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Three American doctors killed in Afghanistan attack
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The
U.S. Embassy confirmed that three American doctors were shot at Cure
Hospital in Kabul. The Afghan security guard who opened fired is in
custody. CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata reports.
U.S. President Barack Obama addressed students Thursday at the National
Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo after touring the
facility. The president was introduced to ASIMO, a Honda robot that
greeted him in English.
The president is heading overseas to spend the next seven days in Japan,
Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines. Major Garrett reports on how
the president is reaching out to allies worried about Russia and China.
Mitt Romney doubled down on his
position against same sex marriage, telling graduates at Liberty
University Saturday that marriage between "one man and one woman" is an
"enduring institution" that should be defended.
Coming just days after President
Obama endorsed the right of gays and lesbians to marry, the comment
earned Romney a standing ovation from the crowd of more than 30,000
people—the largest crowd Romney has ever addressed as a political
candidate--but it was his only mention of the hot button social issue.
Instead, the presumptive Republican nominee used his commencement
address at that evangelical university to emphasize the importance of
faith and family—and take some slight digs at President Obama's handling
of the country, though he didn't name his 2012 opponent. "Lately, I've found myself thinking about life in four-year
stretches. And let's just say that not everybody has achieved as much in
these last four years as you have," Romney said. " But that's a theme
for another day."
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Indeed,
Romney touched only fleetingly on issues that could be potentially
controversial. His visit to Liberty, a Christian university founded by
the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, was an overt appeal to social
conservatives who have been wary about his White House bid. But his
appearance had generated protests by some Liberty students, where the
curriculum has described Romney's Mormon faith as a "cult."
Romney did not use his Saturday address to specifically defend his
Mormon faith. But he did speak at length about the importance of faith
in his own life—a riff that was clearly an attempt to discourage
suspicion about his personal beliefs. He argued that people, no matter
what they believe, could agree on faith and moral service to the
country. "People of different faiths, like yours
and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when
there are so many differences in creed and theology." Romney said.
"Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral
convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview." He argued that faith and belief in God was more important than
"trivial things"—but acknowledged that he, like others, had occasionally
lost sight of that. He urged the graduates to always turn back to
faith. "What we have, what we wish we had--ambitions fulfilled, ambitions
disappointed; investments won, investments lost; elections won,
elections lost--these things may occupy our attention, but they do not
define us. And each of them is subject to the vagaries and
serendipities of life," Romney said. "Our relationship with our Maker,
however, depends on none of this … The best advice I know is to give
those worldly things your best but never your all, reserving the
ultimate hope for the only one who can grant it." While Romney aides insisted the former governor's remarks would not
be a "policy" speech, he gave a shout out to his former rival Rick
Santorum, saying that he agreed that America's greatness was defined by
its "culture" and "values." And he also argued for the protection of
"religious freedom," saying it's become a "matter of debate." "It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is
sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead
of blessed with," Romney said. "Perhaps religious conscience upsets the
designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes
from government. "
On a lighter note, Romney paid
homage to Truett Cathy, the founder of the fast food chain Chick fil-A,
who was given an honorary degree just moments before Romney took the
podium.
"The Romney campaign comes to a
sudden stop when we spot a Chick-fil-A," the Republican candidate said.
"Your chicken sandwiches were our comfort food through the primary
season, and there were days that we needed a lot of comforting. "
MOKPO/SEOUL (Reuters) - South
Korean divers swam though dark, cold waters into a sunken ferry on
Wednesday, feeling for children's bodies with their hands in a maze of
cabins, corridors and upturned decks as they searched for hundreds of
missing.
The divers, with oxygen and communications lines
trailing, can only see a few inches in front of them in the wreckage of
the ship that started sinking a week ago after a sharp turn. Most of the
victims were high school children, who were told to stay where they
were for their own safety. And most of the bodies found in the
last two days had broken fingers, presumably from the children
frantically trying to climb the walls or floors to escape in their last
moments, media said. "We are trained for hostile environments,
but it's hard to be brave when we meet bodies in dark water," diver
Hwang Dae-sik told Reuters, as the funerals of 25 students were held
near the capital, Seoul. Prosecutors investigating the disaster
raided the home of Yoo Byung-un, the head of a family that owns the
Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd, the company that operated the Sewol ferry.
They also raided his son's home and the office of a church with which
Yoo has been associated, said a prosecutor who did not want to be
identified. The finances of Chonghaejin and its complex share
structure have come into the spotlight in recent days. Yoo was jailed
for fraud for four years in the early 1990s.
But it was not immediately clear how big a development this
was. Korean police and prosecutors often make dramatic raids to show
that progress is being made in a high-profile case. Underwater,
at the site of the sunken Sewol, divers are able to work for nearly an
hour at a time as long as the oxygen lines do not snag on sharp corners
of the ship's internal structure. When they use cumbersome oxygen tanks
on their backs instead, they can work for about 20 minutes before an
alarm bell sounds. The Sewol sank last Wednesday on a routine trip from the port of Incheon, near Seoul, to the southern island of Jeju.
Of the 476 passengers and crew on board, 339 were children and teachers
on a high school outing. Only 174 people have been rescued and the
remainder are presumed to have drowned. The confirmed death toll on Wednesday was 150, many found at the back of the ship on the fourth deck.
In a rare move, the disaster prompted reclusive North Korea, which
routinely threatens the South with destruction, to send a message of
sympathy. The two sides are still technically at war after the 1950-53
civil conflict ended in a mere truce.
A family member of missing passengers, who were on South Korean ferry Sewol which sank in the sea of …
"We express condolences for the missing and dead, including
young students, from the sinking of the Sewol," a South Korean
Unification Ministry spokeswoman quoted the message as saying.
Hwang, the diver, said his team had retrieved 14 bodies so far. "We have
to touch everything with our hands. This is the most grueling and
heartbreaking job of my career," he said. Captain Lee Joon-seok,
69, and other crew members have been arrested on negligence charges. Lee
was also charged with undertaking an "excessive change of course
without slowing down". LAW REQUIRES CAPTAIN TO STAY ON BOARD
Several crew members, including the captain, left the ferry as it was
sinking, witnesses have said, after passengers were told to stay in
their cabins, even though it was time for breakfast. President Park
Geun-hye said on Monday that instruction was tantamount to an "act of
murder". "The charged crew members appear to have not carried out
their duty to rescue the passengers at all," prosecutor Ahn Sang-don
told a briefing. "Based on the fact that they were gathered in the
bridge, engine room and so on, then left the boat, we believe negligent
homicide is applicable." According to Article 10 of Seafarers' Act, a captain has to remain on board until all passengers have disembarked. A boy with a shaking voice gave the first distress call to the emergency services when the ferry listed.
Most of those who survived made it out on deck and jumped into rescue
boats, but many of the children did not leave their cabins, not
questioning their elders, as is customary in hierarchical Korean
society. They paid for their obedience with their lives. Lee was
not on the bridge when the ship turned. Navigation was in the hands of a
26-year-old third mate, who was in charge for the first time on that
part of the journey, according to crew members. The wife of one
crew member under investigation who did not wish to be identified quoted
her husband as saying: "I should have died out there."
"He told me that he was taking some rest as he had finished his shift.
He fell from his bed and struggled to open the room door to get out. He
said he didn't go to the steering house to meet up with rest of the
crew. Rather he was found by coastguards and was rescued.
"My husband didn't get along with other crewmen, but he told me that
Captain Lee was someone comfortable and extremely calm. He said Captain
Lee was like no other: he didn't drink much, although he did smoke."
(Additional reporting by Meeyoung Cho, Joyce Lee, and Narae Kim; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
OHANNESBURG (AP) — In a nighttime
theft, robbers broke into a South African provincial parks office with a
24-hour security service and used a machine tool called a grinder to
break into a safe holding a stockpile of rhino horn worth a fortune on
the illegal market in parts of Asia.
The weekend heist in the northeastern city of
Nelspruit was a blow to efforts to curb the clandestine trade in rhino
horn, which has surged in recent years despite an increase in funding
for anti-poaching efforts in South Africa, home to the majority of the
world's rhinos. On Tuesday, forensic investigators from the police
analyzed the crime scene at the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency, and
officials were exploring the theory that it was an inside job. "It's
too early to be ruling out that possibility," said Capt. Paul Ramaloko
of a South African investigative police unit called the Hawks. "We are
approaching the investigation with an open mind." The robbery
occurred Saturday night, Ramaloko said. The parks agency later said in a
statement that 112 "pieces of rhino horns" weighing a total of about 80
kilograms were taken, and that security staff discovered the break-in
early Monday morning. According to some estimates, a kilogram of
rhino horn has a street value in a consumer country of tens of thousands
of dollars, meaning that the haul in Mpumalanga could be worth several
million dollars to illicit traders. The thieves targeted a safe
where the parks agency of Mpumalanga province keeps some rhino horn
stock temporarily for registration before transporting it to "another
undisclosed location" for longer-term storage, said Kholofelo Nkambule,
an agency spokeswoman. Officials had photographed, taken DNA
samples and installed microchips in some of the stolen rhino horn
pieces, while others were being processed, according to the parks
agency. It said the perimeter of the office is "well secured with
controlled access and 24-hour security personnel" who regularly patrol
the premises. Government agencies and some private game reserves
keep stockpiles of rhino horns, including some confiscated from poachers
and others shaved off rhinos in an attempt to deter attacks. But the
heist in Nelspruit raised concern about the security of those stashes in
South Africa, which is considering whether to propose a regulated trade
in rhino horn in order to curb poaching. Legalization would require the
approval of CITES, the international body that monitors endangered
species and will meet in South Africa in 2016. Last year, 66 rhino
horns worth several million dollars on the illegal market were stolen
from a private wildlife reserve in South Africa's Limpopo province,
according to local media. In that case thieves reportedly used a
blowtorch to break into a safe where the horns were kept. Rhino
horn is viewed as a status symbol and a healing agent for serious
illness by some Vietnamese and Chinese. There is no evidence that the
horn, made from the same material as fingernails, is an effective
medicine. South Africa lost a record 1,004 of the animals to
poachers in 2013, and the government said last week that 294 rhinos have
been poached so far this year. At the current rate, the toll for 2014
could exceed that of last year, and conservationists warn that a
"tipping point" could come in 2016 when rhino deaths exceed births and
the population goes into decline. Well over half of South Africa's
poached rhinos are killed in Kruger National Park, a vast wildlife
reserve near Nelspruit where a ranger force backed by some South African
military units daily struggles to curb armed intruders, many of whom
cross from neighboring Mozambique and hunt rhinos before scooting back
across the border. Much of the international funding for
anti-poaching is going to Kruger park, which is overseen by South
Africa's national parks service. Smaller conservation operations such as
the one run by Mpumalanga province are struggling for resources, said
Brian Morris, a senior manager at the province's tourism and parks
agency.
Morris said the
province recently bought a small airplane to monitor its parks, and has
earmarked funds to pay a pilot in this year's budget. Mpumalanga
urgently needs a helicopter which is a more effective means of deploying
rangers, Morris said. He is concerned that poachers could focus more on
the province's parks if they come under more pressure from rangers in
nearby Kruger park, part of which lies in Mpumalanga province.
"These guys are going to look for other places," he said. "We're like sitting ducks."
This undated photo provided by the Montgomery County District Attorney shows 18-year-old Timothy Brooks. …
ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) — Two
prep school graduates sought to use their sports connections and
business acumen to establish a monopoly on drug sales to high school
students in the affluent Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, authorities
said Monday.
Neil Scott, 25, and Timothy Brooks, 18, recruited
and supplied dealers with marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and hash oil to
sell to teens at five high schools in the tony bedroom communities,
authorities said. A four-month investigation revealed the pair
also hired students at Haverford, Gettysburg and Lafayette colleges to
peddle drugs at those Pennsylvania schools, authorities said. Scott
and Brooks are graduates of The Haverford School, a $35,000-a-year
private institution where both played lacrosse. They tapped their sports
and social networks to help further their enterprise, officials said. "They
were using very traditional business principles," Montgomery County
District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said. "To take those skills and turn
it into this kind of illegal enterprise is very distressing." Scott, Brooks and several others arrested in the alleged ring were arraigned Monday on drug charges and related counts.
This undated photo provided by the Montgomery County District Attorney shows Neil Scott. Montgomery …
Scott's lawyer declined to comment, saying he hadn't yet reviewed the case. Brooks'
attorney, Greg Pagano, described his client as vulnerable and a bit
depressed after leaving the University of Richmond last year due to an
unnamed injury. Brooks lives at his family's home in Villanova. "He, regrettably, lost his way," Pagano said. "His parents are devastated." Scott,
of Haverford, began selling pot after he moved back to the area last
fall from San Diego, where he worked at a medical marijuana dispensary,
officials said. Scott told police that he needed money and figured
he could make it by selling better marijuana than what was currently
available in the area. He said that an unspecified California connection
could supply him with high-quality pot, which he told police "would
sell very well on the Main Line because everyone between 15 and 55 loves
good weed," an investigator wrote in the affidavit.
Stacks of cash and semi-automatic weapons are displayed on a table with suspected drugs and dealing …
Scott began having the drug
mailed to Pennsylvania in late 2013 and called his operation the "Main
Line Take Over Project," authorities said. Officials began an
investigation in January based on a tip and eventually executed search
warrants at nine locations.
Among
the contraband they reported seizing was eight pounds of pot, more than
$11,000, a loaded assault weapon, two other guns and equipment to
manufacture hash oil. Scott has been in custody since February, held on
$1 million bail.
Authorities
didn't calculate the total value of the operation, but Scott told police
he was making about $1,000 per week on marijuana alone, the affidavit
said.
Ferman said the
investigation continues. So far, eight suspects have been arrested, and
authorities say at least three more are involved.
One
suspect, a current student at The Haverford School, has been suspended
indefinitely, said headmaster John Nagl. He said the alleged involvement
of the student and two alums is "hugely disappointing."
"Those
choices reflect badly on the values the school stands for," Nagl said.
"They let down themselves and their families, who've made huge
sacrifices to send them to this school."
