QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I started to hear the walls creak, and I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
Rodolfo Duarte, 32, who fled his third-floor apartment in Mexico City after it was shaken by a magnitude-7.2 temblor that struck northwest of Acapulco on Friday Article, 2A
Algerian president claims his 4th term
ALGIERS, Algeria - President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won a fourth term in office with 81 percent of the vote, according to preliminary figures announced Friday by the Algerian government.
His chief opponent, Ali Benflis, who garnered only 12 percent of the vote, said the election Thursday was marked by “fraud on a massive scale” and vowed not to accept the results.
Election officials said turnout was 51.7 percent of the North African nation’s 23 million registered voters, down from the 75 percent turnout for Bouteflika’s last win in 2009.
The Algerian commission tasked with supervising the election and African Union observers said the vote went smoothly.
Bouteflika has garnered between 75 percent and 90 percent of the vote in his four presidential contests - figures described by opposition politicians as inflated.
Bouteflika represents stability for many Algerians after a decade-long civil war in the 1990s against Islamist insurgents.
However, after being hit by a stroke last year, Bouteflika was left visibly weakened. Bouteflika was wheeled into the polling station to cast his ballot Thursday in his first public appearance since May 2012.
Boat in Good Friday ritual sinks; 7 die
KUPANG, Indonesia - A boat loaded with people in a Good Friday procession capsized in high waves off eastern Indonesia, leaving dozens of people missing and at least seven dead, police said.
Rescuers and fishermen saved 30 injured people who were taken to a hospital, local police spokesman Lt. Col.
Okto Riwu said. The fishing boat was designed to hold only 30 people but had more than 70 aboard.
It was participating in a Good Friday ceremony that involves parading a Virgin Mary statue at sea before the passengers headed into Larantuka town in East Nusatenggara province for prayers and processions.
With strong currents and high waves off Flores Island, the boat began to tip and many people panicked. It sank shortly after a 6½-foot wave crashed into it.
Filipinos nailed to crosses in annual rite
SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines - Devotees in northern Philippine villages had themselves nailed to wooden crosses to re-enact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as thousands of local and foreign spectators watched the bloody annual rites to mark Good Friday in Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation.
Sign painter Ruben Enaje, 53, had himself nailed to a cross at a dusty mound in Pampanga’s San Pedro Cutud village for the 28th year. He began his yearly rite after surviving a fall from a building. Men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered stainless-steel nails into his palms and feet, as a crowd of onlookers stood with cameras ready to capture his and other penitents’ agony.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, discouraged the crucifixions.
“If what you do makes you love others more, then it is pleasing to God,” he said. “But if you do it for photographs, just to be famous, that is spiritual vanity.”
The Health Department also discouraged the practice because of health risks. Health Undersecretary Eric Tayag urged devotees to get anti-tetanus shots.
‘Not after war,’ Iranian president says
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s president underscored his moderate policies and outreach to the West in a speech Friday during a military parade on the country’s National Army Day.
Referring to the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the world powers over Tehran’s contentious nuclear program, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran has shown it has no hostile intentions toward anyone in the world, including the United States, which has long been considered an enemy.
Talks are ongoing for a deal that would remove all possibilities that the Islamic Republic could use its capabilities to build a nuclear weapon.
“During the talks, we announced to the world and we say so again … we are not after war, we are after logic, we are after talks,” Rouhani said.
He touted Iran’s diplomatic outreach and said the backing of the military and the nation was crucial.
The Iranian president made no mention of archrival Israel but said Iran “will not invade any country,” although it would “resist any invasion.”
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/19/2014