LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It will be very, very dangerous. Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million
people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already.”
Claude Surena,
president of the Haitian Medical Association, as a cholera epidemic raged in central Haiti Article, this pageItaly to seize nasty garbage dump
ROME - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi promised a swift solution to the latest garbage crisis in southern Italy, saying Friday that the government will take over management of a local dump where angry residents and police have clashed for days, and pledging compensation.
Berlusconi held an emergency meeting in Rome after the clashes in Terzigno, a small town near Naples, where protesters have set vehicles ablaze, burned Italian flags and hurled stones and firecrackers at police. The residents were protesting the purported stench and poor conditions of the local dump, as well as plans to open a new one in the Vesuvio National Park.
Berlusconi blamed the dump’s condition on poor management from a local operator and said the Civil Protection Department would take over managing the dump.
The government was also making about $20 million available for compensation for residents and new projects in the area, the premier said.
Turkey accuses 5 of al-Qaida links
ANKARA, Turkey - Police have detained five people, including three university students, suspected of providing financial and technical support to the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan, police and reports said Friday.
One of the suspects is also accused of preparing for a possible bomb attack, according to a police official in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
The state-run Anatolia news agency, without citing sources, identified one of the suspects by his initials A.K.
and said police discovered about half a gallon of hydrogen peroxide and other materials used to make bombs while searching his home in the central Turkish city of Kayseri.
The report claimed the suspect was in search of fertilizers used in the production of bombs when he was arrested.
The 23-year-old mathematics student at Izmir’s Dozkuz Eylul University was also developing computer programs designed to down or jam unmanned aircraft, the agency claimed. Police also seized video CDs showing A.K. outdoors, trying out homemade explosives, it said.
Guinea presidential runoff postponed
CONAKRY, Guinea - Guinea’s election chief on Friday called off a weekend presidential runoff, yet another delay of a tense poll already overshadowed by violent protests and bitter disagreements.
“It is not possible to hold the presidential election on Sunday,” said electoral chief Siaka Toumani Sangare.
He did not say when a new date would be announced.
The announcement comes amid growing violence and a U.N. report alleging human-rights violations by Guinean security forces.
A doctor at Conakry’s main hospital said Thursday night that he treated several men who appeared to have been hurt in a scuffle between supporters of presidential candidates Cellou Dalein Diallo and Alpha Conde. The doctor, who did not give his full name, said two of the victims were comatose when they arrived with severe head injuries and that one later died.
Filipino slain after killing 3 at school
MANILA, Philippines - An ex-convict stabbed nine people at a Philippines elementary school Friday, killing three, before parents wrestled away his knife and stabbed him to death with it, police said.
The man killed a teacher, a fifth-grader and an elderly man who was among those who tried to grab the attacker’s knife, police Superintendent Hado Edding said.
The man first barged into a room at the Talisayan Elementary School in Zamboanga City in the south and fatally stabbed a teacher, Edding said.
He then went to another room, herded fifth-grade pupils into a restroom and stabbed them one by one until the adults stopped him.
Edding said the attacker was Fely Mateo, who had served a prison sentence for murder.
He described Mateo as mentally disturbed, but it wasn’t clear what prompted the attack.
Front Section, Pages 8 on 10/23/2010