The Michigan Daily - Friday, December 10, 1993 - 5

Clinton touts urgency of crime bill in wake of N.Y.
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JWASHZ4 (AV)IN () resse
by crime-weary mayors and police to
embrace tougher gun controls, a som-
ber President Clinton declared yes-
terday that violence is "tearing the
heart out of our country." Attorney
General Janet Reno said it ought to be
at least as hard to get a gun as a
driver's license.
"The American people are tired of
hurting and tired of feeling insecure
and tired of the violence," Clinton
told officials from 35 cities gathered
at the White House. "It's changing
everyone's life in ways that are quite
destructive. We have to move, and I
think we are prepared to move."
Clinton called for passage of a
.'U' Dems
try to stall
education
reform plan
By JAMES NASH
DAILY STAFF REPORTER
College Democrats are joining
forces with the state's largest teach-
ers' union to put the brakes on an
education reform plan both groups
say may be carrying Michigan public
schools into fiscal limbo.
Members of the College Demo-
1'dcrats will be in the Fishbowl today
soliciting signatures for apetition that
would temporarily reinstate property-
tax funding of public schools. The
Michigan Legislature voted in July to
abolish property taxes as a means of
school financing without specifying
replacement revenue. R
Lawmakers set aDec.31 deadline
to come up with an alternate plan.
Three weeks before the year's end, no
definitive financing mechanism has
emerged.
CollegeDemocrats and the Michi-
gan Education Association (MEA)
union are urging legislators to extend
their deadline to ensure that schools
open next fall. The groups are throw-
ingtheirweightbehindapetition spon-
sored by the Oakland County-based
Citizens for Responsible Education
(CARE).
For each signature the College
Democrats collect, the MEA has of-
fered to donate $1 to a local food
bank.
"If enough people give their sig-
natures, itcould make a difference for
both education and hunger," said
Andrew Meisner, a board member of
the College Democrats.
Statewide, the petition has drawn
more than 100,000 signatures, said
MEA spokesperson Kim Brennen
Root. The initiative needs 128,000
valid signatures to force a referen-
dum next fall. Petition sponsors hope
to collect at least 150,000 signatures,
Root said.
The campuses of Michigan State
University and Central Michigan
(__University also have seen petition
drives. But student apathy and low
voter registration have hampered the
petition effort at universities, Root
acknowledged.
Meisner attempted to deflect criti-

cism that Michigan Democrats are
too willing to accept the union posi-
tion on school reform. "(The MEA is)
definitely entitled to a say-so just be-
cause of who they are, but I think it
should be proportional to their size,"
said the LSA junior.

tough crime bom, inciuaing provisions
to put more police officers on the
street and ban gun ownership by chil-
dren.
He also has directed the Justice
Department to study whether gun
owners should be licensed and illegal
weapons collected through an am-
nesty program.
Yesterday, Clinton said, "We
ought to talk about what else we do
and where we go," without referring
directly to the gun licensing idea he
had ordered the Justice Department to
begin studying on Wednesday.
Although FBI statistics show that
violent crime has actually declined
slightly in recent years, polls show

that Americans are becoming increas-
ingly concerned.
A survey released last Friday by
the Times MirrorCenter forthe People
& the Press found that 57 percent
approved of Clinton's efforts to curb
the use of handguns while 29 percent
disapproved.
By a margin of 51 percent to 45
percent, they opposed a law to ban the
sale of handguns, but 57 percent said
controlling guns was more important
than protecting the right to own guns.
Reflecting the persistence of the
problem, however, only 41 percent
thought stricter gun control laws
would reduce violent crime a lot. The
survey of 1,479 Americans, conducted

Dec. 2 to 5, had a 3 percentage point
margin of error.
Violent crime reported to police
during the first six months of 1993
decreased 3 percent from the same
period, according to preliminary FBI
statistics released Sunday.
Reno said the department also was
considering a limit on the number of
guns an individual may own and a
broader version of a proposed ban on
assault weapons.
Registering guns is not enough,
Reno said, because people should be
required "to know how to safely and
lawfully use a gun" before they can
buy one.
A task force from the U.S. Confer-

ence ofMayors presented Clinton with
a report yesterday recommending gun
registration, banning semiautomatic
assault weapons, imposing waiting
periods on purchases of all firearms,
and significantly taxing ammunition
and firearm sales.
Louisville MayorJerry Abramson,
president of mayors conference, said
violent crime has reached epidemic
proportions, such that "'people in our
cities are demanding action."
Foes of gun control said the ad-
ministration is focusing on the right
problem but looking at the wrong
solution.
"Gun control is not the answer,
and to continue to go down the road to

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killings
eprive law-abiding citizens of their
bility to protect themselves is going
exacerbate crime," said Steve Whit-
ner of Gun Owners of America.
"The answer is to make sure crimi-
als are punished for their crime. The
resident is simply barking up the
rong tree."
The administration's tougher talk
n gun-control and crime followed a
hooting rampage on a Long Island,
.Y., commuter train Tuesday that
ft five dead and 18 wounded.
Last week after a seven-year leg-
lative battle, Clinton signed the
rady gun-control bill, requiring a
ackground check and waiting pe-
od on handgun purchases.

MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

Russia looks to future
with elections Sunday

MOSCOW (AP)-- At the Palace
Hotel, millionaire Russian banker
Valery Kubarev chatted on a cellular
telephone as a tuxedoed waiter deliv-
ered a $40 brunch of filet mignon,
eggs and champagne.
A few blocks away, Natasha
Sheshmonova walked into a center
for homeless people and asked police
to lock her up so she could get a bath
and some buckwheat porridge.
When Russia's 107 million voters
go to the polls Sunday to elect a new
parliament and ratify a constitution,
Sheshmonova will still be in the sour-
smelling lockup, unable to cast her
ballot.Kubarev, will vote for himself,
an independent candidate for
parliament's lower house, the Duma.
Sheshmonova and Kubarev are
extremes, but they represent the huge
gulf in Russia's electorate between
winners and losers after two years of
economic upheaval.
President Boris Yeltsin's support-
ers did not need to put a sign on the
wall reminding themselves: "It's the
economy, durak (stupid)!" In Russia
today, the economy - particularly
the widening gap between rich and
poor - is never far from anyone's
mind.
Competing in the election are 13
parties and blocs. They range from
the front-running, pro-Yeltsin
Russia's Choice alliance to the re-
vived Communist Party and the ex-
tremely nationalist Liberal Demo-
crats.
But the underlying race Sunday is
Resentment vs. Hope.
Resentment of the new rich is the
most powerful weapon of Yeltsin's
opponents, who accuse him of im-
poverishing ordinary Russians while
bankers and mobsters ride in chauf-
feur-driven Lincoln Town Cars.
On Yeltsin's side is hope. No one
defends the mobsters or the conspicu-
ous consumption of suddenly wealthy
vodka traders. But Yeltsin's support-
ers say the economy has begun to
stabilize and the emerging entrepre-
neurial class can rebuild Russia - if
free-market reforms continue.
But he says the way to do it is to
make welfare payments via interest-
bearing commercial bank accounts
-helping both the poor and the banks,
including his own three-year-old
Megabank.
He has spent $120,000 of his own
money promoting his candidacy and
the bank-account idea in TV and ra-

LSA senior Ranjit Mahida staples his paper at the "final stop" in the Angell Hall Computing Center yesterday.
B-School expands to Hong Kong

By AMY MENSCH
FOR THE DAILY'
A new program will allow 40
University students to get their de-
gree without ever setting foot on the
campus.
In October, the first class of the
University's School of Business Ad-
ministration in this program began
studying for their Master's of Busi-
ness Administration (MBA) 9,000
miles across the globe in Hong Kong.
In a global corporate partnership
that is the first of its kind in the infor-
mation age, the University and Cathay
Pacific Airways has designed a pro-
gram to give forty managers an MBA
while working overseas.
Over the course of three years, the
Cathay Pacific employees will receive
the full Michigan MBA. Through a
combination of interactive television,
computer networking, intensive fac-
ulty teaching sessions in Hong Kong
and a seven-week study module in
Ann Arbor, the Cathay Pacific stu-
dents will take Business School
classes with out actually being in Ann
Arbor.
"A full-fledged MBA is impor-

tant to us because we are moving
into a business environment where
people will take responsibility for
planning and executing jobs inde-
pendent of direct supervision," said
Rod Eddington, managing director
of Cathay Pacific in a press release.
Not only did the students have to
meet the University's entrance re-
quirements, they also needed to pass
through a difficult company screen-
ing process.
"The students had to meet the same
criteria as other MBA candidates if
not more because the students went
through a rigorous screening process
at Cathay Pacific where they were
interviewed by senior management
and rated on the performance," said
Jeff Holmes, program manager of the
Cathay Pacific MBA program.
Students, who are also full-time
employees, do not have daily per-
sonal contact with their classmates.
Six hours of each course are taught
through video conferencing. Univer-
sity faculty spends four days teaching
students for eight to ten hours each
day in Hong Kong.
"We believe we can deliver the

course material in this concentrated
way because of our expertise, experi-
ence and effectiveness in delivering
our Executive Education programs,"
said J. Wayne Brockbank in a press
release.
The University, which has more
participants than any executive edu-
cation program in the world, is
ranked number one in Executive
Education by Business Week maga-
zine.
Office hours are conducted
through e-mail and homework assign-
ments are handed in through faxes or
computer networks. "Although there
are limits to interaction to some ex-
tent, the feedback from students has
been positive," Holmes said. He added
that other companies have inquired
about similar types of programs but

Yeltsin
dio advertisements.
Across the country, other
businesspeople also are pouring
money into TV time, billboards, and
less savory campaign tactics, such as
subsidized champagne for voters.
Some newspapers allegedly are will-
ing to provide favorable coverage of
local candidates -for the right price.
To many voters, nothing much
seems to have changed. But by and
large, observers agree that the cam-
paign has suffered more from indif-
ference and incompetence than crook-
edness.
Yeltsin dissolved the old parlia-
ment in September because it was
blocking economic reform and build-
ing its own power. When hard-liners
took up arms to resist, he ordered
tanks to blast them out of the barri-
caded White House. More than 140
people died in the fighting Oct. 3 and
4.
If resentment prevails at the polls
on Sunday, October's violence will
have been in vain. Yeltsin will face a
parliament that is no more coopera-
tive than the one he vanquished.
If hope triumphs, however,
Russia's Choice and other pro-reform
parties will take a solid majority of
the 450-seat Duma and the 176-mem-
ber upper house, the Federation Coun-
cil. That would enable Yeltsin to push
ahead with the sale of state factories.

See HONG KONG, Page 8


Friday
Q Amnesty International, movie
("Missing"), Rackham Amphi-
theater,'7:30 p.m.
Q Candlelight Vigil for Disap-
peared Persons, sponsored by
Amnesty International, on the
Diag, 6:30 p.m.
Q CRESS Holiday Party, Lane
Hall Commons, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Q Korean Campus Crusade for
Christ, fellowship meeting,
Campus Chapel, 1236
Washtenaw Ct., 8 p.m.
Q Ninjutsu Club, IM Building,
Wrestling Room, 6:30 p.m.
[ Psychology Academic Peer Ad-
vising, walk-ins welcome or call

Walking Service, UGLi, lobby,
936-1000, 8 p.m.-l1:30 p.m.
J Saint Mary Student Parish,
campus prayer group, 7 p.m.,
rosary group, 7:30 p.m., 331
Thompson.
" School of Music Concert, harp-
sichordist Edward Parmentier
and Violinist Jean Kim, Moore
building, North Campus, 8p.m.
" Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Club,
everyone welcome, CCRB,
Room 2275, 6 p.m.
" Students Concerned About
Animal Rights, meeting, Cafe
Fino, 1214 S. University Ave.,
5 p.m.
" Tae Kwon Do Club, everyone

formances, East Quad, Room
126, 8 p.m.
Sunday
Q Children's Theatre, public per-
formances, East Quad, Room
126, 2 p.m.
Q Celebration Service, sponsored
by the Wesley foundation, First
United Methodist Church, 5
p.m.
Q Christian Life Church Sunday
Service, School of Education,
Schorling Auditorium, 11 a.m.
Q Guild House - Free Meal, 802
Monroe, 5 p.m.
Q Palestinian Dabkeh, sponsored
by Arab-American Student's
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