2. PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, May 3, 2015
MIDEAST
“These are moms.
They are mothers at the
end of their lives seeking
answers to a lifelong hole
in their heart.”
— Albert Watkins, lawyer for a
black woman who was told in 1965
that her infant daughter died at a
St. Louis hospital. Her child found
her 50 years later, prompting several
other women to question if they
were falsely told their infants died
See story on Page 7
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The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — An
Afghan official says that a new-
lywed woman narrowly escaped
a beheading attempt by her
mother-in-law in eastern Ghazni
province.
Shukria Wali, the head of the
women’s affairs department in
Ghazni province, said on Satur-
day that Gul Sema, 23, was re-
peatedly beaten and tortured by
her husband’s family during her
five months of marriage.
Sema was brought to the hospi-
tal with severe injuries after her
mother-in-lawattackedherthroat
with a knife, Wali said. Sema’s
husband has been arrested and
police are searching for her in-
laws. Wali said Sema was out of
danger and has been transferred
to a Kabul hospital.
Afghan woman escapes attempted beheading
BY RAHIM FAIEZ
The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — The
trial of 49 suspects, including 19
police officers, on charges relat-
ing to the brutal mob killing of an
Afghan woman began in the capi-
tal, Kabul, on Saturday.
The opening of the trial at
Afghanistan’s Primary Court
was broadcast live on nationwide
television. The suspects all face
charges relating to the March 19
killing of a woman named Fark-
hunda, 27.
A prosecutor read charges
against 10 of the defendants, in-
cluding assault, murder and en-
couraging others to participate
in the assault. The policemen are
charged with neglecting their
duties and failing to prevent the
attack, although some are sus-
pected of actually participating.
Prosecutors have alleged that
Farkhunda was beaten to death
in a frenzied attack sparked by
a bogus accusation that she had
burned a copy of the Quran.
The killing shocked many Af-
ghans, though some public and
religious figures said it would
have been justified if she in fact
had damaged a copy of the Mus-
lim holy book.
Cellphone video of the as-
sault circulated widely on social
media. It showed Farkhunda, who
like many Afghans went by only
one name, being beaten, run over
with a car and burned before her
body was thrown into the Kabul
River.
The incident sparked nation-
wide outrage and soul searching,
as well as a civil society move-
ment to limit the power of clerics,
to strengthen the rule of law and
to improve women’s rights.
Safiullah Mojadedi, head of the
Primary Court, called for senior
officials, including the Kabul Po-
lice Chief and the Interior Minis-
try’s chief criminal investigator,
to attend Sunday’s court session.
He also ordered the arrest of an-
other policeman who is suspected
of freeing a suspect.
At least two of the accused
told the court they had confessed
under physical duress.
Afghanistan’s judicial sys-
tem has long faced criticism for
its inability to offer the major-
ity of Afghans access to justice.
Women, especially, are sidelined,
despite constitutional guarantees
of equality and protection from
violence, a recent report by the
United Nations concluded.
The attack on Farkhunda
was widely seen as symptom-
atic of the general low regard for
women in Afghan society, where
violence against them often goes
unpunished.
49 on trial in Afghan woman’s killing
A May 2 story about the
U.S. Navy escorting U.S.
vessels through the Strait
of Hormuz gave the incor-
rect length of a U.S. Navy
coastal patrol ship. It is 179
feet long.
Correction
PHOTOS BY RAHMAT GUL/AP
Defendants attend their trial Saturday at the Primary Court in Kabul, Afghanistan, on charges relating to
the March 19 mob killing of an Afghan woman.
A defendant speaks during the trial Saturday.
3. • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3Sunday, May 3, 2015
FROM FRONT PAGE
In the wake of last summer’s rout, Ameri-
can and other international trainers work-
ing with rank-and-file soldiers say their
focus is squarely on boosting Iraqi confi-
dence. Key to that confidence are realistic
exercises such as the ones conducted at a
combat training center at Besmaya, south
of Baghdad.
In one particularly elaborate exercise
conducted recently, coalition advisers
constructed a faux battlefield designed
specifically to mirror Islamic State group
fortifications around cities such as Mosul
in the north, the group’s de facto capital in
Iraq.
“That whole scenario is crucial to their
success,” said Maj. J.D. Pritchett, an opera-
tions officer with the 82nd Airborne Divi-
sion. “We built a training lane much like
what they’re going to face. You don’t want
the first time you’re encountering some-
thing to be right there on the battlefield.
What the training does more than anything
is give them confidence to go through those
barriers, break down those walls and keep
pushing.”
Building confidence
During the course of the recent exer-
cise, Iraqi troops used explosives to blow
holes in earthen berms and concrete blast
walls, cleared bunkers and buildings and
practiced working in and around heavy ar-
mored vehicles.
While many of the Iraqi troops appeared
to perform relatively seamlessly together,
the realistic training clearly brought out
stress in some of the soldiers.
Amid automatic rifle fire and drifting
smoke, confusion reigned among one mor-
tar team’s members as they crouched on
the talcum-white desert.
U.S. Army Sgt. Cory Bazemore stood
over them, gesturing and barking instruc-
tions in English, punctuated by a few Ara-
bic words.
At one point, the Iraqi soldier unloading
mortar rounds from a crate looked around
desperately with questioning eyes, his
fingers on a pin at the tip of the warhead,
unable to decide whether to pull it. Other
team members struggled to aim the tube.
His attention pulled in multiple directions
by the confused soldiers, Bazemore even-
tually set them straight and the crew got
off one round before the training ended.
As Iraqi troops try to take back their
country from Islamic State militants, ad-
visers with the international training mis-
sion are trying to tamp down exactly that
kind of panic while building confidence
among the Iraqi forces.
“I think they were just rattled by all the
firing and the stress of the moment,” Ba-
zemore said of the Iraqi mortar team-in-
training. “All we can do is help them the
best we can and then hopefully they go on
to more training” conducted by the Iraqis.
A stronger army
More than 6,500 Iraqi and Kurdish secu-
rity forces have been trained by the U.S.-
led coalition at four different “Building
Partner Capacity sites” around Iraq. The
coalition has about 1,000 advisers from
various countries in Iraq. At Besmaya, for
example, a contingent of Spanish soldiers
is among those working alongside the
Americans.
As of mid-April, nearly 5,000 Iraqi secu-
rity forces were being trained at the vari-
ous camps, according to the White House.
“We incorporate pretty much every ob-
stacle that we’ve identified into the train-
ing so that it’s not a surprise and not a new
picture,” said Sgt. 1st Class Frank Batts,
a combat engineer. “We try to teach them
how to identify key threats and how to ap-
proach them because they’re going to be
facing a lot of obstacles.”
The advisers say the Iraqis have varying
levels of experience and ability, with some
veterans mixed in among raw recruits. In
all cases, the coalition courses are meant
to be part of much more training conduct-
ed by the Iraqis themselves.
“They know how to shoot, they know
basic principles of warfare,” Pritchett said.
“We’re here to facilitate and strengthen,
maybe show them some different ways to
do things. We’re not here because we don’t
think they know how to shoot. We’re here
to help get them to a stronger army than
where they’re at now.”
The trainers who work daily with the
Iraqis say they try not to preach, instead
focusing on ways to improve Iraqi tactics
and practices.
“When we showed up, they had their own
ways of doing things so we just stepped
back, told them about the way we do things,
then tried to work together to find the best
combination in a way that works for them,”
said Sgt. Cody Sorrell, who works with an
Iraqi platoon.
Kadhum Jabbar, an Iraqi army soldier
who just completed three weeks of coali-
tion training, said the course combined his
previous training with some new skills.
“Our country is depending on us, so I
will take my education from wherever I
can get it,” he said.
No doubts
Thousands of U.S. advisers and instruc-
tors were involved in the previous seven-
yearefforttotrainthe400,000-strongIraqi
army, only to see the Iraqi forces fall apart
in the face of the Islamic State group’s on-
slaught last year.
But the American soldiers on the ground
today say they don’t let doubts creep in.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” Batts
said. “If I have any doubts, [the Iraqis] will
see that. The more positive I am, the more
motivated they will be.”
Second Lt. Rebecca Tummers, an in-
telligence officer based at Besmaya, said
doubts are understandable. “I think any-
body who teaches wonders if what they’re
teaching is getting across. I think that is an
issue for any kind of teacher or mentor or
adviser,” she said. But, she added, being
able to see progress among the troops dur-
ing the training alleviates those doubts.
Where progress hasn’t been measured is
on the battlefield itself, Tummers said. Ad-
visers have little access to any information
on whether Iraqi troops are performing
better after taking the coalition courses.
“At this point it’s very difficult to get as-
sessments from the field,” she said. “But I
think in the future we’ll get a better idea.”
Pritchett, who has deployed eight times
since 2001 to both Iraq and Afghanistan,
said he considers this mission one of the
most rewarding as he’s developed relation-
ships with the Iraqi troops.
“They understand what the goal is,
and that’s a unified Iraq,” Pritchett said.
“That’s all we’ve seen: guys willing to go
get their country back.”
smith.josh@stripes.com
Twitter: @joshjonsmith
Training: Realism panics some troops
MILITARY
PHOTOS BY JOSH SMITH/Stars and Stripes
Iraqi soldiers run through smoke grenades to take up positions during an exercise at Besmaya, a coalition training site south of Baghdad, on April 26.
BY JOSH SMITH
Stars and Stripes
BESMAYA, Iraq — For the
American soldiers arriving to
train Iraqi security forces as part
of Operation Inherent Resolve,
this base just south of Baghdad of-
fers few surprises.
Many of the familiar-looking
wooden huts and concrete blast
walls are left over from the last
U.S. units that occupied this base
before all American troops were
withdrawn in 2011.
The first new troops arrived
here at the beginning of the year.
The Army won’t say exactly how
many of its soldiers man this par-
ticular training camp, officially
designated the “Building Partner
Capacity site,” but the U.S.-led
coalition says it has roughly 1,000
trainers at four such bases around
Iraq.
An advance team scouted the
site late last year to determine
what needed to be revamped for
the new American presence and,
according to officials at the camp,
the conclusion was not much.
“There is really very little dif-
ferent now,” said Sgt. 1st Class
Frank Batts, who routinely visited
the Besmaya base while his unit
was deployed in the area in 2010.
The camp boasts a large gym
and a dining facility that most de-
ployed soldiers would likely con-
sider above average. Contractors
inbowtiesslicefreshtropicalfruit
and serve American and interna-
tional troops a range of dishes. A
recreation facility is still largely
empty, with equipment just start-
ing to arrive.
“I can’t complain at all,” said
Sgt. Brandon Roberts, who is one
of many soldiers on their first de-
ployment. “There’s good food, and
we’re working hard. Nothing to
complain about.”
One downside to this par-
ticular base is that, according to
soldiers, it doesn’t have a post ex-
change, and mail can take more
than a month to arrive. So troops
who make runs to better stocked
bases in Iraq often return better
supplied.
It was at this site in March that
the first U.S. soldier was injured
by ground fire since the coalition
began training Iraqis. The soldier
was slightly wounded in the face
when an unknown gunman fired
from outside the base.
At Besmaya, the coalition camp
is located in close proximity to
the Iraqi soldiers with whom the
advisers work. Unlike in Afghani-
stan, where the international
training efforts have been marred
by deadly insider attacks by Af-
ghan forces, that threat hasn’t sig-
nificantly affected daily work for
foreign troops here.
“We have a security posture
that would prevent [an insider at-
tack] from occurring, but we’ve
never seen any indications that
there would be an attack,” said
2nd Lt. Rebecca Tummers, an in-
telligence officer at the base. “It’s
not something we consider a high
threat in this area.”
That was an assessment echoed
by other American soldiers, who
said they’ve had nothing but
good relationships with the Iraqi
forces.
“The platoon that I work with
has a pretty decent bond, and they
want to joke with me as soon as I
show up,” said Sgt. Cody Sorrell.
“It got to the point where I knew
when they needed a break or when
I should push harder.”
Maj. J.D. Pritchett went further
in describing his daily work with
the Iraqis: “We would call them
friends.”
smith.josh@stripes.com
Twitter: @joshjonsmith
U.S. Army advisers run to safety after lighting tires to create realistic effects.
US advisers in Iraq settle into life, daily work as part of Inherent Resolve
4. PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, May 3, 2015
FROM FRONT PAGE
In addition to the battlefield situation,
the White House is deeply concerned about
the growing number of civilian deaths and
Saudi weapons deliveries to inadequately
vetted local fighters. The officials weren’t
authorized to speak publicly on the matter
and demanded anonymity.
Yemen’sexiledgovernmentlastweekput
the civilian death toll for the past month at
1,000. That is nearly double the number
U.N. agencies have announced. From its
tally, UNICEF said at least 64 children
were killed by airstrikes. The Saudis insist
they’ve taken great pains to minimize ci-
vilian casualties.
The Saudi government also acknowl-
edges providing military support to pro-
government forces battling against the
Houthis and fighters loyal to Yemen’s for-
mer autocrat, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The U.S.
has provided intelligence and logistical
support to the Saudi bombing campaign.
Asked about vetting local fighters, Saudi
Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir told a Washing-
ton news conference that his government
was doing “as best as we can.” Al-Jubeir
was appointed last week as the new Saudi
foreign minister.
Publicly, the Obama administration has
given the Saudi-led intervention its full
support.
But U.S. officials have described top
aides of President Barack Obama as in-
creasingly concerned that arms may end
up with individuals and groups that have
questionable motives or affiliations — as
occurred with the flood of weapons that
reached Libya and Syria after civil wars
erupted there in 2011.
In Libya, weapons and a NATO-led
bombing campaign helped militant groups
oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s govern-
ment. But the country has been wracked
by instability ever since. And one of the
armed groups that gained prominence in
the fighting was accused of leading the at-
tackontheU.S.diplomaticpostinBenghazi
only a year later that killed Ambassador
Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
In Syria, military supplies from several
Arab governments aided the rebellion
against President Bashar Assad’s govern-
ment. However, the lack of coordination
and control, especially in the conflict’s
early days, led to the growth of al-Qaida-
linked affiliates and the militants who be-
came the Islamic State group and seized a
third of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The threat is obvious in Yemen, where
al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the
group’s most lethal offshoot, has seized on
years of instability to expand its footprint
and plan several audacious terror attacks.
The chaos in Yemen prompted the U.S.
to pull out its special operations forces in
March, complicating the effort to counter
AQAP. Gen. Joseph Votel, the top com-
mander of U.S. special operations forces,
said Friday in Washington that the loss of
a U.S. troop presence in Yemen is “a very
great concern,” and said he is looking for
ways to work around it.
“Our people are innovative and they find
ways,” Votel said.
Yemen: Civilian
deaths, loss of US
troop presence
of major concern
WAR ON TERRORISM
BY CARA ANNA
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — An emergency
meeting on Yemen by the U.N. Security
Council ended Friday with the 15 members
unable to agree on an immediate statement
on the growing crisis.
The ambassador from Russia, which
called the meeting, wondered why his col-
leagues talk about the need to help but
can’t take action. Vitaly Churkin called the
closed-door meeting a day after the U.N.
chief warned that basic services in Yemen
are “on the brink of
collapse.”
Diplomats said
Russia wanted to
address the ex-
traordinary hu-
manitarian and
security situation
in the Arab world’s
poorest country as
a Saudi-led Sunni
coalition continues
airstrikes against a
Shiite rebel group
that is supported by
Iran.
But the recent
strained relations
between Russia
and its colleagues
appeared to be at
play again. Churkin said other members
of the 15-member council didn’t back his
proposed statement, which he read out to
reporters afterward. It called for an imme-
diate cease-fire, or at least humanitarian
pauses.
The statement echoed a call a day earlier
by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Chur-
kin said he told council members he would
be willing to drop the call for an immediate
cease-fire. He said some council members
insisted they had to seek further guidance.
Churkin’s proposed statement also called
for a quick return to U.N.-led peace talks on
Yemenincludingallthepartiesinvolvedand
at a venue all can agree on. It also expressed
support for the U.N.’s new special envoy for
Yemen who would guide the talks.
“If you can’t agree to a motherhood-and-
apple-pie statement, what can you agree on?
I don’t understand,” Churkin said.
Other diplomats said there was strong
agreement on Yemen’s desperate humani-
tarian situation and the need for political
talks, and that discussions on a council
statement continue.
Churkin said of the United States, “Clear-
ly, they need to feel their responsibility
since they are supporting the bombing of
the coalition, the responsibility of the hu-
manitarian consequences,” he said.
U.S. officials said Friday that Secretary
of State John Kerry might visit Saudi Ara-
bia this week to explore new strategies to
end the violence.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of
anonymity,saidtheU.S.hasencouragedthe
Saudi government “to institute a stream-
lined process” for the U.N. and aid groups
to get clearance for humanitarian staff and
supplies entering Yemen.
The Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Yemen’s
Shiite rebels attacked Saudi border
posts, sparking fierce fighting Thurs-
day night that killed three Saudi troops
and dozens of rebels, the kingdom said.
Saudi-led airstrikes continued to bomb
rebel positions inside Yemen on Friday,
including a strike in the capital, Sanaa,
that killed at least 20 civilians.
The attack late Thursday by the reb-
els, known as Houthis, was the most
dramatic border incident since Saudi
Arabia launched an intense campaign
of airstrikes against the rebels just
over a month ago. It also brought to 11
the number of Saudi soldiers killed so
far in border skirmishes during the air
campaign.
The assault underscored how the
Iran-backed Houthis are still capable
of launching major operations despite
the airstrikes that have relentlessly tar-
geted their positions and those of their
allies — military units loyal to former
President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen’s internationally recognized
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi
fled the country in March. There have
been recent calls by officials in exile for
a Saudi-led ground invasion to restore
Hadi’s government to power.
“There must be a direct military
intervention … to stop Saleh and the
Houthis,” Yemen’s Transportation
Minister Mohammed Badr Bassalma
told Al-Arabiya satellite TV on Friday,
speaking from Riyadh.
UN panel unable to agree on Yemen
PHOTOS BY HANI MOHAMMED/AP
People search for survivors under the rubble of houses destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, on Friday.
A Houthi Shiite rebel holds up his
weapons to denounce the Saudi-led
airstrikes during a protest in Sanaa,
Yemen.
Emergency Russia-called meeting ends without agreement on immediate statement
Border clash kills 3 Saudi troops
‘If you can’t
agree to a
motherhood-
and-
apple-pie
statement,
what can
you agree
on? I don’t
understand.’Vitaly Churkin
Russia’s UN
ambassador
5. • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5Sunday, May 3, 2015
WAR ON TERRORISM
BY SINAN SALAHEDDIN
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD—CanadianPrime
Minister Stephen Harper made
an unannounced visit Saturday
to Iraq pledging to continue its
support for the country’s battle
against the Islamic State group.
Harper’s visit to both Baghdad
and Iraq’s Kurdish region in the
north came as seven women and
children were killed by a roadside
bomb and a suicide blast killed
six Iraqi troops.
The Canadian government has
announced $139 million in addi-
tional aid to address the refugee
crisis around the region precipi-
tated by the fighting, in addition
to the $67 million already com-
mitted to Iraq.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider
al-Abadi received Harper in
Baghdad. Canada is part of the
U.S.-led international coalition
supporting the Iraqi military with
airstrikes, training and weapons.
Harper pledged to continue his
government’s support for Iraq.
“Canada will not stand idly by
while ISIS threatens Canadians
and commits barbaric acts of vio-
lence and injustice in Iraq against
innocent civilians,” Harper said
in a statement, referring to the Is-
lamic State group by an alternate
acronym. “We will continue to
help Iraq fight ISIS as part of the
international coalition against
this terrorist group.”
Al-Abadi hailed Canada’s role
in that coalition as “essential” and
called on the international com-
munity to join forces against the
extremist threat as “terrorism is
not only threatening Iraq, but the
region and the whole world.”
In the eastern province of Di-
yala, a minibus was traveling on a
road frequently used by military
convoys when a bomb detonated
killing five women, two children
and wounding four others, police
said.
Islamic State fighters were
largely driven out of the eastern
province earlier this year but are
still able to plant roadside bombs.
In Anbar province, six troops
were killed when a suicide car
bomber drove an explosive-
rigged Humvee into their head-
quarters in the town of Garma,
another police officer said. The
dead included three soldiers and
three militia members, he added.
Nine other troops were wounded.
Two medical officials con-
firmed the casualty figures. All
officials spoke on condition of an-
onymity as they were not autho-
rized to release the information.
Canadian prime minister
pledges support in Iraq
4 years after bin Laden’s
death, man who helped
track him is in prison
Qatar: Taliban, Afghan officials to hold 2 days of talks
BY TOM HUSSAIN
McClatchy Foreign Staff
ISLAMABAD — Four years
after U.S. forces shot dead Osama
bin Laden at a house half a mile
from Pakistan’s top military
academy, the Pakistani doctor
who allegedly ran a fake vaccina-
tion program for the CIA to find
the al-Qaida chief — but didn’t
find him — is serving a long pris-
on term on questionable charges
of aiding an insurgent Pakistani
militant group, his attorney said.
SuspectedCIAoperativeShakil
Afridi has paid a heavy price for
the huge embarrassment caused
to Pakistan’s
powerful
military and
its security
services by
the discov-
ery of bin
Laden: In
addition to
his 23-year
term, his
family lives
in hiding and
the lead attorney of his defense
team was shot dead in March in
the northern city of Peshawar.
His situation is in stark contrast
to that of the two Pakistani mili-
tant groups that helped resettle
bin Laden in Pakistan in 2002.
Harakat-ul-MujahideenandJaish-
i-Mohammed provided bin Laden
with dedicated security teams
as he moved around the north of
the country before settling in the
town of Abbottabad in 2005, re-
tired militants familiar with the
operation told McClatchy.
Since Pakistan’s return to de-
mocracy in 2008, the two groups
have re-emerged as Islamic
charities, and their leaders have
joined religious parties in politi-
cal campaigns widely considered
to be backed by the Pakistani mil-
itary’s security services.
“When the sheikh (bin Laden)
moved, armed, 12-man teams
would travel ahead and behind
his vehicle. He’d travel with two
tofourmenwithgoodlocalknowl-
edge of the area they were mov-
ing in; they’d be unarmed and
disguised,” said a ranking former
Harakat operative. He spoke only
on the condition of anonymity,
citing the dangers of reprisal by
former colleagues and arrest by
the Pakistani authorities.
The security escorts were part
of a Pakistan-wide arrangement
provided by the groups to al-
Qaida and Afghan Taliban VIPs
who were fleeing the American
forces that invaded Afghanistan
after the September 2001 terror-
ist attacks in the U.S., the former
militants said.
The groups had taken turns op-
eratingthecampinKhost,eastern
Afghanistan,thattheU.S.targeted
with cruise missiles in retaliation
for the August 1998 bombings of
U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tan-
zania. Those nearly simultaneous
explosions established bin Laden
as a top global terrorist.
The two militant groups did not
figure in the investigation that
Pakistani security services un-
dertook after U.S. Navy SEALs
killed bin Laden early in the
morning of May 2, 2011. Despite
being closely associated with al-
Qaida since the 1990s, the two
groups got a pass from senior
intelligence operatives because
they hadn’t participated in a dec-
adelong insurgency by the Paki-
stani Taliban.
Afridi, the alleged CIA opera-
tive, had posed as a manager for
the British charity Save the Chil-
dren to gather DNA samples of
children in the Abbottabad area
while immunizing them against
polio. The idea was to capture
the DNA of the children in the
bin Laden house so the CIA could
look for a match with known
members of the bin Laden family.
The scheme didn’t work.
Afridi was taken into custody
by Pakistani security operatives
from his Peshawar home three
weeks after bin Laden was killed,
but he wasn’t formally arrested
until May 2012.
The Associated Press
DOHA, Qatar — Afghan and
Taliban officials will hold two
days of “reconciliation” talks
in Qatar, the Gulf nation’s state
news agency reported Saturday,
although both sides sought to
downplay expectations from the
meeting.
QNA did not identify the of-
ficials taking part in the talks,
which it said began Saturday,
citing Foreign Ministry official
Yousif Al Sada.
“The dialogue will be through
open discussions about the Af-
ghan reconciliation between
all parties in Afghanistan,” the
agency said.
In a statement, the Taliban ear-
lier identified eight people they
said would take part in the talks
on their behalf. However, they
said the discussions “should not
be misconstrued as peace or ne-
gotiation talks.”
“It is worth mentioning that all
participants of this conference
attend in an individual capac-
ity, no one participates as repre-
sentatives for any government
or party,” the statement said.
“Since this is a research confer-
ence, therefore, every participant
gives their opinion on a range of
issues.”
Afghan presidential spokes-
man Ajmal Abidy said members
of the country’s High Peace
Council would attend the talks in
Doha in their “personal capacity
only.”
“They will meet face to face,”
Abidy told The Associated Press.
“Nothing is going on. We have no
expectations.”
Previous efforts to launch
peace talks have failed. In 2013,
the Taliban opened an office in
Qatar for the “Islamic Emirate
of Afghanistan.” It also hoisted
the same white flag flown dur-
ing the Taliban’s five-year rule
of Afghanistan that ended with
the 2001 American-led invasion.
The raising of the flag sparked
immediate outrage from then-
President Hamid Karzai and the
U.S., derailing talks and eventu-
ally leading the Taliban to shutter
the office.
While the office never opened,
Qatar has become a place to open
back-channel communication
with the Taliban. Qatari interme-
diaries helped U.S. officials ne-
gotiate for the release of captive
U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
last year, American officials have
said.
Current Afghan President
Ashraf Ghani, elected last year,
has pushed for peace talks with
the Taliban.
SEAN KILPATRICK, THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, center left, walks with Iraq’s Kurdish Regional President
Massoud Barzani as he is welcomed Saturday by a Peshmerga honor guard in Irbil, Iraq.
Afridi
6. PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, May 3, 2015
NATION
The Associated Press
BALTIMORE — Chants of “no
justice, no peace, no racist police”
were already echoing through the
streetsofBaltimoreSaturdayeven
before the start of a march that or-
ganizers billed as a “victory rally”
after a prosecutor filed criminal
charges against six officers in-
volved in the arrest of a man who
died in police custody.
State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby
on Friday charged the six with
felonies ranging from assault to
murder in the death of Freddie
Gray. He died from spinal injuries
a week after his April 12 arrest.
It provoked riots on the streets of
West Baltimore and quickly be-
came a rallying cry against police
brutality and social inequality in
the city.
After Mosby’s announcement
Friday, the tone of the march
changed to more celebratory.
Shortly after noon at Gilmor
Homes, a group of demonstrators
gathered to march, both black and
white.
“Are you ready to march for jus-
tice?” Kwame Rose, 20, of Balti-
more, said. The crowded chanted,
“Yes.”
“Are you all ready to march for
peace?” Rose asked. “Yeah,” the
group answered.
Near a CVS store that was loot-
ed and burned earlier in the week,
groups of policemen stood on cor-
ners and a police helicopter flew
overhead. Some officers twirled
wooden batons idly. Someone had
used chalk to draw a peace sign
and write “Freddie Gray” on the
brick face of the store. Hearts and
dollar signs had been drawn on
the store’s boarded up windows.
Black Lawyers for Justice was
expecting at least 10,000 people to
show up downtown.
Mosby said that after reviewing
the results of a police investigation
turned over to her just one day be-
fore, she concluded Gray’s arrest
was illegal and unjustified. She
said his neck was broken because
he was handcuffed, shackled and
placed head-first into a police van,
where his pleas for medical atten-
tion were repeatedly ignored.
The officers missed five oppor-
tunities to help the injured and
falselyimprisoneddetaineebefore
he arrived at the police station no
longer breathing, Mosby added.
The police had no reason to stop
or chase after Gray, Mosby said.
They falsely accused him of hav-
ing an illegal switchblade when it
was a legal pocketknife, and failed
to strap him down with a seat belt,
a direct violation of department
policy, she said.
Gray’s stepfather, Robert
Shipley, said the family was happy
the officers were charged, and he
reiterated a plea to keep all public
demonstrations peaceful.
“We are satisfied with today’s
charges; they are an important
step in getting justice for Fred-
die,” Shipley said. “But if you are
not coming in peace, please don’t
come at all.”
Thousands take part in
Baltimore ‘victory rally’
Muslim groups fret over anti-terror effort
The Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — About 40
Muslim groups in Minnesota are
voicing concern about a federal
program designed to fight terror
recruiting, according to a state-
ment sent out Friday by the Min-
nesota chapter of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations.
The statement, which contains
the names of several mosques,
student groups and other Muslim
organizations, asks the Depart-
ment of Justice to discontinue
the program, saying it unfairly
singles out members of the state’s
large Somali community for their
nationality and religion.
“While we support the right of
all Americans to live in democrat-
ic communities free of violence,
we cannot in good conscience
condone or help refine programs
that are fundamentally discrimi-
natory and are likely to further
subject our community members
to additional civil rights abuses,”
the statement said.
Minneapolis is one of three
cities participating in a pilot pro-
gram designed to prevent terror
recruiting by creating opportu-
nities for youth and those consid-
ered at-risk. While supporters
see it is a way to fight extremism,
some activists have expressed
concern that it will amount to gov-
ernment surveillance of Muslim
communities.
Accused police officers represent broad spectrum of force
Bishop accused in
fatal DUI case resigns
BALTIMORE — A Maryland
bishop accused of fatally striking
a bicyclist while driving drunk in
Baltimore has resigned, and her
credentials have been revoked,
officials with the Episcopal
Church said.
TheEpiscopalDioceseofMary-
land announced Friday that it ac-
cepted the resignation of Heather
Cook. Separately, the Episcopal
Church announced it revoked
Cook’s clergy credentials, under
an agreement with Cook. She is
now considered a layperson.
Cook had been the second-
highest-ranking Episcopal leader
in Maryland. The revocation of
hercredentialsresolvesanydisci-
plinary matters with the church,
officials said.
Cook faces charges of vehicular
manslaughter, drunken driving
and distracted driving stemming
from a Dec. 27 accident. Pros-
ecutors say Cook was drunk and
texting when she fatally struck
Tom Palermo, 41. Cook is free on
a $2.5 million bail.
From The Associated Press
BY PAUL SCHWARTZMAN
The Washington Post
The six officers accused in con-
nection with the death of Freddie
Gray face a litany of charges that
include second-degree depraved
heart murder, involuntary man-
slaughter, false imprisonment
and false arrest.
The officers — three white,
threeAfrican-American—repre-
sent a broad spectrum of experi-
ence on Baltimore’s police force.
Three of them joined the force
only three years ago. Another
officer, the driver who faces the
most serious charges, is African-
American and has been on the
force since 1999.
The officers include one
woman, a sergeant, who joined
the force in 2010.
All six police officers were re-
leasedonbondsbetween$250,000
and $350,000, according to the
Associated Press. The police of-
ficers facing charges are:
Officer Caesar Goodson, 45,
who has been on the force since
1999, according to Baltimore
police. An African-American,
Goodson drove the van that trans-
ported Gray to jail.
Goodson is the only officer
in the group facing a murder
charge. He
is charged
with sec-
ond-degree
depraved
heart mur-
der, a charge
used when
a suspect
is accused
of reckless
disregard
for another
person’s life, in addition to invol-
untary manslaughter, second-
degree assault, manslaughter by
vehicle and misconduct in office.
WBAL-TV in Baltimore re-
ported last week that Goodson is
facing internal disciplinary pro-
ceedings in a separate case for
allegedly allowing a prisoner to
escape from a hospital.
Lt. Brian Rice, 41, the
highest-ranking officer among
those charged Friday, is a 17-year
veteran of the department.
Rice was the first officer to
make eye contact with Gray while
on bike patrol, State’s Attorney
Marilyn Mosby said. Rice then
chased Gray, calling for backup
on his police radio. Mosby said
Rice failed to establish probable
cause for Gray’s arrest.
ThelieutenanthelpedloadGray
onto a police
wagon, then
he ordered
the driver to
stop the ve-
hicle so he
and other of-
ficers could
remove
Gray, hand-
cuff him and
place leg
shackles on
his ankles.
Rice is charged with involun-
tary manslaughter, second-de-
gree assault, misconduct in office
and false imprisonment.
Officer William Porter, 25,
who joined the force in 2012, be-
came involved in Gray’s arrest
after Goodson requested backup
as he was
driving
to central
booking,
Mosby said.
Porter faces
charges of
involuntary
manslaugh-
ter, sec-
ond-degree
assault and
misconduct
in office.
Porter, who is black, checked on
Gray and asked him if he needed
medical assistance. When Gray
said he could not breathe, Por-
ter helped him off the van floor
and onto a bench. The officer
failed to restrain Gray with a seat
belt, Mosby said. Nor did he call
for medical help, despite Gray’s
request.
Sgt. Alicia White, 30, joined
the force in 2010. She was dis-
patched to investigate two citi-
zens’ complaints about Gray’s
arrest. At
one point,
according to
Mosby, she
“spoke to the
back of his
head,” even
though Gray
was unre-
sponsive.
The pros-
ecutor said
White made
no effort to assess Gray’s condi-
tion despite having been told he
needed medical assistance. White
is charged with involuntary man-
slaughter, second-degree assault
and misconduct in office.
Officer Edward Nero, 29,
who joined the force in 2012, was
on bike patrol with Rice and an-
other officer
when they
chased Gray.
Nero hand-
cuffed Gray,
and held
him down
until the po-
lice wagon
arrived,
Mosby said.
Nero, who
is white, is
charged with second-degree as-
sault, misconduct in office and
false imprisonment.
Officer Garrett Miller is
charged with second-degree as-
sault, misconduct in office and
false imprisonment. Miller, 26,
has been on the force since 2012.
Miller was
on bike pa-
trol with
Rice and
Nero when
they appre-
hendedGray,
according to
the prosecu-
tor. Miller
helped load
Gray into a
police wagon
and failed to restrain him with a
seat belt.
PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP
Cephus “Bobby” Johnson addresses marchers Saturday outside
Baltimore City Hall. Thousands of people were expected to take part
in a “victory rally” now that six police officers face charges in the
death of Freddie Gray.
Goodson Rice
Porter
White
Nero
Miller
7. • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7Sunday, May 3, 2015
NATION
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — Ruling in a
nearly decade-old lawsuit, a judge
in Washington said Friday that the
federal government is responsible
for some of the catastrophic flood-
ing that followed Hurricane Ka-
trina and other storms — flooding
blamed on a now-closed naviga-
tion channel.
Judge Susan Braden, of the
U.S. Court of Federal Claims in
Washington, said the flooding
was, in effect, a “taking” of prop-
erty under the Fifth Amendment,
for which the plaintiffs must be
compensated.
How much the government will
have to pay in damages is unclear.
Braden set a conference for next
Wednesday in New Orleans to
determine whether an agreement
can be reached to have damages
assessed by a mediator.
Also unclear is how many peo-
ple will benefit. There are a hand-
ful of plaintiffs, but attorneys were
seeking class-action status that
could mean many people in St.
Bernard Parish and New Orleans’
Lower 9th Ward. The judge’s rul-
ing did not address whether class-
action status would be granted.
Friday’s ruling came in an Oc-
tober 2005 lawsuit filed by the
government of St. Bernard Parish
— adjacent to New Orleans — and
several property owners. It focus-
es on the now-closed Mississippi
River Gulf Outlet — a navigation
canalbuiltbytheU.S.ArmyCorps
of Engineers and blamed by many
for flooding in St. Bernard and the
Lower 9th after Katrina.
The suit says the construction,
dredging and operation of the nav-
igation canal, known in south Lou-
isiana as “Mr. Go,” contributed to
conditions that led to catastrophic
flooding during Hurricane Ka-
trina in August 2005, Hurricane
Rita weeks later and other storms.
In effect, the suit argued, the dam-
age caused by the flooding was an
illegal taking of private property
by the federal government with-
out adequate compensation.
Braden agreed, ruling that the
Corps’ “construction, expansions,
operation, and failure to maintain
the MR-GO” led to storm surge
and flooding that amounted to “a
temporary taking under the Fifth
Amendment to the United States
Constitution.”
The Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. — The charges
handed down against three former
allies of Gov. Chris Christie in the
George Washington Bridge traffic
scandalprovidemixednewsforthe
Republican governor as he tries to
regain momentum in support of an
expected presidential bid.
Christie appears to have been
cleared of any allegations that
he personally participated in
a scheme to shut down access
lanes to the George Washington
Bridge in September 2013.
But the charges brought by
the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New
Jersey still hit close to home:
Christie’s former deputy chief of
staff and his former top appoin-
tee to the authority that controls
the bridge were indicted. Another
former ally pleaded guilty to two
counts of conspiracy.
The charges also return focus
to a famously bruising political
style associated with Christie’s
administration.
The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS — Eighteen black
womenwhoweretolddecadesago
that their babies had died soon
after birth at a St. Louis hospital
now wonder if the infants were
taken away by hospital officials to
be raised by other families.
The suspicions arose from the
story of Zella Jackson Price, who
said she was 26 in 1965 when she
gave birth at Homer G. Phillips
Hospital in St. Louis. Hours later,
she was told that her daughter had
died, but she never saw a body or
a death certificate.
No one is sure who was re-
sponsible, but Price’s daughter
ended up in foster care, only to
resurface almost 50 years later.
Melanie Gilmore, who now lives
in Eugene, Ore., has said that
her foster parents always told
her she was given up by her birth
mother.
Price’s attorney, Albert Wat-
kins, is asking city and state of-
ficials to investigate. In a letter
to Gov. Jay Nixon and St. Louis
Mayor Francis Slay, Watkins said
he suspects the hospital coordi-
natedascheme“tostealnewborns
of color for marketing in private
adoption transactions.” In a let-
ter to Watkins, the Missouri De-
partment of Health and Human
Services called the allegations
“troubling” and said it would like
to help him track down relevant
documents it might have, such as
birth or death certificates.
Gilmore’s children recently
tracked down her birth mother to
mark their mother’s 50th birth-
day. The search led them to Price,
now 76, who lives in suburban St.
Louis.
In March, an online video
causedasensationwhenitshowed
the moment that Gilmore, who is
deaf, learned through lip reading
and sign language that her birth
mother had been found.
The two women reunited in
April. DNA confirmed that they
are mother and daughter.
“She looked like me,” said
Price, a gospel singer who has
five other children. “She was so
excited and full of joy. It was just
beautiful. I’ll never forget that,”
she said of the reunion.
After the reunion, Watkins
started getting calls from other
women who wondered if their
babies, whom they were told had
died, might have instead been
taken from them.
Their stories, he said, are strik-
ingly similar: Most of the births
were in the mid-1950s to mid-
1960s at Homer G. Phillips. All of
the mothers were black and poor,
mostly ages 15 to 20.
In each case, a nurse — not a
doctor — told the mother that her
child had died, a breach of nor-
mal protocol. No death certifi-
cates were issued, and none of the
mothers were allowed to see their
deceased infants, Watkins said.
“These are moms,” he said.
“They are mothers at the end of
their lives seeking answers to a
lifelong hole in their heart.”
He plans to file a lawsuit seek-
ing birth and death records. None
of the women are seeking money,
he said.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Rescu-
ers were searching for a pos-
sible victim Friday at the site of
a collapsed parking garage at the
Watergate complex after a ca-
daver dog made a possible hit in
the rubble, District of Columbia
Mayor Muriel Bowser said.
One person was injured and
taken to a hospital after the three
stories of the garage collapsed
Friday morning, fire department
officials said. A second person
was evaluated at the scene and
refused further treatment.
After working all afternoon to
shore up the structure and search
for any more injured people in-
side, rescuers shifted their efforts
to a recovery operation, Bowser
said. Three search dogs sent into
the collapsed garage found no
signs of life.
It will be a long process, offi-
cials said.
Much of the complex remained
evacuated late Friday afternoon,
including condominiums located
near the collapse site.
Fire department spokesman
Timothy Wilson described the
scene as a “pancake collapse” in
which one floor falls into another.
The area was under construction
at the time.
Photographs from the outside
showed the garage may have had
a green roof with trees and plants
that fell into the collapsed area.
All construction workers at the
scene were accounted for, Wilson
said.
Fire department spokesman
Oscar Mendez said no one else
had been reported missing.
Construction worker Gabriel
Gresczyk said he heard a rumble
and then saw a 40-foot-by-40-foot
section go down, hitting the floor
below it. Then he says the floor
below collapsed.
“One of our guys had just come
upfromthatarea,”Gresczyksaid.
“Thank God he’s all right.”
The historic Watergate com-
plex was evacuated after the col-
lapse. The complex was made
famous by the 1972 burglary and
scandal that eventually led to the
resignation of President Richard
M. Nixon.
Judge: US liable for some Katrina flooding
Bridge scandal may prove
a mixed bag for Christie
Possible baby-stealing ring
investigated at Mo. hospital
AP photos
Members of the Washington, D.C., fire department work to open rescue equipment after a parking
garage collapse at the Watergate complex on Friday.
A partially collapsed garage that was under construction is shown at
the Watergate complex in Washington on Friday.
1 injured
in garage
collapse at
Watergate
8. PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, May 3, 2015
NATION
BY LENA H. SUN
AND NIRAJ CHOKSHI
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Nearly half
of the 17 insurance marketplaces
set up by the states and the Dis-
trict under President Barack
Obama’s health law are strug-
gling financially, presenting state
officials with an unexpected and
serious challenge five years after
the passage of the landmark Af-
fordable Care Act.
Many of the online exchanges
are wrestling with surging costs,
especially for balky technology
and expensive customer-call cen-
ters — and tepid enrollment num-
bers. To ease the fiscal distress,
officials are considering raising
fees on insurers, sharing costs
with other states and pressing
state lawmakers for cash infu-
sions. Some are weighing turning
over part or all of their troubled
marketplaces to the federal ex-
change, HealthCare.gov, which is
now working smoothly.
The latest challenges come at
a critical time. With two enroll-
ment periods completed, the law
has sharply reduced the num-
ber of uninsured and is starting
to force change in the nation’s
sprawling health care system. But
the law remains highly contro-
versial and faces another threat:
The Supreme Court will decide
by the end of June whether con-
sumers in the 34 states using the
federal exchange will be barred
from receiving subsidies to buy
insurance.
If the court strikes down subsi-
dies in the federal exchange, the
states that are struggling finan-
cially probably would abandon
efforts to join the federal mar-
ketplace because their residents
would no longer be able to get sub-
sidies to help them buy insurance.
If the court upholds subsidies for
the federal exchange, some states
may step up efforts to transfer op-
erations to HealthCare.gov.
States have received nearly $5
billion in federal grants to estab-
lish the online marketplaces used
by consumers to enroll in health
plans under the health care act.
The federal funding ended at
the beginning of the year, and
exchanges now are required to
cover their operating costs.
Most exchanges are indepen-
dent or quasi-independent enti-
ties. For most of them, the main
source of income is fees imposed
on insurers, which typically are
passed on to consumers. Be-
cause those fees are based on
how many people have signed up,
strong enrollment is critical to an
exchange’s fiscal success.
But for the recently completed
open enrollment period, signups
for the state marketplaces rose a
disappointing 12 percent, to 2.8
million people. That compared
with a 61 percent increase for
the federal exchange, to 8.8 mil-
lion people, according to Avalere
Health, a consulting firm.
Health care exchanges
face financial difficulties
Abe touts ‘alliance of hope’ with US
BY MICHAEL R. BLOOD
The Associated Press
LOSANGELES—JapanPrime
Minister Shinzo Abe wrapped up
his U.S. visit Friday in Los Ange-
les, where he shared his vision for
strengthened economic and polit-
ical ties between the two allies.
At a Japan-U.S. economic
forum in downtown Los Ange-
les, Abe spoke of an “alliance of
hope” that included growing in-
vestments and closer business
and political ties.
U.S. Commerce Secretary
Penny Pritzker said the United
States and Japan will work to-
ward promoting more direct in-
vestment in each other’s markets
and approval of a Pacific trade
agreement.
“We must reinforce an econom-
icarchitecturethatwillshapeand
secure our future,” Pritzker said.
“There are two essential cor-
nerstones of that architecture: in-
creasing two-way investment and
deepening trade” through a trans-
Pacific agreement, she said.
At an earlier luncheon, Abe
said there is a “synergy across the
Pacific Ocean” between the na-
tions, and he alluded to strength-
ened defense ties with the U.S.
amid Japan’s perpetual feud with
archrival China.
Since winning election in De-
cember 2012, Abe has been a
strong advocate of closer ties with
the U.S. His remarks came near
the close of a three-day swing
through California after meeting
earlier in the week with President
Barack Obama in Washington,
where Abe said the U.S. and Japan
must take the lead in completing a
12-nation trans-Pacific trade pact.
He arrived in the U.S. during
a Washington battle over legisla-
tion that would give Obama the
authority to negotiate the Trans-
Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a
cornerstone of his second-term
agenda. In a reversal of politics-
as-usual, it’s Obama’s own Demo-
cratic base that opposes him and
Republicans who support the
deal.
Ivory rule enforcement
to change after seizure
CONCORD, N.H. — The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service is look-
ing for a little harmony over rules
used to enforce a ban on ivory
that ended up snagging a pair of
teenage bagpipers at the Cana-
dian border.
In August, Campbell Webster
and Eryk Bean of New Hamp-
shire were returning from a com-
petition in Canada when their
pipes were taken. The reason:
They contained small pieces of
ivory. The U.S. prohibits import-
ing ivory taken after 1976.
Even though the boys had cer-
tificates showing the bagpipes’
ivory was harvested before 1976,
a combination of required pa-
perwork and the type of border
crossing they used caused U.S.
Customs and Border Protection
to seize the pipes at Highgate
Springs, Vt.
Charges against hunter
in Yosemite fire dropped
FRESNO, Calif. — Criminal
charges were dropped against a
bow hunter accused of starting
one of California’s largest wild-
fires, a blaze that burned parts of
Yosemite National Park, federal
prosecutors said Friday.
The decision came after two
key witnesses unexpectedly died
within months of an indictment
that was handed down last year
against Matthew Emerald, 33,
prosecutors said.
The California man was ac-
cused of starting the 2013 blaze
called the Rim Fire that burned
for two months, scorching 400
squaremiles,destroying11homes
and costing $125 million to fight.
Report: Capitol police
left guns in bathrooms
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers
demanded answers Friday after
a report that Capitol Police of-
ficers have left their guns in the
bathrooms of the Capitol complex
three times this year.
The newspaper Roll Call, which
first reported the incidents, said
one of the guns was found by a
child. The newspaper said the
others were found by employees
who work at the Capitol.
One gun was left by a member
of Senate Majority Leader Mitch’s
McConnell’s security detail, and
another was left by an officer who
protects House Speaker John
Boehner, the newspaper said.
Man spreads Ebola 5
months after infection
NEW YORK — Health officials
now think Ebola survivors can
spread the disease through un-
protected sex nearly twice as long
as previously believed.
Scientists thought the Ebola
virus could remain in semen for
about three months. But a recent
case in West Africa suggests in-
fection through sex can happen
more than five months later.
Based on the case, officials are
now telling male Ebola survivors
to avoid unprotected sex indefi-
nitely. They had previously ad-
vised using condoms for at least
three months.
From The Associated Press
Officials fret
over results
of battery fire
tests on planes
BY JOAN LOWY
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Interna-
tional aviation officials are try-
ing to quickly come up with safer
packaging for cargo shipments
of lithium-ion batteries on pas-
senger planes after U.S. testing
confirmed that aircraft fire sup-
pression systems can’t prevent
overheatedbatteriesfromcausing
powerful explosions and fires.
Thehazardouscargocommittee
of the International Civil Aviation
Organization, a U.N. agency, met
last week in Montreal. Officials
familiar with the discussions said
the panel heard a detailed presen-
tation by aircraft manufacturers
and pilot unions on the potential
for the batteries to cause an explo-
sion and resulting fire capable of
destroying a plane.
The committee agreed to create
a special working group to try to
come up with packaging for bat-
teries that would contain any fire
or explosive gases to the inside of
the package, officials said. If the
working group cannot come up
with such packaging, officials said
theyconsideritlikelythataformal
proposal to ban bulk battery ship-
ments from passenger planes will
be offered at an ICAO meeting on
dangerous cargo in October.
The batteries are used in de-
vices from cellphones to electric
cars. It’s not unusual for as many
as 80,000 batteries to be carried
aboard a plane. The global bat-
tery industry has been lobbying
heavily against significant re-
strictions on battery shipments
other than minor changes to cur-
rent regulations.
Testing by the U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration over the
pastyearandahalfhasrepeatedly
shown that a single short-circuit-
ing battery in a large shipment of
batteries can cause overheating
to spread to other batteries. Fire
suppression systems have been
able to put out the initial flames,
but they haven’t been able to stop
the spread of continually increas-
ing temperatures known as ther-
mal runaway.
The overheated batteries emit
a mixture of explosive gases, of
which hydrogen is the most abun-
dant. As the gases build up, they
eventually explode and ignite an
intense fire.
An FAA test in February result-
ed in a powerful explosion despite
being conducted in a pressurized
chamber with an atmosphere of 5
percent halon. Halon is the main
gas used to suppress fires in the
cargo compartments of passen-
ger planes. It has long been ac-
cepted by aviation authorities
that this level of halon is enough
to put out most fires, including a
lithium-ion battery fire.
“We now no longer believe that
wouldbethecase,”saidpilotMark
Rogers, who represents the Air
Line Pilots Association in the U.S.
and Canada and other interna-
tional pilot unions on cargo issues
in the organization’s proceedings.
GINA FERAZZI, LOS ANGELES TIMES/AP
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sits with World War II veterans from the 442nd Regiment after
laying a wreath at the Go For Broke Memorial on Friday in downtown Los Angeles.
9. • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9Sunday, May 3, 2015
BY BRADY MCCOMBS
The Associated Press
HANKSVILLE, Utah — Four people
wearing space helmets and square back-
packs emerge from a circular structure
resembling a water tank and step onto a
reddish, barren landscape.
One hikes up a hill to take magnetic read-
ings of the ground with a rectangular ap-
paratus that looks like a large leveling tool.
Another pushes a wheelbarrow equipped
with sensors arrayed in a zigzag pattern.
For a group of six Belgian college stu-
dents, it’s just another simulated day on
Mars.
ThisrockycornerofUtahbearssuchare-
semblance to the red planet that it’s become
a hot spot for scientists and engineers to run
imaginary missions to Earth’s neighbor.
They’ve been coming here for more than
a decade, hoping their research someday
helps put humans on the Martian surface.
This site and others that allow crews to
mimic interplanetary missions are helping
to raise buzz about Mars to an all-time high
as advancements in science and engineer-
ing convince space enthusiasts that the 140-
million-mile trip is a realistic possibility in
this century.
Mars Society
The research center is run by the non-
profit Mars Society, an advocacy group
that believes getting people to Mars is the
great challenge of our time. The group is
not affiliated with NASA or the federal
government.
“What we are doing on Mars is begin-
ning humanity’s career as a space-faring
species, a multiplanet species,” said Rob-
ert Zubrin, Mars Society director. “This is
about extending the human reach from one
world to many worlds.”
On May 5, the third annual Humans to
Mars Summit kicks off in Washington,
D.C., with about 800 attendees expected
and as many as a quarter-million more
watching webcasts, said Chris Carberry,
executive director of the organization that
puts on the summit, Explore Mars Inc.
“There’s never been so much support for
sending humans to Mars,” said Carberry,
who remembers congressional staffers
rolling their eyes when he pitched the
idea in the late 1990s while working for the
Mars Society.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
said recently at a congressional hearing
that the space agency’s plan is to get people
to Mars in the 2030s.
Private companies are trying to beat
NASA by getting people there first. Bil-
lionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s com-
pany, SpaceX, plans to unveil concepts for
Mars colonization later this year. Richard
Branson’s company, Virgin Galactic, has
also discussed a trip to Mars.
The Belgian crew
The Belgian students are the 153rd
group in the last 14 years to travel to this
outpost for a two-week mission.
None of the six are interested in going to
Mars without a guarantee of a safe return.
“I could die for science, but at 70 years
old and not at 30,” said Romain Compere,
now 23. “I don’t want to die without oxy-
gen and thousands of kilometers from my
home with no one to love me.”
Compere and his five classmates beat out
34 other students at their university
to be chosen for the crew. The
Mars Society charged each
of them $1,000 for the
mission, which the stu-
dents paid by getting
a grant from NASA
and donations
from their univer-
sity and several
Belgian science
companies, said
Bastien Mathurin,
the commander.
Like other
groups, each per-
son fills a role that
the Mars Society be-
lieves will be integral to
a real mission. There is a
commander, subcommander,
astronomer, geologist, biologist,
journalist and engineer/mechanic.
The teams hold close to the most impor-
tant rule of the mission: Simulate every-
thing as authentically as possible. They
never go outside without space helmets.
When entering and leaving, they wait sev-
eral minutes in a fake decompression room
between the outside door and inside of the
habitat. At least one person must always
stay behind in case something goes wrong,
and they never go outside alone. They
cook with freeze-dried foods or
other dry goods.
The place where they
live and sleep is called
“the habitat.” From
the outside, it looks
like a giant water
tank. Inside, it has
two levels, with
six narrow bed-
rooms upstairs
and a bathroom,
shower and work-
station down-
stairs. It’s basic,
but for two weeks,
everybody gets along
fine, Mathurin said.
They planted the Belgian
flag in the ground outside.
“We’re trying to write the book
of field tactics for Mars explorers,” Zubrin
said. “We do not expect that the people in
our crews will be the actual people that go
to Mars. … We’re trying to discover how
the Mars mission crew should be trained.”
The training helps illustrate the logisti-
cal and emotional issues that a Mars mis-
sion would confront, he said.
The Colorado-based Mars Society first
built an Arctic training station in 2000 on
Devon Island in the Canadian territory of
Nunavut, but soon realized it was logisti-
cally cumbersome to get crews there.
That triggered a search for a desert
site in the American Southwest. The site
in Utah was chosen because it looks like
Mars and was reasonably close to airports.
Located just outside the tiny community
of Hanksville, the site is a four-hour drive
from Salt Lake City or 2½ hours from
Grand Junction, Colo.
Mars ‘missions’
Since 2001, the Mars Society has spent
about $1 million on the desert research
centertobuildthehabitat,rentthelandand
pay for supplies and upkeep, Zubrin said.
The group has been helped by $150,000 in
contributions from NASA. The organiza-
tion also relies on donations and dues from
its 7,000 members worldwide.
More than 900 people have participated
in missions in Utah, coming from all over
the world, including Russia, Romania, Aus-
tralia and Japan. One in 5 work for NASA,
Zubrin said.
The Utah training site isn’t the only place
to simulate Mars missions.
Last summer, a crew of six scientists
spentfourmonthsatopavolcanoinHawaii.
Several years ago, six foreign researchers
spent 520 days in a locked steel capsule in
Moscow during a mock flight to Mars.
These training sites offer useful practice
but mainly promote education and public
awareness, said Greg Williams, deputy
associate administrator for policy in the
Human Exploration and Operations Mis-
sion Directorate at NASA.
“That’s been really important, just to
keep the buzz going about it,” Williams
said. “To highlight not only the challenges
of getting on Mars and being on Mars but
also what we are accomplishing in order to
make that happen.”
NATION
PHOTOS BY RICK BOWMER/AP
The Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah, has become a hot spot for teams of geologists, biologists and engineers from around the world who have been coming
for more than a decade to simulate missions to the mysterious planet.
Members of the crew at the station travel by ATV as they simulate a mission on the
red-toned, barren land.
Remote Utah outpost serves as Mars surface
‘What we are doing on Mars is beginning humanity’s
career as a space-faring species, a multiplanet species.
’Robert Zubrin
Mars Society director
10. PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, May 3, 2015
BY MICHELLE FAUL
The Associated Press
YOLA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s mil-
itary rescued 234 more girls and
women from a Boko Haram forest
stronghold in the country’s north-
east, an announcement on social
media said Saturday.
It brings the number of females
declared rescued last week to
more than 677.
“FLASH: Another set of 234
women and children were rescued
through the Kawuri and Konduga
end of the #Sambisa Forest on
Thursday,” said a message on
the official Twitter account of the
Nigerian Defence Headquarters
that was posted early Saturday.
The army has deployed ground
troops into Sambisa Forest after
weeks of punishing air raids on
the area.
“The assault on the forest is
continuing from various fronts,
and efforts are concentrated on
rescuing hostages of civilians and
destroying all terrorist camps and
facilities in the forest,” said De-
fense Ministry spokesman Maj.
Gen. Chris Olukolade.
Sambisa Forest is the last hold-
out of the Islamic militants. Presi-
dent Goodluck Jonathan, whose
term ends this month, pledged
Thursday to “hand over a Nige-
ria completely free of terrorist
strongholds.”
It is not known how many
girls, women, boys and men Boko
Haram has kidnapped during its
nearly 6-year-old rebellion. Nige-
ria’s army has reported rescuing
only females.
The Associated Press has re-
ported that some women shot at
their rescuers and were killed,
with Boko Haram using them as
an armed human shield for its
main fighting force.
Most of the females are trauma-
tized, said army spokesman Col.
Sani Usman. Nigeria’s military
said it has flown in medical and
intelligence teams to screen the
rescued girls and women and find
out their identities.
It is still not known if any are
the schoolgirls kidnapped from
a boarding school in the town of
Chibok a year ago — a mass kid-
napping that outraged much of the
world.
A counselor who has helped
rehabilitate other women held
captive by Boko Haram told the
AP that some identify with the in-
surgents’ extremist ideology after
months of captivity and forced
marriages. It remains unclear if
some of the women had willingly
joined Boko Haram or are family
members of fighters.
Boko Haram began kidnapping
civilians after Nigeria’s military
detained the wives and children
of several militant leaders. They
were freed amid failed peace ne-
gotiations in 2013.
Bloomberg News
FRANKFURT, Germany —
Germanpolicesaidtheythwarted
a suspected Boston-marathon-
style plot to bomb an annual May
1 cycle race in Frankfurt that at-
tracts thousands of riders from
across Europe.
A warrant was obtained to keep
a married couple with links to
“radicalIslamic”groupsindeten-
tion after they were arrested on
suspicion of preparing explosives,
Udo Buehler, a police spokesman,
said on Friday by phone from the
state capital of Wiesbaden. The
cycle race was canceled.
The pair refused to answer
questions after a completed
bomb was found in their home in
Oberursel, near Frankfurt, along
with 100 rounds of ammunition,
a dummy shell for a bazooka and
other explosive equipment on
Thursday, Buehler said. It’s un-
clear whether other bombs were
built and distributed, and police
have secured the cycle route and
didn’t find any additional pieces
of evidence, Buehler said.
Authorities began monitor-
ing the couple after a DIY store
told police they had bought three
quarts of hydrogen peroxide in
March.
The search for possible accom-
plices is continuing. Germany’s
chief federal prosecutor, respon-
sible for terror investigations, has
been informed of the case, Bue-
hler said.
It’s not the first time this year
that a public event has been
prevented from going ahead in
Germany, as authorities across
Europe step up surveillance amid
a rising threat of attack from Is-
lamist extremists.
Among the threats, the north-
ern city of Braunschweig can-
celed its annual Carnival parade
in February after receiving infor-
mation about a “concrete danger
of an attack,” authorities said at
the time. As many as 250,000 had
been expected to turn out.
WORLD
BY KATY DAIGLE
AND TODD PITMAN
The Associated Press
MAJUWA, Nepal — With help still not
reaching some isolated villages a week
after Nepal’s devastating earthquake, a top
international aid official said Saturday that
more helicopters were needed to get assis-
tance to the farthest reaches of this Hima-
layan nation.
Many mountain roads, often treacher-
ous at the best of times, remain blocked by
landslides, making it extremely difficult for
supply trucks to get to the higher Himala-
yan foothills.
“We definitely need more helicopters,”
Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the
U.N.’s World Food Program, told The As-
sociated Press in the village of Majuwa, in
the quake-devastated Gorkha district. Aid
agencies have been using Majuwa as a stag-
ing area to get supplies deeper into moun-
tainous areas.
“Even seven days in, this is still very
much considered the early days, because
there are people we still haven’t reached.
So we need helicopters to reach them,” she
said. “This is one of the poorest places on
Earth. If the global community walks away,
the people of this country will not receive
the assistance that is required for them to
rebuild their lives.”
Cousin said shelter was a more urgent
priority at this point than food.
More than 130,000 houses were de-
stroyed in the quake, according to the U.N.
humanitarian office. Near the epicenter,
north of Kathmandu, whole villages were in
ruins, and residents were in desperate need
of temporary shelters against the rain and
cold.
The magnitude-7.8 earthquake killed
more than 6,840 people, with the death toll
continuing to rise as reports filter in from
isolated areas. The U.N. has estimated the
quake affected 8.1 million people — more
than a fourth of Nepal’s population of 27.8
million.
Other teams conducting search-and-
rescue operations also said their work was
hampered by a lack of helicopters.
David O’Neill, of International Search
and Rescue, said a team from his group
drove and then walked for several hours to
reach remote villages that had reported 80
percent fatalities.
Aid still scarce in Nepal’s remote villages
COURTESY OF THE NIGERIAN MILITARY/AP
A Nigerian child is shown in Sambisa Forest, Nigeria, who was
allegedly rescued by the Nigerian military after being taken by
Islamic extremists.
SETH ROBSON/Stars and Stripes
Earthquake supplies are stacked up in a grandstand in Kathmandu, Nepal, on
Saturday. Such supplies have not yet reached some isolated villages because of
blocked mountain roads, and a U.N. aid official said more helicopters are needed.
German police foil alleged terror plan at Frankfurt cycle race
Nigeria: 234 more girls rescued from extremists
BY SETH ROBSON
Stars and Stripes
KATHMANDU, Nepal — U.S. military
aircraft and personnel due to arrive Satur-
day in Kathmandu to help with the Nepal
earthquake relief effort have been delayed
a day due to logistical challenges, officials
said.
A wide variety of factors contributed
to the delay, with aircraft, personnel and
equipment coming from Japan, Guam,
Thailand and the Philippines, said Marine
Capt. Cassandra Gesecki, a spokeswoman
for Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy, 3rd Marine
Expeditionary Brigade commander, who
arrived Wednesday in the Nepalese capital
with an advance party of Pacific Command
troops.
Four tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey aircraft, three
UH-1 Huey helicopters, four Air Force C-17
Globemasters and two Marine Corps KC-
130s, as well as 150 military personnel, are
slated to assist in the relief effort, Marine
Corps officials said.
The Ospreys and Hueys are to ferry re-
lief supplies and personnel from the airport
in Kathmandu to outlying areas, Kennedy
said Friday.
The aircraft and personnel are now
scheduled to arrive Sunday, Gesecki said.
robson.seth@stripes.com
US military aid
delayed by a day
11. • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11Sunday, May 3, 2015
WORLD
BY SYLVIA HUI
AND DANICA KIRKA
The Associated Press
LONDON — A princess is
born.
PrinceWilliam’swife,theDuch-
ess of Cambridge, “was safely de-
livered of a daughter” Saturday
morning, less than three hours
after checking into central Lon-
don’s St. Mary’s Hospital, royal
officials said.
KensingtonPalacesaidthebaby
was born at 8:34 a.m. London time
and weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces.
The announcement was greeted
by cheers outside the hospital,
where die-hard royal fans dressed
in patriotic Union Jack gear have
been camping out on the sidewalk,
eagerly awaiting news. Delighted
chants of “Princess! Princess!”
sounded outside the hospital’s pri-
vate Lindo Wing.
A town crier in elaborate cos-
tume shouted out the news at the
hospital’s door, clanging his bell
to welcome the new royal. “May
our princess be long-lived, happy
and glorious,” said Tony Appleton,
reading from a scroll in a booming
voice.
The palace said Kate, 33, and
her infant were doing well, and
that Prince William was present
for the birth.
The princess is fourth in line
to the throne and the fifth great-
grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II.
The statement said senior royals
have been informed and “are de-
lighted with the news.”
Kate, who wed William in April
2011, gave birth to Prince George
at the same hospital in July 2013.
Thenameofthenewbornwasn’t
expected to be announced imme-
diately. When George was born,
officials waited two days before
announcing his name.
Anticipation has been building
for weeks. Kate had told a well-
wisher earlier this year that the
child was due in the second half of
April, kicking off what the tabloid
press called the Great Kate Wait.
The world’s media had set up their
positions outside the hospital for
days, but were still caught slightly
off guard by the speed with which
officials announced the birth.
BY KAMBIZ FOROOHAR
Bloomberg News
Iranian activists dismissed the
country’s foreign minister as a po-
litical “Pinocchio” after he said in
a U.S. television interview that the
Islamic Republic doesn’t imprison
journalists or dissidents over their
views.
“We don’t jail people for their
opinions,” Mohammad Javad
Zarif said on the Charlie Rose
show on PBS on Wednesday when
asked about the decision to put on
trial a Washington Post reporter
based in Tehran. “But people who
commit crimes, who violate the
laws of a country, cannot hide be-
hind being a journalist or being a
political activist.”
The reporter in question, Amer-
ican citizen Jason Rezaian, has
been in detention for more than
nine months. The newspaper re-
ported on April 20 that Rezaian is
being charged with espionage and
called for him to be freed. Presi-
dent Barack Obama has described
his custody as unjust.
Iranians who have spent time
in prison for expressing opinions
critical of the clerical regime took
to Twitter and Facebook to mock
Zarif. Images of the minister with
an elongated wooden nose quickly
appeared, a reference to the fic-
tional children’s character whose
nose grew every time he lied.
“Mr @JZarif is, unfortunately,
lying,” said Maziar Bahari, an
Iranian journalist and filmmaker
whowasjailedfor118daysin2009
after he participated in a satiri-
cal interview on The Daily Show
following a disputed presidential
election. “Many innocent people
are in prison in Iran just for being
a journalist or an activist.”
Bahari’s imprisonment became
the subject of the movie “Rosewa-
ter,” directed by Jon Stewart. He
now lives in Britain.
Two years into a term that has
focused on removing economic
sanctions through a nuclear deal
with world powers, President
Hassan Rouhani has failed to de-
liver on his promise to improve
human rights and release political
prisoners.
Iran remains one of the world’s
five biggest jailers of journalists,
according to Reporters Without
Borders, a nonprofit organization
that monitors press freedom. It
said on April 10 that 46 journal-
ists and Internet activists were
in prison after “unfair trials and
held in inhuman and degrading
conditions.”
Former presidential candidates
Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi
Karubi, who led the protest move-
ment that challenged the results
of the 2009 election, remain under
house arrest, their release hin-
dered by a judiciary dominated by
hard-line opponents of Rouhani.
In a 2014 report, the UN’s spe-
cial rapporteur on human rights
in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, cited
concerns that draft laws would
further undermine freedom of ex-
pression and association, and fur-
ther discriminate against women.
BY BRADLEY KLAPPER
The Associated Press
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — John
Kerry made the first visit to Sri
Lanka by a U.S. secretary of state
in a decade on Saturday, champi-
oning the new government’s fresh
effort at democratic reform and
promising to deepen ties with a
country that sits at a strategic
crossroads in the vast Indian
Ocean.
The top American diplomat ar-
rived early Saturday local time in
Colombo and met with Sri Lankan
Foreign Minister Mangala Sama-
raweera. He then met President
Maithripala Sirisena and was to
speak later with the prime minis-
ter and leading officials from the
nation’s Tamil minority.
Sri Lanka’s government, de-
termined to end years of interna-
tional isolation linked to its long
war with
Tamil
separat-
ists, rolled
out the
red carpet
for Kerry
— literal-
ly. He en-
tered the
Foreign
Ministry
under a
welcome
sign bear-
ing his
image and was greeted by musi-
cians playing horns and drums
and dancers in silver breastplates
as he proceeded down a long crim-
son rug.
“In this journey to restore your
democracy, the American people
stand with you,” Kerry declared.
“We intend to broaden and deep-
en our partnership with you,” he
added, saying the two countries
would start an annual partnership
dialogue, and that U.S. officials
from the Treasury and Com-
mercedepartmentswouldprovide
technical assistance to Sri Lanka’s
government.
Kerry’s trip, Samaraweera said,
“signifies our little island nation’s
return to the center stage of in-
ternational affairs,” vowing that
Sri Lanka would become a “full-
fledged parliamentary democra-
cy” and an “investor’s paradise.”
The military crushed the sepa-
ratists in 2009 in a final offensive
that left tens of thousands dead
and the two sides trading accusa-
tions of war crimes.
The victorious president at that
time, Mahinda Rajapaksa, pro-
ceededtotightenhisgriponpower,
weakening democracy and the
rule of law and damaging Sri Lan-
ka’s reputation internationally.
In January, however, Sirisena
shocked Rajapaksa in a close elec-
tionaftervowingtooverhaulasys-
tem widely seen as autocratic and
suffocating for minorities. Last
week, the parliament voted nearly
unanimously to endorse Sirisena’s
proposals to clip the powers of the
president
BY SUMETH PARNPETCH
The Associated Press
PADANG BESAR, Thailand
— Police officials in Thailand
trekked into the mountains and
dug up 26 bodies from dozens of
shallow graves at an abandoned
jungle camp that’s been linked
to human trafficking networks,
which activists say are “out of
control” in the Southeast Asian
country.
A total of 26 bodies have been
found at the camp, which includes
32 gravesites scattered around the
site in a forested area of south-
ern Thailand, said police Gen.
Jarumporn Suramanee, who was
leading the excavation that started
a day earlier.
The cause of the deaths was not
immediately clear. But Friday’s
discovery of the hidden mountain
camp was a sharp reminder that
trafficking continues in Thailand
despite repeated assurances by
authorities that they are address-
ing the root causes.
“I think the excavation is fin-
ished because we have dug up
all the 32 graves, although some
graves did not have any bodies in
them,” Jarumporn told The Asso-
ciated Press. “We will have to wait
for the DNA test results and anal-
ysis from other evidence before
identifying who they are and what
their causes of death were.”
Authorities say the area of the
camp, which is in the mountains
of Padang Besar, a subdistrict
in Songkhla province, is regu-
larly used to smuggle Rohingya
Muslims, who are persecuted in
neighboring Myanmar, as well as
Bangladeshis and other migrants,
to third countries.
Human Rights Watch called
for an independent investigation,
saying the involvement of corrupt
Thai officials has long fueled the
trafficking industry.
KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/AP
Britain’s Prince William, his wife, Kate, the duchess of Cambridge, and their newborn baby princess
pose for the media as they leave St. Mary’s Hospital’s exclusive Lindo Wing in London on Saturday.
SUMETH PANPETCH/AP
Thai police officials measure a shallow grave in Padang Besar,
Songkhla province, southern Thailand, on Saturday.
Thai police dig up 26 bodies at jungle camp
It’s a girl! Royal baby is born
Kerry vows
to deepen
ties with
Sri Lanka
Iran’s FM
decried as
‘Pinocchio’
‘In this
journey to
restore your
Democracy,
the American
people stand
with you.’John Kerry
secretary of state
JOHN STILLWELL/AP
