2A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 10, 2005 NATION/WORLD Hundreds dead in GuatemalaN BRIEF Hurricane hits Gulf of ies failed to arrive in time, and "we r . Mexico hardest, leaving hundreds dead and missing GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - Dozens of foreign tourists fled devastated lakeside Mayan towns on foot and by helicopter yesterday as Guatemalan officials said they would abandon communities bur- ied by landslides and declare them mass graveyards. Villagers who had swarmed over the vast mudslides with shovels and axes digging for hundreds of missing gave up the effort yesterday, five days after Hurricane Stan made landfall on the Gulf Qf Mexico coast, bringing torren- tial rains before weakening to a tropi- cal depression. More than 640 people died and hun- dreds more were missing across Central America and southern Mexico after a week of rains. In hardest-hit Guatemala, 519 bodies had been recovered and rebur- ied. Some 338 were listed as missing. "Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Mayan lakeside hamlet in Guatemala covered by a half-mile-wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet deep. "We are asking that it be declared a ceme- tery. We are tired. We no longer know where to dig." Esquina said bodies were now so rot- ted that identification was impossible. He said about 250 people were missing in Panabaj. Only 77 bodies were recov- ered, he said. Promised dogs trained to detect bod- don't even know where to dig anymore," Esquina said. Vice President Eduardo Stein said steps were being taken to give towns "legal permission to declare the buried areas" as hallowed ground. Attention turned to aiding thousands of hungry or injured survivors as helicop- ters - including U.S. Blackhawks and Chinooks - fanned out across Guate- mala to evacuate the wounded and bring supplies to more than 100 communities still cut off by mudslides and flooding. As some foreign tourists worked shoulder to shoulder with Mayans in traditional cotton blouses and broad sashes to dig for missing victims, oth- ers hiked around mud-choked roads or boarded government helicopters in the second day of evacuations from the area around Lake Atitlan. Helicopters went to the nearby town of San Andres Senetabaj to fly out an estimated 20 Scandinavians trapped since mudslides cut off the area sev- eral days ago. About 50 more tour- ists were hiking out of the lakeside town of Panajachel. "We got about 400 (tourists) out last night, and were expecting more today," said Solomon Reyes of Gua- temala's Tourism Ministry. In some areas the arrival of the Guatemalan military only compli- cated matters. Villagers in Panabaj refused to allow in the army because of memories of a 1990 massacre there during the couItry's 36-year civil war. U.S. Army Sgt 1st class Lance Classen, left, and Col. Ned Woolfolk, center, talk with local Guatemalans after weather diverted their helicopter from its original landing zone to the nearby town of San Marcos, 260 km northwest of Guatemala City, in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan on Sunday. JERUSALEM Mideast summit thrown into doubt A much-anticipated summit between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders was sudden- ly thrown into doubt yesterday after Israel's defense minister rejected key Palestinian demands during a preparatory meeting meant to ensure the upcoming session's success. Senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators failed to bridge the differences yesterday, but they agreed to meet one last time in hopes of salvaging the summit. The summit, tentatively set for tomorrow, would be the first between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas since Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last month. The unilateral pullout has raised hopes that peace talks might soon resume. Israeli and Palestinian officials say they want to produce concrete results at a summit, hoping success would lead to formal negotiations toward a peace treaty. But the two sides are deadlocked over several Palestinian demands, including the handover of West Bank towns to Palestinian security control and demands for more weapons for the embattled Palestinian security services. WARSAW, Poland Runoff likely after presidential election A pro-market lawmaker and Warsaw's socially conservative mayor appeared headed for a runoff in Poland's presidential election yesterday after neither candidate gained the 50 percent of the vote needed, according to a key exit poll. Final results were not expected until today, the state electoral commission told The Associated Press. Exit polls in Poland have proven in the past to be a reliable indicator of how the final vote will tally. The state television exit poll indicated that Donald Tusk, a pro-business can- didate committed to stimulating entrepreneurship with low taxes and deregula- tion, finished with about 38 percent; Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, a former child actor hoping to preserve a strong safety net, had 32 percent. NEW ORLEANS New Orleans police beating caught on tape Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Tele- vision News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations. There will be a criminal investigation, and the three officers were to be suspend- ed, arrested and charged with simple battery yesterday, Capt. Marlon Defillo said. "We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage yesterday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This depart- ment will take immediate action." The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resigna- tion last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass. BAYEUX, France Journalists recognized for coverage of war Journalists reporting on the conflict in Iraq, a humanitarian crisis in Sudan, the plight of children in Uganda's insurrection and a deadly school hostage siege in Russia were honored Saturday with the annual Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents. Jim MacMillan, a photographer for The Associated Press who covered fighting between Iraqi insurgents and U.S. troops in the holy city of Najaf, won first place in the photojournalism category, while AP photographer John Moore took second place for his work in Iraq. Both were members of the AP photo team in Iraq that won a Pulitzer Prize this year. - Compiled from Daily wire reports CORRECTION An editorial in last Thursday's edition of the Daily (Wanted: Guinea Pigs) listed the wrong address for the University's new research website. The correct address is umengage.org. Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com. 0 Officials . Terrorist plot uncorrob orated NEW YORK (AP) - New Yorkers shrugged off fears of exploding baby carriages and went about their week- end routines Saturday as authorities debated whether a reported subway terror plot was a legitimate threat or an overblown hoax. "It's kind of like you're used to it by now," said Erica Ouda, 19, as she boarded a 4 train in lower Manhattan. "There's always a threat." A Department of Homeland Security memo warned this week that a team of terrorists may have traveled to New York to put remote-controlled bombs in briefcases and baby carriages in an attack on or around yesterday. It cautioned that the FBI and Homeland Security doubted the threat's credibility. But as U.S. forces interrogated three suspects in Iraq, New York officials said they felt even more confident about their decision to ramp up patrols and bag searches in the subways. "We've over the last couple of days become more con- vinced that the threat was real," Mayor Michael Bloom- berg said. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Bloomberg was right to err on the side of caution. "The secretary respects the mayor's judgment and believes that the security precautions being taken by Mayor Bloomberg and other New York officials are abso- lutely an appropriate response," he said in a statement. An overseas tipster told U.S. intelligence last month that three men were plotting a coordinated bomb attack on the country's subways, law enforcement officials said. The tipster passed parts of a lie-detector test, and U.S. forces in Iraq arrested three suspected plotters earlier in the week. With two of the men captured and the plot presumably disrupted, Bloomberg announced Thursday that security was being heightened in the subways. Thousands of extra officers were dispatched into the system and the number of bag checks doubled. Almost as soon as the threat was made public, officials in Washington began talking it down, and Homeland Security still downplayed the threat Saturday. "We continue to work with the intelligence commu- nity and officials at all levels of government," depart- ment spokesman Russ Knocke said. "Although the threat information was very specific, it still remains of doubtful credibility." Paul Browne, the police department's chief spokes- man, declined to discuss any new information from Iraq, but said the department felt vindicated. "As the days have progressed, it just reinforces the decision made to increase the security in the subway sys- tem," he said. New Yorkers responded to the government jostling with a mix of skepticism and resignation, saying they didn't believe there was a threat or they had no other way to get around town. Some said the rhythm of threat, police response and no attack had become just another element of life in the city since the 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center. 01 ICfitchi gun lailg 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com * JASON Z. 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