| Global update |
Today Saturday Sunday
High: 58 High: 55 High: 54
Low: 48 Low: 43 Low: 46
Precip: 30% Precip: 80% Precip: 40%
IN BRIEF
Weakened Arafat heads
to Paris for treatment
RAMALLAH, West Bank — An
ailing Yasser Arafat — too weak to
stand, unable to hold down food
and spending most of Thursday
sleeping — agreed to leave his bat
tered West Bank compound for the
first time in more than two years
and fly to Paris for urgent medical
treatment. The 75-year-old Palestin
ian leader’s planned departure
Friday, a decade after he arrived in
the West Bank with the promise of
statehood, could mark the end of
an era. Arafat, who hoarded
power and declined to groom a suc
cessor, leaves behind a people in
disarray.
Insurgents slaughter
11 Iraqi soldiers
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents
slaughtered 11 Iraqi soldiers, be
heading one, then shooting the oth
ers execution-style, and declared on
an Islamic militant Web site Thurs
day that Iraqi fighters will avenge
“the blood” of women and children
killed in U.S. strikes on the guerrilla
stronghold of Fallujah. The wave of
foreigner kidnappings claimed an
other victim — a Polish woman in
her 60s who is married to an Iraqi.
Her captors demanded that Poland
withdraw its 2,400 soldiers and that
the U.S.-led coalition free all Iraqi
women held at Abu Ghraib prison.
UN urges US to lift
sanctions on Cuba
UNITED NATIONS — For the
13th straight year, the U.N. General
Assembly overwhelmingly urged
the United States to end its more
than four decade trade embargo
against Cuba, rejecting Washing
ton’s argument that Fidel Castro is
“a tyrant” who denies basic human
rights to Cubans.
The Cuban-sponsored resolution
calling for the embargo to be re
pealed “as soon as possible” was
approved by a vote of 179-4 with
one abstention, very similar to last
year’s vote of 179-2 with two
abstentions.
The resolution is not legally bind
ing and Cuba’s Foreign Minister Fe
lipe Perez Roque said the U.S. gov
ernment has ignored it for the last
12 years. But he said “that does not
diminish the importance and mo
mentousness” of the vote to the
Cuban people and to show the
worldwide opposition to the 43
year-old trade embargo.
Trial begins for Cleric
tied to Bali bombing
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A Mus
lim cleric accused of heading the
terror group blamed for the Bali
bombings proclaimed his innocence
as his trial opened Thursday, and
said the charges were the work of
President Bush and “his slave” —
Australian Prime Minister John
Howard.
Abu Bakar Bashir is charged with
heading the al-Qaida-linked group
Jemaah Islamiyah and with involve
ment in two attacks — the Bali
nightclub bombings and a suicide
blast at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in
Jakarta last year.
The United States and Australia
also accuse the 66-year-old cleric of
being a key Southeast Asian terror
leader.
“I am innocent. The charges are
baseless,” a relaxed-looking Bashir
told reporters before the trial began.
“All those people who do not agree
with the interests of George Bush
are called terrorists,” Bashir said.
FBI investigating
Halliburton contracts
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FBI
has begun investigating whether the
Pentagon improperly awarded no
bid contracts to Halliburton Co.,
seeking an interview with a top
Army contracting officer and col
lecting documents from several gov
ernment offices. The line of inquiry
expands an earlier FBI investigation
into whether Halliburton over
charged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq,
and it elevates to a criminal matter
the election-year question of
whether the Bush administration
showed favoritism to Vice President
Dick Cheney’s former company.
Rumsfeld suggests
explosives were moved
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sug
gested Thursday that the removal of
377 tons of explosives from an Iraqi
munitions base probably took place
before U.S. forces arrived, saying
any large effort to loot the material
afterward would have been detect
ed. “We would have seen anything
like that,” he said in one of two ra
dio interviews he gave Thursday at
the Pentagon. “The idea it was sud
denly looted and moved out, all of
these tons of equipment, I think is
at least debatable.”
Peru students drown
in Lake Titicaca
LIMA, Peru — Eleven people, in
cluding nine high school students
and their teacher, were killed when
their boat was upended by high
winds on Lake Titicaca, officials
said Thursday.
The boat filled with water and
sank Wednesday night as the stu
dents — aged between 12 and 16 —
returned from a school excursion to
a local island, said Dr. Humberto
Quispe, from the regional hospital
in Yunguyo, 980 kilometers (607
miles) southeast of Lima.
Three 16-year-old survivors were
pulled from the waters, Quispe said.
Titicaca, the world's highest navi
gable lake at 3,811 meters (12,503
feet) above sea level, straddles Peru
and Bolivia and is a popular tourist at
traction, famous for its floating is
lands made out of reeds.
Moscow to install vehicle
checkpoints at city schools
MOSCOW — Moscow authorities
plan to install video cameras, erect
fences and set up vehicle check
points at the city's public schools to
prevent terrorist attacks like the
Beslan school hostage seizure last
month, Deputy Mayor Valery Shant
sev said Thursday.
Shantsev said the measures, which
were approved by a regional anti-ter
rorism commission, also include
"panic buttons” that would allow ad
ministrators to communicate with
law enforcement in case of emer
gency, according to the ITAR-Tass
news agency.
Video cameras will monitor
schools inside and out and guards
will be stationed at entries to check
vehicles, he said. New fences will be
erected and existing fences reinforced
at the more than 1,000 elementary
and secondary public schools in the
Russian capital.
ITAR-Tass said authorities plan to
spend nearly 1 billion rubles (US$34.8
million, euro27.4 million) to set up
the new security measures; parents
would be expected to help pay for
hiring guards.
— The Associated Press
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University of Oregon Cultural Forum
great events
• .oQ
/:ju & iu p.m. in rix, jbu ..
Thriller 80s Halloween Dance
10 p.m. until 2 a.m. in the EMU Fishbowl_FREE
Nov. 4:
New Zone Collective Opening Reception
5 p.m. in the Buzz & Aperture Galleries......FREE
Jason Harris: Glass Works Opening Reception
6 p.m. in the Adel! McMillan gallery..FREE
Control Room
9 p.m. in PLC 180----FREE
fcto»2;
http://culturalforum.uoregon.edu
And You Will Know Us By the Trail off the Dead
w/ Forget Cassettes and Dance Disaster Movement
8:30 p.m. at WOW Hall .—$12, $14 drs.