The president of the Maldives was saved from assassination Tuesday when a boy scout grabbed the knife of an attacker who had jumped out of a crowd greeting the leader, an official said. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was not hurt, but his shirt was ripped when the attacker tried to stab him before the boy and security guards intervened during the event on the island of Horafushi, said government spokesman Mohammad Shareef.
President Pervez Musharraf told British forensic experts Tuesday they would have a free hand in investigating the circumstances surrounding the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, a government official said. The promise appeared to be a softening of the government’s position on the probe. Last week, Musharraf told reporters the investigators would not be allowed to investigate claims the government was behind Bhutto’s killing in a Dec. 27 shooting and bombing attack.
The U.S. military launched a countrywide offensive Tuesday against al-Qaida in Iraq’s efforts to regroup and intensify suicide strikes on civilians who have sided with Americans against the terror group. But the latest U.S. blitz brings more than just firepower to the field: a determination to speed up work on basic services and other civic projects that commanders believe will win more converts to the American effort.
A Sri Lankan government minister died Tuesday in a roadside bombing blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels, the first successful assassination of a top Sri Lankan official in 19 months. The attack was almost certain to intensify the civil war between government forces and rebel fighters that has been raging across northern Sri Lanka in recent months.
Kenya’s opposition leader rejected a presidential invitation for talks, calling the offer “public relations gimmickry” that would undermine international attempts to end an election standoff that has killed more than 500 people. President Mwai Kibaki named a Cabinet dominated by his allies, undeterred by accusations he stole the vote. Diplomatic efforts intensified to end the political violence, which has deteriorated into clashes between other tribes and Kibaki’s Kikuyu, long dominant in Kenya’s politics.
A ninth person died Monday after a bus carrying skiers home from a Colorado resort plunged off a damp, twisting highway in southeastern Utah and landed 41 feet below with its tires ripped away and the roof destroyed. Those killed included four teenagers, officials said. About 20 other people from the Phoenix area were injured Sunday night, some seriously, authorities and hospital officials said.
President Bush said Monday that if Congress doesn’t reauthorize the No Child Left Behind education law, he’ll make as many changes as he can on his own. Bush also said that if Congress does renew the law but weakens it in the process, he’d “strongly oppose it and veto it.” That scenario seems unlikely for now, since the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Education Committee have said they would put off rewriting the 6-year-old law until later this year.
