Former UN Chief Named Special Envoy to Syria

Jason Kempin/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) -- The United Nations and Arab League on Thursday named Kofi Annan, former secretary-general for the U.N., a joint special envoy to Syria.

The 73-year-old Ghanaian diplomat will be tasked to promote peace on behalf of the United Nations-Arab League in Syria as President Bashar al-Assad continues a violent crackdown on Syrian citizens.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moom and Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Araby made the announcement of Annan's appointment Thursday in a joint statement.  The statement said a deputy from the Arab world would be chosen later to assist Annan, according to the U.N. website.

Annan's appointment was announced following the release of a U.N. report that found a significant decrease in human rights in Syria.

Annan served as U.N. chief from 1997 to 2006.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Despite Public Animosity, US and Pakistan Cooperate Behind the Scenes

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- When Charles Arthur Williams, a 41-year-old from Mississippi, showed up for a flight in Peshawar, Pakistan, with 9mm bullets in his bag, he could have quickly become a poster child for Americans who behave badly in Pakistan. Pakistani television channels compared him to Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis in Lahore and sparked widespread anger and anti-American protests.

But after a brief detention, Williams was released, and the brief fury of press coverage quickly dissipated. Pakistani and American officials worked together behind the scenes, diffusing what could have easily become another talking point for Pakistanis looking to criticize U.S. actions in Pakistan. He quickly left the country the same day.

“Thanks to good Pakistani partners for a sane resolution,” tweeted Richard Hoagland, the deputy U.S. ambassador in Islamabad.

“We didn’t want Ray Davis again, did we?” joked a police officer in Peshawar.

Compare that low-key resolution to the avalanche of public fury when Rep. Dana Rorchbacher, R-Calif., introduced a non-binding, unlikely-to-pass resolution suggesting the secession of Pakistan’s largest province. Pakistan’s prime minister derided the bill as a challenge to Pakistan’s sovereignty and Pakistan’s foreign minister called it an “an unfriendly and irresponsible attempt…aimed at creating distrust between the people of the two countries.”

Rorchbacher’s resolution touched the third rail in Pakistani politics -- and was much more public than Williams’s brief detention. Nonetheless, the two stories help reveal the state of Pakistan-U.S. relations: working behind the scenes, broken in public.

In a dozen interviews with Pakistani and American officials, most agree on two things: At a working level, two allies that have struggled through a string of high-profile setbacks are conducting business relatively normally (75-percent normally, says a senior U.S. official, including on intelligence sharing). But at a public level, Pakistan’s government and military cannot admit to helping the U.S. in a war that is still widely referred to in Pakistan as “America’s war on terror.”

But why is this important? Until the Pakistani government and military believe they can help the U.S. publicly without risking the wrath of their own people, they will never be able to give the level of cooperation that the United States is looking for as it begins to withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan.  (The U.S. currently has a lower popularity rating in Pakistan than BP did in the U.S. during the massive oil spill that dumped thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.)

Thursday, for the first time since American jets killed 24 Pakistani troops in November, the two countries resumed high-level dialogue when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in London.

Behind the scenes, Pakistan has been helpful in bringing senior Afghan insurgents living inside Pakistan to the negotiating table, U.S. and Afghan officials say. And going into the meeting, Khar expected that Pakistan’s “enabling and facilitating role in Afghanistan” would be acknowledged, according to a senior Pakistani official.

But the official also said Khar would bring up Rohrbacher’s resolution, showing just how upset Pakistan remains and just how important the government believes it is to object publicly to U.S. actions. “We will be discussing the recent statements and attacks on Pakistan vis-à-vis Baluchistan and inform Secretary Clinton in no uncertain terms that this is extremely unhelpful,” the Pakistani official said before the meeting.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Au Revoir 'Mademoiselle': French Forms Get a Makeover

Hemera/Thinkstock(PARIS) -- Farewell to lovesick maidens and damsels in distress. Farewell to discrimination and sexism -- well, at least on French forms.

French Prime Minister François Fillon ordered this week that the term “mademoiselle” be removed from all official forms and registries after months of campaigning by two feminist organizations, Osez le Féminisme (Dare To Be Feminist) and Les Chiennes de Garde (The Watchdogs).

The decision marks a great victory for French feminists who say the use of “mademoiselle” is demeaning to women, insisting that their marital status need not be known every time they sign a form. Men in France are referred to as “monsieur” regardless of marital status.

“Have you ever wondered why we do not call a single man ‘Mondamoiseau’ or ‘young virgin?’ Not surprisingly, this type of distinction is reserved for women,” the campaign wrote on their joint website. “This campaign was intended to end this inequality, but also to inform women of their rights.”

According to the New York Times, Fillon wrote that the use of “mademoiselle” made reference “without justification nor necessity” to a woman’s “matrimonial situation,” whereas “monsieur” has long signified simply “sir.”

Women must indicate their marital status on almost every form in France, by choosing “madame” or “mademoiselle” -- including when opening a bank account, paying taxes, shopping online and even ordering groceries.

With this battle won, the feminist groups are now encouraging private organizations to also remove “mademoiselle” from their forms.

Feminist groups fought a similar battle in the United States and won, said Kathy Spillar, the executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and executive editor of Ms. Magazine.

“Women want to be known for who they are, not for their marital status,” Spillar said. “They should be recognized as their own person, not just the property of a man, whether that’s her father or her husband.”

While the term “miss,” which is comparable to the French “mademoiselle,” was never officially banned from U.S. documents, “Ms.” was added, giving women the choice whether or not to indicate their marital status.

Spillar said the founders of Ms. Magazine -- including noted feminist Gloria Steinem -- decided to take the name “Ms.” because “it was a very poignant statement about this movement … It really says it all in two little letters.”

In regards to France’s decision to take “mademoiselle” off of official documents, Spillar says it’s a significant step for feminists worldwide.

“Some may say it’s petty but words matter. How you address people matters,” Spillar said. “French society will see how much it matters when you are no longer having to use terms that are really, quite frankly, antiquated.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

White House Defends Apology to Afghanistan; Criticism from Gingrich, Palin

Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The White House Thursday defended President Obama’s decision to apologize for the recent incident of Koran burning at a U.S. airbase in Afghanistan, saying it was “wholly appropriate” given the “understandable sensitivities” to the issue.

“The error was inadvertent,” Obama wrote in a letter to his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, according to Karzai’s office. “I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible.”

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, however, said it was “an outrage” for the president to issue an apology on the same day two U.S. troops were killed by Afghan soldiers.

“It is Hamid Karzai who owes the American people an apology, not the other way around,” Gingrich said in a written statement. “This destructive double standard whereby the United States and its democratic allies refuse to hold accountable leaders who tolerate systematic violence and oppression in their borders must come to an end.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney defended the apology.

“[The president's] primary concern as commander-in-chief is the safety of American men and women in Afghanistan, of our military and civilian personnel there. And it was absolutely the right thing to do,” Carney told reporters.

The improper disposal of the sacred text of Islam have sparked anti-U.S. riots in Afghanistan.

“The actions here, while inadvertent, do not reflect the great respect that our military personnel have for the religious traditions of the Afghan people,” Carney said.

Gingrich was not the only prominent Republican to slam the president’s decision. “Obama apologizes for inadvertent Koran burning; now the U.S. trained & protected Afghan Army can apologize for killing our soldiers yesterday,” 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin tweeted Thursday afternoon.

Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has not spoken directly about the apology to Karzai, but vowing no apology is a key line of his stump speech.

“Let me make this very clear. As president of the United States, I will devote myself to an American Century. And I will never, ever apologize for America,” the former Massachusetts governor said in October.

The White House says the president’s apology was conveyed before the U.S. troops were killed Thursday.

Furthermore, the administration notes that the apology, which was included in a lengthy three-page letter from Obama to Karzai on a range of issues, is not unprecedented. In 2008, President Bush apologized to Iraq’s prime minister for an American sniper’s shooting of a Koran.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Two US Troops Killed by Man Wearing Afghan Army Uniform

ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images(KABUL, Afghanistan) -- A man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot and killed two members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force -- said to be Americans -- in eastern Afghanistan Thursday, the military coalition said.

The presumed Afghan soldier opened fire on his foreign mentors, who have not yet been identified, on a base near the border with Pakistan.

It's not clear whether the gunman shot the two service members in retaliation to the inadvertent burning of Korans and other religious materials earlier this week by coalition forces in Afghanistan.  The ISAF is investigating the matter.

Meanwhile, demonstrations over the accidental destruction of the religious texts continued for a third straight day on Thursday.  Afghan police fired into the air and used water cannons against more than 2,000 protesters outside another base.

The protests show no signs of slowing down and have already claimed at least 10 lives.

On another note, it was reported later Thursday that President Obama sent a letter that day to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, apologizing for the burning of Korans.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said, "Following up on their February 20 phone call, the President sent a letter to President Karzai to continue their discussion on a range of issues related to our long-term partnership.  In the letter, delivered by Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker this afternoon in Kabul, the President also expressed our regret and apologies over the incident in which religious materials were unintentionally mishandled at Bagram Airbase."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Scientists: Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Experiment Needs Do-Over

Still unmatched. Albert Einstein in 1951. Ernst Haas/Ernst Haas/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- When scientists reported in September that they had measured subatomic neutrinos traveling faster than light, they used the word “anomaly.” The anomaly, they now concede, may have been in their own equipment -- perhaps a bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer when they shot beams of neutrinos from the CERN laboratory in the Swiss Alps to a detector 450 miles away near Gran Sasso, Italy.

Last year’s experiment, done with a giant apparatus called OPERA, showed the neutrinos making the trip 60 nanoseconds faster than a light beam would. That would have been a major challenge to Einstein’s theory of relativity, which said light, moving at 186,000 miles per second, was at a sort of cosmic speed limit. Einstein’s work has proved durable over the years, which was why the neutrino experiment had the physics world talking.

“The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real,” James Gillies, a spokesman for CERN, said back on Sept. 23.

In a statement CERN said the scientists were concerned about, “the optical fibre connector that brings the external GPS signal to the OPERA master clock, which may not have been functioning correctly when the measurements were taken. If this is the case, it could have led to an underestimate of the time of flight of the neutrinos.”

New experiments, CERN said, are now scheduled for May.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Dozens Dead, Hundreds Wounded After Multiple Bombings in Iraq

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) -- Iraq came under siege on Thursday as dozens were killed and hundreds wounded in a coordinated series of attacks throughout the country.

At least 43 people died as the result of 16 car bombings as well as roadside explosions that seemed to mainly target Iraqi security forces, who’ve been criticized for not being able to contain al-Qaeda and radical militias since U.S. forces withdrew at the end of last year.

Meanwhile, the number of injured will likely reach 300 as hospitals fill up in and around Baghdad and in other Iraqi provinces.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the widespread assaults with many of the fatalities occurring in the capital.  At a Baghdad checkpoint, attackers used both guns with silencers and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to kill six police officers.

In one of Thursday’s most violent attacks, a car bomb in Musayab, south of the capital, left two people dead and wounded 95 others.

Multiple bombings were also reported in Diyala province east of Baghdad, in northern Salahidine province and in the Kurdish city of Kirkuk, where insurgents struck two police patrols with car bombs, taking the lives of eight officers and injuring two dozen more.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

'Lonely' Starvation Deaths Prompt Soul-Searching in Japan

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(TOKYO) -- Japanese police say the family of three – a couple in their 60s and a son in his 30s -- likely starved to death in their own apartment in Saitama Prefecture, just outside of Tokyo, and it took more than a month to discover the bodies. Their refrigerator was empty, their electricity and gas shut off, their rent had gone unpaid for six months.

Police only arrived at their home this week after rent collectors called, asking them to check on the family. The bodies were badly decomposed. A few one yen coins, some candy, and water bottles were all that remained.

Neighbors oblivious to the plight of the family said they hadn’t seen the three in months, but never checked in on them. One neighbor told reporters that the mother asked her for financial help, saying she was in trouble because of her husband’s illness. The neighbor declined and encouraged the woman to apply for welfare instead, but she never did.

The troubling case has raised questions about the safety net in place for the neediest families in Japan, the world’s third-richest country. It has also prompted soul-searching among those who see community ties thinning, and a society increasingly looking inward.

“This is not something you’d expect in a developed country like Japan, but people are struggling to find jobs,” Norimichi Goishi of the Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research said in an interview with broadcaster NHK. “Local officials can’t always reach those in need. Deaths related to starvation are a lot more common than we think.”

More than 700 people have died of hunger since 2000, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, although experts suspect the actual numbers are higher.

The cases are known as kodokushi or “lonely deaths” in Japan -- and the stories are familiar: Unreported deaths, unpaid rents, no food, no electricity, and few ties to family and friends. Many are too ashamed to ask for help.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Iranian Pastor May Soon Face Death for Converting to Christianity

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(TEHRAN, Iran) -- A pastor in Iran could face death within days for renouncing Islam and bringing others to the Christian faith.

Youcef Nadarkhani, a convert to Christianity, has reportedly received his final execution order.  The American Center for Law and Justice says he is in imminent danger, with a rising chance his sentence will be carried out.

The case had stalled for months after a global outcry.  The White House and a Congressional resolution have both called for Nadarkhani's release.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Eight Bodies Recovered from Costa Concordia Cruise Ship

STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images(ROME) -- Teams searching the crippled Costa Concordia cruise liner have found another eight bodies, more than a month after the ship capsized off the coast of Italy.

Italian officials had previously put the number of those killed at 32, though only 17 bodies had been recovered, according to the BBC.

The ship struck a patch of rocks on the night of Jan. 13, causing a large gash in the ship’s exterior. The vessel took on water as the ship’s passengers and crew raced to escape, some of them jumping in the water in hopes of swimming to shore.

The ship’s captain and a number of other crew members are currently being investigated for their respective roles in the disaster.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio