The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

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Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
" ALGIERS, Algeria
Terrorist blasts
rock North Africa
Al-Qaida's new wing in North
Africa claimed responsibility
for suicide bombings that ripped
through the prime minister's office
and a police station in Algeria yes-
terday, killing at least 24 people.
The attacks highlighted the men-
acing spread of Islamic militancy
across North Africa.
One car bombing tore holes in
the walls of the prime minister's
office, where people in blood-
stained clothes stumbled toward
ambulances. Two other vehicles
exploded outside a police station
east of the capital, blasting craters
into the ground and damaging the
building. Some 222 people were
wounded.
The group that claimed respon-
sibility, al-Qaida in Islamic North
Africa, has carried out a series
of recent bombings jeopardizing
Algeria's tentative peace. The coun-
try is a staunch U.S. ally in the war
against terror.
WASHINGTON
Army extends Iraq
tours by 40 percent
Stretched thin by four years
of war, the Army is adding three
months to the standard yearlong
tour for all active-duty soldiers in
Iraq and Afghanistan, an unpopu-
lar step aimed at maintaining the
 troop buildup in Baghdad.
The change, announced yester-
day by Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, is the latest blow to an all-
volunteer Army that has been given
ever-shorter periods of rest and
retraining at home between over-
seas deployments.
Rather than continue to shrink
the at-home intervals to a point
that might compromise soldiers'
preparedness for combat, Gates
chose to lengthen combat tours to
buy time for units newly returned
from battle.
PYONGYANG, North Korea
North Korea wants
more time to halt
weapons program
North Korea's key condition for
halting nuclear weapons develop-
ment has been met now that frozen
funds have been released, but it
wants to delay a weekend deadline
for shutting down its atomic reac-
tor by a month, a U.S. official said
yesterday.
North Korea will invite back
U.N. weapons inspectors as soon as
it can access the money from bank
accounts in the Chinese territory of
Macau and will return to interna-
tional talks on shutting its nuclear
program"at an early date," the offi-
cial said.
However, North Korea wants
to delay a Saturday deadline for
switching off its sole operating
nuclear reactor by 30 days, the
official said, adding that any such
change would require agreement
from all countries involved in arms
talks with the North.

NEW YORK
Citigroup to cut
17,000 jobs
Citigroup Inc., the nation's larg-
est financial institution, said yes-
terday it will eliminate about 17,000
jobs as part of a companywide
restructuring to reduce costs and
improve profit.
That amounts to about 5 per-
cent of the bank's 327,000-strong
work force. Citigroup said its plans
include "shrinking the size of cor-
porate centers," several of which
are in New York. It also expects to
move some 9,500 jobs to lower-cost
locations.
Still, the elimination of the jobs
won't reduce the bank's work force,
but merely slow its growth, Citi
executives said.
The bank said in a statement that
with previously announced infor-
mation technology savings, the
overhaul will save the New York-
based bank about $2.1 billion in
2007, $3.7 billion in 2008 and $4.6
billion in 2009.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
FALLEN AMERICANS
3,283
Number of American service
members who have died in the War
inIraq, accordingto The Associated
Press. The department of defense
did not identify any new deceased
service members yesterday.

Kurt Vonnegut

VIDEO GAME TOURNEY

dead at 84
By DINITIA SMITH indescribable greed and vanity and
The New York Times cruelty of Germany."
His experience in Dresden was
NEW YORK - Kurt Vonnegut, the basis of "Slaughterhouse-Five,"
whose dark comic talent and urgent which was published in 1969 against
moral vision in novels like "Slaugh- the backdrop of war in Vietnam,
terhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle" and racial unrest and cultural and social
"God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" upheaval. The novel, wrote the crit-
caught the temper of his times and ic Jerome Klinkowitz, "so perfectly
the imagination of a generation, died caught America's transformative
last night in Manhattan. He was 84. mood that its story and structure
His death was reported by Mor- became best-selling metaphors for
gan Entrekin, a longtime family the new age."
friend, who said Vonnegut suffered To Vonnegut, the only possible
brain injuries as a result of a fall sev- redemption for the madness and
eral weeks ago. apparent meaninglessness of exis-
Vonnegut wrote plays, essays tence was human kindness. The title
and short fiction. But it was his character in his 1965 novel, "God BENSIlMON/Daily
novels that became classics of the Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," summed Engineeringjunior Ian Rittersdorf plays Super Smash Brothers Melee against LSA freshman Artum Kircali during a video game
American counterculture, making up his philosophy: tournament in Pierpont Commons last night.
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SUSAN WYNNE, ABR
REALTOR'
FOR 734-717-6371
SALE or reach me online at susanwynne@comcast.net

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