2 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, January 9, 2004 *I NATION/WORLD Palestinians may seek unified Israel JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's prime minister will bypass conservatives in his party by not seeking approval from Likud's hawkish central committee for his plan to dismantle some settlements and impose a border on Palestinians, a newspaper reported yesterday. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia warned yesterday that if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon persists with his unilateral plan, Palestinians might abandon their goal of a separate state and push for a binational Jewish-Arab state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza instead. Qureia told The Associated Press --that such moves would make the drive ,for a Palestinian state a "meaningless slogan," and "if the situation continues as it is now we will go for the one-state solution." Such a state would soon have an Arab majority. Troops shot and killed a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in the West Bank town of Jenin, according to army officials and militants. Troops also killed a man in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital sources said. Sharon has said previously that he would pursue his "disengagement plan" if peace talks do not bear fruit in the coming months. However, many Likud officials con- sider dismantling any of the roughly 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and withdrawal from any land there as anathema to their dream of a Greater Israel. Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. More than 230,000 Jewish settlers live in the territories, home to 3.5 million Pales- tinians. Sharon has largely ignored party officials, and the Maariv newspaper yesterday quoted him as saying he will not bring his new plan to the central committee for approval. In talks with his aides, Sharon said that "when it will be relevant, I will bring the proposals to the Cabinet for approval," the newspaper reported. Sharon pointed out that the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin only brought the peace deal with Egypt to the party after he had already signed it, the newspaper said. Sharon outlined his plan last month, saying that if there is no movement in efforts to end the more than three years of violence with the Palestinians, he would implement his plan to separate the two peoples. Sharon emphasized that the Pales- tinians would get more land under a negotiated agreement. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to get Palestinian militants to agree to end attacks against Israel, hoping to leverage that accord into a cease-fire deal with Israel that could lead to new peace moves. Egypt has joined the effort, sending envoys to the West Bank and Gaza to NEWS N BRIEF., ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Pakistan searches for al-Qaida fu'itives Pakistani troops backed by helicopters launched an offensive yesterday to cap- ture suspected al-Qaida fugitives hiding in the mountains along the Afghan bor- der, believed to be a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden. The operations follow a bloody series of attacks this week in Afghanistan sus- pected of being carried out by Taliban and possibly al-Qaida fighters, amid new calls by bin Laden in his latest taped message for Muslims to attack U.S. forces and their allies. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for Pakistan's army, would not say whether the operation under way in Wana, just across the border from Afghanistan's Pakti- ka province, was launched to capture bin Laden or any other al-Qaida leader. "I will not make any comment about it," Sultan said. "This operation is part of our campaign in the war on terror. So far, no foreigner has been arrested but we are questioning some local tribesmen." The U.S. military in Afghanistan declined to comment whether the Saudi-born bin Laden might be in the area targeted by the Pakistani operation but noted U.S. troops had not stepped up operations on the Afghan side of the border. In Washington, Secretary of State Con Powell said he was pleased the Pak- istanii army "began operations this morning that relate to that challenge" of com- bating terrorism. NEW YORK 6 0 Protecting a nation Bush plans to set up moon colony, send Amencans to Mars WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and establish a permanent human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said last night. Bush won't propose sending Ameri- cans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now, one official said. In addition to proposing the first trip to the moon since December 1972, the president wants to build a permanent space station there. Three senior officials said Bush wants to aggressively reinvigorate the space program, which has been demor- alized by a series of setbacks, includ- ing the space-shuttle disaster last February that killed seven astronauts. The officials, speaking on condi- tion of anonymity, said Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week. Bush has been expected to propose a bold new space mission in an effort to rally Americans around a unifying theme as he campaigns for re-election. Many insiders had speculated he might set forth goals at the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' famed flight last month in North Car- olina. Instead, he said only that Ameri- ca would continue to lead the world in aviation. Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters travel- ing with Bush in Florida that the presi- dent would make an announcement about space next week, but he declined to give details. It's possible Bush could make the announcement in his State of the Union address later this month, painfully close to the anniversaries of both the Challenger and Columbia tragedies. It was the Columbia tragedy that helped force a discussion of where NASA should venture beyond the space shuttle and international space station. The panel that investigated the Columbia accident called for a clearly defined long-term mission - a nation- al vision for space that has gone miss- ing for three decades. House Science Committee spokes- woman Heidi Tringe said lawmakers on the panel "haven't been briefed on the specifics" of the plan but expected an announcement. Retailers report holiday sales finish strong Consumers who frustrated retailers through the early part of December gave many storeowners a respectable holiday season after all, coming through at the last minute with a spending spree right before and after Christmas. Even strug- gling department stores ended up with solid results. December sales figures issued yesterday by the nation's biggest retailers showed that procrastinators and post-Christmas shoppers helped companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and Target Corp. offset a slow start to the season. Still, the end-of-the-season sales surge didn't benefit all retailers; Gap Inc. and Kohl's Corp. were among those dissatisfied with their results. And some retailers got their sales with heavy markdowns that eroded their profits. Wal-Mart warned yesterday that fourth-quarter earnings may fall at the low end of projections. Upscale stores such as Neiman Marcus Group and Nordstrom Inc. were star per- formers, posting sales results that far exceeded expectations. And December turned out to be a pleasant surprise for May Department Stores Co., Federated Department Stores Inc. and many mall-based apparel stores including Limited Brands. A medical worker stands behind a door in the isolation ward yesterday at Guangzhou No. 8 People's Hospital where another suspected SARS case was reported. WA$H INGTON Think tank: Iraq was not imminent threat Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States and there was no solid evidence that President Saddam Hus- sein was cooperating with the al-Qaida terror network, a private liberal think tank maintained yesterday. The administration systematically misrepresented a weapons threat from Iraq, and U.S. strategy should be revised to eliminate the policy of unilat- eral preventive war, said Jessica Math- ews, Joseph Cirincione and George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It is unlikely that Iraq could have destroyed, hidden or sent out of the country the hundreds of tons of chemi- cal and biological weapons, dozens of Scud missiles and facilities engaged in the ongoing production of chemical and biological weapons that officials claimed were present without the Unit- ed States detecting some sign of this activity," the report said. GUANGZHOI, China Chinese officials kill SARS-bearing pests SARS-wary southern China mobilized a mass cleanup effort yesterday, sweep- ing streets, slaughtering more civets and targeting the "four dangers" - rats, roaches, flies and mosquitoes - in its attack on creatures it suspects of carrying the virus. The push toward a more pristine Guang4png province came the same day the country's first SARS patient of the season was released from the hospital- and, minutes later, a wait- ress in the provincial capital of Guangzhou was pegged as the second suspected case. LONDON Low-tar cigarettes may car equal risk Low-tar cigarettes do not carry a lower risk of lung cancer, according to the first study comparing lung cancer deaths among smokers of ultra-light, mild and medium fil- tered cigarettes. The finding, published this week in the British Medical Journal, proves what experts long suspected. Previous research has found smokers of "lighter" cigarettes compensate by taking deeper drags, holding the smoke longer and smoking more cigarettes. Scientists suspected they would proba- bly be just as vulnerable to lung cancer and other diseases as those who smoke harsher varieties. -Compiled from Daily wire reports U.S. helicopter crash in Iraq kills nine soldiers 0 FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -A Black Hawk medivac helicopter, clearly .marked with a red cross, crashed yes- terday after a witness said it was hit by a rocket, killing all nine U.S. soldiers aboard. In Baghdad, a C-5 transport plane with 63 passengers and crew limped safely back to the airport after being struck by fire from insurgents. About 80 Iraqi prisoners, mean- while, were released from Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, but they were not the detainees that U.S. authorities had - promised would be freed under a spe- cial amnesty. The military said a U.S. soldier died Wednesday of injuries suffered when a mortar attack wounded 30 other troops and a civilian west of Baghdad. The deaths brought to at least 495 the number of Americans killed in Iraq from hostile and non-hostile causes since the start of the war in March, according to the U.S. Central Com- mand and the Department of Defense. The Black Hawk went down about four miles south of Fallujah, a strong- hold of the anti-American insurgency, the 82nd Airborne Division said. The military said the cause of the crash was not known, but a witness, Mohammed Ahmed al-Jamali, said he heard the distinctive whoosh of a rocket and saw the helicopter, which was clear- ly marked with red crosses signifying its medical mission, struck in the tail. The 27-year-old farmer who lives close to the crash site said he rushed to the scene but found everyone dead. The helicopter was a medical evacu- ation aircraft but it was unclear if it was carrying patients, a military offi- cial said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another witness, student Waleed Kurdi, 23, said he heard "a loud explo- sion and I saw the fire in the air" as the chopper exploded in two before it hit the ground. Twice before, American helicopters have gone down near Fallujah, a city 35 miles west of Baghdad. A OH-58 Kiowa observation helicop- ter went down Jan. 2, killing one soldier. Military officials said it almost certainly was shot down. And on Nov. 2, a Chi- nook helicopter was shot down near the city, killing 16 American soldiers and injuring 26. The military believes a SA- 7 shoulder-fired missile hit one of the -chopper's rear-mounted engines. In yesterday's close call at Baghdad International Airport, a transport plane carrying 63 people declared an in- flight emergency because of "exces- sive" vibrations in the No. 4 engine and landed safely shortly after takeoff, the Air Force said. The Air Force later issued a brief statement saying initial information indicated the engine exploded as a result of "hostile action from the ground." The statement said no injuries were reported. In November, a shoulder-fired mis- sile struck a DHL cargo plane at the airport, forcing it to make an emer- gency landing at the airport with its wing aflame. All three crew members were unhurt. 1.maeso { the: Le..u Showcase your artistic talent as part of the 75th anniversary of the Michigan League. Artwork should be your own creative interpretation of the Michigan League (i.e., building, architectural ornamentation, events/happenings at the League, etc.) Ist Place: $ 400 2nd Place: $200 3rd Place: $100 LCompetition Rules + Competition is open to all current U of M students. * Creative art expressions can be anj of the following: painting, drawing, sketching, printmaking, photography, digital photographij, digital image, mixed media collage and fibers, all artwork with a maximum dimension of 24" b1.330" will be accepted. All works should be readij for exhibition with proper frames. + Must register to officiallij enter the competition bij filling out a form at: wW.umich.edu/Aeague/program.html + Deadline to enter the competition is Fridaij, f Februarij 20 at 5pm. T N l fl 1. _ a - a i e. K.. ~. 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