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Twin blasts rock university

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Two near simultaneous blasts went off Tuesday at the Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing two women and injuring 13 others, authorities said.

The first explosion occurred near a dormitory and the second a few minutes later was reported in the Sharia block of the new campus, Geo TV reported.

Police official Tahir Alam said both were suicide bomb attacks, the report said.

The injured included 11 women and two men.

The injured were taken to the PIMS Hospital where four of them were reported in critical condition.

The university blasts are the latest in a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan in the past few weeks with the death toll running into the dozens. The attacks have come as the Pakistani military has opened its ground and air offensive against the Taliban, al-Qaida and other terror groups holed up in South Waziristan.

Maliki to meet Obama as election in flux

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Washington Tuesday to meet with U.S. President Obama amid uncertainty about pending Iraqi elections.

Parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 16 threaten to be delayed because of two issues holding up revisions of Iraq's election laws: Kirkuk and electoral lists, CNN reported.

An attempt to postpone the election would lead to a "constitutional vacuum," Maliki has said because the current Iraqi parliament will "lose its legitimacy after Jan. 16, 2010."

Maliki is in Washington this week for meetings aimed at moving the focus of Iraqi-U.S. relations from military to business.

In Kirkuk, disputes have arisen among Kurds, Arab and Turkmen. Arab and Turkmen residents say more Kurds settled in Kirkuk than were displaced by the war and allowing them to vote would create an unfair advantage.

At issue with electoral lists is whether they are open or closed. Open lists, which Maliki favors, would name candidates and their parties; closed lists would name only parties.

Existing law, used in the 2005 election, mandates a closed list.

Report: Abdullah prepared for runoff

KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- The man who may challenge Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a presidential runoff told CNN he is prepared for it as well as other options.

"While I am prepared to go for a runoff, at the same time the door is open," Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister and the main challenger to Karzai, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour, adding there were such practical questions as the approaching harsh winter and the security situation.

The runoff likelihood has arisen as independent analysis indicates Karzai, seeking a second term, did not win a first-round victory in the Aug. 20 elections, which were marred by massive complaints of vote fraud.

Abdullah did not say whether his "the door is open" comment meant he would accept a power-sharing arrangement with Karzai since a runoff may be difficult to hold once winter sets in. Other reports say a delayed runoff could benefit the Taliban insurgency as there would be no effective leadership.

"I think, before getting too specific ... I need to get a mandate from my supporters," Abdullah told CNN, adding he wants "to bring changes to the country," not obtain a Cabinet position.

Another typhoon eyes the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Typhoon Lupit strengthened Tuesday as it eyed the Philippines for a third onslaught after two other storms earlier killed more than 850 people.

Lupit, with winds of up to 121 mph, was expected to hit part of the island country Thursday, the Philippine National Disaster Coordinating Council said, CNN reported. On Tuesday, the storm was located about 510 miles east of Cagayan in the northernmost island of Luzon.

Authorities began rushing relief supplies to the region as Lupit, locally called Ramil, was expected to trigger storm surges and landslides as did its cousins Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma.

The total death toll from Ketsana, which devastated the Manila area Sept. 26, and Parma, which also visited Luzon, the largest of the country's island, stood at 858, with 88 others still missing.

Ketsana, which delivered the heaviest rainfall in 40 years, flooded 80 percent of the capital and drove nearly 500,000 from their homes with about 189,000 of them yet to be resettled, CNN said. Parma destroyed 55,000 homes.

Johnson pardon backers await Obama

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Supporters of a push to grant a posthumous pardon to U.S. boxer Jack Jackson say they are waiting for President Barack Obama to issue the decree.

Congress has adopted a resolution urging Obama to do so, and Friday Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Peter King, D-N.Y., wrote the president, urging him to pardon Johnson, an African-American boxing champion who was convicted in 1913 for dating a white woman, CNN reported.

"It is our hope that you will be eager to agree to right this wrong and erase an act of racism that sent an American citizen to prison," the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Johnson won the heavyweight title in 1908, and successfully defended it two years later in Reno, Nev., defeating the "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries. The stunning win sparked race riots that saw more than 20 people killed, most of them black.

In 1913 Johnson was convicted for violating the Mann Act as Justice Department lawyers argued it was a "crime against nature" for him to have a sexual relationship with a white woman, CNN reported.

Johnson eventually served 10 months. He died in a 1949 car crash.