The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, February 15, 2007 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS AUBURN HILLS, Mich. Chrysler to slash 13,000 jobs For 13,000 Chrysler workers, Feb. 14 will now be known as the Valentine's Day massacre. Chrysler announced yesterday its long-awaited restructuring, which included a 16 percent reduc- tion in its work force, shift reduc- tions, a plant closing and a surprise hint that the plan could lead to a DaimlerChrysler divorce. The Chrysler plan calls for clos- ing the company's Newark, Del., assembly plant, and reducing shifts at plants in Warren, Mich., and St. Louis. A parts distribution center near Cleveland also will be closed, and reductions could occur at other plants that make components for those facilities. Chrysler blamed the wrenching restructuring on poor sales after a shift in consumer taste from SUVs and trucks to more fuel-efficient vehicles. Workers blamed manage- ment. Aside from the job cuts, Chrys- ler's German parent, Daim- lerChrysler AG, said it is looking at all options to revive its fortunes, including partners for the troubled Chrysler. Its chairman wouldn't rule out a possible sale of the U.S. operation. WASHINGTON Bush says Iran is supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents Challenged on the accuracy of U.S. intelligence, President Bush said yesterday there is no doubt the Iranian government is provid- ing armor-piercing weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq. But he backed away from claims the top echelon of Iran's government was responsible. Iran was a dominant theme of reporters' questions because of conflicting statements about U.S. intelligence in Iran and recurring speculation that Bush is looking for an excuse to attack the Islam- ic republic, which is believed by Washington and its allies to be seeking nuclear weapons. Defending U.S. intelligence that has pinpointed Iran as a hostile arms supplier in Iraq, Bush said, "Does this mean you're trying to have a pretext for war? No. It means I'm trying to protect our troops." BAGHDAD Iraqi government launches Baghdad security sweep The Iraqi government formally launched a long-awaited security crackdown in Baghdad yesterday, with U.S. and Iraqi troops step- ping up patrols, establishing new checkpoints and randomly search- ing cars to stop the violence in the capital. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the sweep, code-named oper- ation Imposing Law, would target those "who want to continue with rebellion." There were conflicting reports, meanwhile, about the where- abouts of Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia have been blamed for some of the worst sectarian killings in the past year, after a U.S. official said the radical Shiite cleric had fled to Iran ahead of the security operation. LONDON Cleopatra's beauty called into question So maybe Mark Antony loved Cleopatra for her mind. That is the conclusion being drawn by academics at Britain's University of Newcastle from a Roman denarius coin which depicts the celebrated queen of Egypt as a sharp-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a protruding chin. In short, a fair match for the hook-nosed, thick-necked Mark Antony on the other side of the coin, which went on public display yesterday at the university's Shef- ton Museum. Replicas of the denarius can be found on eBay, and images on other ancient coins are no more flatter- ing. - Compiled from Daily wire reports Russians to vote, but some parties lose in advance PEDDLING LOVE BY THE DOZEN Critics say Kremlin is undermining the democratic process By STEVEN LEE MYERS The New York Times ST. PETERSURG, Russia - Two candidates in local elections here in March, a soccer star and figure skating champion, have no known intention of giving up sports for legislative politics. If they "win," as they almost certainly will, their Kremlin-friendly parties, not the voters, will choose who will fill their seats. An opposition party was kicked off the ballot for forging signa- tures but was given little chance to prove it didn't. Government-con- trolled television has effectively barred parties except those loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin from the airwaves. The elections here on March 11, like those in 13 other regions, will give a preview of coming national elections, in which vot- ers' choices will be severely lim- ited at best. "Democracy?" asked Vladimir I. Fyodorov, a leader of the Communist Party here, which faces an uphill task of winning any seats in the city's 50-member legislature. "I would not call the process under way in our country democracy." Here, as on the national level, Putin's Kremlin has left little to chance or surprise. At the Kremlin's urging, crit- ics say, Parliament has raised the threshold for parties to win seats, eliminated minimum turnout requirements and abolished dis- trict elections in favor of party lists. A new law on extremism would ban a candidate from criti- cizing his or her opponent, or any- one actually in office. The Kremlin has also made it more difficult for political parties to form and register. According to officials, the Justice Ministry refused to qualify 15 of the 32 that applied last year, and other, largely inactive, parties faded into his- tory. That measure, like most of the others, has an ostensibly reason- able and democratic purpose: to simplify and clarify the rules of elective politics. To critics, though, the Kremlin has simply assured the smooth re-election of pliant pro-presidential parties. "It would be like if Califor- nia had an election and only five Republican Parties could run," said Maksim L. Reznik, the chair- nan of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, a liberal party. The city election commission disqualified it after declaring that a sample of the 40,000 signatures on the party's voter registration application contained forgeries. The party was given two days to disprove a handwriting expert's conclusions by producing signed affidavits and copies of passports for hundreds of would-be voters. By early February, with the elections barely a month away, Yabloko had also been barred from the ballot in two other regions, Orel in west-central Russia and Leningrad, which surrounds St. Petersburg, in what party officials called a deliberate attempt by the Kremlin to weaken it further. Another liberal party, the Union of Right Forces, was knocked off the ballot in Vologda, Pskov and Samara. The Communist Party faced challenges is several regions, including Tyumen and Dagestan, but ultimately qualified after protests. In all, parties were denied registration in 17 instances. The only three parties that faced no problems were United Rus- sia, Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party, all pro-presi- dential. In Russia, as elsewhere, all poli- tics are local. Yabloko's leaders argue that their banishment here in St. Petersburg resulted from their opposition to the city's gov- ernor, Valentina L Matviyenko, a devoted supporter of Putin. Yabloko's three members in the city legislature were the only ones who voted against Putin's reap- pointment of her as governor in December. They have also led a public challenge to plans by Mat- viyenko and Gazprom, the energy giant, to build a skyscraper on the banks of the Neva River. Party officials and political analysts, though, have detected a national trend in the pressure on Yabloko and other opposition par- ties. "They would like to reduce uncertainty as much as possible," said Vladimir Y. Gelman, a politi- cal scientist at the European Uni- versity at St. Petersburg. The goal, he and others said, is to bolster United Russia, which now controls the lower house of parliament and is called "the party of power," by forcing out smaller parties like Yabloko. At the same time, the Kremlin hopes to create a loyal counterweight in Just Rus- sia, a party created by the merger of three smaller parties and led by a staunch Putin supporter, Sergei M. Mironov. "Just Russia is the only real opposition currently," Mironov said recently, campaigning in the icy cold at a small park here, where he unveiled a new merry-go-round. "The others are just playthings." Oleg A. Nilov, the party's regional chairman, acknowledged that political debate had withered in Russia since the emergence of United Russia. Just Russia, he said, will become a populist chal- lenger, taking the side of the poor, the pensioners and the workers who have shared far less in Rus- sia's new energy-fueled boom than most. That stance, though, extends only to the local legislature and the lover house of parliament, the State Duma. "We are saying that on the level of the State Duma there should be real competition," he said in an interview in the party's headquar- ters, which displays large portraits of Putin. "The executive power exists on the next level." On that level, he added, "there should be unity." Vadim A. Tulpanov, the incum- bent chairman of St. Petersburg's legislature, dismissed criticism of Yabloko's registration troubles, calling them self-inflicted. He said the election simply reflected the natural evolution of Russia's young democracy, with the old parties like Yabloko and the Communists losing their popular appeal. "Gradually, in Russia, as I understand it, a two-party system is being created, like in America," he said. For now the two main par- ties have distinct advantages: access to the airwaves, which are government-controlled, and to campaign financing. Private donations to parties became risky after the prosecution of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former chairman of Yukos Oil, after he openly supported political parties in the Duma. A result of the uneven resources is visible on the streets here: Post- ers and billboards of United Rus- sia and Just Russia are ubiquitous, the others largely absent. Another advantage of incumbency has been the city's refusal to allow Yabloko and other parties to hold protests or other rallies. Karim Elayach sells bouquets of flowers from a small tent on South University Avenue. Elayach has been selling flowers from the tent to students and other pedes- trians for the last two days. On Valentine's Day, florists do one-third of their annual business, The New York Times reported. 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