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Gunman kills 4 outside Jewish school in France
Romney sweeps Puerto Rico
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Maldives Prez addresses Parliament amid chaos
A protester throws a bicycle towards the Villa TV station office, owned by Jumhooree Party presidential candidate Gasim Ibrahim, during a protest in Male on Monday. — AFP
Castro ‘knew’ of JFK’s killing in advance
Cuban leader Fidel Castro
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Gunman kills 4 outside Jewish school in France
Toulouse, March 19 President Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, the Socialist opposing him in his uphill bid for re-election in May, both cancelled appointments to head to the shooting scene to show sympathy for the victims and support for greater security. The killings could bring the theme of security back to the top of the agenda in a bitter election campaign that has been dominated by issues of taxation and immigration. Prosecutors opened anti-terrorism investigations in all three attacks. Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said the gunman killed a 30-year old Hebrew teacher, his two children aged three and six, and another child. A 17-year-old was also shot and in hospital for treatment. “The attacker was shooting people outside the school, then pursued children into the school, before fleeing on a heavy motorbike,” Valet told reporters. The assailant used a heavy-calibre firearm and another weapon. But officials could not say whether the guns were the same used in the killing of three soldiers in two separate shootings last week by a man who escaped on a scooter. A spokesman for the interior ministry said that security was being tightened at all Jewish schools in the country. The small Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in a leafy upscale neighbourhood of Toulouse was a scene of mayhem after the attack, with parents crying and looking for their children. “I saw two people dead in front of the school, an adult and a child ... Inside, it was a vision of horror, the bodies of two small children,” a distraught father whose child attends the school told RTL radio. “I did not find my son; apparently he fled when he saw what happened. How can they attack something as sacred as a school, attack children only 60 centimetres (two feet) tall?” Sarkozy, campaigning for a two-round election in April and May, was on his way to Toulouse along with Education Minister Luc Chatel and the president of the French-Jewish association CRIF, Richard Prasquier. A spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, Yigal Palmor, expressed outrage at the killings. “We are following with great shock reports coming from Toulouse and we trust the French authorities will solve this crime and bring those responsible to justice,” Palmor said. — Reuters
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Romney sweeps Puerto Rico primary contest
Washington, March 19 The former Massachusetts governor secured more than 83.4 per cent of the vote, according to the State Elections Commission, or CEEPR, in the US territory. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania Senator, was a distant second with 7.7 per cent of the votes, while Newt Gingrich, former Speaker, US House of Representatives, had just two per cent of the votes. Puerto Rico win helped him cross the 500 delegate mark. — PTI
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Maldives Prez addresses Parliament amid chaos Male, March 19 Vowing to uphold the constitution, Waheed delivered his his 15-minute address, during which he said he had no objection to early elections, provided all parties agree and necessary constitutional amendments are made. “This is the time for all of us to work together in one spirit, the time to bring political differences to the discussion table in order to formulate solutions”, said the President, who formally opened the Parliament today. This was Waheed’s second attempt to address the Parliament since he took office last month in a contentious power transfer. Last time, the MPs of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of ousted President Mohammed Nasheed had prevented Waheed from making his address on March 1. Even today, violence broke out both inside and outside the Parliament. The police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators who clashed with them while the Parliament’s security staff forcibly removed a number of MDP lawmakers who were trying to block Waheed from addressing the House. Nasheed has called for early elections and has alleged he was forced to resign because of a coup, a charge denied by the current regime. Interestingly, Waheed, who served as vice president under Nasheed, today took to microblogging site Twitter to express his frustration. He said there was no excuse for the international community to ignore Anni’s (Nasheed’s) “anarchic behaviour”. — PTI
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Castro ‘knew’ of JFK’s killing in advance Washington, March 19 Castro told his staff that he was going to murder then US President Kennedy to prove his allegiance to the communist cause, according to author Brian Latell, the US spy agency’s former chief intelligence officer for Latin America. In fact, on the morning of November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was killed, Castro had ordered a senior intelligence officer in Havana to stop listening for non-specific CIA radio communications and concentrate instead on “any little detail, any small detail from Texas”, Latell claims in his new book. Four hours later, the airwaves came alive with news that Kennedy was dead, says the book, titled ‘Castro’s Secrets-the CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine’, which is to set be released next month, the ‘Daily Mail’ online reported. Rumours about the former Cuban dictator’s involvement in a plot to murder his fierce adversary have swirled for almost half a century since communist sympathiser Lee Harvey Oswald shot the then US president during a trip to Dallas. Latell also claims that Castro was aware that Oswald, who had been denied a visa to visit Cuba at the country’s embassy in Mexico City, told staff there that he was going to murder Kennedy to prove his allegiance to the communist cause. “Fidel knew of Oswald’s intentions and did nothing to deter the act,” Latell claims in his book. The author has based his book mainly on interviews with former Cuban intelligence officers, backed up by declassified US government documents. “I don’t say Fidel Castro ordered the assassination, I don’t say Oswald was under his control. He might have been, but I don’t argue that, because I was unable to find any evidence for that,” he told ‘The Miami Herald’. — PTI
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Toulouse, March 19
Amidst opposition supporters picketing Parliament and violence on the streets, Maldives President Mohammed Waheed today gave his maiden Presidential address saying he was open for early elections.
Washington, March 19
