Friday, February 11, 2005 X~~oMvN\ 11001 S VA~7 ;~ 3 Weather Opinion 4 From the Daily: The merits of merit tests Arts 7 UProd puts youthful emphasis on 'Romeo & Juliet' £ it au MR- 33 TOMORROW: One-hundredfourteen years ofeditorilfreedom www.michiandaily.com Ann Arbor, Michigan m Vol. CXV, No. 80 x2005 The Michigan Daily State to cut $5.6 million from 'U' E Granholm's proposed budget which would cut $5.6 million from the University The plan would continue the cuts into next year, come," Coleman said, for maintenance projects - for the next two fiscal as part of a $30 million higher education cut. and would offer increased state aid to universities University Provost Paul Courant said last years. These funds can be used for the renovation may force mid-year tuition With the state in a sluggish economic condition, that keep tuition increases under 5 percent. December that a mid-year tuition increase would or new construction of buildings around campus. hike, draws opposition from Michigan Budget Director Mary Lannoye present- After Granholm's discussion of the importance be very likely if the state cut higher-education Office of the State Budget spokesman Greg ed Granholm's state budget proposal to the state of education in boosting the state's economy in her funding further. University Spokeswoman Julie Bird said the capital outlay funds more than com- Coleman in written response Legislature yesterday. She said the cuts as neces- State of the State address Tuesday, some were sur- Peterson said the administration will meet with pensated for the other decrease. sary to balance the gaps in the current budget. prised by the $30 million cut. University President the University Board of Regents next Thursday to "Colleges and universities are given (this By Julia Homing The cuts come at a time when the state's rev- Mary Sue Coleman said the proposal will serious- discuss a possible tuition increase and have not yet money) from which they can make capital, struc- Daily Staff Reporter enue estimates for this fiscal year are $382 million ly affect the University's operating budget, nam- decided if it will happen. tural improvements on campus. This is really quite less than budgeted. To compensate, Granholm ing expenses such as faculty instruction, student To offset the decrease in funds, Granholm's an achievement," he said. A mid-year tuition increase became more likely plans to decrease funding to Medicaid and elimi- services and educational technologies. budget allows public universities and community But Coleman said this does not balance the other yesterday after Gov. Jennifer Granholm released nate some tax exemptions in addition to the higher - "(The proposal) has the potential to affect colleges to take advantage of $100 million in capi- losses in funding. She said the small amounts of her proposed state budget for fiscal year 2005, education cuts. our core academic quality for many years to tal outlay funds - state bonds which may be used See STATE, Page 7 North Korea boasts of having nuclear weapons Leaders say they will not disarm despite Bush's vow to rid the country of its weapons SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea announced for the first time yesterday it has nuclear weapons, and it rejected moves to restart disarmament talks anytime soon, saying the bombs are protection against an increasing- ly hostile United States. The communist state's statement dramati- cally raised the stakes in the 2-year-old nuclear confrontation and posed a grave challenge to President Bush, who started his second term with a vow to end North Korea's nuclear pro- gram through six-nation talks. "We ... have manufactured nukes for self- defense to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North)," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The news agency used the colloquial term "nukes" in its English-language account. The claim could not be independently veri- fied. North Korea expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002. It is not known to have tested an atomic bomb, although international officials have long suspected it has one or two nuclear weapons. The CIA has estimated that with a highly enriched uranium weapons program and the use of sophisticated high-speed centrifuges, North Korea could be making more. Some analysts and observers have put the estimate at six to eight. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the North had no reason to believe the United States would attack. "The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invad- ing North Korea," Rice said in Luxembourg. "There is a path for the North Koreans that would put them in a more reasonable relation- ship with the rest of the world. "Let's see what the North Koreans do down the road," Rice told reporters on the flight home. "Everybody is urging them to get back to the talks." Traveling with Bush to North Carolina, White House press secretary Scott McClel- lan said the statement from North Korea was "rhetoric we've heard before." "We remain committed to the six-party talks. We remain committed to a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue with regards to North Korea," he said. Previously, North Korea told international negotiators in closed-door talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them, South Korean officials say. The North's U.N. envoy said last year the country had "weapon- ized" plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods. Those rods contained enough plutonium for several bombs. Yesterday's statement was North Korea's first public announcement that it has nuclear weapons. North Korea said Thursday its "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances." It said Washington's alleged attempt to topple the North's regime "compels us to take a measure to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal in order to protect the ideology, system, freedom and See N. KOREA, Page 7 South Korean tourists read a unification banner on a barbed-wire fence at the Imjingak Pavilion near the border village of Panmunjom between the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. The North Korean Foreign Ministry announced for the first time yesterday, in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, that it has nuclear weapons. Fuel-efficient cars could hurt state manufacturing jobs RHA urges 'U' to take legal action against Channel 4 F Michigan, Indiana and Ohio could lose a total of 69,000 jobs as popularity of hybrid cars grows By Adhiraj Dutt Daily Staff Reporter The growing popularity of fuel-efficient vehicles in the United States may benefit the environment but could potentially have severe consequences for jobs," Flynn said. The expected rise in imports of these envi- ronmentally friendly vehicles may cause the loss of nearly 69,000 jobs in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan combined, he added. "The argument is that we need to incent - it makes economic sense to get the manu- facturing of these vehicles and their compo- nents into the country," Flynn said. The study interviewed people in the auto- motive industry and examined different sce- narios in which the hybrid and diesel markets News station says 'U' is not doing enough to ensure security in residence halls By Jeremy Davidson Daily Staff Reporter The Residence Halls Association met last night to pass a resolution against WDIV Chan- nel 4, which aired a story Monday and Tuesday and claimed to reveal "shocking" secrets about the security inadequacies of the residence halls at Michigan State University, Wayne State Univer- sity and the University of Michigan. Earlier this week, the channel broadcast a report in which undercover reporters illegally trespassed into dorms at all three of the universi- ties they were investigating. RHA passed the resolution last night in hopes of encouraging the University to pursue the fullest legal recourses in response to the trespassing. Alan Levy, director of housing public affairs, said he felt the television reports were biased, inaccurate and selective. "The report did not provide information regard- ing the actions we have taken over the last two years to enhance safety and security in our halls," Levy said. Channel 4's report repeatedly claimed that the undercover investigation team had easily gained access to three residence halls at the University, although its footage only showed three different halls within the same dormitory - South Quad- rangle Residence Hall. The network's piece on See RHA, Page 3 in the United manufacturing jobs, according to a study recently released by the University's Office for the Study of Automo- tive Transportation. The market for hybrid and clean-die- sel cars in the United States could increase by nearly 1.8 mil- "We'd lose jobs in States could grow by 3 to 11 percent by 2009, Flynn said. These growth rates depend on the strength of consumers' prefer- -- - ,.. -A -1 P ~l r Local group to build in tsunami-hit areas two ways: Current job would be lost, and we would not gain extra jobs." ence toward tuel-etn- cient cars, which could depend on factors such as oil prices. In order to provide an incentive for manufac- turers to produce hybrid cars and their com- r~~rsort.. 1i . --A By Rachel Kruer Daily Staff Reporter Whenever Rackham senior Marcia Barron opened a newspaper over the ln,. twn nntlho ci., wasohoaintnA Iby the her charitable works in hospices, hospi- tals and orphanages. The center plans to undertake a one million dollar effort to rebuild 500 houses in tsunami- affected areas. Thk wnill he in ninrtin with the. 1 1 7777W 7-111I