2A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, September 19, 2005
NATION/WORLD
Afghans vote despite threats of attack NEWS IN BRIEF
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Trooping into
schools, mosques and tents, millions of Afghans defied
a Taliban boycott call and militant attacks to vote for
a new parliament yesterday, taking the last formal step
in starting a democracy aimed at ending decades of
rule by the gun.
Officials hailed the polls as a major success,
although initial estimates suggested voter turnout
was lower than hoped for because of security fears
and frustrations over the inclusion of several war-
lords on the ballot. Results were not expected for
more than a week.
Many people looked to a big vote to marginalize
renegade loyalists of the ousted Taliban regime by
demonstrating public support for an elected govern-
ment built up under the protection of 20,000 soldiers
in the American-led coalition and 11,000 NATO
peacekeepers.
Washington and other governments have poured in
billions of dollars trying to foster a civic system that
encourages Afghanistan's fractious ethnic groups to work
together peacefully and ensure the nation is never again a
staging post for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
"After 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations
and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward,
making an economy, making political institutions,"
President Hamid Karzai said as he cast his ballot nearly
a year after his own victory in an election that defied
Taliban threats.
He praised Afghans for going out to vote for the parlia-
ment and 34 provincial councils "in spite of the terror-
ism, in spite of the threats."
Fifteen people, including a French commando in the
U.S.-led coalition, were killed in a spate of violence
during the day. But there was no spectacular attack
as threatened by Taliban militants, whose stepped-
up insurgency the past six months caused more than
1,200 deaths.
Heavy security kept most violence away from
polling stations. Election officials reported three
people wounded and no one killed in attacks near
polls and said only 16 of the .6,270 voting stations
did not open because of security threats.
Ima.I OWAIin alEMS.u-900 m-A Yn, MAIN oral 12 m m usmasral $-.
Afghan women go to vote in a polling station in a school in Heart, Afghanistan yesterday. Afghanistan held land-
mark legislative elections, the first of their kind in more than three decades.
Vote counting begins tomorrow, and with don-
keys and camels being used to collect ballots in
some remote areas, preliminary election results are
not expected until early October.
Even then, it likely will take time to figure out
who has the power in the new Wolesi Jirga, a par-
liament with 249 seats, 68 of which are set aside
for women. Most of the 2,775 candidates ran as
independents, and Karzai was careful not to pub-
licly favor anyone, fearing renewed tensions if any
political blocs become too powerful.
Rights activists viewed the election as a big step
for women in this traditionally male-dominated soci-
ety. The 5,800 candidates for parliament and the
provincial assemblies included 582 women, and a
quarter of legislative seats are reservedd for women.
Enthusiasm was generally high as Afghans clutch-
ing voter identification cards filed into schools with
lessons still scrawled on blackboards or stepped
over piles of shoes to cast ballots in mosques. Tents
served as polling stations in remote areas
Some 12.4 million Afghans were registered
to vote, up from 10 million for the presidential
election.
BAGHDAD
Kurdish lawmaker assasinated in Iraq
Insurgents assassinated a Kurdish member of parliament and police
found 20 bodies shot to death and dumped in the Tigris River north of the
capital, where there was no major violence yesterday for the first time in
five days.
Faris Nasir Hussein, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party,
was killed along with his brother and their driver in an ambush 50 miles
north of Baghdad. A second Kurdish lawmaker, Haidar Shanoun, was
wounded in the attack near the town of Dujail.
Police and PUK officials said the men were murdered Saturday night as
they drove to the capital for yesterday's session of the legislature which
signed off on minor amendments to Iraq's draft constitution and delivered
it to the United Nations for printing. The U.N. will distribute 5 million
copies in advance of the Oct. 15 referendum.
Lawmakers sat for a minute of silence to honor their dead comrade.
The terrorists have launched a war of aggression against all Iraqis (but)
we are up to it," said Deputy Speaker Hussain al-Shahristani.
BERLIN
Merkel leading in German election
Vote counts and exit polls showed conservative challenger Angela Merkel's
party leading in German parliamentary elections yesterday but falling short
of the majority she needed to form a center-right coalition as the nation's first
female chancellor.
Gerhard Schroeder, written off as a lame duck a few weeks ago, finished stron-
ger than expected and refused to concede defeat, saying he could still theoretically
remain in power if talks with other parties were successful.
An exit poll by the Forsa agency showed Schroeder's party winning more seats in
parliament even though Merkel's Christian Democrats received more votes overall.
"I feel myself confirmed in ensuring on behalf of our country that there is in
the next four years a stable government under my leadership," he said to cheering
supporters at his Social Democrat party headquarters while flashing the thumbs-up
signal and holding his arms aloft in a gesture of triumph.
UNITED NATIONS
U.S., Europeans want swift action on Iran
Iran's president proclaimed his country's "inalienable right" to nuclear
energy Saturday and offered foreign countries and companies a role in his
nation's uranium enrichment program to prove Tehran is not producing
atomic weapons.
He said Iran continues to abide by the NuclearhNonproliferation Treaty
and accused some "powerful states" - an apparent reference to the United
States and some Europeans - of engaging in "nuclear apartheid" by dis-
criminating against access by nonproliferation treaty members to mate-
rial, equipment and peaceful nuclear technology.
Ahmadinejad rejected European and American claims that Iran doesn't
need to enrich uranium because it can obtain it from other countries.
BEIJING
North Korea nuclear talks reach do-or-die point
Talks on North Korean disarmament stood at a possibly pivotal point late yesterday
after the chief U.S. envoy praised a Chinese proposal that other delegates said might
let the Pyongyang regime have a civilian nuclear program after disbanding its atomic
weapons work.
Washington previously rejected allowing North Korea any nuclear program, saying
its decades of pursuing an atomic bomb showed it cannot be trusted. At the same time,
however, Hill said he was leaving at the end of today no matter what happened at a meet-
ing scheduled for earlier in the day for all six delegations to state their positions.
- Compiled from Daily wire reports
CORRECTIONS
Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com.
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New Orleans health system faces crisis
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - This
city's health care facilities have been
shattered to an extent unmatched in
U.S. history, and its hospital system
faces grave challenges as residents
begin returning, the vice president
of the national hospital accredita-
tion organization said yesterday.
The official, Joe Cappiello, said
several hospitals were probably
damaged beyond repair by Hurri-
cane Katrina, while some may try
to rush back into business before
conditions are safe. Others, while
rebuilding, may lose doctors and
nurses to communities elsewhere.
He also recounted harrowing
details of how doctors and nurses
felt compelled - against the fun-
damentals of their training - to
make triage-style choices during
the flood. They were forced to aid
some patients at the expense of oth-
ers with less chance of survival.
Essentially the health care infra-
structure of New Orleans is gone
- it no longer exists," said Cap-
piello, who just completed a three-
day mission to the city along with
a colleague from the Illinois-based
Joint Commission on Accreditation
of Healthcare Organizations.
Although the city has more than a
dozen hospitals, none have resumed
normal operations. Officials at
Children's Hospital, which Mayor
Ray Nagin had hoped would be
ready when residents are allowed to
return to the Uptown neighborhood
this week, said they may need 10
more days to prepare.
Nagin's plan is to start repopu-
lating the city neighborhood by
neighborhood, starting today with
the Algiers section, across the Mis-
sissippi River from downtown New
Orleans. Over the next week and a
half, the Garden District and the
French Quarter, the city's historic
heart, are due to open to residents
and businesses.
All are areas that didn't flood, but
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen,
head of the federal government's
hurricane response, has urged Nagin
not to rush people back in. He didn't
want to set a timeline on yesterday,
but he said the information he was
getting from administrators at the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and the Environ-
mental Protection Agency suggest-
ed it still wasn't safe enough.
Cappiello expressed concern that
some hospitals, desperate to get
back into business for competitive
as well as public-service reasons,
might move too quickly, before all
mold and contaminants from the
flooding are removed.
"I hope there's someone looking
at all the health care assets and mak-
ing sound decisions as the mayor
faces overwhelming political pres-
sure to let people back in," Cappi-
ello said. "The federal government
needs to go in there and make sure
the hospitals are a safe environment
before they're reopened."
Many local doctors and nurses
are without paychecks, he said:
"There's a nationwide shortage of
nurses. People will try to recruit
them and many may never come
back."
He cited Charity Hospital, where
floodwaters continue to be pumped
out, as one that seemed beyond
repair.
The hospitals seemed to have
been well-prepared for Katrina's
howling winds, but not for the
disastrous flooding that followed,
Cappiello said. That foiled plans to
evacuate critically ill patients and
knocked out backup generators that
would keep air conditioning and
lifesaving equipment on.
At Memorial Medical Center,
doctors and staff worked valiantly
during the worst of the flood to
evacuate more than 200 patients by
boat and helicopter, but 45 patients
- most of them critically ill - died
at the hospital.
"We're going to hear of a thou-
sand more acts of heroism," Cap-
piello said. "But the bottom line
is that having a response plan that
relies on heroism is not tenable."
At a couple of hospitals, he said,
officials ordered a lockdown of
pharmaceutical supplies, wanting
to protect them from looters when
their hospitals emptied. They later
learned that staff were unable to
gain access to the drugs to aid ail-
ing patients after flooding thwarted
evacuation plans.
"Doctors and nurses who
stayed behind were scrambling
to find drugs for their critically
ill patients," he said. "They had
to make choices that we ordinar-
ily don't make in America, to help
those with the greatest chance of
survival. ... That's not the way we
practice medicine."
el
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