Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 7A
In emotional farewell,
Annan appeals for unity
As U.N. chief spoke,
tanks surrounded office
of Thai prime minister
UNITED NATIONS (AP)
- Secretary-General Kofi Annan
appealed for nations to unite against
human rights abuses, religious divi-
sions, brutal conflicts and an unjust
world economy in an emotional
farewell yesterday. But his remarks
were overshadowed by a military
coup in Thailand and the Iranian
president's fiery defense of his
country's nuclear program.
Annan's opening address to the
61st annual U.N. General Assem-
bly hit many issues on the ambi-
tious agenda that leaders of the 192
member nations confront - reviv-
ing a stalled Mideast peace process,
curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions,
getting U.N. peacekeepers into con-
flict-wracked Darfur and promoting
democracy.
As the U.N. chief spoke, tanks
were surrounding the offices of
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shi-
nawatra as the military staged a
bloodless coup while he was in New
York for the ministerial meetings
- highlighting the threats to global
security.
Thaksin initially switched speak-
ing slots so he could make his
speech on 'Iesday evening, a day
earlier than planned, but later can-
celed the address.
Trying to build bridges with
people in the Middle East angry
with the United States over Iraq and
Lebanon, President Bush assured
skeptical Muslims he is not waging
war with Islam and urged support
for the people trying to transform
the region and bring Mideast peace.
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad took the podium
hours later and was harshly critical
of U.S. policies in Iraq and Leba-
non. He also accused Washington of
abusing its veto power in the U.N.
Security Council to punish others
while protecting its own interests
and allies.
He insistedthathis nation's nucle-
ar activities are "transparent, peace-
ful and under the watchful eye" of
inspectors from the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.
nuclear watchdog, and he reiter-
ated his nation's commitment to the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"If they have differences with
a nation or state, they drag it to
the Security Council" and assign
themselves the roles of "prosecutor,
judge and executioner," Ahmadine-
jad said. "Is this a just order?"
A U.N. Security Council resolu-
tion had given Iran until Aug. 31
to suspend uranium enrichment or
face sanctions, but Tehran rejected
the deadline. The U.S., France and
other nations have been holding
talks on what the consequences
should be.
Bush avoided a confrontational
tone toward Tehran in his speech
but insulted the government by
directing his remarks directly to the
Iranian people.
"The greatest obstacle to this
future is that your rulers have cho-
sen to deny you liberty and to use
your nation's resources to fund ter-
rorism and fuel extremism and pur-
sue nuclear weapons," he said.
More than a week after the U.S.
marked the fifth anniversary of the
Sept. 11 attacks, Bush and other
leaders also stressed the need to step
up the fight against terrorism.
Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, a staunch U.S. ally who
spoke shortly after Bush, also urged
the world to confront the plague
of terrorism head-on and end end-
ing conflicts in the Islamic world
to eliminate the "desperation and
injustice" that breed extremism.
"Unless we end foreign occu-
pation and suppression of Mus-
lim peoples," he said, "terrorism
and extremism will continue to
find recruits among alienated
Muslims in various parts of the
world," he said, and the top prior-
ity should be ending "the tragedy
of Palestine."
Annan, meanwhile, warned that
"as long as the Palestinians live
under occupation, exposed to daily
frustration and humiliation, and
as long as Israelis are blown up in
buses or in dance halls, so long will
passions everywhere be inflamed."
Failure to resolve the Palestinian-
Israeli conflict and Israel's 40-year
occupation will continue to hurt the
U.N.'s reputation and raise questions
about its impartiality, he said. It also
will stymie the U.N.'s best efforts
to resolve other conflicts, "includ-
ing those in Iraq and Afghanistan,
whose peoples need our help just
as badly, and are entitled to it' he
warned.
Ministers from the Quartet that
drafted the stalled road map to Mid-
east peace - the U.S., the U.N., the
European Union and Russia - will
meet today, and the Security Coun-
cil was to hold a ministerial meeting
Thursday that Arab leaders hope
will help revive the Mideast peace
process.
Annan, whose second five-year
term ends on Dec. 31, said the past
decade had seen progress in devel-
opment, security and the rule of law
- the three great challenges he said
humanity faced in his first address
to the General Assembly in 1997.
But the secretary-general said
too many people are still exposed
to "brutal conflict" and the fear of
terrorism has increased the risk of a
clash of civilizations and religions.
Terrorism is being used as a pretext
to limit or abolish human rights, and
globalization risks driving richer
and poorer peoples apart, he said.
"As a result, we face a world
whose divisions threaten the very
notion of an international com-
munity, upon which this institution
stands," Annan said. "The only
answer to this divided world must
be a truly United Nations."
He also decried the continuing
conflict in Sudan's western Darfur
region, less than two weeks before
the mandate for the African Union
peacekeeping force there expires.
"The continued spectacle of men,
women and children driven from
their homes by murder, rape and
the burning of their villages makes
a mockery of our claim, as an inter-
national community, to shield peo-
ple from the worst abuses," Annan
said.
CRIME
Continued from page 1A
Police said the suspect entered by
cutting through a dining-room
screen.
At about 1:20 a.m., a 20-year-
old University student was on his
front porch on the 1000 block
of Packard Street when he was
approached by a stranger. The
man jabbed the student in the
stomach with a butcher knife. The
victim tried to run, but stopped,
hindered by his flip-flops. He told
suspect that his money was inside
his home. The robber then fol-
lowed him past several roommates
and into his bedroom, where he
handed over the $7 in his wallet.
The victim sustained a superficial
cut on his stomach.
Police used tracking dogs to find
the man, who was hiding under a
BMW on the 1000 block of Oak-
land Street.
Another robbery occurred last
Wednesday at about 10:45 p.m.
on the well-lit 200 block of North
Ingalls Avenue.
A female University student was
walking home from a coffee shop
listening to her iPod. The 18-year-
old was attacked from behind by
two men and struck in the head
with a foot-long metal pipe.
The men held the victim down
and hit her several more times
beforethey stoleherwalletandfled,
police said. Police officers were
flagged down and found assailants
below the Broadway Bridge using
tracking dogs.
One was a 25-year-old male Ann
Arbor resident and the other was a
20-year-old man from Santa Fe,
N.M. The victim has been released
from the hospital.
Since student move-in, there
have also been reports of sexu-
al prowling, several of them at
sorority houses. Last Wednes-
day, at the Alpha Phi sorority
on Oxford Street, sorority mem-
bers spotted a man on their fire
escape at about midnight. He
ran when they started shouting
at him. Members told police the
incident was similar to others
that had happened at the soror-
ity. On Sept. 8, a man broke in to
the Alpha Chi Omega sorority on
Hill Street and started to massage
a woman's back while she lay
sleeping. When she screamed, he
ran. On Aug. 27, an intruder was
discovered in the Alpha Delta Pi
sorority house on South Forest
Avenue. AAPD Detective Sgt.
Richard Kinsey said the events
are probably not connected.
Johanna Soet, director of the
Sexual Assault Prevention and
Awareness Center, emphasized
that "you should follow your inter-
nal clock and what you think is safe
or not."
Soet said there is usually an
increase in sexual assault reports in
the first weeks of school. She -said
an especially significant number
of those are reported by freshman
girls.
Alcohol is involved in 75 percent
of all sexual violence cases at col-
leges, Soet said.
Charlotte DeMatteo, an AAPD
crime statistician, advised that stu-
dents pay special attention to lock-
ing windows - even those with
screens - and should always lock,
rather than just close them.
Kinsey said students should lock
upper-level windows, especially if
they're near a fire escape.
"This is a university town and it
does attract thieves, prowlers, you
name it,' he said.
BOOKS
Continued from page 1A
Fuchs said he and his friend
sold almost all of their used text-
books, as well as those of their
roommates.
"We realized we were onto
something," he said.
The next spring, they ran
a campuswide used textbook
drive to support a community-
learning center affiliated with
Notre Dame, collecting 2,000
textbooks and raising $8,000
for an after-school reading pro-
gram.
The Mishawaka, Ind.-based
company calls itself a "socially
responsible bookstore" for its
charitable economic and environ-
mental contributions.
The company has raised more
than $1.3 million for 70 different
education and literacy charities
since 2003.
The company has donated more
than 425,000 books to Books for
Africa for post-secondary educa-
tion and more than $80,000 to the
National Center for Family Lit-
eracy.
Aaron King, Better World
Books's Great Lakes regional
director, said the state of Michi-,
gan donated between 15,000 and
20,000 books last year. More than
30 colleges in the state partici-
pated.
King said he hopes students at
the University, who gave a total
of 1,000 books last year, will be
more proactive in donating books
this year.
"We'd like to see 6,000 books
donated," King said.
That would be 2,000 more than
the total they've collected since
2003.
"In the fall of 2002, back when
we were just getting started, I
remember parking a 24-foot truck
right on South State Street as I
loaded boxes of books into the
back of a Penske truck," Fuchs
said.
The company never throws a
book away and strives to get the
maximum value out of every book
donated, King said. Books that
cannot be sold are recycled. To
date, the company has recycled
more than 5 million pounds of
books.
Golden Key International Honor
Society is planning a Better World
Books drive on campus this year,
but a date has not been set.
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POPE
Continued from page 1A
the Muslim Graduate Students'
Association, said the remarks
came as a shock, given that Pope
John Paul II had been active in
dialogue with Islamic leaders.
"(Benedict) has much more rigid
and conservative agenda when
it comes to other faiths, which is
really concerning for a lot of Mus-
lims I know;" Blauvelt said.
Porter said Benedict does not
believe in indifferentism - the
belief that all religions are equal
paths to God.
Porter said that as a cardinal,
Benedict expressed concern that
John Paul was too aggressive in
his gestures to pursue interfaith
dialogues.
Benedict felt those gestures
diminished the Roman Catholic
Church's status, Porter said.
Zaib Rasool, political chair of
the Muslim Students' Associa-
tion, said the pope's comments
were troubling.
"I was deeply disheartened
by the choice of words of
Pope Benedict XVI," she said.
"Being that he is an influential
religious leader of and for a
huge civilization, it is sadden-
ing that he chose to cite and
rely on erroneous interpreta-
tions of Islam from a 14th Cen-
tury text, especially in such
volatile times."
Rasool said the Muslim Stu-
dents' Association does not have
any plans to specifically address
the Pope's remarks. She added
that the group's annual Islam
Awareness Week this November
will include events to dispel ste-
reotypes surrounding Islam.
Blauvelt said he believed the
reaction in the Muslim com-
munity is a result of "built-up
frustration from repeated disre-
spect."
"History proves that Islam has
peaceful origins," he said. "It
gets frustrating to keep hearing
negative things about Islam."
LSA senior Azmat Khan, who
is a Muslim, said the pope's
remarks were incorrect and
derogatory.
But Khan said the reaction
by some Muslims, like burning
the pope in effigy were "equally
intolerant."
"If Muslims expect some sort
of acceptance, they can't be
involved in that type of behav-
ior," Khan said.
It is unclear whether the pope's
scheduled visit next month to
Turkey, a predominantly Muslim
country, will be canceled.
Rasool said the Turkish gov-
ernment should not cancel the
visit.
"Canceling such plans would
lessen the chance for dialogue,"
she said.
On his blog Informed Com-
ment, Middle Eastern and South
Asian History Prof. Juan Cole
wrote that the pope was mis-
taken to try to oversimplify and
separate religious traditions.
"Religious traditions are
complex and multiple and
often self-contradictory," Cole
wrote. "Trying to play politics
with them by putting down the
founder of a religion with false
accusations will always cause
trouble, of course. But what
is worse is that the allegation
causing the trouble is simply
inaccurate."
Cole said the pope could have
communicated the virtues of the
Roman Catholic Church without
demeaning others.
"If Christianity is superior,
that can be perceived without it
being necessary to brand Islam
inferior;" Cole wrote.
- The Association Press
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BIG THREE
Continued from page 1A
The Big Three have often
resisted calls to increase fuel
economy because of the costs
associated with developing new
technology, choosing instead to
promote trucks and SUVs.
But if the companies hope to
survive, McManus said, that will
need to change.
"Deploying new technologies
takes time and money to accom-
plish, and time and money are
in short supply in Detroit," he
said. "While management is cur-
rently focused on cutting capac-
ity through massive layoffs, they
need to undertake a deep trans-
formation to much more fuel-
efficient fleets to avoid going
under."
- Jessica Vosgerchian contrib-
uted to this report
Abducted Missouri newborn
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UNION, Mo. (AP) - A newborn abducted after
her mother was slashed was found alive yester-
day in excellent condition, and a woman who had
recently miscarried was arrested, officials said.
Dr. Peter McCarthy, an emergency room phy-
sician at St. John's Hospital in Washington, Mo.,
said 11-day-old Abigale Lynn Woods has been
reunited with her mother, father and other rela-
tives. She was expected to be released from the
hospital later yesterday.
"The family is elated and thankful to everyone
in the community who prayed for them," McCar-
thy said. "The baby was hydrated, nourished and
in good condition when she arrived at the hospi-
tal."
FBI agent Roland Corvington identified the sus-
pect as Shannon Beck, who lives a few miles from
the home of the mother and baby.
The case broke when Beck's sister-in-law, Doro-
thy Torrez, contacted authorities.
"She's the hero," Franklin County Sheriff Gary
Toelke said. "She's the one that made it happen."
On Sunday, Beck contacted Torrez to say she
had given birth, Corvington said. Beck had been
pregnant but apparently miscarried shortly before
her own child was to be born.
Torrez visited Beck on Monday and urged her to
take the child to a doctor, the FBI agent said. Beck
agreed, and Torrez accompanied her to St. Louis
on Tuesday;about 45 miles away.
Torrez noticed what appeared to be makeup on
the baby's forehead, Corvington said. When she
rubbed the forehead, makeup came off what was
covering a small birthmark.
In publicizing the abduction, police had
described Abby's strawberry-red birthmark. Her
suspicions aroused, Torrez confronted Beck, who
gave her the baby, Corvington said.
Torrez contacted police, and the baby was hand-
ed over to authorities around 5 p.m. Tuesday.
"An outstanding ending, obviously," Toelke
said.
Toelke said the county prosecutor would address
criminal charges on Wednesday. It wasn't immedi-
ately clear where Shannon Beck was or whether
she had a lawyer.
The family has declined to speak with the
media.
The child's mother, 21-year-old Stephenie Och-
senbine, told police Friday a woman entered her
rural home, attacked her with a knife and stole the
baby, who was a week old at the time.
Police had received more than 500 leads in
the investigation. Yesterday, they gave the baby's
father, James Woods, a polygraph test, which he
passed.
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