One hundred eleven years ofedi'orial freedom
i
NEWS: 76-DAILY
CLASSIFIED: 7640557
www michigandail y. com
Thursday
November 15, 2001
~I*i ~.
Opposition
closes
In
on
Taliban
Jalalabad falls to northern
alliance; fighting reported in
Taliban stronghold of Kandahar
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The rout of the
Taliban accelerated yesterday with the Islamic mili-
tia losing control of Jalalabad in the east, once-loyal
Pashtun tribesmen joining in the revolt in the south
and many of their fighters fleeing into the mountains
to evade U.S. airstrikes.
The Taliban is "in retreat virtually all over the
country," Vice President Dick Cheney said in Wash-
ington.
A day after seizing the capital, Kabul, elements of
the northern alliance consolidated their power by
taking over the defense and interior ministries -
temporary measures, the alliance insisted, until a
U.N.-supervised political settlement representing all
ethnic groups.
In the south, there were reports - although
impossible to confirm - of fighting in the streets of
Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace.
Many of Afghanistan's 23 or more Pashtun groups
appeared to have risen up against the Taliban, Penta-
gon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said.
"Whether or not they're working in concert, we don't
know," he told reporters in Washington.
The tribal leaders were Pashtuns - members of
Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, which served as
the backbone of the Taliban's harsh five-year regime.
"It is time for the rest of Afghanistan - particu-
larly the ethnic groups in the south - to join the
uprising against the Taliban and throw off their
oppressive rule," British Prime Minister Tony Blair
said in London. "The sooner they act, the greater the
benefit for all the people of Afghanistan."
Cheney said the Taliban's retreat was "a very good
beginning to what's likely to be a long struggle"
which will end only with the capture of Osama bin
Laden and the destruction of his al-Qaida terrorist
network.
President Bush launched airstrikes against
Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused to
surrender bin Laden, sought in the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Taliban officials insisted the Islamic movement
remained intact in its southern strongholds despite
its losses. A Taliban official, Mullah Abdullah, told
the Afghan Islamic Press the movement's supreme
leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and his "guest,"
bin Laden, were "safe and well."
But by other accounts, the news was not good for
the Taliban.
A U.S. official in Washington " speaking on
condition of anonymity - said there was fighting
in the streets of Kandahar between Pashtun tribes-
men and the Taliban. The official asserted that the
city would fall to anti-Taliban forces within days
if not hours.
Many Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan
were fleeing to rural, mountainous province of Hel-.
mand southwest of Kandahar, the official said.
Yunus Khalis, a Pashtun mullah in Jalalabad,
between Kabul and the Pakistan border, negotiated a
deal under which the Taliban left the city in return
for safe passage with their weapons, according to
sources there.
Khalis, who is anti-Western, deeply conservative
and a friend to Arab militants, declared himself inde-
pendent .of both the Taliban and the northern
See AFGHANISTAN, Page 7A
Residents of Kabul ride bicycles past a northern alliance tank with a soldier
standing on top In the Afghan capital yesterday afternoon, a day after the
Northern Alliance entered the capital after Taliban troops fled.
Howard charged with
causing July car crash
By Jacquelyn Nixon
Daily Staff Reporter
Michigan cornerback Todd
Howard was charged this week with
a felony for his
role in a July car
accident that
involved three
vehicles.
Howard, who
allegedly lost
control of his
vehicle, 'swerved
into an oncoming.
lane of traffic on
Packard Road, Howard
striking the vehicle of a woman in
her late sixties. The woman is still
receiving medical care, Pittsfield
Township Police Capt. Elizabeth
McGuire said.
Washtenaw County Magistrate A.
Thomas Truesdell issued the felony
charge Tuesday in 14th District
Court. The 21-year-old Kinesiology
senior could face two years in
prison or a $1,000 fine if convicted.
Howard is expected to play in
Saturday's football game against
Wisconsin.
Howard has not turned himself
into police in response to the
charge, but McGuire said this is
common, especially after extensive
investigations.
"It's not unusual for people to be
notified (by letter) and allowed to
Dancing away
DAVID ROCHKIND/Daily
Erica Mooney, Anna Schork and Lisa Wang participate in a ballet class at
Studio 1. on Main Street yesterday afternoon.
Estrogen nked to
drugaddi
schedule a time to turn themselves
in," McGuire said.
A pretrial hearing will be set once
Howard turns himself in to police.
Pittsfield Township Police spent
several months conducting an inves-
tigation shortly after the incident,
said McGuire.
"Typically a case is investigated
and it is not unusual in investigation
cases for the charges to be reviewed
quite a long time after the accident
for any number of circumstances,"
she said.
McGuire said felonious driving is
driving at a speed or in a manner
that might endanger others and
thereby injure a in crippling man-
ner.
Shaw is
confident
'U' will
win case
By Rachel Green
Daily Staff Reporter
Ted Shaw, an attorney who repre-
sents the interven~ors in the case chal-
lenging the University's use of race in
undergraduate admissions, spoke last
night at the Law School, reminding
students and faculty of what he sees
as the inherent and thriving discrimi-
nation in higher education.
Noting the actions two weeks ago
at Auburn University involving white
fraternity members donning blackface
for Halloween and dressing in Ku
Klux Klan costumes, Shaw argued
the importance
of maintaining
the use of affir-
mative action in O
admissions to
not only provide
a diverse student
body, but also to remedy a history of
discrimination in the United States.
"These attitudes are not a thing of
the past, as most people think," Shaw
said. "Michigan as an institution was
virtually all white until 30 years ago,
with only a handful of minority stu-
dents. There were no implicit laws in
place, but it was a practice."
A former professor in the Law
School, Shaw left the University in
1.993 to become the deputy council
director for the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund, an organization which
Law School Dean Jeffrey Lehman
described as "the preeminent civil
rights foundation in the world."
Shaw expressed his commitment to
defending the University and its poli-'
cy of using race in admissions, a
D)AVID ROCUHKIND/Daily
Muslims gathered yesterday for prayer at the Islamic Center of Ann Arbor, the city's only mosque. Ramadan, the most
holy month of the year for Muslims,-begins Saturday.
Ramadan takes on new
significance as war rages
I. I
By Jeremy Berkowitz
For the Daily
By Lisa Hoffman
Daily Staff Reporter
The myth that women have a higher
vulnerability to develop addictions
presented itself long ago, but new
research shows their susceptibility is
related to hormones.
"Years ago, people said that women
shouldn't smoke or drink because we
were more likely to become addicted,"
said University biopsychologist Jill
Becker, who presented her research
yesterday at a meeting for the Society
for Neuroscience in San Diego, in a
written statement. "I'm a feminist and
don't subscribe to old-school ideas
that women are the 'weaker' sex in
need of protection."
Yet Becker's research shows that
estrogen plays a major role in a per-
son's vulnerability to addiction.
Effects of estrogen alone include
mood swings, improved verbal abili-
ties, decrease in spatial abilities and
enhances sensory and motor func-
should be extremely cautious, espe-
cially younger women who may be
experiencing major hormonal
swings," Becker said in the statement.
These young people are at the age
when they have to deal with the pres-
sures of their peers to experiment with
addictive substances, like nicotine and
cocaine, she said.
"Our results suggest that estrogen
not only affects the acute response to
cocaine, but also intensifies the long-
term changes in the brain. These
results are important for our under-
stand of the basic neural process that
lead to drug addiction," Becker said.
Using rats, Becker examined the
affects of estrogen on neurotransmit-
ters, like dopamine, in two areas of
the brain. The areas play important
roles in human behaviors, including
compulsive drug use, eating and sex.
"My lab has demonstrated that
estrogen has rapid effects that boost
the amount of dopamine released.
These effects are evident in sexual
Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic year,
begins Saturday. The celebration, which commemorates
Muhammad receiving the Quran from Allah, will have
unusual overtones this year as the war in Afghanistan
continues.
"American Muslims, as American citizens, will say
prayers not only for Muslims, but for other people in the
world especially, those soldiers fighting and defending
for us," said Muhammed Essia, a professor in the Uni-
versity's Near Eastern Studies Department.
The sustained United States bombing campaign has
also raised concern and questions for American Mus-
lims.
"While there is a great deal of resentment among
American Muslims, they are aware of the reasons for the
bombing. Therefore, their resentment is countered by the
understanding of the need for counterterrorism," said
Alexander Knysh, a professor of Islamic studies and
chair of the Near Eastern Studies Department.
The holiday is marked by a month-long fast in which
Muslims do not eat or drink during daylight hours. Mus-
lims will go to the mosque - at times for several hours
a day - to pray for those suffering in the world. The
holiday concludes Dec. 16 at the beginning of the 10th
month on the Islamic calendar, Shawwal, with a three-
day feast. Ramadan is traditionally considered a time not
only of worship, but of contemplation and strengthening
of family ties.
See RAMADAN, Page 7A
MSA voting slightly increases
By Kara Wenzel
Daily Staff Reporter
Despite a glitch in the voting web-
site, voter turnout for the first full day
of the Michigan Student Assembly,
LSA Student Government and Univer-
sity of Michigan Engineering Council
MSIeiections
Fanl2001
Voting ends at midnight
tonight. Cast your ballot at
vote. www.umich.edu
night today.
The numbers for voter turnout,
while not final, indicated that the
upward trend seen in the past few
years would continue.
"Web-based turnout for this election
has already well exceeded turnout
from the fall of 1997 and appears to be
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