Idwal blog

Kansas back in regional final after another rout

Kansas might be sick of hearing how it's taking the easy way toward the Final Four, even if the top-seeded Jayhawks aren't exactly running into much trouble.

Twelfth-seeded Richmond sure didn't put up much of a fight. Even after getting into a shoving match with Kansas players before the game.

Brady Morningstar scored 18 points and Kansas, playing like the dominant No. 1 seed in a historic NCAA regional full of underdogs, knocked off Richmond 77-57 on Friday night to move a victory from returning to the Final Four for the first time since its 2008 championship.

Players exchanged shoves and words during a pregame logjam when Kansas entered the tunnel to the court while Richmond players still huddled. It ended quickly without much to talk about, and the Jayhawks went on their way.

The same could be said for the game.

"We were already fired up. We were ready to take them on," Kansas forward Markieff Morris said. "I think it showed when we went out there. We moved on. It was just a misunderstanding."

The game itself was a mismatch. Kansas rolled past a third consecutive opponent and has won by an average of nearly 18 points in the tournament.

The Southwest regional was the first in NCAA history to have three double-digit seeded teams make it this far. Kansas will get another in Sunday's regional final against 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth, which beat 10th-seeded Florida State 72-71 in overtime.

It's given the Jayhawks what appears — at least on paper — to be an easy-looking path toward the Final Four. The Jayhawks can make it to Houston next week without having beaten a seed higher than ninth-seeded Illinois.

If that happens, Kansas will join Michigan State in 2001 and North Carolina in 1991 as the only schools to get that far without having to beat a seed higher than nine. And only five teams have reached the Final Four by feasting on teams seeded eighth or lower, according to STATS LLC.

One of those schools? The 2008 Jayhawks.

That run ended in the Alamodome with coach Bill Self winning his first title at Kansas. Three years later, the Jayhawks looked every bit at home in San Antonio.

Kansas will be coming right back to Texas if the beat the Rams on Sunday. The Final Four begins next week in Houston.

"There's no playing down to the competition. If you lose you lose and you go home," Morris said. "So we're going to play them like the North Carolinas or the Dukes."

The Jayhawks were calm and confident in reaching a fourth regional final under Self. The Spiders, meanwhile, looked jittery in the what was only the school's second round-of-16 appearance.

Justin Harper led Richmond with 22 points. Kevin Anderson had 14.

"We can't worry about this game right now," Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. "We also can't celebrate the season we had right now."

Self downplayed the pregame tunnel dustup as "typical stuff, but it wasn't anything." Anderson said both teams were just eager to play and chalked it up to usual aggression.

Still, Self waited for Richmond to exit through the tunnel at halftime before letting his players walk down the same tunnel toward the locker room. Kansas was already ahead 41-22.

The Jayhawks shot 48 percent from the floor and made nine of 19 3-pointers. Morningstar was 7 for 11 from the floor, including four 3-pointers. Josh Selby added nine points.

The loss stopped Richmond from reaching the first regional final in school history.

"We didn't really play that well tonight, so finishing like that is tough," Richmond center Dan Geriot said. "There was a lot left in there for us to have competed a little better."

Mooney sought to inspire his players this week by showing them Richmond's stunning win at Allen Fieldhouse in 2004, which ended Kansas' 52-game home unbeaten streak against unranked opponents. It had been the only meeting between the schools before Friday.

This time, the Jayhawks never looked in trouble.

"At the end of the day it was all love," Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor said. "We shook hands."

Hamas police clash with Gazans at 'Land Day' protests

Hamas police clashed with protesters in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as Palestinians and Israeli Arabs held a series of demonstrations to mark "Land Day".

In Gaza City, hundreds of students began a protest march at Al-Azhar University but were stopped by Hamas police, who arrested a number of them, witnesses said, without saying how many.

And around 300 university students marched to the Square of the Unknown Soldier where their rally to mark both Land Day and to issue a call to end the divisions within the Palestinian national movement, was forcefully broken up by Hamas police forces, an AFP correspondent said.

A large number of police converged on the square and were seen beating several demonstrators and arresting others, he said.

There were no immediate details on casualties.

The rallies kicked off a day of demonstrations which are to take place across Israel and the Palestinian territories to mark Land Day, recalling an incident in 1976 when Israeli troops shot and killed six people during protests against land confiscations.

Also in Gaza hundreds of people waving banners and holding up pictures of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails had joined a sit-in near the northern town of Beit Lahiya for a demonstration called by the various factions, witnesses said.

Protesters were also gathering in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where loudspeakers called on young people to join a peaceful protest against the Israeli army's years-long closure of a road between Ramallah and Beit El, a key road linking the city to the northern West Bank.

In Israel, demonstrators were expected to gather for the main rally in the northern Galilee town of Arrabeh, which was to start at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) and be attended by Arab Israeli MPs and leaders of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee.

Many Arab Israeli schools were closed for the day, and Arab rights groups said shops and businesses in Sakhnin were observing a one-day general strike to mark the anniversary.

"Every school and institute in the Arab sector has committed to the strike," said Mohammed Zidan, head of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee

Further south, another rally was to take place in Al-Araqib in the Negev, a Bedouin village that has been levelled several times by the Israeli police over the past eight months.

Zidan said this was the first time Israel's Arabs were organizing two separate protests on Land Day.

Israel has never recognised Bedouin claims of land ownership in the Negev and wants the population to relocate into seven government-planned townships.

Israel's Arab minority leads Land Day demonstrations every year to protest against discrimination and assert its solidarity with the Palestinians.

Gingrich: I'd Stop Gay Rights Progress

Former House speaker and possible presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said he is going to work on slowing down the progress of gay rights, if he is elected president.

"I think my emphasis would be pro-classical Christianity," Gingrich said in a video interview with Bryan Fischer of the antigay American Family Association after addressing the Rediscover God in America conference, held over the weekend in Iowa. He cited the end of adoption services in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., by Catholic-based organizations because their policies limiting the rights of gay and lesbian adoptive parents violated laws put in place after the legalization of marriage equality in both areas. Gingrich brought up President Barack Obama's decision to stop defending the section of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing foreign or state-sanctioned marriages and or other unions of same-sex couples. "If there is a rule of law, it means that if the Congress passes a bill and the president signs it, the president has the obligation to support and sustain the laws of the United States," Gingrich added.

On Libya, Obama fails the 3 a.m. test. What would President Hillary Clinton have done?

s role in LibyaAs is the fate of incumbents, Obama has been criticized from all quarters of the political spectrum variously for tackling the Libyan crisis too late, for getting into it at all, for not sufficiently consulting Congress, for not adequately addressing the American people, and for continuing his travels to Latin America when as commander in chief he might have better stayed in Washington.

In time, his role will be clarified as either a masterly diplomatic orchestration avoiding the stigma of heavy-handed American invasion of a third Middle Eastern land, or a shameful default of American leadership in favor of France, whose President Nicolas Sarkozy led the charge.

What is clear is that whatever the multinational coloration of the military effort, its main force was American.

When the initial barrage of more than 100 sea-launched missiles against Libyan air defenses were all American except two, there cannot be much doubt about the size and power of the US military component.

Should be little question on ultimate goalNor, for a president who has talked grandly about freedom for Muslim lands, should there be much question about the ultimate goal. The United Nations justification broadly calls for steps to protect Libyan civilians from Qaddafi. Obama has asserted that Qaddafi must go.

Whether that means step down, leave the country, be captured and sent to the International Criminal Court as a war criminal, or be killed, is left to the imagination. But clearly the neutralization of Qaddafi in one way or another is the most effective way to protect civilians and give them freedom.

In World War II, my father was conscripted into the British Army and spent three years in North Africa, much of it in Libya confronting Rommels German legions.

As a boy I had earnest talks with him about having to kill. (He said his conscience told him he would if it were the nearest right.) I think he did not see himself as fighting Germans but as fighting for all kinds of people whose freedom was threatened by Hitler. If he were alive today, I think hed be on the side of freedom for Libyans.

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, writes a biweekly column.

Gbagbo lawsuit challenges W.African bloc's stance

ABUJA (AFP) – Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo has filed a lawsuit at a regional court challenging West African bloc ECOWAS' demand that he step down in favour of his rival, officials said on Monday.

The 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in December held two emergency summits which recognised Alassane Ouattara as Ivory Coast president and demanded Gbagbo quit office.

The bloc has also threatened force to remove him if he defies peaceful efforts to have him step down.

"We have filed an application before the ECOWAS court of justice against the authority of heads of states and governments of ECOWAS," said Mohamed Faye, a lawyer for Gbagbo. A hearing has been set for March 10.

A spokesman for Gbagbo's government confirmed the suit had been filed "in the name of the state of Ivory Coast."

"ECOWAS is an economic community which has decided to inject itself into the internal affairs of a state member, which is outside of its jurisdiction," Ahoua Don Mello told AFP.

Ivory Coast's electoral commission declared Ouattara the winner of the November ballot, a decision endorsed by the United Nations, but the country's constitutional court said Gbagbo had won.

Gbagbo has refused to step down despite global calls for him to do so.

Faye said Gbagbo was challenging ECOWAS leaders' "declaration because it violates the supremacy of the national constitutional court of Cote d'Ivoire, which is the judiciary organ in electoral matters."

"We are urging the court to hold that these pronouncements are illegal and if they are illegal, they are null and void, (and) that they should suspend any action in respect of these pronouncements," said Faye.

ECOWAS lawyer Obii Onuoha said she was unaware of the case and unprepared to respond.

A court registrar said he had served the ECOWAS commission with the court papers on February 7. ECOWAS spokesman Sunny Ugoh confirmed the commission had received the papers.

"My understanding is that we were told very late for us to respond in a coherent manner," said Ugoh.

"We are hoping with the adjournment, it will be an opportunity to do consultations and look at it properly so that we can react."

Judge Awa Nana Daboya adjourned the case to March 10, along with two other cases filed earlier by groups believed close to Gbagbo.

Three non-governmental organisations last month asked the same court to nullify the bloc's stance that Gbagbo must leave office.

In a separate case, a Nigerian lawyer, Godswill Mrakpor, also sought an order to restrain ECOWAS from using force to oust Gbagbo.