Calls mount for UN help in Afghan election crisis

Calls mount for UN help in Afghan election crisis

KABUL, Afghanistan

A proposal for the U.N. to mediate a crisis over allegations of election fraud gained momentum Friday as President Hamid Karzai backed the idea and the U.N. said it stood ready to help.

Abdullah Abdullah, who is running against Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, has accused electoral officials and others of trying to rig the June 14 vote against him. That has threatened what Western officials had hoped would be a peaceful transfer of authority, as Karzai is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.

Underscoring the instability plaguing the country, a roadside bomb killed three American troops and a military dog Friday in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

Bombing, terror arrests spark fear

BEIRUT

A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle Friday near a police checkpoint in eastern Lebanon, while troops raided two hotels in the capital, arresting 17 suspected members of an al-Qaida breakaway group reportedly plotting terrorist attacks in the country.

It was not clear if the two incidents were related. But the bombing — the first since March — along with the security dragnet in and around Beirut sparked fears of renewed violence in a country that has been buffeted by the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Al-Qaida-inspired militants have claimed bombings in the past, particularly against the Shiite group Hezbollah.

Stephanie Kwolek, Kevlar inventor, dies at age 90

DOVER, Del.

Police Lt. David Spicer took four .45-caliber slugs to the chest and arms at point-blank range and lived to tell about it. Like thousands of other police officers and soldiers shot in the line of duty, he owes his life to a woman in Delaware by the name of Stephanie Kwolek.

Kwolek, who died Wednesday at 90, was a DuPont Co. chemist who in 1965 invented Kevlar, the lightweight, stronger-than-steel fiber used in bulletproof vests and other body armor around the world.

A pioneer as a woman in a heavily male field, Kwolek made the breakthrough while working on specialty fibers at a DuPont laboratory in Wilmington. At the time, DuPont was looking for strong, lightweight fibers that could replace steel in automobile tires and improve fuel economy.

Ukraine orders 1-week cease-fire

KIEV, Ukraine

Ukraine’s president ordered his forces to cease fire Friday and halt military operations for a week against pro-Russia separatists in the country’s east — the first step in a peace plan he hopes will end the fighting that has killed hundreds.

The Kremlin dismissed the plan, saying it sounded like an ultimatum and lacked any firm offer to open talks with insurgents.

Petro Poroshenko, making his first trip to the east as Ukraine’s president, said that the cease-fire will run until the morning of June 27 and that his troops reserve the right to fire back if separatists attack them or civilians.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration imposed sanctions Friday on several pro-Russia separatist leaders in Ukraine, including self-proclaimed rebel mayors, governors and commanders in chief of cities under siege, for refusing to cede to the central government in Kiev.

Associated Press