CAROLINA © BRIEF
Reporters honored
at award ceremony
USC’s School of
Journalism and Mass
Communications awarded
its first Taylor-Tomlin
Award for Investigative
Journalism Thursday,
April 20, to reporters Ron
Menchaca and Glenn
Smith for their March
2005 series, “Tarnished
Badges,” in The Post and
Courier.
Shirley Staples Carter,
director of the school, and
Columbia businessman
Don Tomlin Jr. presented
the award at the school’s
Student Honors and
Awards Night. A $5,000
prize accompanies the
award.
THIS WEEK $ USC
TODAY
Scott Price Faculty Piano
Recital: 7:30 p.m., School
of Music 206
Late Night Carolina:
9 p.m.' to 1 a.m., Strom
Thurmond Wellness &
Fitness Center
TUESDAY
Reading Day
Women's Leadership
Institute: 8:30 a.m. to 1
p.m.. Russell House
WEDNESDAY
Faculty Senate Meeting:
3 p.m., Law School
Auditorium
Kappa Alpha Order
Initiation: 5 p.m.,
Rutledge Chapel
North Pole
students
return
to classes
Jeannette J. Lee
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANCHORAGE, Alaska —
Students were encouraged
to return to North Pole
Middle School Monday
with the assurance that
police would patrol
the halls following the
weekend arrest of six
seventh-graders suspected
of plotting a deadly
attack.
Nine other seventh
graaers also were
suspended in possible
connection with the
elaborate scheme to kill
faculty and classmates
using guns and knives at
the school officials said.
“We’re going to have
school,” said principal
Ernie Manzie. “We feel
that all the students
involved are not at school,
so we feel it’s safe.”
The town of 1,600
people is about 14 miles
southeast of Fairbanks in
Alaska’s interior and is
home to many military
families from nearby
Eielson Air Force Base
and the Army’s Fort
Wainwright.
111 \j umvi LiViuiji\ v ivionaay, zvprii z
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I’M LOOKING THROUGH YOU
Juan Bias / THE GAMECOCK
Lancaster native Julie Roberts performs at 3 Rivers Music Festival on Saturday.
State
Low highway funds
might delay roadwork
State highway
commissioners say some
roadwork will have to wait
if lawmakers don’t provide
some money for the agency.
“We are in dire straits;
there’s no question about
that,” said Commissioner
Bob Harrell Sr., chairman
of the Transportation
Department board’s
finance and administration
committee.
The financial crunch is a
result of increases in the cost
of materials used to build
roads, lack of growth in the
agency’s primary funding
source — gas taxes — and
lower-than-anticipated
federal highway revenues,
said Mo Denny, the agency’s
chief financial officer.
Nation
Nagin wins black vote
in runoff mayor race
NEW ORLEANS — In a
complete reversal of support
from four years ago, Mayor
Ray Nagin scored heavily
with black voters and was
practically abandoned by
whites as he and Lt. Gov.
Mitch Landrieu won spots
in a runoff election for
mayor of New Orleans.
Slightly more than half
of the overall vote was
attributed to black voters,
who favored the top two
candidates, according
to a consulting firm
analyzing data for the city’s
redevelopment authority.
In predominantly white
precincts, Nagin trailed
behind several other
candidates with less than 10
percent, according to GCR
& Associates Inc.
World
On tape, bin Laden
threatens U.S., Europe
CAIRO, Egypt — Osama bin
Laden issued new threats in
an audiotape broadcast on
Arab television Sunday and
accused the United States
and Europe of supporting
a “Zionist” war on Islam
by cutting off funds to
the Hamas-led Palestinian
government.
He also urged followers
to go to Sudan, his
former base, to fight a
proposed United Nations
peacekeeping force.
His words, the first new
message by the al-Qaida
leader in three months,
seemed designed to justify
potential attacks on civilians
— something al-Qaida has
been criticized for even by
its Arab supporters.
Three U.S. soldiers, 27 Iraqis killed as
politicians begin work on new government
Lee Heath
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ' |;j? s
BAGHDAD, Iraq —
Insurgents killed three
American soldiers in the
Baghdad area Sunday and
fired mortars near the
Defense Ministry in a spree
of violence that killed at
least 27 Iraqis as politicians
began work on forming a
new government.
The largest Sunni Arab
party raised new allegations
of sectarian killings — one
of the most urgent issues
facing the new leadership.
U. S. Ambassador
Zalmay Khalilzad said the
next government must
decommission sectarian
militias and integrate them
into the national armed
forces, warning that the
armed groups represent
the “infrastructure for civil
war.”
Sunday’s deaths raised to
eight the number of U.S.
troops killed in the past two
days.
At least 61 American
service members have died
in April, putting it on track
to pass January — with 62
— as the deadliest month
this year. It represents a
jump over March, which
with 31 deaths was the
lowest monthly toll for the
Americans since February
2004.
The three soldiers were
killed Sunday when their
vehicle hit a roadside bomb
northwest of capital, the
U.S. command said.
Twenty-seven Iraqis
also died in other violence
Sunday, including seven
killed when three mortars
hit just outside the heavily
guarded Green Zone in
Baghdad, not far from
Iraq’s Defense Ministry.
Police Lt. Maitham Abdul
Razzaq said it was hard to
identify the seven dead
because the powerful blasts
and shrapnel severed their
limbs and destroyed their
identification cards.
zuuo
Weather Forecast
TODBM TUG. UJGU. THU. PRI.
# 4^~ ^
High 92 High 90 High 69 High Tl High T1
loui 61 Low 63 Low 51 Low 53 Low 55
CRIME REPORT
FRIDAY, APRIL 21
Information, minor in
possession of beer,
1 a.m.
Russell House,
1400 Greene St.
Upon initiating a traffic
stop, the subject, 20, took
responsibility for having
beer in his possession.
Reporting officer:
D. Davis
Malicious injury
to real property,
8:47 a.m.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon,'
509 Lincoln St.
The complainant, 57,
said someone spray
painted two lions.
Estimated value: $300
Reportmg officer:
C. Taylor
Grand larceny
of laptop, 2 p.m.
2718 Middleburg
Plaza
The complainant
said someone removed
two Dell Inspiron 600
laptops.
Estimated value: $4,638
Reporting officer:
D. Adams
Nepal’s fractured
opposition united only
by dislike of king
Tun Sullivan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KATMANDU, Nepal —
The protesters crowding
a Katmandu road in a
whistling, seething mass
Sunday were clearly
unified in their quest to
force Nepal’s king from
power.
They roared their
approval as a straw effigy
of King Gyanendra was
burned. They cheered
demonstrators who dared
to confront police. They
chanted for a return of
democracy and an end to
royal rule.
“Gyanendra go now!”
they shouted.
But that is where
agreement ends.
Watching the
demonstration from the
stump of a roadside tree,
recently chopped down
by protesters to create
a roadblock, a young
lawyer saw little but
contradiction.
Ihese people don t
agree on anything — only
that the king should be
gone,” said Khamraj
Khadka, 26, waving his
hand at the 5,000 or so
protesters.
Tw o weeks of
demonstrations have
regularly brought tens
of thousands into the
streets around Katmandu,
and smaller crowds in
other cities across this
Himalayan nation, but
under that surface unity is
a deeply fractured political
scene.
Politicians ousted when
the king seized absolute
control in February 2005
want back in power with
a restored parliament,
but are widely despised
for ineffectiveness and
corruption. Maoist rebels
want to end generations
of feudal-style rule, but
have a long history of
brutality in areas under
their control.
Many in the crowds
of demonstrators know
they’ve had enough of
their king, but have
thought little about what
could come after.
The political parties and
the Maoists — although
recent allies in a campaign
to oust the king — have
been bitter enemies for
years and still openly
trade insults, leading
many observers to worry
the country could descend
into chaos.
While the king is
desperately isolated, sealed
behind the red brick walls
of his palace and kept in
power only by the loyalty
of his security forces, his
opponents find themselves
make little effort to hide
that they can barely stand
one another.
“Do I trust the Maoists?
Of course not — at least
not completely,” said
Jhala Nath Khanal, a top
official of the Communist
Party of Nepal and a key
intermediary between
the opposition’s seven
party alliance and the
guerrillas. “They talk
about democracy now, but
violence is a part of their
philosophy,”
The feelings are
mutual.
i ne very cnaracter or
the seven-party leaders
fluctuates,” Matrika
Prashad Yadav, a high
level Maoist leader
arrested in 2004, said in
a jail interview. “If they’re
talking to the foreign
powers they say one thing.
If they talk to us they
say another thing ... So
the people do not trust
them.”
Still, they have worked
together effectively since
late last year. Together,
they have organized more
than two weeks of protests
and a general strike that
has brought much of
normal life to a halt and
left Gyanendra badly
weakened.
When the king tried to
calm the situation Friday
by offering to restore
multiparty democracy, his
opponents — Maoists,
politicians and protesters
— scoffed.
Nepal has become, in
many ways, a nation of
political cynics.
Many Nepalis supported
the king when he seized
power, saying he had to
bring order to a chaotic,
corrupt political scene and
defeat the Maoists, whose
10-year insurgency has
killed more than 13,000
people.
Who was I
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