The Michigan Daily - Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 7A Karzai outlines plai Los Angeles Times KABUL, Afghanistan - In his first public address, interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai urged the Afghan people yesterday to unite and work for peace in this still-troubled country. ,. "Dear compatriots, Afghanistan is in dire need of peace," Karzai said near the begin- ning of his 10-minute speech, which, because it was broadcast on limited-range Kabul Television, wasn't seen by much of the country. Since being installed Dec. 22, Karzai has spent much of his time behind closed doors in meetings with elders from various provinces as well as international emissaries and government ministers. His first public speech staked out a clear position in opposition to the former Taliban regime and underscored his sensitivity to the need to improve, as quickly as possible, the country's deprived economy. "The existence of armed people is a hin- drance to the peace and security," he said, referring to the remaining Taliban members and fighters with the al-Qaida terrorist net- work adrift in the country. Afghanistan should have a national army that can protect the country's borders from ns for Afghanistan incursions, Karzai said. Many of the Tal- But he also pledged his commitmen iban's members came from outside the coun- bring a just government to Afghanistan try, he pointed out, and the fundamentalist announced that the Afghan ConstitutionI regime wouldn't have been able to win polit- was written during the reign of the ex ical power if the country hadn't been split king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, which ens into disparate territories controlled by local "social and political freedom for commanders. Afghans." will a ain be in effect t to . He that iled ures all [n speech tribal council that Afghans traditionally use to choose their leaders. His top four policy priorities were: I Protection of the country from illegal bills that devalue Afghanistan's currency. * Enhancement of productivity in small factories and other business and manufactur- ing concerns. Job creation. Privatization and a reduction in govern- ment interference in business. "I want your cooperation and the coopera- tion and participation of every Afghan, indi- vidually and collectively, to help in this project," Karzai said. Karzai's speech outlined his policy priori- ties and emphasized the hard road ahead for the country. In a style that was reminiscent of President John F. Kennedy's famous exhortation to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," Karzai urged every Afghan to join in the effort to remake the country. rnI, g . He added that he.wants a government that empowers the people of Afghanistan - a sharp contrast to the many years in which ordinary Afghans felt subjected to the whims, successively, of the country's Soviet rulers, feuding warlords and the Taliban. And he assured Afghans that he is com- mitted to the process of a "loya jirga," the Officials close in on final Finding peace death toll in NEW YORK (AP) - City officials are close to deter- mining a final count of the people who were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, police said yesterday. The city's total has stood at 2,893 for three days, decreas- ing from near 7,000 in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 attacks. Officials eliminated mistakes and duplicated entries in missing-person reports, and the tally could still be reduced further, said police department Chief Charles Campisi, who heads the effort. "We're very, very close," Campisi said. "I would say we're 99 percent there." Included within that total are 309 missing, for whom no remains have been found. Campisi said that number will drop as the medical examiner's office identifies the more than 12,000 body parts collected among the ruins of the collapsed towers. That process will not affect the total, because as the num- ber of missing drops, the number of confirmed dead will increase. Throughout the 17 weeks since the Sept. 11 attack, the numbers have fluctuated, sometimes drastically. The official city count peaked at 6,729 on Sept. 24, but it dropped by more than 1,000 six days later when then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that cross-checks of names had elimi- WTC attack nated duplications. Chasing the errors has been "labor intensive," Campisi said. "It was a very monumental task," he said. "We worked diligently on it, knowing that this would be a permanent part of history." The errors were due in part to the flooding of the police database with missing-person reports from a multiple sources, including family members, the American Red Cross, airlines, employers and law enforcement agencies. Campisi said some victims may remain missing. "Under a perfect system, that 309 would disappear and become a zero," Campisi said. "But with the explosion and intense heat and crushing of the buildings, there will be people unaccounted for." An ongoing Associated Press tally of people confirmed dead and those reported dead or missing stood at 3,018 yes- terday. That number also includes 189 people who died in the attack on the Pentagon and 44 who died when a hijacked jet crashed in Pennsylvania. AP's figure is derived from information provided by the medical examiner, courts, funeral homes, places of worship, death notices, employers, public agencies, families and AP's foreign bureaus. College grads dealt a double blow with debt and recession The Associated Press Christian Miller can't get a car loan and, at age 27, has returned to his parents' New Jersey home, forced back by the double load of credit card debt and student loans. Like other twentysomethings across America, he's found that graduating from college means having to face tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Some even drop out before they finish school, while a growing number are declaring bankrupt- cy. "It stinks," says Miller, who arrived on his parents' Liv- ingston, N.J., doorstep on New Year's Eve two years ago. Financial experts predict this year's graduates will have-an even tougher time. Never has a generation entered a recession- weakened job market so debt-ridden. "I have a negative net worth of $14,000 - it's great!" Jessi- ca Lopez says sarcastically. ' In some ways, the 24-year-old Lopez considers herself lucky. A senior at Florida International University in Miami, she's saved money by living with her parents and has about $2,000 in credit card debt - "tiny compared to some people I know." Still, she's already been turned down for a small business loan to start a clothing company, even though she works a part-time job and actually owes less than the average college grad. The federal General Accounting Office says students are graduating with an average of $19,400 in student loans. Aver- age student credit card debt rose from $1,879 in 1998 to $2,748 in 2000, according to the student loan agency Nellie Mae. It is the growth of the latter statistic that has financial experts most worried, especially since bankruptcies filed by the under-25 crowd grew to a record 94,717 in 2000, accord- ing to a Harvard law school study. A third of students have four or more credit cards, picked up everywhere from phone solicitations to the Internet. And some universities have signed deals with particular credit card companies, giving them exclusive rights to market on campus and use school logos on their cards. Delaware-based MBNA American Bank has such deals with about 600 colleges and universities, including the Uni- versity of Michigan, with about half a percentage point of interest earned on the cards going to the schools. The company stresses that it targets alumni and upperclass- men, keeps its lines of credit at $1,000 or less and offers regu- lar campus seminars about responsible credit card use. "The last thing we want to do is give a college student a credit card and they can't handle it," says MBNA spokesman Brian Dalphon. ! Officials at Capital One, another major credit card provider, offer a "high school credit card" to teens, 16 to 18, who get the card guaranteed by a parent or guardian. Diana Don, a spokeswoman for the Virginia-based compa- ny, says parents use the cards to teach their children how to be responsible before going to college. But some financial experts are wary. "It's like someone who's not educated about sugar walking into a candy store and buying everything," says Juliette Fair- ley, author of the book "Money Rules," a financial guide for people in their 20s and 30s. Bob Doyle, of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, says students should be learning about financial responsibility from their parents well before buying on credit. He advises parents to loan money to their teen-age children, and then make them find a way to pay it back. Too often, he says, parents forgive loans or continually bail out their chil- dren. A DAVID ROGHKIND/Daily Rev. Haju Murray leads a meditation service at the Zen Buddhist Temple on Packard Street last night. CRASH Continued from Page 1A "At least three eyewitnesses have told us that they had heard a massive explo- sion after a large aircraft with flames leaping from all sides crashed into hills," said Shoaib Suddle, police chief for the province of Baluchistan, where the crash occurred. A Pakistani official speaking by phone from the nearby town of Kharan said that a military team in the area was investigating unconfirmed reports about ground fire just before the crash. The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., which is overseeing military operations in the war, discounted reports from the scene citing witnesses who saw the plane on fire before it crashed. "I don't think that's the case at all," said Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Klee, a Central Com- mand spokesman. A senior Pakistani army official at the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi said that initial examina- tions "do not give any clue of an explo- sion before the plane hit the ground.... Apparently the plane crashed due to technical reasons because the debris is not spread to a wide area." A senior Pakistani intelligence offi- cial, however, said that since the arrival of U.S. forces at various Pakistani air bases last fall, they had received a num- ber of reports suggesting that some extremist may want to target low-flying U.S. aircraft or helicopters with Stinger missiles. Pakistani intelligence officials believe that about a dozen of the shoulder-fired missiles with workable batteries were available to the Taliban before the war began on Oct. 7. U.S. and Pakistani forces struggled to reach the crash site. "We're having diffi- culty because of the elevation," Klee said. Senior Pakistani military officials in Quetta said Pakistani troops had secured the crash site within one hour of the accident, but that U.S. rescue teams later took control of the emergency opera- tion. "It was all over before our troops could reach the scene," a Pakistani army colonel said. The flight originated at Jacobabad, a major Pakistani base being used by U.S. forces. The aircraft was on a "multi-stop mission," according to the Central Com- mand. The plane, with a crew of six and one' passenger, was carrying cargo into Shamsi and was on final approach when it crashed in clear weather, officials said. "It was a supply mission," Lapan said. The identity of those aboard the plane are being withheld "pending notification of next of kin," according to a statement from the Central Command. "It just breaks your heart," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "It is a tough, dangerous business over there and they are doing difficult things and they are doing them darned well," Rumsfeld added. The aircraft and crew were support- ing the Marine force that's been operat- ing at the Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan. The KC-130 is a multi-role tanker and transport aircraft that can refuel other planes in the air, as well as carry troops and cargo. The aircraft can also be used to move Marines on special operations. Shamsi, about 30 miles from the Afghan border, was built in the mid- 1980s by sheiks from the United Arab Emirates who visit the area for deer hunting and falconry. Last week, the first U.S. soldier to be killed by hostile fire died in an appar- ent ambush in Paktia province near the eastern Afghan town of Khost. An Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Pakistan on Oct. 19, killing two Army Rangers, in the only other fatal crash of a U.S. military aircraft during the war. Also yesterday, U.S. warplanes again struck the Zhawar Kili compound near Khost, an al-Qaida facility that was heavily bombed by U.S. jets four times in the past week. Special operations troops backed by U.S. Marines captured two senior al- Qaida fighters among a group of fight- ers apprehended at the site, officials said Tuesday. The new strikes, involving two Air Force F-16s and one Navy F/A-18 Hor- net, were directed at al-Qaida buildings at the sprawling complex. "It's a continuation of what we've been doing for several days now," said Lt. Cmdr Frank Merriman, a Central Command spokesman. "A lot of it is destroying existing equipment," Merriman said. "It seems to be the best way to get rid of this equipment." the michigan daily SPRING BREAK Bahamas Party Cruise! 5 SPRING E Days $279! Includes Meals & Free Parties! Boardwalk *Awesome Beaches, Nightlife! Departs from 7 parties Florida! Cancun & Jamaica $459! $159! sprin sprinjbreaktravel .com 1-800-678-6386. 1-800-678-' 5wnpgt bre&A Panama City Beach Florida from $39/night $215/week $9.75/person/day Sandpiper Beacon beach resort the "fun place"! Home of the world's longest keg party! 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"Education is the greatest prevention," said Melissa Richter, the Chelsea Arbor Treatment Center's adolescent specialist, who added that 10 percent to 20 percent of her patients have had ecstasy abuse problems. "We give them a lot of education. Without the education, they don't know what they are doing to their body. And once they understand what ecstasy really is, many of them never choose to use it again;' Richter said. She added that there still needs to be much more education about drugs like ecstasy. Ecstasy, or MDMA and more commonly called "E," which affects the amount of seratonin released in the brain, is a Schedule I drug along with heroin and marijuana. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement' Administration, Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse, cannot be used for med- ical treatment purposes and are deemed unsafe even under medical supervision. '37- STA Travel Michigan Union Ground Floor AVAILABLE: ROOM in a 4 bdrm. apt. Female and non-smkr. pref. 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