BAMAKO, Mali – Mali’s U.S.-trained coup leader said Saturday he is in control of the country, has no fears of a countercoup and wants peace talks with the rebels whose northern rebellion was the trigger that led him to oust a democratically elected president.
Capt. Amadou Sanogo, who appeared exhausted, his voice hoarse, stressed the importance of unity for the West African nation in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press at Kati garrison outside Bamako, the capital.
Sanogo’s ouster Wednesday of President Ahmed Toumani Toure just five weeks before he was to step down after presidential elections threatens the cause of democracy in a region prone to coups and jeopardizes Mali’s standing at the heart of the Western-backed fight against Africa’s thriving wing of al-Qaida.
Nation
Cheney undergoes heart transplant
Former Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant Saturday and is recovering at a Virginia hospital, his office said.
An aide to Cheney disclosed that the 71-year-old, who has had a long history of cardiovascular trouble including numerous heart attacks, had been waiting for a transplant for more than 20 months.
Sandusky labeled pedophile in 1998
A psychologist who looked into a 1998 allegation against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky told police at the time that his behavior fit the profile of a likely pedophile, NBC News reported Saturday.
Yet Sandusky was not criminally charged, nor placed on a state registry of suspected child abusers, and prosecutors say he continued assaulting boys for more than a decade until his arrest in November.
Suspicion cast on school test scores
Hundreds of school systems nationwide exhibit suspicious test scores that point to the possibility of cheating, according to an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The newspaper examined test results for 70,000 public schools and found high concentrations of scores in school systems from coast to coast. The analysis reveals that scores in hundreds of cities followed a pattern that, in Atlanta, indicated cheating in multiple schools.
Celestial bodies converge tonight
Look to the west after sunset tonight and, unless clouds impede the view, you’ll see three worlds.
One is the moon, a thin crescent, upturned like a smiley face. The second is Jupiter, a gas giant reduced by distance to a bright dot. Above the moon and Jupiter, about a fist’s distance away on an outstretched arm, will be Venus, beaming like a headlight.
World
Troops, rebels fight in northeast Syria
Syrian troops shelled rebellious areas in central and northern Syria on Saturday in the latest push to quash the uprising against President Bashar Assad but faced fierce resistance from army defectors, activists said.
Much of the day’s fighting focused on the northeast town of Saraqeb, which activists said regime troops and tanks entered from the north amid heavy shelling.
Deadly soccer riot’s fallout turns deadly
Egyptian soldiers clashed with thousands of angry soccer fans in a coastal city over the suspension of their club after a deadly riot last month, witnesses said Saturday. A medical official said a teenager was killed and 68 people injured.
The Feb. 1 melee after a match in the city of Port Said in which at least 73 people died was the world’s worst soccer-related disaster in 15 years. The causes remain murky.
Obama’s Korea trip takes nuclear tone
President Obama is opening his pitch for faster work to lock down nuclear material that could be used by terrorists with an up-close look at the nuclear front lines along the heavily militarized border with volatile North Korea.
Obama arrived in Seoul, South Korea, early this morning for three days of diplomacy. He’ll use much of the time to keep pressure on North Korea to back off a planned rocket launch and return to disarmament talks.
