Russian lawmakers vote to extend president’s term

Russian lawmakers vote to extend president’s term

MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers moved to lengthen the presidential term from four to six years Friday with a vote that opponents called a step toward Vladimir Putin’s return to power.

The change means that the powerful prime minister could serve a total of 20 years as president if he returns to the position as many expect.

The office of Russian president “already has more power than the General Secretary [of the U.S.S.R.], the czar and the pharaoh together,” Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov complained shortly before the State Duma voted 388-58 to approve the constitutional amendment. It faces two more votes in the Duma, or lower house of parliament, and appears certain to be enacted. The Communists were the only Duma faction to vote against it.

Dunwoody becomes first female four-star general

WASHINGTON — Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.

At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform and said it was a credit to the Army — and a great surprise to her — that she would make history in a male-dominated military.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium crowd. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.”

India’s first lunar probe lands, sends back images

NEW DELHI — The first lunar probe from India landed successfully on the moon Friday as part of a two-year mission aimed at laying the groundwork for further Indian space expeditions, the Indian Space Research Organization said.

ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair said cameras on board have been transmitting images of the moon back to Indian space control, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Chief among the lunar mission’s goals is mapping not only the surface of the moon, but what lies beneath. If successful, India will join what is shaping up to be a 21st-century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon.

The unmanned moon mission was launched from the Sriharikota space center in southern India on Oct. 22. The box-shaped lunar probe carried a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer.

Al-Qaida in Yemen claims responsibility for attack

CAIRO, Egypt — A group that monitors extremist Web sites says al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen has claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing outside the U.S. Embassy there in September.

Thirteen people died in the attack, including an 18-year-old American woman of Yemeni origin.

The SITE Intelligence Group said Friday the statement in an al-Qaida electronic magazine includes an account of how the car bomb attack was carried out.

It also gives the names of the seven men involved, including a spiritual leader and six of his students who carried out the attack.

The statement warns further strikes will deliver a “taste of horrors.”

Yemeni security officials had said this month that the men who assaulted the embassy had links to al-Qaida.

Three teenagers drown during leadership retreat

ALGONQUIN, Ill. — Three high school students on a leadership camping retreat sneaked away from their camp beds in the middle of the night and drowned early Friday in paddle boats with floor plugs that had been removed for winter.

The boats quickly sank, dumping the teens in the swift, 42-degree Fox River.

A group of 31 boys from Chicago’s North Lawndale College Prep were at Camp Algonquin about 40 miles northwest of the city on the last day of an eight-day trip.

Chaperones were likely asleep when some of the young people launched six paddle boats into the river, fire officials said. It was not clear how many teens ended up in the water about 2 a.m., but at least one of the victims had gone in to help the others.

Associated Press