The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - 7
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - 7
. Pakistan releases
detained Iranians
amid tension
Tehran alleges
Pakistan intelligence
is linked to deadly
suicide attack
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - Paki-
stan today released 11 Iranians
detained near the countries' border
amid tensions over a deadly suicide
attack in Iran that Tehran alleges
has links to Pakistani intelligence
officials, police said.
Authorities had first said the 11
were members of Iran's elite Revo-
lutionary Guards, but then reversed
course and identified them only as
security officers. They were arrest-
ed yesterday after shooting out the
tires of a car carrying smugglers,
Pakistan authorities said.
The arrests threatened to add to
the strain between the two nations
triggered by the Oct. 18 attack on
the Iranian side of the border. They
came a day after the Pakistani pres-
ident met Iran's interior minister
and vowed to track down the per-
petrators of the blast.
Police official Dadur Rehman
said the paramilitary Frontier
Corps released the Iranians after
an investigation.
"I do not have any idea why they
were released," Rehman added in
a phone call with The Associated
Press from the area where the Ira-
nians were held. He said he had not
been privy to the interrogation.
Pakistan has been accused of
supporting militant activities in
two other neighboring countries,
Afghanistan and India, greatly
complicating relations with both
of them. Strains in its relationship
with another regional power would
only add to Pakistan's problems as
it battles al-Qaida and the Taliban
within its borders.
One Pakistani official said three
senior officers among the detainees
probably belonged to Iran's power-
ful Revolutionary Guard.
Iran's Press TV carried what it
described as a statement from the
guld condemning the arrests, but
saying thatthe 11 were not its mem-
bers. The report cited."informed"
sources as saying the arrested
men were "border guards hunting
fuel smugglers (who) accidentally
entered Pakistan."
INVESTIGATION
From Page 1
matters under review by the insti-
tution and the enforcement staff
concerning the football program."
But it leaves the door open to "new
information" that is sometimes
uncovered during investigations
"that leads to expanded inqui-
ries."
Signed by David Prince, the
NCAA's vice president of enforce-
ment, the letter says that the NCAA
intends to complete the investiga-
tion by Dec. 31, 2009.
Coleman will receive updates
from the NCAA on the investiga-
tion every six months, according to
the letter.
If major violations of NCAA
rules are "substantiated," the let-
ter continued, the Committee on
Infractions will then take over
the case and consider it either
through a hearing process or a
summary disposition process.
The latter involves a "written
report that is jointly prepared by
the institution, enforcement staff
and all involved parties," accord-
ing to the letter.
The letter closed by asking for
Coleman's "cooperation and assis-
tance to the end that complete
information related to (the case)
may be developed."
According to the NCAA's bylaws,
the notice of inquiry is a procedural
step in the progression of an NCA.A
REC SPORTS
From Page 1
not be negatively affected by the
transition. He said club and varsity
club teamswill continueto compete
seriously and will have continued
access to the Athletic Department's
facilities.
The relocation will also allow
Rec Sports to further cater to the
needs of the student and faculty
bodies because it will allow the
department to integrate itself with
other facets of student life on cam-
pus, Canning said.
Canningsaid the OutdoorAdven-
tures and Challenge Programs will
benefit most from the move to Stu-
dent Affairs. He emphasized that
student groups will have more
loan attemptto boost securityin
the region, Iran put the Revolution-
ary Guard directly in control of Sis-
tan-Baluchistan province in April.
Its officers typically take the lead in
any operations on Iran's border.
The 11 officers were taken into
custody in Mashkel district, about
seven kilometers (four miles)
from the countries' border in the
southwestern Pakistani province
of Baluchistan, paramilitary offi-
cial Mohammad Naseer Baluch
said.
He said they were arrested soon
after they shot out the tires of a car
driven by "two petty smugglers."
The Oct. 18 suicide attack killed
15 members of the Revolutionary
Guard, including five senior com-
manders, and at least 27 others in
the town of Pishin. Iranian officials
blamed a Sunni rebel group known
as Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, in
the attack.
Iran's president and the guard
chief have since publicly accused
Pakistan's intelligence service of
supporting Jundallah. Last week
Iran's police chief Gen. Esmaeil
Ahmadi Moghadam accused Paki-
stan of"havinga direct responsibil-
ity" for the attack.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zard-
ari met with Iran's interior minister
in Islamabad on Sunday to discuss
the attack.
Afterward, he vowed to cooper-
ate in capturing any attackers and
said those behind the blasts "were
the enemies of both countries."
Pakistani officials Monday said
the arrested Iranians were in two
cars and had no travel documents.
Pakistan and Iran have had
generally good relations in recent
years and in May the two countries
signed a landmark pact for a natu-
ral gas pipeline into Pakistan.
Jundallah has waged a low-level
insurgency in Iran's southeast in
recent years, claiming to fight on
behalf of the Baluchi ethnic minor-
ity, which it says is persecuted by
Iran's government. Iran has also
accused the United States and Brit-
ain of having links with Jundallah,
chargesbothnationa deny.,
Iran's 120,000-member Revolu-
.tionary Guardis its strongest mili-
tary force and is directly linked to
the ruling clerics. It also controls
Iran's missile program and guards
its nuclear facilities.
investigation into potential viola-
tions.
"If the enforcement staff has
developed reasonably reliable
information indicating that an
institution has been in violation
of NCAA legislation that requires
further investigation," the bylaws
read, "the enforcement staff shall
provide a notice of inquiry in
writing to the chancellor or presi-
dent..."
According to the NCAA's web-
site, the enforcement staff is not
obligated to publicly release the
notice of inquiry. Instead, it is up to
the discretion of the school under
investigation to decide if it wants to
release the notice.
In a pair of statements released
yesterday, Coleman and Athletic
Director Bill Martin defended the
program and said the school would
cooperate fully with the NCAA
investigation.
"As I said at the onset of this
review, we place the highest impor-
tance on the well-being of our stu-
dent-athletes and the integrity of
our program," Coleman's statement
read. "We continue to work with the
NCAA to ensure that a thorough and
objective investigation occurs."
In his statement, Martin wrote,
"We continue to cooperate with the
NCAA on this matter, which is why
we reached out to both the Big Ten
and the NCAA as soon as we heard
the allegations. We remain commit-
ted to following both the letter and
the intent of the NCAA rules."
access to use the programs' ropes
courses as means to facilitate team
building and leadership.
"They have the programs, and
we're the laboratory for those
groups to go out together and learn
to work together as a team," Can-
ning said. "That's what we do."
Harper spoke eagerly about
the bright future she thinks Rec
Sports will have as part of Student
Affairs.
She emphasized that students,
who make up a majority of the rec-
reational facilities' clientele, will
continue to bea focus of Rec Sports
and Student Affairs.
"We want to focus on Recreation
succeeding and get some resources
there," she said. "That's what's so
exciting about it because it allows
us really to make progress."
University President Mary Sue Coleman speaks to the Faculty Senate Assembly yesterday in Palmer Commons.
FACULTY
From Page 1
across the country "are trying to
deal with this era of constraining
resources."
However, Coleman stressed that
the University faces many chal-
lenges concerning the budget mov-
ing forward.
"I don't want to tell you that
everything is just rosy, and we
don't have anything to worry about
because that's not true," she said to
the assembly.
She cited the fact that both the
endowment and private giving
were down more than 20 per-
cent last year. State support has
also declined 10 percent over the
last seven years, and the Univer-
sity has reduced spending from its
general fund by more than $135
million within that same time
period.
Over the next three years, Cole-
man said the University will most
likely have to identify an additional
$100 million in savings.
She said this combination of fac-
tors has led the University to be
more "prudent" and "strategic"
in handling the budget in order to
guarantee a sense of stability for
the future.
"To make it better for our suc-
cessors, we want to keep the insti-
FIRE
From Page 1
the Tice Family Partnership for
$700,000. The company also owns
Pizza House, a popular campus
restaurant located less than a
block away.
The building was put back on
the market in 2004 for $1.2 million
but there were no bids on the new
offer, according to city records.
It is unclear why the building
remained unoccupied for such a
long period of time.
Calls to the owners were not
returned as of Monday evening.
The building, which caught fire
just before 11 p.m. Saturday night
and burned for almost an hour
before firefighters could contain
the flames, was left heavily dam-
aged.
The roof of the structure
entirely collapsed during the fire
and the interior is almost com-
pletely gutted.
Chamberlain said it appears the
fire began on a corner of an upper
floor of the building. Once the fire
began, the flames quickly perme-
SUMMIT
From Page 1
ter for Stem Cell Biology, said the
summit's venue in Michigan recog-
nizes the state's advances not only in
the field of stem cell science but also
in its political stance onthe issue.
"Our own state legislature had
been sending the opposite mes-
sage (before Proposal 2) by cre-
ating laws that threatened to put
stem cell biologists in jail for doing
the same things that the state of
California, for example, would pay
millions of dollars for people to
do," Morrison said.
Morrison said the passage of the
constitutional amendment defied
the underlying politics and instead
reflected the strong opinions of the
general public.
"The special interest groups
that opposed (the amendment)
were extraordinarily well funded
and organized and yet people
still, by a clear margin, voted for
(the amendment)," he said. "That
makes an important point that
tution strong because we are about
the infinite horizon," she said. "We
are not about what happens next
quarter or next year, so this is some-
thing we continue to work on."
Coleman cited several cost-cut-
ting measures including forming
new faculty travel policies, offering
more classes in spring and summer
terms, sharing the staff for central-
ized servers and making better use
of buildings.
Coleman said cooperation
among administrators, faculty and
staff will "make a big impact on the
institution" and will help the Uni-
versity deal with budget issues.
"Because the budget problem
isn't just my problem, it's not the
regents' problem, it's everybody's
problem," she said to the assem-
bly, "the challenges are there for
everybody, and so I appreciate cer-
tainly any help that you can give
us as we're thinking about how to
tackle this."
CHANGES TO GRIEVANCE
REVIEW BOARD
After Coleman spoke, Senate
Assembly members discussed
changes to the composition of the
Grievance Review Board - a body
that hears complaints from Uni-
versity faculty against other facul-
ty, staff or administrators and aims
to settle disputes.
ated the building.
A major concern was that the
flames would spread to Univer-
sity Towers, a heavily populated
student housing apartment build-
ing located next door. Though the
building was evacuated during
the fire for safety purposes, only
damage to the complex was a few
broken windows and some smoke
and water damage, according to
University spokeswoman Kelly
Cunningham.
The 600 displaced students
Saturday night were allowed back
into their homes within a few
hours of the fire breaking out.
University Towersmanagement
did not inform residents when the
building was reopened early Sun-
day morning and was unwilling
to answer any questions Sunday
afternoon.
But resident Navya Varshney,
an LSA sophomore, said that the
management had begun to provide
answers on Monday.
A note was posted yesterday
next to the elevators in the build-
ing asking residents to report any
damage caused by the fire to the
front desk.
Currently, the board consists
of three members - two of the
members are from the department
of the faculty member making the
complaint and one is from an out-
side department.
Last January, Provost Teresa
Sullivan asked the Faculty Griev-
ance Process Task Force to imple-
ment standards proposed the
previous year by the Policy Task
Force and create a report. In the
report, one of the proposals that
came from the Policy Task Force
was that all three members hear-
ing the grievance come from out-
side departments.
However, theProcessTaskForce
recommended the board consist of
two members from an externalunit
and one from the original unit.
According to the Faculty Griev-
ance Process Response report,
the Process Task Force believed
a member from the department
of the grievant "would provide
perspective and insight into the
culture of the unit that could be
gained in no other way."
During the meeting, Senate
Assemblymembersdebatedwheth-
er or not to adopt the changes to
the Grievance Review Board. The
provost must approve the changes
before they go into effect.
Members discussed whether
it was fair to have two external
members and one internal member
- arguing that the internal mem-
ber might be biased for or against
the grievant.
Despite these recommenda-
tions, the assembly voted to have
the boards comprise of five mem-
bers, with three members from
an external department and two
members from the department of
the grievant.
The assembly decided both the
faculty member making the com-
plaint and the member who the
complaint was made against could
make separate lists of people they
would like to have as the internal
department member. Each party
would then choose one name from
the other party's list.
Robert Fraser, SACUA vice
chair, said the board drops griev-
ances that aren't considered valid.
"Typically that ends the discus-
sion," Fraser said. "If it's not con-
sidered grievable, it stops there.
There are a very few occasions
when SACUA has pressed upon the
provost that this needs to be recon-
sidered."
However, the new proposal
states that a grievant may appeal
a complaint found not grievable to
SACUA. This is the first time there
has been a proposed process to deal
with grievance appeals.
- Chelsea Lange
contributed to this report.
A firefighter clears charred waste after a fire gutted the old Pinba
on the north side of South University Avenue late Saturday night.
Momo Tea, located on the
other side of the burned build-
ing, has been closed since the fire
due to damage in the kitchen. A
sign on the door states they are
doing reconstruction and will be
open soon.
- Daily News Editor Matt
Aaronson contributed to this report.
resonates nationally."
The proposal passed with 53
percent of the vote.
Dr. Eva Feldman, director of
the A. Alfred Taubman Medical
Research Institute, said the leg-
islative support has allowed the
University of Michigan to form
a consortium for stem cell thera-
pies with a goal of developing
new stem cell lines with embry-
onic and induced pluripotent
stem cells.
Moreover, she said the consor-
tium would form one basis of dis-
cussion at the forthcoming stem
cell summit.
"The summit draws attention to
the fact that, within one year, we
have gone from being perceived
as a university community that
was somewhat behind and almost
'backwards' in the stem cell arena
to a mover and shaker in the stem
cell field," Feldman said.
Feldman, who is also the director
of both the U-M Amyotrophic Lat-
eral Sclerosis (ALS) Clinic and the
Program for Neurology Research
and Discovery, will be one of the
speakers featured at the summit.
Having recently acquired FDA
approval for a phase one human
clinical trial, Feldman will soon use
direct spinal cord transplantation
of stem cells in an effort to treat
Lou Gehrig's disease in 12 patients.
Feldman said she expects to
present these landmark trials at
the summit next year and any pre-
liminary data that may be gleaned
from her first set of patients.
"Being the principal investiga-
tor of the very first stem cell trial of
this kind in Lou Gehrig's disease,
I think it helps show the outside
community that, here at the Uni-
versity of Michigan, we can take
these ideas about stem cells and
actualize them," she said.
Dr. Gerard Doherty, chief of
Endocrine Surgery at the U-M
Medical School, is another Uni-
versity stem cell researcher who
anticipates presenting his work
at the summit. In a recently pub-
lished study by Doherty and his
research team, he used embryonic
stem cells to differentiate into
mature parathyroid cells, which
are important to bone health.
No stranger to legislative bar-
riers in the field, Doherty said his
study was constrained to the use of
one of the 60 stem cell lines made
available during the Bush admin-
istration. President Barack Obama
has since reversed the executive
order limiting federal funding on
stem cell research.
As a consequence of the recent
national and regional advance-
ments in stem cell research advo-
cacy, the 2010 World Stem Cell
summit in Detroit is expected to
garner more attention and scien-
tific collaboration than its prede-
cessor in Baltimore last year.
"There are a lot of scientific
meetings and some of them are
standard that happen every year
and some that sort of grow up
around specific topics, lasting for
a few years before fading away,"
Doherty said. "This one has been
increasing in momentum because
of the international interest in
stem cell biology and the bur-
geoning amount of information
we have."