The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, January 14, 2008 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba
U.S. military chief
favors closing of
Guantanamo Bay
The chief of the U.S. military
said yesterday he favors closing
the prison here as soon as possible
because he believes negative pub-
licity worldwide about treatment of
terrorist suspects has been "pretty
damaging" to the image of the Unit-
ed States.
"I'd like to see it shut down,"
Adm. Mike Mullen said in an inter-
view with three reporters who
toured the detention center with
him on his first visit since becom-
ing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff last October.
His visit came two days after
the sixth anniversary of the pris-
on's opening in January 2002. He
stressed that a closure decision was
not his to make and that he under-
stands there are numerous complex
legal questions the administration
believes would have to be settled
first, such as where to move prison-
ers.
JACKSONVILLE, NC.
Marine suspected
of murder headed
south, witnesses say
The nationwide manhunt for a
Marine wanted in the brutal slay-
ing of a 20-year-old pregnant col-
league who had accused him of rape
focused yesterday on Louisiana and
Texas, after he was apparently seen
at s bus station.
Witnesses said they saw Marine
Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean was
seen at a Shreveport, La., station
Saturday night, Onslow County
'~ Sheriff Ed Brown said. The bus
Laurean was riding was headed to
Texas, but police don't know if he
continued on that route, he said.
Brown cautioned late Sunday
that his detectives were still work-
ing to confirm the sightings, back-
ing away from earlier assurances
that the witness accounts were
genuine.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates
Bush asks allies to
confront Iran before
'it is too late'
President Bush gently nudged
authoritarian Arab allies yesterday
to satisfy frustrated desires for de-
mocracy in the Mideast and saved
his harshest criticism for Iran,
branding it "the world's leading
state-sponsor of terror."
Speaking in this Persian Gulf
country, about 150 miles from the
shores of Iran, Bush said Tehran
threatens nations everywhere and
that the United States was "rallying
friends around the world to confront
this danger before it is too late."
The warning about Iran was
much tougher than Bush's admoni-
tion about spreading democracy in
the Middle East, which had been
billed as the central theme of his
speech.
NEW YORK.
Clinton questions
Obama's reasoning
for King comments
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clin-
ton suggested yesterday that Barack
Obama's campaign had injected racial
tension into the presidential contest,
saying he had distorted for politi-
cal gain her comments about Martin
Luther King's role in the civil rights
movement.
"This is an unfortunate story line
the Obama campaign has pushed very
successfully," the former first lady
said in a spirited appearance on NBC's
"Meet the Press." "I don't think this
campaign is about gender, and I sure
hope it's not about race."
Clinton taped the show before
appearances in South Carolina, whose
Jan. 26 primary will be the first to
include a significant representation of
black voters. Blacks were 50 percent
of primary voters in the state in 2004
and the number is expected to swell
this time.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
3923
Number of American service mem-
bers who have died in the war in
Iraq, according to The Associated
Press. There were no dead service
members identified yesterday.
McCain says he'll boost ailing auto industry
At town hall meeting,
Ariz. senator tells
MSU crowd 'we are
succeeding in Iraq'
By ANDY KROLL
Daily StaffReporter
EAST LANSING - At a town hall meet-
ing yesterday on the Michigan State Univer-
sity campus here, John McCain delivered his
trademark three-point stump speech, which
outlines his plans to revive Michigan's sput-
tering economy, eliminate dependence on
foreign oil and win the war in Iraq.
Although McCain's strategy to save the
state's economy has garnered the most atten-
tion leading up to tomorrow's primary, the
Arizona senator took additional time here
to lay out his goal of reducing dependence
on foreign oil and reducing climate change
through the use of environmentally-friendly
and American-made technologies.
"There's gonna be hybrid cars, there's
gonna be hydrogen, there's gonna be etha-
nol, there's gonna be batteries," McCain said.
"And we're gonna address this issue of cli-
mate change, we're gonna reduce our depen-_
dence on foreign oil and it's gonna begin in
Michigan."
Additionally, McCain said he would agree
to sign a global climate change treaty - but
only if China and India signed on as well -
and would advocate for a return to the use of
nuclear power in the United States if elected
president.
If Americans embrace nuclear power and
also the new wave of "green" technologies,
he said, it will also help to lessen the impact
of climate change in the United States.
"I believe that climate change is real,"
said he favored McCain more than the other
Republican candidates in the field because of
the senator's positions on reducing climate
change.
"I was very happy to hear what he had
to say about it," Anderson said. "And unlike
some people with an agenda who unfairly
portray the issue in the press, I think he was
absolutely right and made perfect sense."
Despite describing himself as "a global
warming critic," Michigan State freshman
Tim Henkel said he admired McCain for
embracing technologies that lessen human
impact on the environment, which he said
makes sense regardless of whether or not
someone is a global warming activist.
"They're all good technologies," Henkel
said. "Plus, they'll help bring our state a bit
of money too."
As snow began to fall outside, East Lansing
resident Scott Hughes continued to protest
McCain's speech outside of Michigan State's
Kellogg Center, carrying a sign that read
"McCain: When in doubt, send troops."
Hughes, who wasn't allowed in the Kel-
logg Center by campus police, said he thinks
Americans have grown weary of the war in
Iraq and don't want the sustained presence in
Iraq that McCain has advocated for.
"I think that after five or six years of
the Iraq war, the people are going to want
to move in a different direction and try to
come up with other solutions that don't
involve sending in troops every time,"
Hughes said.
Althoughmany McCain supporters believe
their candidate's plan for winning the war
are genuine, Hughes said he views McCain's
positions as the same old war-pandering.
"How many times have we heard that
before from cheerleaders of war that things
are going to turn around, that things are
going to get better?" Hughes said. "I guess
I'll believe it when I see it."
Republican presidential canddate John McCain speaks at an event Saturday
slaps he's making in Michigan in the nun-ap tlathe slates primary tamorrow.
McCain said. "And what I want is to hand
you a planet that is safe, that we have abso-
lute requirements in order to protect our
environment and make a better planet rather
than the one we're facing now."
Another key talking point for McCain,
and one for which he has received the most
criticism, is his plan to remain in Iraq until
it is clear that the U.S. has achieved victory
there.
And unlike the other candidates on both
sides of the aisle, McCain remains optimistic
about the future of American armed forces in
the fractured Middle Eastern country.
"My friends, we are succeeding in Iraq,"
McCain said. "This strategy (the mid-sum-
mer troop "surge") is succeeding."
He added, "We will never surrender (in
Iraq) when I'm the President of the United
States."
For McCain, tied into the concept of vic-
tory in Iraq is also victory over what he
described as "the threat of radical Islamic
extremism."
McCain said he believes the face of this
"radical Islamic extremism" in the 21st cen-
tury is terrorist Osama bin Laden and the
global terrorist network al-Qaeda.
Amidst thundering applause and chants
of "The Mac is back," McCain told audience
members that finding bin Laden would be of
the utmost importance to him as president.
"If I have to followhimto the gates of hell,"
McCain said, "I will get Osama bin Laden to
justice."
Steve Anderson, a Grand Rapids resident,
For Afghan grooms, tying
GM exec: Subprime
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or
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ce a struggling dowry. Hamid, a midlevel bureau-
crat inthe Afghan governmentwho
rket, the Afghan supports his six-member family on
a salary of $7,200 per year, said his
riding industry is bill was going to top $12,000. And
by Afghan standards, that would be
alive and well considered normal, or even a bar-
gain.
By KIRK SEMPLE "Sometimes it's difficult to think
The New York Times about it," said Hamid, 30, who
requested that his full name not
BUL, Afghanistan - On the be revealed because his employer
oon before his wedding day forbids him to speak to the news
ll, Hamid was sitting in an media. "It's a lot of responsibility."
teahouse worrying a glass of Extravagant weddings, a main-
tea between his fingers, his stay of modern Afghan life and an
urrowed in concern. important measure of social status,
confessed to feeling a certain were banned by the Taliban, which
y at seeing his bachelor's outlawed the instrumental music
rndence slipping away. But that is traditional at wedding par-
hing else was troubling him, ties and closed the ostentatious
I: the cost of his wedding. wedding halls.
Afghanistan, grooms are But since the Taliban were
:ed to pay not only for their ousted in 2001, the Afghan wed-
ngs, but also all the related ding industry has rebounded and is
ses, including several huge now bigger than ever. The growth
edding parties and money for is reflectec in the proliferation
de's family, a kind of reverse of wedding halls. This freedom
has been a mixed blessing. While
grooms and their families are free
to have the huge weddings that tra-
dition demands, they are once again
left with bills that plunge them into
crushing debt.
Moderate guest lists can top 600
people; the biggest exceed 2,000.
The groom is also responsible
for jewelry, flowers, two gowns
for the bride, two suits for himself,
a visit to the beauty salon for the
bride and her closest female rela-
tives, as well as a sound system for
the wedding, a photographer and
a videography team with a pair of
cameramen.
All that, plus the dowry, known
as the bride-price, can run a mid-
dle-class Afghan man on average
$20,000, dozens of Afghans said in
interviews.
Even the poor do not scrimp. A
laborer, for instance, making about
the average per capita income of
$350 per year, may well spend
more than $2,000 for his wedding,
Afghans say.
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"Yes
nuerson says viewed in any sortofhistorical way,
they were still at quite acceptable
rime mortgages levels," Henderson said in an inter-
won't affect view at the North American Inter-
national Auto Show in Detroit.
auto loans "I think it's more sort of normal
credit behavior over the course of a
ZOIT (AP) -General Motors cycle than what we've seen in hous-
top finance executive says ing, for example," Henderson said.
n't see the subprime mort- "But we'll all have to stay tuned."
ss spreading into auto loans GMAC formerly was controlled
mpany's former credit arm, by GM. Cerberus Capital Manage-
inancial services. ment LP and other private-equity
Financial Officer Fritz firms bought a 51 percent stake in
on said Sunday that GMAC in November 2006, before
h GMAC auto loan delin- weakness in the mortgage industry
were up slightly in the became widely known.
sarter compared with the GMAC in November posted a
me in 2006, the problems $1.6 billion loss for the third quar-
'here near troubles due to ter. It included a $2.3 billion loss at
ate loans made to people ResCap, its mortgage arm, which
s-than-stellar credit. offset profits elsewhere.
C's auto loan delinquencies GMAC has more than $100 bil-
m 2.4 percent in the third lion in its auto loan portfolio world-
of 2006 to 2.6 percent in wide, so the loans "are something
e period of 2007, Hender- we need to watch, but not at all like
what we've seen in mortgages,"
they've ticked up, but Henderson said.
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