The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING, Mich.
Michigan House
approves budget for
community colleges
The Michigan House has unani-
mously approved a bill to fund com-
munity colleges without any major
cuts in the budget year that starts
Oct. 1.
The bill passed by the House
yesterday now goes to the Senate,
which also is expected to approve
it. It's the first vote on a final budget
billbyeither chamber.
The bill keeps funding for com-
munity colleges at the same $299
million in the current budget year.
Lawmakers couldnot cut much
from the community colleges bud-
get because of rules associated with
accepting money from the federal
stimulus package.
Far tougher votes are expected
this week as lawmakers try to enact
about $1.2 billion in spending cuts,
part of a plan to erase a projected
$2.8 billion budget hole.
BOSTON
Lawmakers approve
Kennedy successor
Massachusetts lawmakers ful-
filled Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's
dying wish yesterday, granting the
governor the power to appoint an
interim replacement for him so
President Barack Obama can regain
a critical 60th U.S. Senate vote he
needs to pass ahealth care overhaul
this year.
Gov. Deval Patrick will announce
his appointment today at a news
conference at the Statehouse. He
said late yesterday he would send
a letter to the secretary of state to
declare an emergency to would
allow him to override a legislative
vote yesterday that defeated his
administration's effort to make the
bill take effect immediately. Nor-
mally, legislation faces a 90-day
waiting period.
"I recognize the gravity of this
decision and I will make it very
soon, and tell you just as soon as I
do," the governor told reporters
last night. His official schedule
released later included his planned
announcement.
MOORPARK, Calif.
Southern California
wildfire stoked by
winds and heat
Firefighters guarded rural
homes, ranches and orchards yes-
terday as a wind-driven wildfire
grew to more than 25 square miles
on a march through rugged land
between small Southern California
communities.
The fire was stoked by hot and
dry Santa Ana winds but firefight-
ers said the windspeeds were lower
than on the first day of the blaze.
Containment of the fire, about
40 miles northwest of downtown
Los Angeles, also increased to 40
percent, but it was not expected to
be fully surrounded until Saturday.
Firefighters cut and burned away
brush along a canyon road to try
'to corral part of the fire's western
flank.
Fire officials said the blaze began
Tuesday in the area of an agricul-
tural mulch pile, but the cause re-
rnained under investigation.
SYDNEY
Australia regroups
after dust storm
: Millions of Australians were
wiping a film of reddish Outback
grit from nearly everything today
after the country's worst dust storm
jn seven decades played havoc with
transport systems and sent asth-
natics scurrying inside.
The country's largest airport said
t hoped to resume normal flight
schedules today, a day after the dust
cloud caused almost24 internation-
al flights to be diverted away from
Sydney and threw domestic sched-
ules into turmoil.
Skies over eastern Australia
were mostly clear and blue, and
New South Wales state health offi-
ials said they expected air pollu-
tion to drop to normal safe levels
after reaching record highs the day
before. But child care centers in
Sydney were keeping young chil-
dren inside today until an official
all-clear came through.
The dust storm Wednesday had
shrouded Sydney and surrounding
areas for about eight hours, blotting
out landmarks such as the Sydney
Opera House and Harbour Bridge
and even reaching underground to
coat subway stations.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Libya, Iran blast UN
despite calls for unity
Ahmadinejad says
capitalism will fall
as Marxism did
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - On a
daywhentheU.N.andmanynations
appealed for global unity, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
and Libyan leader Moammar Gad-
hafi yesterday denounced what they
called an unjust world dominated
by five powers.
The Iranian leader, touting his
victory in "glorious" June elec-
tions, which the opposition claimed
were stolen, did not mention the
country's nuclear program in his
speech to the U.N. General Assem-
bly. He addressed the annual gath-
ering immediately after six global
powers who have been trying to
rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions
announced they expect a "serious
response" from Tehran in nuclear
discussions on Oct. 1.
Ahmadinejad lashed out at what
he said was the rapacious capital-
ism of the United States, its Western
allies and Israel, which he accused
of stealing Palestinian land. But he
also offered a hand of friendship to
any country that "honestly" extends
one.
His comment followed an Associ-
ated Press interview Tuesday night
in which he urged President Barack
Obama to view Iran as a potential
friend instead of a threat.
While Ahmadinejad announced
a new Iranian commitment to help
build "a durable peace and security
worldwide for all nations," hisspeech
was laced with anti-Israeli and anti-
Semitic language which prompted
a U.S. walkout. "It is disappointing
that Mr. Ahmadinejad has once again
chosen to espouse hateful, offensive
and anti-Semitic rhetoric," said Mark
Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S.
Mission to the U.N.
The seats of Israel, Canada and
other countries also were empty in
the sparsely filled assembly cham-
ber.
Ahmadinejad predicted that
"expansionist capitalism" will meet
the same fate as Marxism, accus-
ing unnamed powers of "using the
ugliest methods of intimidation and
deceit under the mantle of free-
dom."
He told the assembly that "most
nations including the people of the
United States are waiting for real
and profound change:'
Earlier, Libya's Gadhafi chastised
the United Nations for failing to pre-
vent dozens of wars and accused its
most powerful members of treat-
ing other nations as "second-class,
despised" countries.
In his first speech to the Gen-
eral Assembly in his 40 years as
ruler of Libya, Gadhafi focused on
the inequality of the U.N. Security
Council where five permanent mem-
bers - the U.S., Russia, China, Brit-
ain and France - have veto power.
"It should be called the 'terror
council,"' he said, calling for the
veto to be abolished and member-
ship to be expanded with a greater
voice for Africa, Latin America,
Arab and Muslim nations.
Gadhafi swept up the stairs to the
podium in brown robes after U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and U.S. President Barack Obama
calledforgreaterglobalengagement
to move toward a world without
nuclear weapons, tackle the threat
of catastrophic climate change, and
combat a global financial crisis that
is expected to add 100 million peo-
RICHARD DREW/AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves following his address tothe 64th
session of the United Nations Geeneral Assembly yesterday.
ple to the ranks of the world's poor
this year.
"We have sought - in word and
deed - a new era of engagement
with the world," Obama told world
leaders and diplomats from the 192
U.N. member states. "Now is the
time for all of us to take our share of
responsibility for a global response
to global challenges."
Ban opened the 64th ministerial
meeting - more than 100 heads of
state and government attended -
with an appeal "to create a Unit-
ed Nations of genuine collective
action" to respond to the global
financial, food and energy crises
and the swine flu pandemic.
More questioned in New
York City terror probe
Business owners are
possible witnesses in
homemade bomb plot
NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds
of federal agents and police officers
widened their investigation of af
potential terrorism plot involving
an alleged al-Qaida associate yes-
terday as questions lingered about
whether early missteps might have
made the chore harder.
Investigators have fanned out
in a New York City neighborhood
to re-interview "people previous-
ly encountered" during previous
raids there, and to locate others ,
who know them, according to a laws
enforcement official familiar with
the probe. The effort also includes
a review of phone and other
records that could link potential,
suspects to one another or identify ,
new ones.,;
"Many of the people we've spo- cHRISSCHNEIDER/AP
ken to have been cooperative," said FBI agents arrested Denver man Najibullah Zazi Saturday. Zazi, his father and
the official, who spoke on condi- Queens imam Ahmad Wais Afzali were charged with lying to the FBI-
tion of anonymity to The Associat- charged last weekend with lying knowledge might have inadver-
ed Press because the investigation to the FBI. Authorities say they tently blown the surveillance
is ongoing. found bomb-making instructions and forced investigators' hand by
The official said business own- on a hard drive on Zazi's laptop but questioning Afzali - considered a
ers also are on the list of pos- knew of no specific time or place trusted police source in the com-
sible witnesses in a potential for a possible attack. munity - about Zazi and other
homemade-bomb plot. The offi- The arrests came after the possible plotters.
cial declined to identify those series of high-profile raids of The imam, it says, turned around
businesses, but authorities regu- several city apartments in the and tipped off Zazi by calling him
larly monitor sales by suppliers Queens neighborhood where Zazi the next day and saying in a record-
of chemicals that could be used in had recently visited, and were fol- ed conversation, "They asked me
improvised explosives. lowed by a flurry of nationwide about you guys."
Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year- warnings of possible strikes on The detectives referred to in
old Denver airport shuttle driver transit, sports and entertainment the recently unsealed criminal
whom authorities have linked to complexes. complaint work for a division that
al-Qaida; his father; and Ahmad A criminal complaint suggests operates independently from an
Wais Afzali, a Queens imam, were police acting without the FBI's FBI-run terrorism task force.
With break in curfew,
Hondurans search
stores looking for food
Uncertainty about cio Lula da Silva used the podium
at the U.N. General Assembly in
future leads people New York to demand Zelaya be
reinstated as Honduras' president
to stock up and the U.S. State Department in
Washington called for restraintby
TEGUCIGALPA, Hondu- both sides.
ras (AP) - Hungry Hondurans State Department spokesman
scrambled through looted stores Ian Kelly said the U.S., which still
and lined up for food yesterday has contact with Honduran offi-
during a break in a long cur- cials, had helped persuade author-
few called to halt violence that ities to restore water and power
erupted with the return of the at the Brazilian Embassy and had
country's deposed leftist presi- helped evacuate some Embassy
dent. staff.
Troops and police ringed the But on a street in Tegucigalpa,
Brazilian Embassy where ousted Lila Armendia peered out warily
President Manuel Zelaya took through her wooden gate at a
shelter on Monday after returning scene of burning trash bins placed
home in a daring challenge to the by protesters.
interim government that threw "It's scary to go out," she said.
him out of the country at gunpoint Being stuck inside her home is
in June and that vows to arrest no good either. "It's like being in
him if he leaves the shelter of the jail," said the 38-year-old seam-
diplomatic mission. stress.
Most other Hondurans were People determined to stock
trapped as well, cooped up in their up for the uncertain days ahead
homes since Monday evening by trudged past bandana-masked
a government order to stay off youths sitting on boulders they
the streets - an order ignored by had used to block roads.
some looters and pro-Zelaya pro- About two dozen people at a
testers. supermarket littered with over-
Schools, businesses, airports turned shelves hunted through
and border crossings closed, shards of glass and smashed pota-
though the coup-installed govern- to chip packages for undamaged
ment suspended the nationwide food.
curfew for six hours yesterday Thousands of Zelaya support-
so that businesses could open ers marched in the direction of
briefly and people could buy what the Brazilian Embassy but were
they needed. The government blocked by soldiers and riot police
announced late yesterday it was who used tear gas to disperse them
lifting the curfew as of Thursday after the protesters threw rocks
morning. and broke the glass windows in
Brazilian President Luiz Ina- storefronts.