2A -The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 25, 2004 NEWS WAItgN IRAQ Insurgents slaughter 50 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - In one of their boldest and most brutal attacks yet, insurgents waylaid three minibuses car- rying U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers heading home on leave and massacred about 50 of them - many of them shot in the head execution-style, officials said yesterday. A claim of responsibility posted on an Islamist Web site attributed the attack to followers of Jordanian-born terror master- mind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The killing of so many Iraqi soldiers - unarmed and in civilian clothes - in such an apparently sure-footed operation reinforced American and Iraqi suspicions that the country's security services have been infiltrated by insurgents. Also yesterday, a U.S. diplomat was killed when a rebel's rocket or mortar shell crashed into the trailer where he slept, the U. S. Embassy announced. Edward Seitz, an agent with the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Secu- rity, was killed at about 5 a.m. at Camp Victory, the main U.S. base near Bagh- dad International Airport, said embassy spokesman Bob Callahan. Seitz, a longtime State Department investigator who served in Detroit before heading to Baghdad, is believed to be the first U.S. diplomat killed in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003, an embassy spokesman said on con- dition of anonymity. The unarmed Iraqi soldiers killed yes- terday were on their way home after com- pleting a training course at the Kirkush military camp northeast of Baghdad when their buses were stopped Saturday evening by rebels near the Iranian border about 95 miles east of Baghdad, Interior Ministry' spokesman Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. Some accounts by police said the rebels KABUL~, Afghanistan . Karzai locks up first presidential election E Hamid Karzai clinched a majority of the votes cast in Afghanistan's first presi- dential election, near-complete results showed yesterday, leaving him all but certain of becoming his war-wrecked nation's first democratically elected leader. His chief rival, former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni, announced he was willing to accept the election result, but only if irregularities in the vote were acknowledged by a panel of foreign investigators. "For the national interest and so the country does not go into crisis, we will respect the result of the election," said Syed Hamid Noori, spokesman for Qanooni. "But we also want the fraud to be made clear." By Sunday evening, Karzai had received 4,240,041 votes, more than half of the estimated 8,129,935 valid votes cast in the Oct.9 ballot, the joint U.N.-Afghan elec- toral board said. That means that even if all the remaining estimated votes went to other candidates, Karzai would still have more than the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff. With 7,666,529 valid votes - or 94.3 percent of the total - counted, Karzai had received 55.3 percent, 39 percentage points ahead of Qanooni. Karzai's campaign spokesman said Sunday's figures confirmed optimism that the interim leader would triumph when the final results are released in the next few days. WASHINGTON Research finds home Internet access insecure AP PHOTO Soldiers of the Iraqi National Guard stand by the bodies of fellow Iraqi soldiers in Mendeli, north-east of Baquba, Iraq, yesterday. The bodies of about 50 Iraqi soldiers were found In eastern Iraq, the victims of an ambush. were dressed in Iraqi military uniforms. There was confusion over precise figures, although the Iraqi National Guard said 48 troops and three drivers were killed. Abdul-Rahman said 37 bodies were found yesterday on the ground with their hands behind their backs, shot in the head execution-style. Twelve others were found in a burned bus, he said. Some officials quoted witnesses as saying insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at one bus. "After inspection, we found out that they were shot after being ordered to lay down on the earth," Gen. Walid al-Azza- wi, commander of the Diyala provincial police, said, adding that the bodies were laid out in four rows, with 12 bodies in each row. In a website posting, the al-Qaida in Iraq, formerly known as Tawhid and Jihad, claimed responsibility for the ambush, saying "God enabled the Mujahedeen to kill all" the soldiers and "seize two cars and money." Army OKs HallCburton probe Internet users at home are not nearly as safe online as they believe, according to a nationwide inspection by researchers. They found most consumers have no firewall protection, outdated antivirus software and dozens of spyware programs secretly running on their computers. One beleaguered home user in the government-backed study had more than 1,000 spyware programs running on his sluggish computer when researchers examined it. Bill Mines, a personal trainer in South Riding, Va. , did not fare much bet- ter. His family's three-year-old Dell computer was found infected with viruses and more than 600 pieces of spyware surreptitiously monitoring his online activities. "I was blown away," Mines said. "I had a lot of viruses and other things I didn't know about. I had no idea things like this could happen." With increasingly sophisticated threats from hackers, viruses, spam e-mails and spyware, trouble is finding computer users no matter how cautiously they roam online. JER USA LEM Cabinet OKs Gaza settlers compensation plan Israel's Cabinet approved a compensation plan yesterday for settlers who will be uprooted by Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, handing the prime minister an important victory two days before a showdown in parliament over the pullout. Meanwhile, a team of Tunisian doctors examined Palestinian leader Yasser Ara- fat - who is recovering from the flu - and pronounced him "OK," Sunday despite speculation he might be suffering something more serious. In southern Gaza, Israeli aircraft and tanks launched a series of strikes in the Khan Younis refugee camp late yesterday and early today that killed five Palestin- ians and wounded 23 others. Violence in Gaza has increased in the months since Sharon announced his "unilateral disengagement" plan to pull out of Gaza and four West Bank settlements next year. The Cabinet approved compensation program, which passed in a 13-6 vote, is a key part of Sharon's withdrawal plan. The victory gave Sharon important momentum in the run-up to a Knesset vote tomorrow for the first time on the entire withdrawal plan. OJIYA, Japan Massive earthquakes injure thousands in Japan Tens of thousands of Japanese huddled in emergency shelters yesterday after a series of earthquakes in northern Japan flattened homes, toppled bridges and derailed trains, killing at least 21 people and injuring as many as 2,000. Eight people were believed missing. A 6.8-magnitude quake rocked the largely rural Niigata prefecture Saturday evening, rattling buildings as far away as the Japanese capitalt Several-strong quakes followed through the night, and aftershocks continued to jolt the area yesterday. The Japanese government said 21 people were killed and 1,217 were injured, while public broadcaster NHK, citing hospital data, said 21 people were killed and more than 2,000 were injured. The dead included five children, the youngest a 2-month-old infant. I 4 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army has agreed to a Pentagon investigation into claims by a top con- tracting official that a Halliburton subsidiary unfair- ly won no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars for work in Iraq and the Balkans, according to Army documents obtained yesterday. The complaint alleges that the award of contracts without competition to restore Iraq's oil industry and to supply and feed U.S. troops in the Balkans puts at risk "the integrity of the federal contracting program as it relates to a major defense contractor." It also asks protection from retaliation for the whistle-blower, Bunnantine Greenhouse, chief contracting officer of the Army Corps of Engi- neers. In a letter to Greenhouse's lawyer, an Army attor- ney said the matter is being referred to the Defense Department's inspector general for "review and action, as appropriate." It also said the Corps had been ordered to "suspend any adverse personnel action" against Greenhouse "until a sufficient record is available to address the specific matters" in her complaint. Copies of the letter and complaints, documents which were provided to some members of Congress, were obtained yesterday by The Associated Press. Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said from Houston, where the company is headquartered, "KBR doesn't have any information on what Bunny Greenhouse may or may not have said to other Pen- tagon officials in early 2003. Certainly we can't address any threatened legal action she may be con- sidering against her employer." 4 DEBATE Continued from page 1A lack of attention from Kerry, minori- ties are fed up with the Bush admin- istration. Bush's attempts to force soldiers, many of whom are minori- ties, to stay in Iraq while at the same he tries to abolish race-conscious pol- icies in schools have all but enraged many minorities, he added. Moreover, Bush's policies are so radical they even defy Republican rhetoric, alienating minority voters, Spurgeon said. "People will vote for Kerry because they are tired of Bush. Bush is doing a terrible job, and minorities are rec- ognizing that," he added. A representative of the Bush cam- paign at the event refused to speak on the record. But to Esha Krishnaswamy, co-coordi- nator of Students for Nader, both Bush and Kerry underplay minority issues and offer no constructive plans to elevate the lower socio-economic standing of blacks and Hispanics. Neither of the two candidates plan to create free health care or make colleges free for all Americans, which is desperately needed because 40 million Americans live at the poverty level, she said. "Kerry says he'll ease the college tuition rates, but Nader believes everyone should go to college." LSA sophomore Bridget Maelin said the a I ced a SUMMER SEASON contrasting viewpoints effectively focused on the different sides to the issues.- ' think without this, people would have voted without knowing much of anything about the issues,"she said. The sorority Delta Sigma Theta also sponsored the event. COME WATCH A DEBATE AMONG STUDENT POLFIICAL GROUPS ON CAMPUS. TOMORROW IN 100 HUTCHINS HALL, 7:3IP.M SPoNsoREm BY THE MICHIGAN DAILY. - Compiledfrom Daily wire reports 4 +E + AI www. michigandaily.com The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Mondays during the spring and summer terms by students at the University of Michigan. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. 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