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Leaders ask U.N. for peacekeepers
UNITED NATIONS – Muslim and Christian leaders of the Central African Republic pleaded Friday for the U.N. Security Council to hurry and deploy peacekeepers to a country that’s been ripped apart by unprecedented sectarian violence.
In their first joint appearance at the United Nations, the presidents of the country’s Muslim and evangelical communities and the archbishop of Bangui warned that if quick action isn’t taken, the “partition of the CAR will lead to genocidal war.”
The U.N. chief’s special adviser on genocide prevention, Adama Dieng, told the informal council session that about 20 percent of the country’s Muslims are left in the country, meaning the others have fled or died.
Clinton feared losses in 1994 election
WASHINGTON – Sensing a Republican tidal wave, President Bill Clinton worried in the summer of 1994 that Republicans were energized heading into the midterm elections while his Democratic base was deflated.
“There’s no organization, there’s no energy, there’s no anything out there,” Clinton said of his own party. “They’re organized and they’re working,” the president observed of conservative activists, according to an August, 1994 transcript. “And our cultural base. ... They walked off.”
Clinton’s concerns turned out to be justified: Republicans swept to power in the fall elections, wresting control of the House and Senate from the president’s party. The transcript was among 4,000 documents released Friday by the National Archives.
Arkansas judge tosses new abortion law
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A federal judge Friday struck down Arkansas’ attempt to ban most abortions beginning 12 weeks into a woman’s pregnancy, saying viability, not a heartbeat, remains the key factor in determining whether abortions should be allowed.
U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright last year had stopped enforcement of the law while she reviewed it, and on Friday she declared that it was unconstitutional. She cited previous court decisions that said abortions shouldn’t be restricted until after a fetus can survive outside the womb.
Associated Press
