QUOTE OF THE DAY
“No legitimacy could come out of this phantom election in a devastated country.” Romain Nadal,
spokesman for France’s Foreign Ministry, after Syrian
President Bashar Assad announced his candidacy for the June presidential elections Article, this page
S. African invokes Mandela, urges voting
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa’s president urged voters to head to the polls next week in the spirit of “democracy and freedom” as he unveiled a large bronze bust of the country’s most famous anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, in front of Parliament on Monday.
“May the spirit of Madiba also inspire all South Africans as they vote yet again on the 7th of May,” President Jacob Zuma said in Cape Town, referring to Mandela by his clan name and revealing a bronze sculpture on a granite plinth standing more than 6 feet high.
South Africans are celebrating 20 years of democracy.
Mandela’s election in 1994 ended decades of white rule and his example of forgiveness after 27 years in prison inspired millions around the world. Mandela died in December at the age of 95.
The May 7 election is likely to see the ruling African National Congress return to power with a smaller majority than in past elections, reflecting discontent with the movement that led the fight against apartheid.
N. Korea calls South’s leader a prostitute
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea expressed outrage Monday over a rhetorical attack on President Park Geun-hye by the North Korean government that likened her to a prostitute in a tirade beyond the North’s often strident standards.
The statement issued by the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea expressed anger over U.S.
President Barack Obama’s visit to Seoul last week. It said Park was like a “despicable prostitute” with Obama as her pimp.
“She thus laid bare her despicable true colors as a wicked sycophant and traitor, a dirty comfort woman for the U.S.
and despicable prostitute selling off the nation,” said the statement, which was carried by the North’s state-run media on Sunday and broadcast on nationwide television on Monday.
In a statement, South Korea’s Unification Ministry strongly criticized the comments. It also noted North Korea just two months ago called for both Koreas to stop slandering each other.
The tirade was in response to Obama’s visit to Seoul on Friday and Saturday.
Chinese man said to kill 6 in car-ramming
BEIJING - A man distressed by his divorce case intentionally rammed a car into electric scooters and pedestrians near a school in southeastern China on Monday, killing six people, including three children, according to police and state media.
Police subdued Lin Jianxin, 37, with a water gun when he threatened to set gasoline on fire after his disabled vehicle halted in the village of Zhuangtou in the southeastern province of Fujian, the government-controlled Southeast Express said.
Fuzhou police said in a written statement that the serial collisions killed six, including three children, and injured 13 others. Police said the man lost control emotionally because of marital problems.
The Southeast Express said a court heard the man’s divorce case in the morning and that he rammed into vehicles and pedestrians about noon during a school break.
Polish Holocaust march draws 10,000 Jews
OSWIECIM, Poland - Some 10,000 young Jews from Israel and around the world marched on Monday between the two parts of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German death camp in Poland in memory of Holocaust victims, notably some 430,000 Hungarian Jews who perished there.
The silent annual march began when the shofar, a ram’s horn used for Jewish religious purposes, sounded by the former camp’s notorious “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) gate.
Carrying Israeli white and blue flags and wearing blue rain jackets, the participants walked 2 miles in a drizzle from the gate to a stone memorial in Birkenau to hear an address by Hungarian President Janos Ader in memory of the victims. They were accompanied by some survivors, Israeli Ambassador to Poland Zvi Rav-Ner, Former Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel, Meir Lau and Polish youths.
During World War II, the Nazis killed some 1.1 million people at the camp, mostly Jews but also Russians, Roma, Poles and others.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 04/29/2014