World News

The Walt Disney Co.'s decision to end its apparel production in Bangladesh after more than 500 people died in the collapse of a garment factory complex has sparked fears of a mass exodus of Western retailers.

In Pakistan, police say two unidentified gunmen fatally shot the special prosecutor investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Friday's attack on Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali in Islamabad deepens the mystery surrounding one of the country's most politically charged cases, which remains open six years later.

An American military refueling plane crashed Friday in Kyrgyzstan, according to that nation's emergencies ministry.

The Associated Press says "there was no immediate word on any casualties."

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's Friday and it's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

We are learning more this morning about an outbreak of targeted violence in Pakistan. The special prosecutor investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was shot dead today. He was sprayed with gunfire by two assailants on a motorbike as he left his home in Islamabad. Earlier this week, the prosecutor had said there was evidence to implicate former military ruler Pervez Mosharraf in the politically charged case.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene. President Obama says it is time to focus on the strong economic relationship between the United States and Mexico and not get bogged down on more contentious issues like cooperation on the war on the drugs.

Obama made his comments yesterday as he began a two-day visit to Mexico. He flies on to Costa Rica later today. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.

The late Jimmy Savile is not the only U.K. TV personality whose name has emerged in a sexual abuse investigation. A wide-ranging British inquiry has revealed many other household names who are suspected of committing sexual offenses decades ago.

The latest name: BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall, who on Thursday admitted to 14 charges of indecently assaulting girls.

The BBC reports:

The collapse of the garment factory in Bangladesh is seen as a gross violation of safety and workers rights. There are international organizations which try to guide and encourage companies and governments towards better codes of conduct, but the groups have no legal recourse.

The government of Kazakhstan says it's cooperating with U.S. officials in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, a day after two men from the Central Asian country were charged in connection with the blasts that killed three people and wounded more than 250.

After years in the Middle East, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro has started the next chapter of her reporting life in Brazil. From her base in Sao Paulo, she'll focus on the country's environmental wealth, efforts to curb crime and the preparation for the World Cup and Olympic Games.

The recent appointment of Italy's first black Cabinet minister was greeted with racist comments from a handful of political leaders. That has raised questions about whether the nation has a broader problem with bias. Host Michel Martin gets the latest from NPR's Sylvia Poggioli.

You may not know much about the country of Cape Verde; it's a group of islands off the coast of West Africa. But you may be surprised that many Cape Verdeans have Jewish ancestry. Host Michel Martin speaks with Carol Castiel, founder of the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project, about efforts to restore Jewish burial grounds in the country.

Host Michel Martin talks to Loretta Tofani, who closed her furniture store after discovering poor working conditions at the Chinese factories that supplied her business. She talks about how she made her decision, and about the factory building collapse in Bangladesh.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI moved back to the Vatican and his new retirement residence Thursday, where he will live side by side with the reigning pontiff, Pope Francis.

The arrangement makes history because Benedict, 86, is the first pope to voluntarily step down as head of the Roman Catholic Church in more than 700 years.

Update at 4:05 p.m. ET:

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell raised concerns about the lack of transparency in Kenneth Bae's trial and urged North Korea to him "amnesty and immediate release."

NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that Ventrell wouldn't say whether the U.S. was considering sending a high-level envoy to Pyongyang as it has done in the past to win the release of U.S. citizens in North Korea.

Here's our original post:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

The Guantanamo Bay detention center had more or less faded from the news until this week, when President Obama called it unsustainable. He and others are paying attention now because of an ongoing and growing hunger strike of at least - as of this morning - 100 prisoners. More than 20 are being force fed to keep them alive.

Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development from his country, accusing it of undermining his government.

"We have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia," Morales said in a May Day speech outside the presidential palace in La Paz.

He said he'd ordered the country's foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, to notify the U.S. Embassy of the decision.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Today is International Workers' Day, May Day, and a holiday in many countries - that includes Russia. But it's not nearly the big deal there that it used to be. In the former Soviet Union, this was an occasion for giant parades in Red Square. NPR's Corey Flintoff has this postcard from Moscow.

Nearly half the people now in the U.S. illegally didn't climb walls, wade across the Rio Grande or trek through the desert to get here. They arrived legally, with tourist or student visas. And when those visas expired, they just never left.

Like the rest of the 11 million undocumented people in the United States, they are part of the underground economy and the government doesn't know where they are. The Senate immigration bill now before Congress tries to address this problem — though not as richly as it does border security.

In South Africa, controversial images of a frail and ashen Nelson Mandela being visited by South Africa's current president aired on national television this week. Some people claimed it was a political publicity stunt.

The footage is fueling fresh debate about what is proper and what constitutes invasion of privacy regarding the ailing, 94-year-old former president and anti-apartheid legend.

President Jacob Zuma, accompanied by two other top officials of the governing ANC party, visited Mandela at his Johannesburg home on Monday.

This week President Obama said it was important to remain prudent in coming to conclusions about chemical weapon use within Syria, something he said could change the nature of U.S. involvement there. Melissa Block talks to analysts Andrew Tabler and Joshua Landis about U.S. involvement in arming rebels in Syria.

President Obama has said that the use of chemical weapons could change the U.S. response to the Syrian civil war. But why this focus on chemical weapons when conventional weapons have killed tens of thousands in Syria?

The answer can be traced back to the early uses of poison gas nearly a century ago.

In World War I, trench warfare led to stalemates — and to new weapons meant to break through the lines.

After a report in The New York Times this week, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has acknowledged that the CIA has been secretly delivering bags of money to his office since the beginning of the war more than a decade ago.

The army chief in Pakistan, a country with a long history of military coups, has hinted that he's unhappy with the detention of former President and ex-General Pervez Musharraf.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

There is another story now that speaks to the way the world is interconnected in ways we sometimes don't think much about. We want to talk now about that horrific building collapse in Bangladesh that's resulted in the death of at least 400 people so far, and many more are still missing.