QUOTE OF THE DAY
“When I regained my senses, Reshma told me,‘Brother, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.’”
Zayed Islam, who fainted when he saw his sister, Reshma Begum, who survived 17 days before being rescued from a collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh Article, this page
Cyclone nears riot-torn area of Burma
BANGKOK - A tropical cyclone in the Andaman Sea is headed close to an area in Burma where tens of thousands of victims of ethnic and religious violence are living in makeshift camps, adding urgency to fears of what the United Nations has termed a looming “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Of the more than 130,000 people forced to flee their homes in rioting between Buddhists and Muslims over the past year in western Burma, around half are living in low-lying camps near the sea, the U.N. says.
Human-rights organizations have issued repeated warnings that the displaced people are at risk of disease and hunger during the rainy season, which begins this month and continues until around September.
Projections on Saturday by the U.S. Navy Marine Meteorology Division estimated that the cyclone would reach land around Wednesday.
2 join Iran presidential race at deadline
TEHRAN, Iran - Registration for Iran’s June 14 presidential election closed Saturday with two potential front-runners signing up at the last minute to determine a replacement for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the founders of the Islamic republic who also has expressed sympathy with the opposition movement that grew out of the disputed 2009 post-election protests, signed up minutes before the deadline.
So did Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close aide to Ahmadinejad who has been promoted by the president in recent weeks.
Ahmadinejad, who has fallen out of favor with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and squabbled with other top officials, is constitutionally unable to run this time.
Rafsanjani and Mashaei’s registration will change the dynamics of a race that analysts had previously said may mostly consist of like-minded politicians loyal to Khamenei and, as such, unlikely to challenge his core domestic and foreign policies.
Immigrant in Milan attacks with pickax
ROME - An illegal alien in Italy went on a rampage with a pickax in Milan at dawn Saturday, killing a passer-by and wounding four others in an apparently random attack, police said.
The 21-year-old immigrant was taken into custody shortly after the attacks in a residential area on the northern outskirts of Milan, according to Carabinieri paramilitary police in the city. Two of the wounded were in critical condition.
People working in cafes and other businesses near the attacks told Sky TG24 TV that the man wildly swung a pickax, running down streets and striking passers-by, mainly on the head. Pools of blood stained the streets.
A 40-year-old man died after being struck on the head and abdomen with the pickax, police said. The victim was described as an unemployed man who was heading to a cafe near his home.
A man in his 20s who was helping his father deliver newspapers to newsstands was among those wounded. Also wounded was a man walking his dog.
When asked about the motive, Col. Biagio Storniolo told reporters the suspect “was not being cooperative. He says only that he is hungry and has no home.”
The man, identified as Mada Kabobo, was jailed and is being investigated for murder and two counts of attempted murder for the two people who were critically wounded, police said. The suspect, who had no documents on him, was identified by fingerprinting.
Japan defends yen’s fall at G-7 meeting
AYLESBURY, England - Japan convinced its partners in the Group of Seven leading industrial economies Saturday that it was not manipulating its currency as part of an attempt to get its economy out of a near two-decade period of stagnation.
At the conclusion of a two-day meeting of leading financial representatives from the Group of Seven countries - the U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom - host British Treasury chief George Osborne said there was a formal acknowledgement that each member needed to secure his country’s growth by balancing austerity measures with growth-enhancing policies.
Japan, the world’s No. 3 economy, has drawn attention over recent months as the new government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has embarked on a radical policy of aggressive monetary stimulus to restart the country’s postwar boom, which effectively ground to a halt in the early 1990s.
Front Section, Pages 10 on 05/12/2013