QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I thought I was feeling dizziness, but soon realized they were tremors.”
Mohammad Taimur, a resident of Karachi, Pakistan, a city about 155 miles from the epicenter of a magnitude-7.7 earthquake that killed at least 39 people Article, this page
Rape verdicts appealed in India court
NEW DELHI - Lawyers for four men sentenced to death for raping and murdering a young woman on a New Delhi bus challenged the verdicts at a High Court hearing Tuesday.
The brutal attack in December sparked public debate and fury over chronic sexual violence faced by women in India.
All death-penalty cases in India must be confirmed by a higher court. As part of the proceedings for that, the High Court said that it would begin today hearing prosecution arguments supporting the guilty verdicts and death penalties issued earlier this month, while the defense lawyers file their appeals.
At U.N., Brazil scolds U.S. for spying
UNITED NATIONS - Brazil’s president delivered a rebuke Tuesday to the United States over its surveillance program that has swept up data from billions of telephone calls and emails that have passed through Brazil - including her own.
She also called on the United Nations to create a framework of Internet regulation to halt the U.S. and other nations from using it as the “new battlefield” of espionage.
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly on the first day of its annual meeting, President Dilma Rousseff accused the U.S. of violating Brazil’s sovereignty with what she called a “grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties.”
“In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations,” Rousseff said.
Brazil is an important hub for trans-Atlantic fiber-optic cables. The National Security Agency, tasked with intercepting potential terror communications, also reportedly hacked into the computer network of state-run oil company Petrobras.
Rousseff said the agency collected economic and strategic corporate data, as well as messages by Brazilian diplomats, including to the United Nations, and from her own office.
President Barack Obama’s administration has said its surveillance program does not examine the context of the intercepted messages without evidence that they are suspicious, though reports in Brazilian media outlets based on leaked National Security Agency documents indicated that Rousseff’s emails were read.
No rush to dissolve group, Egypt says
CAIRO - Egypt’s military-backed government Tuesday signaled it was in no rush to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood, preferring to wait for a ruling outlawing the ousted president’s group to be upheld by a higher tribunal.
The Brotherhood rejected Monday’s court verdict and vowed to appeal it.
In the nearly three months since President Mohammed Morsi was ousted, the government has rounded up around 2,000 top leaders, midlevel organizers, and rank-and-file members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails.
Many have been charged with inciting violence.
Hundreds have been killed in government crackdowns, while Morsi supporters have attacked churches and police stations in retaliation.
In New York, meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama said future support for Egypt would depend on its progress in pursuing democracy.
Obama told the U.N. General Assembly that the U.S. will continue to offer support to Egypt in areas such as education, which benefit the Egyptian people. But he said the U.S.
has held up the delivery of certain military aid.
The U.S. provides Egypt with about $1.5 billion a year, mostly in military aid.
China’s Bo appeals corruption verdict
BEIJING - Chinese politician Bo Xilai has appealed his guilty verdict, a person close to the case said Tuesday.
The person, who did not wish to be identified, said the former Politburo member made the appeal orally upon the delivery of the verdict issued by the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China on Sunday.
The court announced that it found Bo guilty of embezzlement, bribery and abuse of power and sentenced him to life in prison. A copy of the verdict was later delivered to Bo, when he informed the court of his decision to appeal, the source said.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 09/25/2013