The Michigan Daily- michigandaily.com N ew s Friday, October 10, 2008 -'3A * The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom XVS Friday, October10, 2008 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS AUSTIN, Texas More than 76,000 damage claims filed after Ike More than 76,000 damage claims from Hurricane Ike have been filed with the Texas-backed windstorm insurance association, which expects to pay billions of dollars to policy holders for loss- es. Texas Windstorm Insurance Association general manager Jim Oliver cautioned Wednesday that the final figure will depend on whether claims are determined to be wind or flood damage. The association says it will pay for wind damage, but not storm surge damage, which it considers to be flooding. "We are going to look at every single claim individ- ually," Oliver said. "That is going to make the process slow." DERA ISMAlL KHAN, Pakistan Suspected U.S. missile strike in Pakistan kills 9 A suspected U.S. missile strike targeted two areas in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghanistan border yesterday, killing at least nine people, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Also yesterday, bombings tar- geting police killed 10 people and wounded 14 in Pakistan's volatile northwest and the capital - re- minders of the challenge facing the country as its lawmakers pur- sue a national anti-terror consen- sus. The alleged missile strikes ap- peared to be part of a surge in U.S. cross border assaults from Afghanistan on alleged militant targets in Pakistan, which have strained ties between the two an- ti-terror allies. NEW YORK GM shares sink more than 30 percent in sell-off General Motors shares have fallen' more than 30 percent after Standard & Poor's Ratings Servic- es said it's placing the automaker's credit ratings under review for possible downgrade. S&P said yesterday that the move reflects the weakening auto- motive markets across the world and expectations that tight credit markets will make things tough for the near futyre. GM shares fell $2.26, or 33 per- cent, to $4.65, helping drag the Dow Jones industrial average down by more than 600 points. That's the lowest price for GM shares since March 1950. The ratings under review include GM's "B-" long-term cor- porate credit rating and its finance arm's "B-"long-term counterparty credit rating. NEW DELHI Dalai Lama back in hospital after cleared for travel The Dalai Lama was hospital- ized in New Delhi, his spokes- man said yesterday, just days after a medical checkup cleared the Tibetan spiritual leader to resume foreign travel. S Tenzin Taklha told The Asso- ciated Press that the Dalai Lama was admitted to a New Delhi hos- pital for "further consultations with doctors." Taklha declined to say when he was hospitalized or provide any details on his condition. He said he expected more information to be released later in the day. In August, the 73-year-old Dalai Lama was admitted to a Mumbai hospital and underwent tests for abdominal discomfort. Doctors advised him to cancel a planned trip to Europe and rest, saying he was suffering from exhaustion. - Compiled from Daily wire reports f b 4,180 Number of American service members who have died in the war in Iraq, according to The Associated Press. There were no deaths identified yesterday. College Dems, GOP face off on multicultural issues Dow plummets more than 675 points Campus politicos stand in for their candidates By THOMAS CHAN Daily StaffReporter College Democrats and College Republicans squared off last night in a discussion oftheir presidential candidates' stances. The debate focused on issues of concern to campus multicultural groups. The event at the Ford School was structured as a three-on- three, town-hall style debate. Most of the questions were sub- mitted in advance of the debate by campus multicultural orga- nizations like the Black Student Union, Alpha Kappa Alpha, the Indian American Student Associ- ation and Relate, a mulitcultural LGBT group. The question topics included workplace wage equal- ity, nuclear technology trading with India and college afford- ability. In most of their responses, the College Democrats and Republi- cans gave their presidential candi- date's positions. The purpose of the debate, according to Nathaniel Eli Coats Styer, chair of the College Demo- crats, was "to engage a broader campus that we normally don't get to reach," Styer said. "This is a way to engage and allow them to ask questions." The audience, which filled the 200-seat Anneberg Auditorium, for his ties to lobbyists for Indian was noticeably polarized between casinos. McCain has served as Democratic and Republican sup- the chairman of the Senate Indi- porters, with the Republicans in an Affairs Committee and helped the minority. Applause for the craft legislation that has allowed Democrats' responses were also dozens of tribes to open lucrative considerably louder. casinos. LSA junior Ashley Schneider, The moderator, John Matlock, secretary of the College Republi- director of the University's Office cans, acknowledged the difficulty of Academic Multicultural Initia- Republicans have in attracting tives, also posed a few questions minority voters, but addtd that "A of his own. lot of minority groups are actually "If you were advising your socially conservative." respective candidate, what would College Republicans Chair you say aboutsomethingyou don't Brady Smith said he was pleased like or that the candidate should by the diverse turnout at last change?" asked Matlock. night's event. For the Democrats, all three "When you look at the folks stand-ins wanted Senator Obama you have out here, great cross- to fully support gay marriage. section of the United States who "We're to the left of Senator have the same concerns as the Obama on this," Public Policy bulk of the population," he said. junior Sonya Suter said. "We're looking forward to reach- For the College Republicans, ing out and really demonstrat- Lefebvre said she was dissatisfied ing what the Republican Party is with both candidates' positions about this evening and what we on health care coverage. can do for them." - "I think that the cost is impor- Though most questions were tant along with covering as many submitted in advance, a few ques- people as possible, but I think tions were posed on the spot. that both candidates miss the One member of a Native Ameri- issue, including John McCain," can cultural group asked, "I just she said. wanted to know your stance on Kortni Malone, LSA sopho- Native-run casinos." more and member of Black Stu- Lauren Lefebvre of the College dent Union, said she attended the Republicans responded, "John debate to the Republican posi- McCain supports," before paus- tions on the issues. ing and drawing laughter from "Myself, I'm a Democrat, and I the crowd. "I'm not sure how to find that you can't just always be address exactly what you said in biased in your thinking," Malone that." ,said. "Things need to be biparti- McCain has been criticized san oftentimes." With GM's credit rating in jeopardy, market takes a hit NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks plunged in the final hour of trad- ing yesterday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 675 points, or more than 7 percent, to its lowest level in five years after a major credit ratings agency said it was consid- ering cutting its rating on General Motors Corp. The Standard & Poor's 500 index also fell more than 7 per- cent. The declines came on the anni- versary of the closing highs of the bow and the S&P. The Dow has lost 5,585 points, or 39 percent, since closing at 14,198 a year ago. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is off 655 points, or 42 percent, since recording its high of 1,565.15. Yesterday's sell-off came as Standard & Poor's Ratings Ser- vices put GM and its finance affil- iate GMAC LLC under review to see if its rating should be cut. GM has been struggling with weak car sales in North America. The action means there is a 50 percent chance that S&P will lower GM's and GMAC's ratings in the next three months. S&P also put Ford Motor Co. on credit watch negative. The ratings agency said that GM and Ford have adequate liquidity now, but that could change in 2009. GM led the Dow lower, fall- ing $2.15, or 31 percent, to $4.76, while Ford fell 55 cents, or22 per- cent, to $2.05. "The story is getting to be like that movie Groundhog Day," said Arthur Hogan, chief market ana- lyst at Jefferies & Co. He pointed to the still-frozen credit markets, and Libor, the bank-to-bank lend- ing rate that remains stubbornly high despite the Fed's recent rate cut. "Until that starts coming down, you'll be hard-pressed to find any- one getting excited about stocks," Hogan said. "Everything we're seeing his historic. The problem is historic, the solutions are his- toric, and unfortunately, the sell- off is historic. It's not the kind of history you want to be making." According to preliminary calcu- lations, the Dow fell 678.91, or 7.3 percent, to 8,579.19. The blue chips hadn'tclosedbelow the 9,000 level since the June 30,2003. Broader stock indicators also tumbled. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 75.02, or 7.6 per- cent, to 909.92, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 95.21, or 5.47 percent, to 1,645.12. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 47.37, or 8.67 percent, to 499.20. A wave of fear about the econ- omy sent stocks lower late in the final two hours of trading after a volatile start to a day in which major indicators like the Dow and the S&P 500 index bobbed up and down. The Nasdaq, with a bevy of tech stocks, spent much of the session higher but eventually as the sell-off intensified. Still, its losses were less severe because of the relatively modest drops in names like Intel Corp. and Micro- soft Corp. On the New York Stock Exchange, declining issues came to nearly 3,000, while fewer than 250 advanced. The sluggishness in the credit marketsthat triggered much of the heavy selling in markets around the world since mid-Sep- tember appeared little changed Thursday following days of efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to resus- citate lending. Shiite politician killed in Baghdad While in convoy, notable lawmaker struck by bomb BAGHDAD (AP) - A roadside bomb killed a prominent mem- ber of Muqtada al-Sadr's politi- cal movement yesterday, raising fears of new internal Shiite blood- shed ahead of regional elections expected in January. The victims' allies blamed Unit- ed States and Iraqi forces for the blast. Suspicion also fell on Shiite splinter groups - some with sus- pected links to Iran, which has sheltered al-Sadr for nearly 18 months. Saleh al-Auqaeili, considered a moderate within al-Sadr's move- ment, was traveling in a convoy with other Shiite lawmakers when the bombing occurred about 200 yards from an Iraqi army check- point in mostly Shiite eastern Baghdad, a colleague said. Al-Auqaeili died at a hospital, Sadrist spokesman Ahmed al- Massoudi said. One commuter on a motorcycle was also killed in the blast, police said. Al-Sadr's followers have long opposed the U.S. military pres- ence in Iraq, and some of them were quick to blame the Ameri- cans and their Iraqi allies, citing the movement's opposition to a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that has been under negotiation for months. "The occupation forcessentus a message by staging this attack because ofour stance against the agreement," said al-Massoudi, the Sadristspokesman. Later, however, the Sadrist political department called the killing a "terrorist act of crimi- nal gangs," a phrase often used to describe renegade Shiite militants that the U.S. believes are trained and armed by Iran. Tehran denies links to Iraqi Shiite militants. Maj. Mark Cheadle, a spokes- man for the U.S. military's Baghdad command, said the attack appeared to have been carried out by "unaligned" Shi- ite groups. The two top American offi- cials in Iraq condemned the "heinous crime" as "an attack against Iraq's democratic insti- tutions." "Significantprogresshasbeen made in the effort to bring peace and stability to Iraq. We are con- fident the Iraqi people will stand together to ensure terroristsawill not succeed," Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces here, said in a jointstatement. Police detained 14 people for questioning, including 12 mem- bers of a government-run secu- rity force-that protects a power station near the blast site. The attack reflects tension within the Shiite community following the splintering of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which fought U.S. and Iraqi troops for weeks in Baghdad's Sadr City district until a cease- fire last May. Shiite politicians negotiated the truce that enabled the Iraqi army to take control of the sprawling Sadr City slum, which had been al- Sadr's stronghold in the capital for years. But some militia fighters were angered at what they considered a "sell-out" by Shiite politicians and refused to heed al-Sadr's orders transforming the Mahdi militia into an unarmed social movement. U.S. and Iraqi officials also fear a rise in violence ahead of pro- vincial elections due by Jan. 31. Much of the concern has focused on regional contests in the heav- ily Shiite south, where parties in the government of Prime Minis- ter Nouri al-Maliki face a strong challenge by al-Sadr's followers in a region that includes vast oil wealth and prestigious religious shrines. The U.S. commander in charge of southern Iraq warned Thursday that he expects "nefarious" Irani- an meddling in the provincial bal- loting - including bombings and "assassinating prominent candi- dates" as the elections approach. His comments were not linked to the al-Auqaeili killing. "There's no doubt that Iran influences Iraq," Maj. Gen. Michael Oates told reporters. "The risk would come if they seek to influence the election using some nefarious operations or sur- rogates or they raise the level of violence in the country." Several followers of al-Sadr have been targeted in past attacks, but Thursday's bombing was notable because it occurred in an area that is considered relatively secure andwithin view ofan Iraqi army checkpoint. Falah Hassan Shanshal, who was traveling in a different car in the same convoy, said the group became suspicious when discov- ering there were no traffic jams in the usually crowded area. He said the "operation was a pre-planned one" and that the explosion was remote-controlled. "We hold the security forces responsible for this attack. They should be responsible, for the security of the city," he said. * owcpetMtt.ve Prlcses * FR T axi bades to oa mpLks * F alw .U owe4 - 30 dears SProfessional pw R Put om otiu e ProAutoTechs.com Rni Technicians 734.665.9707 The Driving Force in Auto Repair' p...,,O Your Path Continues at Lehigh. The College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University seeks graduate students who will contribute to a vibrant community of scholars and join us in exploring knowledge and practice through innovative research. Experience the individual attention usually found in a small, liberal arts college; yet take advantage of state-of-the-art laboratories, libraries and research facilities offered only at a premier research university. 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