Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/60233
Friday, March 30, 2012 – Daily News 7A WORLD BRIEFING Sunni leaders mostly shun Arab League summit BAGHDAD (AP) — Sunni Muslim rulers largely shunned an Arab League summit hosted by Shiite-led Iraq on Thurs- day, illustrating how pow- erfully the sectarian split and the rivalry with Iran define Middle Eastern politics in the era of the Arab Spring. The crisis in Syria is the epicenter of those divisions. The one-day summit closed with a joint call on Syrian Presi- dent Bashar Assad to stop his bloody crackdown on an uprising seeking his ouster. But the final state- ment barely papered over the differences among the Arab nations over how to deal with the longest-run- ning regional revolt. ''What disturbs the breeze of our Arab Spring and fills our hearts with sadness is the scenes of slaughter and torture committed by the Syrian regime against our broth- ers and sisters in Syria,'' said Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, leader of Libya's National Transitional Council. In a snub to Iraq, only 10 heads of state from the Arab League's 22 mem- bers attended, with the rest sending lower-level officials. Especially notable were the absences of the rulers of Saudi Ara- bia, Qatar and most other Gulf countries, as well Morocco and Jordan — all of them headed by Sunni monarchs who deeply distrust the close ties between Baghdad's Shiite-dominated govern- ment and their top region- al rival, Iran. The Gulf countries also see Iraq as too soft on Syria. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have talked of arm- ing Syria's opposition, apparently eager to bring the fall of Assad and break the Sunni-majority country out of its alliance with Iran. Going negative: Romney's primary ad strategy NEW YORK (AP) — Rick Santorum doesn't care about the unemploy- ment rate. Newt Gingrich has ''more baggage than the airlines.'' Both are Washington insiders who have bent their principles for money and influence. So say Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his allies. That advertising play- book has helped make Romney his party's likely presidential nominee and could offer a preview of what awaits President Barack Obama in this summer's general election campaign. Voters in early primary states have seen plenty of this ad strategy already: a torrent of attacks on Rom- ney's opponents along with a few positive spots about the GOP front-run- ner's biography and busi- ness experience. The strategy, devised by Rom- ney's campaign and an allied independent group, has been focused and unforgiving, all but evis- cerating the former Mass- achusetts governor's rivals while portraying the candidate as an effective manager and devoted family man. ''The ads have been very effective,'' says Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, a conserva- tive-leaning super politi- cal action committee. They've catapulted Rom- ney ''into a very strong position in the Republican primary without going so far that he's alienated swaths of independent voters.'' Workers make Apple products on illegal overtime NEW YORK (AP) — The Chinese workers who often spend more than 60 hours per week assem- bling iPhones and iPads will have their overtime curbed and their hourly wages raised after a labor auditor hired by Apple Inc. inspected their facto- ries. The Washington-based Fair Labor Association says Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the Tai- wanese company that runs the factories, is commit- ting to reducing weekly work time to the legal Chinese maximum of 49 hours. That limit is routinely ignored in factories throughout China. Auret van Heerden, the CEO of the FLA, said Hon Hai is the first company to com- mit to following the legal standard. Apple's and FLA's own guidelines call for work weeks of 60 hours or less. The FLA found that many workers at the Hon Hai factories want to work even more overtime, so they can make more money. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, told the FLA that it will raise hourly salaries to compen- sate workers for the reduced hours. Assad pledges cooperation with UN plan BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's President Bashar teens. Health officials attribute the increase largely to better recog- nition of cases, through wider screening and bet- ter diagnosis. But the search for the cause of autism is really only beginning, and officials acknowledge that other factors may be helping to drive up the numbers. Assad said Thursday he will spare no effort to make U.N. envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan a success, but demanded that armed opponents battling his regime com- mit to halting violence. In brazen attacks, gunmen kidnapped a high-ranking military pilot outside the capital and assassinated two army colonels in the country's business hub, in what appeared to be part of a stepped-up campaign by the bat- tered opposition against the symbols of Assad's power. The violence Thurs- day underlined the Syri- an government's predicament: Accep- tance and implementa- tion of the U.N. plan, which calls for a full cease-fire, risks spelling the end of an autocratic regime which has relied largely on brute force to stay in power over the past four decades. Assad's condition of an express promise from the opposition to stop attacks could compli- cate Annan's attempts to bring an end to more than a year of violence that the U.N. says has killed more than 9,000 people. The opposition has cautiously welcomed Annan's six-point plan, but it is also deeply skeptical Assad will carry it out, believing he has accepted it just to win time while his forces continue their bloody campaign to crush the uprising. Armed rebels are unlikely to stop fighting unless offensives by security forces halt. It is also difficult for rebel forces to uniformly stop fighting since there is no central command structure. Video raises doubts about gunman's story MIAMI (AP) — Newly released police video of a handcuffed George Zimmerman may be important for what it doesn't show: No obvious cuts, scrapes, blood or ban- dages. No clearly bro- ken nose. No plainly visible evidence of a life-and-death struggle with Trayvon Martin. As the furor over race and self-defense raged on in Florida and around the U.S. on Thursday, Martin's family and supporters seized on the footage to dispute Zim- merman's claim that he shot and killed the unarmed black teenager after the young man attacked him. While cautioning that the video is grainy and far from conclusive, some legal experts agreed it does raise questions about Zim- merman's story. The video was made about a half-hour after the shooting Feb. 26. ''It could be very sig- nificant,'' said Daniel Lurvey, a former Miami-Dade County homicide prosecutor. ''If I were the prosecu- tor, it would certainly be Exhibit A that he did not suffer any major injury as a result of a confrontation with Trayvon Martin.'' Zimmerman attorney Craig Sonner said on NBC's ''Today'' show that the footage appears to support his client's story in some respects. House OKs GOP budget but battle shows difficulties WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided House approved a $3.6 trillion Republican budget on Thursday recasting Medicare and imposing sweeping cuts in domes- tic programs, capping a battle that gave both political parties a cam- paign-season stage to spotlight their warring deficit-cutting priori- ties. But the partisan divi- sions over the measure, which is dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate, also underscores how tough it will be for lawmakers to achieve the cooperation needed to contend with a tsuna- mi of tax and spending decisions that will engulf Congress right after this fall's elec- tions. ''This is very easy,'' Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group that advocates debt reduction, said of House passage of a bud- get that will go no fur- ther in Congress. ''When you get to the budget bomb at the end of the year, it's for real. You're going to actually have to pass some- thing.'' The fiscal plan the House passed Thursday by a near party-line 228-191 vote would reshape and squeeze savings out of Medicare and Medicaid, the feder- al health insurance pro- grams for the elderly and poor. It would force deep cuts in a wide range of spending, including rail projects, research and Pell Grants for low-income college students. It would block Presi- dent Barack Obama's plans to raise taxes on couples earning above $250,000 a year. Instead, it would col- lapse the current six income tax rates into just two, with a top rate of 25 percent — well below the current 35 percent ceiling — while erasing tax deductions and other breaks that the GOP plan failed to spec- ify. Autism in US more common than thought ATLANTA (AP) — One child out of 88 is believed to have autism or a related disorder, an increase in the rate attributed largely to wider screening. Advocacy groups seized on the new num- ber as further evidence that autism research and services should get more attention. ''Autism is now offi- cially becoming an epi- demic in the United States,'' said Mark Roithmayr, president of Autism Speaks, at a news conference where the new figures were released Thursday. The previous esti- mate was 1 in 110. The new figure is from the latest in a series of stud- ies that have steadily raised the government's autism estimate. This new number means autism is nearly twice as common as officials said it was only five years ago, and likely affects roughly 1 mil- lion U.S. children and Judge ends Lindsay Lohan's supervised probation LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lindsay Lohan's days as a criminal defendant could be over — if she can behave herself. A judge on Thursday ended the long-running probation of the prob- lem-prone actress in a 2007 drunken driving case after a string of violations, jail sen- tences and rehab stints. The 25-year-old actress will remain on informal probation for taking a necklace with- out permission last year, but will no longer have a probation officer or face travel restrictions and weekly shifts cleaning up at the morgue. Lohan, wearing a powder blue suit and black blouse, let out a sigh of relief as she left Judge Stephanie Saut- ner's courtroom, possi- bly for the last time. ''I just want to say thank you for being fair,'' Lohan told the judge. ''It's really opened a lot of doors for me.''