The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LONDON
Blair to announce
partial withdrawal
of troops from Iraq
Prime Minister Tony Blair will
announce today a new timetable
for the withdrawal of British troops
from Iraq, with 1,500 to return
home in several weeks, the BBC
reported.
Blair will also tell the House
of Commons during his regular
weekly appearance before it that a
total of about 3,000 British soldiers
will have left southern Iraq by the
end of 2007, if the security there is
sufficient, the British Broadcast-
ing Corp. said, quoting government
officials who weren't further iden-
tified.
The BBC said Blair was not
expected to say when the rest of
Britain's forces would leave Iraq.
Currently, Britain has about 7,100
soldiers there.
LANSING
State to close major
prison in Jackson
The state plans to close a 1,500-
inmate prison in Jackson by July
to save money and help balance the
state budget, a spokesman for the
Department of Corrections said
yesterday.
The Southern Michigan Correc-
tional Facility - one of five prisons
in Jackson - will close, correc-
tions spokesman Russ Marlan told
The Associated Press. Nearly 7,800
inmates are incarcerated in Jackson
overall - 15 percent of Michigan's
prisoner population.
The prison closing likely won't
be the only one, as Gov. Jennifer
Granholm plans to parole 5,000
more prisoners in the next budget
year to cut costs.
It costs $35 million a year to run
the Southern Michigan Correction-
al Facility.
The state also plans to close
the Charles Egeler Reception and
Guidance Center Annex in Jack-
son, which serves as an intake point
for male prisoners before they're
housed elsewhere.
WASHINGTON
New Jersey begins
issuing civil unions
A federal appeals court ruled
Tuesday that foreign-born prison-
ers seized as potential terrorists
and held in Guantanamo Bay may
not challenge their detention in
U.S. courts, a key victory for Presi-
dent Bush's anti-terrorism plan.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit ruled
2-1 that civilian courts no longer
have the authority to consider
whether the military is illegally
holding the prisoners - a decision
that will strip court access for hun-
dreds of detainees with cases cur-
rently pending.
Barring federal court access was
akeyprovisioninthe MilitaryCom-
missions Act, which Bush pushed
through Congress last year to set
up a system run by the Defense
Department to prosecute terrorism
suspects.
Attorneys for the detainees
immediately said they would appeal
the ruling to the Supreme Court,
which last year struck down the
Bush administration's original plan
for trying detainees before military
commissions.
SYDNEY
Australians phase
out incandescent
light bulbs
The Australian government
announced plans to phase out
incandescent light bulbs and
replace them with more energy-
efficient compact fluorescent bulbs
across the country.
Legislation to gradually restrict
the sale of the old-style bulbs could
reduce Australia's greenhouse gas
emissions by four million tonnes
by 2012 and cut household power
bills by up to 66 per cent, said
Environment. Minister Malcolm
Turnbull.
Under the Australian plan, bulbs
that do not comply with energy
efficiency targets would be gradu-
ally banned from sale. Exemptions
may apply for special needs such as
medical lighting and oven lights.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
.16
Number of convenience stores
robbed by two men in Pennsylva-
nia, New Jersey and Delaware by
throwing coffee or hot chocolate
in the clerk's face and then steal-
ing money from the cash register,
according to the Philadelphia Daily
News. The thieves, who usually
strike in the early morning, are still
at large. 7-Eleven and Wawa stores
are offering a $10,000 reward for
information about the men.
Accusation of
rape leads to
fear in Iraq
Anglican church rebukes U.S.
branch over same-sex unions
Taboo subject causes
sectarian stir amid
security crackdown
By MARC SANTORA
The New York Times
BAGHDAD - The most wicked
acts are spoken of openly and with-
out reserve in Iraq. Torture, stab-
bings, and bodies ripped to pieces
in bombings are all part of the daily
conversation.
Rape is different.
Rape is not mentioned by the
victims, and rarely by the authori-
ties. And when it is discussed
publicly, as in several high-profile
cases involving U.S. soldiers and
Iraqi women, it is usually left to the
relatives of the victim to give the
explicit details.
So when a 20-year-old Sunni
woman from Baghdad appeared
on the satellite television station
Al Jazeera on Monday night with a
horrific account of kidnapping and
sexual assault at the hands of three
officers in the Shiite-dominated
Iraqi National Police, people across
the country were stunned, some
disbelieving, others horrified, but
all captivated.
Almost immediately, Shiite
leaders lined up to condemn the
woman and her charges as pro-
paganda aimed at undermining
the new security campaign. Sunni
politicians offered the woman their
support. Whatever the truth of the
accusation, though, it played to sec-
tarian fears on both sides.
For many Shiites, the charges
appeared to be an attempt to smear
them and attack the Shiite-led gov-
ernment; for Sunnis, the woman's
account only highlighted what they
already believed to be true - that
the Iraqi government cares little
for justice and promotes a Shiite
agenda.
Bitter exchanges between politi-
cians of different sects were relayed
to millions on television, inter-
spersed with clips of the woman
telling her story, her face veiled,
just the tears in her eyes visible.
The Americans, who have advis-
ers who work with the Iraqi Nation-
al Police, found themselves caught
in the middle and with no answers.
The woman claimed that the
Americans had rescued her from
the officers and gave her medical
treatment. The U.S.-backed Shiite-
led government said the Americans
would show the woman's claims to
be false.
The U.S. military said only that
they were investigating the charges.
That was also the first response
of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal
al-Maliki, who issued a statement
soon after the woman appeared on
television on Monday, promising
a full investigation and the most
severe punishment for anyone
involved.
Only hours later, however, al-
Maliki reversed himself. His office
released a second statement, after
midnight, this one calling the
woman a liar and a wanted crimi-
nal and going on to praise the offi-
cers involved.
"It has been shown after medical
examinations that the woman had
not been subjected to any sexual
attack whatsoever, and that there
are three outstanding arrest war-
rants against her issued by security
agencies," said the second state-
ment. "After the allegations have
been proven to be false, the prime
minister has ordered that the offi-
cers accused be rewarded."
The government did not elabo-
rate on the statement or say why
the prime minister had so quickly
reversed himself. His office only
said that "known parties" had been
responsible for the allegations.
But in siding with the security
forces, al-Maliki threatened to only
heighten the tensions surrounding
the already highly charged case.
His government also released the
woman's name, which is not being
published by The NewYork Times.
Sunni politicians rushed to her
defense, accusing the government
of revealing its true sectarian bias.
The case "should not be dealt
on a sectarian basis," said Sal-
eem Abdullah, a spokesman for
the Tawafiq bloc of Sunni parties,
which helped the woman come
forward with her charges. "She is a
sister for all Iraqis."
He went on to say the govern-
ment's handling of the issue could
undermine its credibility in direct-
ing the security crackdown.
With fears of violence pervasive
throughout the country, many Iraq-
is stay inside their homes whenever
they can. Satellite television is their
connection tothe outside world and,
just as often, their own country. On
the two most prominent channels,
Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, they
would have heard the woman tell-
ing her story over and over.
If she made up the story, it was
an elaborate piece of propaganda
and the contradictory statements
by the Iraqi government only added
to its power.
The woman was lying on a bed as
she was interviewed, a blue blanket
pulled up nearly to her chin. She
had a light-pink scarf covering her
hair and a black scarf covering her
face.
She said she was taken from
her house Sunday morning by the
National Police while her husband
was out, something no one dis-
putes. The officers, she said, were
looking for weapons but when they
arrived at the police garrison, they
accused her of cooking for Sunni
insurgents.
It was at the garrison that she
claims the first officer raped her,
covering her mouth to muffle her
screams.
Ultimatum is latest
development in crisis
within church
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times
Facing a possible churchwide
schism, the Anglican Commu-
nion on Monday gave its Episcopal
branch in the United States less
than eight months to ban bless-
ings of same-sex unions or risk a
reduced role in the world's third-
largest Christian denomination.
Anglican leaders also estab-
lished a separate cotncil and a
vicar to help address the concerns
of conservative U.S. dioceses that
have been alienated by the Episco-
pal Church's support of gay clergy
and blessings of same-sex unions.
Although the presiding American
bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori,
agreed to the arrangement, some
conservatives described it as an
extraordinary check on her author-
ity.
The directive, issued after a
five-day meeting of three dozen
top leaders of the Anglican church
gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanza-
nia, constituted a severe rebuke of
the small but affluent U.S. branch.
Conservative Anglicans described
the communique as a landmark
document that affirms the primacy
of Scripture and church doctrine
for the world's 77 million Angli-
cans, only 2.3 million of whom are
Episcopalians.
"This is very, very, very signifi-
cant," said Bill Atwood, who serves
as a strategist for a group of the
conservative bishops. "It was either
call the Episcopal Church back or
lose the Anglican Communion, and
the group agreed it was better to
call the Episcopal Church back."
The decision comes after years
of debate and remonstrations
within the Anglican Communion
over whether and how to force the
Episcopal leaders to conform to the
wider church's view of homosexu-
ality - a controversy that has also
enveloped other mainline Chris-
tian denominations.
Episcopalians in favor of gay
rights immediately urged Ameri-
can bishops to reject the demands.
"The American church is not going
to just roll over and turn back the
clock on blessings," said the Rev.
Susan Russell, an Episcopal priest.
in Los Angeles and president of
Integrity, an Episcopalian gay
rights group.
Anglican church teaching, reit-
erated in a series of meetings since
1998, states that sex is reserved for
married heterosexual couples.
The Episcopal Church directly
challenged that teaching in 2003
by consecrating V. Gene Robinson,
a gay man living with his partner,
as bishop of New Hampshire. The
church's bishops have also allowed
priests to bless gay unions.
In response, more than a third
of the other Anglican churches
around the world - by some counts
more than half - have curtailed
their interaction with the Episco-
pal Church. The church has also
faced an internal rebellion from
nearly one-tenth of its dioceses,
which have appealed to the Angli-
can Communion to free them from
oversight by the presiding Episco-
pal bishop, Jefferts Schori. Several
dozen more parishes have aligned
themselves with bishops outside
the United States whose churches
are more conservative theologi-
cally.
At a late-night news conference
in Dar es Salaam, the Most Rev.
Rowan Williams, archbishop of
Canterbury, the denomination's
spiritual leader, said the group
hammered out "an interim solution
that certainly falls very short of
resolving all the disputes."
Tensions ran so high at the
meeting that church officials aban-
doned the traditional group photo
of the leaders on Sunday. Even
church services were a tense affair
as seven conservative archbishops
declined Holy Communion rather
than celebrate the Eucharist with
Jefferts Schori.
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