0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, October 10, 2007- 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
BAGHDAD
Iraqi women killed
by security guards
Guards in a security convoy
opened fire on a car at an inter-
section in central Baghdad yester-
day, killing two Christian women
before speeding away, police said.
The Iraqi government said a Dubai-
based private security company
was behind the shootings.
Interior Ministry spokesman
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf
said the Unity Resources Group
had apologized after guards in four
SUVs fired on a car carrying the
two women, killingthem instantly.
Khalaf said the government
and the company have both begun
investigations and that initial find-
ings showed the guards fired 19
bullets.
"They apologized and said they
are ready to meet all the legal com-
mitments," he said.
Unity Resources Group, which
has operated in Iraq since 2004,
employs security professionals
from the U.S., Britain, Australia
and New Zealand.
A company spokesman saidthere
was a shooting involving one of its
security teams and it was working
with Iraqi authorities to determine
the circumstances.
WASHINGTON
Court silences man
who claims he was
abducted by CIA
A German man who says he was
abducted and tortured by the CIA
as part of the anti-terrorism rendi-
tion program lost his final chance
yesterday to persuade U.S. courts
to hear his claims.
The Supreme Court reject-
ed without comment an appeal
from Khaled el-Masri, effectively
endorsing Bush administration
arguments that state secrets would
be revealed if courts allowed the
case to proceed.
El-Masri, 44, a German citizen
of Lebanese descent, says he was
mistakenly identified as an asso-
ciate of the Sept. 11 hijackers and
was detained while attempting to
enter Macedonia on New Year's
Eve 2003.
He claims that CIA agents
stripped, beat, shackled, dia-
pered, drugged and chained him
to the floor of a plane for a flight to
Afghanistan.
NEW YORK
Dow Jones,
S&P 500 reach
record highs
An Wall Street advanced sharply
yesterday as investors interpreted
minutes from the Federal Reserve's
last meeting as indicating the cen-
tral bank is ready to keep cutting
interest rates to boost the economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average
and Standard & Poor's 500 index
hit records.
According to preliminary cal-
culations, the Dow rose 120.80, or
0.86 percent, to 14,164.53, eclips-
ing the previous record close of
14,087.55 reached Oct. 1. The Dow
had a new trading high as well, ris-
ing to 14,166.97.
CRANDON, Wis.
After rampage,
killer shot himself
three times
An off-duty sheriff's deputy who
killed six people apparently shot
himself three times, with the last
shot hitting him in the right side of
the head, the state attorney general
said Tuesday.
Tyler Peterson, 20, shot himself
twice under the chin before fir-
ing the third and fatal shot, Attor-
ney General J.B. Van Hollen said.
Peterson also was shot once in the
left biceps from a distance.
The six people who died early
Sunday were either students or
recent graduates of Crandon High
School, where Peterson also had
graduated.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U..C A . DU TE S
3,816
Number of American service
members who have died in the War
in Iraq, according to The Associat-
ed Press. There were no new casu-
alties identified yesterday.
West Africa getting
less money for seeds
RESTING IN THE DIAG
Lack of investment
could worsen
region's poverty
CELIA W. DUGGER
The New York Times
HERMAKONO, Guinea - The
seeds are a marvel, producing
bountiful, aromatic rice crops
resistant to drought, pests and
disease.
But a decade after their intro-
duction, they have spread to only
a tiny fraction of the land here
in West Africa where they could
help millions of farming families
escape poverty.
At a time when philanthro-
pists like Bill Gates have become
entranced by the possibility of a
Green Revolution for Africa, the
New Rices for Africa, as scien-
tistscall the wonder seeds, offer
a clear warning.
Even the most promising new
crop varieties will not by them-
selves bring the plentiful har-
vests that can end poverty. New
ways to get seeds into the hands
of farmers are needed, as well as
broader investment in the basic
ingredients of a farm economy:
roads, credit and farmer educa-
tion, among others.
Developed with financing
from wealthy countries and pri-
vate foundations, the New Rices
for Africa, or NERICAs, are
unpatented and may be grown by
anyone.
Yet there is a severe shortage
of them in a region where both
the private and the agricultural
sectors are woefully undevel-
oped.
"This is a story repeated thou-
sands of times all over Africa,"
said Joseph Devries, who is the
head of seed development for a
joint effort by the Rockefeller
and Bill and Melinda Gates foun-
dations to jump-start farm pro-
ductivity in Africa.
"You have farmers who are
very willing adopters of new
technologies and want to raise
yields," he added, "but are not
getting access to seed, fertilizer
and small-scale irrigation."
Finding a sustainable way to
supply farmerswith seed,he said,
"is emerging as the Holy Grail for
agricultural development."
Here in West Africa, where
rice is a staple crop, the African
Development Bank is financing
a $34 million program in seven
countries to spur wider use of the
new rice seeds. But the obstacles
are daunting.
Farmers typically lack credit
to buy seed and fertilizer. And the
agricultural economy itself suf-
fers from alack of investment.
Foreign aid for agriculture
has plunged over the past two
decades.
And African governments --
some, like Guinea, endowed with
natural resources and cursed
with corruption -- have too often
spent less of that wealth than
they might have on rural devel-
opment.
Decent roads to move crops to
market are scarce.
So are storage facilities to pre-
serve harvests and crop insur-
ance to protect farmers from
drought, flood or bumper yields
that perversely cause prices to
collapse. All can wipe out the
income farmers need to provide
reliable demand to seed com-
panies, making sale and distri-
bution of the improved seeds a
high-risk venture.
Across the region, a handful of
private companies in Nigeria and
Benin have begun to multiply and
market the new rice varieties.
Here in Guinea, where there
is not a single seed company, the
government is now working with
farmers to expand the supply of
seed.
Villagers here in Hermakono
first enviously spotted the new
rices growing in a neighboring
community's field. In 2006, after
writing to Guinea's Agriculture
Ministry, they got their first
small store of the seeds.
So precious were they that as
the first crop grew heavy with
grain, the villagers took turns
standing watch in the fields.
"We divided into small groups
to guard it so nobody would steal
even one stalk," said Goulou
Camara, a farmer.
Only about 200,000 African
farmers are sowing the new
rices on just 5 percent of the land
where they could thrive, accord-
ing to the Africa Rice Center, an
internationalresearch institution
based in Benin that developed the
new rices in the mid-1990s.
"If we don't develop the infra-
structure, there's no way we'll
attainthe Green Revolution,"said
Monty Jones, the plant breeder
whose groundbreaking research
led to creation of the new rices.
"How do you bring the NERI-
CAs to farmers? How do you
get farmers to know the seeds
exist?"
Jones now leads the Forum for
Agricultural Research in Africa,
based in Ghana.
He also serves on the board of
the Alliance for a Green Revolu-
tion in Africa, a nonprofit group
financed with an initial $150 mil-
lion from the Gates and Rock-
efeller foundations.
The alliance intends to invest
$23 million to promote the distri-
bution of promising seeds.
Jones, 55, who was born into
Sierra Leone's Creole elite, said
he decided to go into the agricul-
tural sciences when as a teenager
he heard news of rioting over rice
shortages in West Africa.
He was put in charge of a team
breeding upland rain-fed rice
varieties at the West Africa Rice
Development Agency, now the
Africa Rice Center.
For more than a generation,
scientists had unsuccessfully
sought to combine the hardy
African rice species with high-
yield Asian species.
His team overcame the obsta-
cles and produced the first new
rices more than a decade ago.
ANGELA CESERE/Daily
On a deflated boxing ring, student organizers rested following yesterday's homecoming events on the Diag. LSA junior Sabrina
Shingwani said Domino's Pizza donated 500 slices of pizza, and Vitamin Water gave out 2,000 bottles of water during the
event
Bush: Don't water down, lower
No Child Left Behind standards
Pres. Bush says he's
open to new ideas
WASHINGTON (AP) - Presi-
dent Bush said yesterday that he's
open to new ideas for changing the
"No Child Left Behind" education
law but will not accept watered-
down standards or rollbacks in
accountability.
The president and lawmakers in
both parties Want changes to the
five-year-old law - a key piece of
his domestic policy legacy, which
faces a tough renewal fight in Con-
gress.
"There can be no compromise
on the basic principle: Every child
must learn to read and do math at,
or above, grade level," he said in a
statement from the Rose Garden
that was directed at Congress and
critics of the law.
"And there can be no compro-
mise on the need to hold schools
accountable to making sure we
achieve that goal."
The law requires annual math
and reading tests in grades three
through eight and once in high
school. Schools that miss bench-
marks face increasingly tough
consequences, such as having to
replace their curriculum, teachers
or principals.
Earlier, Bush and Education Sec-
retary Margaret Spellings met with
civil rights leaders, educators and
advocates for minority and disad-
vantaged students.
Almost everyone agrees the law
should be changed to encourage
schools to measure individual stu-
dent progress over time.
Instead, snapshot comparisons
of certain grade levels have been
used.
There also is broad agreement
that the law should be changed
so that schools that miss progress
goals by a little don't face the same
consequences as schools that miss
them by a lot.
There are, however, deep divi-
sions over some proposed changes,
including meritpay for teachers and
whether schools should be judged
based on test scores in subjects
other than reading and math.
Opponents to some of the leg-
islative proposals come from the
conservative and liberal wings of
Congress.
National Urban League Presi-
dent Marc Morial, who was in the
meeting with Bush, said the law
hasn't been funded even to the lev-
els authorized in the original legis-
lation.
But he and others did not lay the
blame entirely at Bush's feet.
"BothCongress andthe president
should make the collective funding
of this act a priority," Morial said.
Morial said he and others also
talked to Bush about addressing the
disparity in the amount of money
committed to educating children in
different parts of the country, and
about strengthening a provision
in the law calling for after-school
services to help children who fall
behind.
Bush listed several ways for
enhancingthe law, including giving
local leaders more flexibility and
resources to give to family-based
programs.
MAYO CLINIC
Nursing Graduates
Paid Interview expenses
Generous relocation package
Benefits start first day
Tuition assistance
Competitive salaries
Continuing Education
Mayo Clinic Nursing in Rochester, Minnesota
invites new graduates to embark on an adventure
and discover unparalleled opportunities for career
mobility and growth. Our hospitals are world-
renowned acute care teaching facilities wyhere
quality nursing is our tradition and mission.
For the new graduate we offer clinical and
classroom-based orientation to foster professional
and personal growth and development. A primary
preceptor is assigned to ensure a successful
transition from student to professional.
To apply or learn more about nursing opportunities
for new graduates at Mayo Clinic, please visit
www.mayoclinic.org/jobs-nursing-rst.
Phone: 800-562-7984
E-mail: nursing.hr.staffing@mayo.edu
Mayo Clinic is an affirmative action and
equal opportunity educator and employer.
Free coffee
Free bagels
Free newspapers
Free WI-Fl
How's that for starters?
The AAUM is rolling out the welcome mat for you at Welcome Wednesdays! Feed your
caffeine addiction with Starbucks coffee, grab a bagel and the paper, and check your
email. All for free at the Alumni Center.
You can also learn about the programs we offer, like career mentors, inCircle (the U-M
social networking site) and free business cards. Or pick up a free blue book for your
next exam.
Every Wednesday through November 14.
9 a.m. to noon.
Open to all U-M students.
The Alumni Center is located at 200 Fletcher St.,
at the corner of Fletcher and Washington,
next to the Michigan League.
What is the AAUM?
The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan builds
relationships with current and future Michigan alumni. We help
build your connection to U-M by offering services and programs
to enhance your experience and opportunities while at Michigan,
and prepare you for success when you graduate!
ALUMNIASSOCIATION
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
www.umalumni.com/students
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