0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, November 26, 2007 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LAHORE, Pakistan
Former Pakistani
prime minister
returns as challenger
Exiled former Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif returned home to
a hero's welcome yesterday and
called on President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf to end emergency rule
before elections, a fresh challenge
to the U.S.-backed leader.
"These (emergency) conditions
are not conducive to free and fair
elections," Sharif told reporters
at the airport after arriving from
Saudi Arabia. "I think the constitu-
tion of Pakistan should be restored,
and there should be rule of law."
Sharif, the head of one of the
country's main opposition par-
ties, said he had not negotiated his
return with Musharraf, who over-
threw him in a 1999 coup. Mush-
arraf expelled Sharif when he first
tried come back to Pakistan this
year.
WASHINGTON
Syria agrees to
meet at Mideast
peace conference
Arab holdout Syria agreed yes-
terday to attend a Mideast peace
conference called by President
Bush to restart talks to resolve the
six-decade conflict between Israel
and the Palestinians, yet expecta-
tions for the summit remained low.
The two sides came to Washington
without agreeing on basic terms for
their negotiations.
Bush invited the Israeli and Pal-
estinian leaders to separate meet-
ings at the White House today to
prepare for the centerpiece of his
Mideast gathering - an all-day
session tomorrow in Annapolis,
Md. It is to be the only time that
Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert and Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas meet together,
and their three-way handshake
is expected to be the conference's
symbolic high point. Bush closes
the U.S. effort with a second set
of separate Israeli and Palestinian
meetings at the White House on
Wednesday.
CARACAS, Venezuela
Chavez to put
relations with
" Colombia on hold
President Hugo Chavez said yes-
terday he is putting relations with
Colombia "in the freezer" after its
president ended the Venezuelan
leader's role mediating with leftist
rebels in the neighboring country.
Chavez said economic relations
will be hurt, blaming actions by
Colombia's U.S.-allied President
Alvaro Uribe that he said were "a
spit in the face."
"I declare before the world that
I'm putting relations with Colom-
bia in the freezer because I've
completely lost confidence with
everyone in the Colombian govern-
ment," Chavez said during a tele-
vised speech.
NEW YORK
Broadway strike
talks pick up again
Negotiations resumed yester-
day between striking Broadway
stagehands and theater producers
struggling to find a solution to their
thorny, seemingly intractable labor
dispute as theaters faced a third
week of dark stages and mounting
box-office losses.
Resumption of the talks - after a
week of no negotiating - had been
announced the day before by Char-
lotte St. Martin, executive director
of the League of American Theatres
and Producers, and were confirmed
by the stagehands union.
More than two dozen plays and
musicals have been closed since
Nov. 10, when the stagehands
walked off the job.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U..DE A;,T I S
39875
Number of American service mem-
bers who have died in the war in
Iraq, according to The Associated
Press. The following deaths were
identified since Nov. 21:
Sgt. Alfred G. Paredez Jr., 32,
of Las Vegas, Nev.
Spc. Melvin L. Henley Jr., 26,
of Jackson, Miss.
Michigan primary has
long history of quirkiness
Primary plans for
2008 draw ire from
both parties
LANSING (AP) - The process
of choosing a presidential favorite
has led Michigan down many dif-
ferent paths since it held its first
presidential primary in 1916.
The state last held open Repub-
lican and Democratic primaries in
1976, a year that saw former Mich-
igan Rep. Gerald Ford easily win
the GOP race over Ronald Reagan
and Jimmy Carter beat Morris
Udall on the Democratic side in
an election that drew 1.8 million
voters.
Four years earlier, Alabama
Gov. George Wallace won the
Democratic primary, easily
beating George McGovern and
Hubert Humphrey and prompt-
ing Democratic complaints that
Republican voters had crossed
over to vote for Wallace to embar-
rass them.
Partly because of such inci-
dents, national Democratic rules
changed after the 1976 election,
and state Democratic parties had
to find a way to require voters to
state a party allegiance before
they could participate in a presi-
dential primary.
In 1988, lawmakers passed a
new law under which voters had
to declare a party preference with
their local clerks before they could
vote in the presidential primary.
Although 1.1 million people
participated in the 1992 election
won by Democrat Bill Clinton and
Republican George Bush, the 18
percent turnout rate among regis-
tered voters was less than half that
in 1972 and 1976.
Even worse, Michigan voters
were incensed they had to declare
a party preference and that the
knowledge was public informa-
tion. The outcry forced lawmakers
to drop the party preference dec-
laration in 1995.
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Democrats went back to nomi-
nating their favorites through
party caucuses, while Republicans
continued to hold open primaries.
The national front-runner, Bob
Dole, easily won the 1996 GOP pri-
mary. But underdog John McCain
beat out eventual nominee George
W. Bush in 2000, in part because
Democrats crossed over to vote in
the GOP primary.
This year, Democratic and
Republican party leaders bit on a
different strategy.
Instead of requiring each voter
to declare a party preference that
could be seen at the local clerk's
office, they decided anyone could
vote in either primary as long
as election workers wrote down
which party's ballot a voter chose
and gave that information to the
state parties. No public record of
which ballot was chosen would be
kept.
State GOP Chairman Saul
Anuzis and Democratic Chairman
Mark Brewer said the requirement
would reduce the number of vot-
ers who might cross party lines to
meddle in the other party's elec-
tion. They also said the provision
would keep a voter's neighbors or
others from being able to find out
which ballot a voter had chosen
while increasing turnout to more
than 2 million.
That's far more than the rough-
ly 5,000 Republicans who would
choose their favorites at a presi-
dential convention, or the 160,000
Democrats who voted in party
caucuses in 2004.
But the idea hasn't been a hit
with everyone.
East Lansing political con-
sultant Mark Grebner and sev-
eral other. people filed a lawsuit
because they were unhappy that
the Michigan Democratic and
Republican parties will keep track
of voters' names and whether they
took a Democratic or GOP primary
ballot but gives no public access to
that information.
Grebner said the knowledge is
worth $5 million to $10 million
and argued that access to it should
be equal for everyone because it is
information obtained through a
publicly funded election.
"We're not anti-election. We're
really just anti-corrupt giveaway,"
he said.
But the Michigan Supreme
Court didn't buy that argument,
issuing an opinion Wednesday
that allows the primary to go for-
ward.
Many election clerks aren't
happy with the ruling. The Michi-
gan Association of County Clerks
wanted the primary dropped
because, with less than 60 days to
go before Jan.15, it willbe difficult
to guarantee that absentee voters
such as military members serving
overseas, the elderly and the dis-
abled will be able to apply for bal-
lots and return them in time.
Absentee voters must ask for
a Republican or Democratic bal-
lot, then wait for the ballot to
arrive. The high volume of holi-
day mail means some voters might
be unable to complete a ballot by
deadline.
The clerks' association and
some Democratic lawmakers also
argued that it's a waste of money
to spend at least $10 million on the
primary, especially since four of
the Democratic candidates have
taken their names off the ballot
because Michigan violated party
rules by making itself one of the
earliest states on the primary cal-
endar.
They think the political par-
ties should have stuck to their
party caucuses or conventions and
picked up the tab.
There's also a concern that vot-
ers will stay away from the polls
because they don't want to give
the parties a record of which ballot
they took, either for privacy rea-
sons or because they don't want to
receive the political mailings that
are sure to come.
At this point, however, it looks
like the new version of the Michi-
gan presidential primary will go
on as scheduled Jan. 15.
AP PHOTO
Jerri Churchill and her family offer help to their neighbors and anyone else needing it
while passing by their home on Lockwood Rd. in Malibu, Calif. yesterday. After being
evacuated because of the wildfires, residents began heading home yesterday.
In wildfires' wake,
residents return
Some homes gone,
but many stay intact
MALIBU, Calif. (AP) -Residents
began making their way back along
winding canyon roads yesterday to
see whether their homes survived
a wind-driven wildfire a day earlier
that scorched thousands of acres of
hillside and 53 houses.
Several homes along a road near
the source of the blaze had been
reduced to blackened wrecks,
while many others were virtually
unscathed.
"There's no rhyme or reason
to it," said Frank Churchill, who
returned home with his wife and
four children to find his white stuc-
co home largely undamaged, while
three neighboring homes were lev-
eled. "It doesn't make sense."
In all, Saturday's fast-moving
wildfire destroyed 53 homes and 27
outbuildings, Gov. Arnold Schwar-
zenegger said. Thirty-four other
homes were damaged, and as many
as 14,000 people fled the blaze,
which was whipped up by hot, dry
Santa Ana winds.
Throughout the day yesterday,
the weather worked in firefight-
ers' favor. A cool breeze in from
the Pacific Ocean kept tempera-
tures low and moisture levels
high.
"The weather is perfect for us,"
said Los Angeles County Fire Capt.
Glen Goulet.
Even controlled fires, ignited late
Sunday to clear remaining scrub,
burned lazily.
The fire, which scorched 4,720
acres - more than 7 square miles
- since early Saturday, was about
70 percent contained, with full con-
tainment expected Monday, said
Ron Haralson, Los Angeles County
fire inspector.
Investigators determined that
the fire, which broke out along
a dirt road off a paved highway,
was caused by humans but had
not determined whether it was
started intentionally, said coun-
ty Fire Inspector Rick Domin-
guez.
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