responsibility for a carefully planned assault on the Justice Ministry in downtown Baghdad last week. The attack, involving car bombs and gunmen disguised as police, killed at least 24 people.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/18/2013