The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, November 16, 2009 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
. DETROIT
Stimulus brings few
private-sector jobs
The federal stimulus funding
that has reached Michigan so far
has created few private-sector jobs
and some recipients of the cash
have overstated the number of jobs
created or protected, an analysis by
the Detroit Free Press shows.
The newspaper's examination
of the more than 1,800 awards to
agencies, departments, municipali-
ties and firms in Michigan under
the stimulus act found the biggest
impact was spurring or protecting
public-sector or summer jobs - not
private-sector jobs.
At first glance, the impact of the
federal stimulus act thus far looks
like good news for Michigan, which
in September had the nation's high-
est unemployment rate at 15.3 per-
cent.
Officials said that by Sept. 30,
some 22,500 jobs had been cre-
ated or saved in roughly the seven
months since Congress passed the
stimulus plan.
Michigan was promised $5.2 bil-
lion in stimulus money, $.2 billion
of which had arrived.
Close inspection reveals flaws
in the claims and raises doubts
about the mammoth spending bill's
impact to date. The Free Press'
analysis revealed that some stimu-
lus money recipients have greatly
overstated the number of jobs cre-
ated or protected.
PESHWAR, Pakistan
Militants attack two
anti-Taliban figures
Militants staged a pair of attacks
against anti-Taliban figures in
northwestern Pakistan yesterday,
killing one of the men as part of an
escalating campaign to weaken the
country's resolve to fight Islamic
extremism.
Suspected militants have killed
more than 300 civilians and secu-
rity personnel in the last month in
retaliation for an army offensive
launched in the tribal area of South
Waziristan, where al-Qaida and
Taliban leaders are believed to be
hiding.
The government has supple-
mented its military campaigns by
helping tribal leaders and local
government officials set up militias
to battle the Taliban. The militias,
known as lashkars, have been com-
pared to Iraq's Awakening Coun-
cils, which helped U.S. forces turn
the tide against al-Qaida there.
As in Iraq, militants in Pakistan
have targeted the leaders of such _
groups.
" WASHINGTON
Dems, GOP split on
New York trials of
alleged terrorists
Bringing those accused in the
Sept. 11 attacks to New York for
trial wquld increase the security
threat to the city and give radical
Islamists a platform to propagate
their ideology, former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani said yester-
day.
Giuliani's view that the Obama
administration is erring in trying
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and
four others near the site of the
World Trade Center was echoed by
other Republicans on the Sunday
news programs.
Democrats defended the deci-
sion of Attorney General Eric
Holder to try the five in New York
where more than 2,000 civilians
were killed on Sept. 11. If someone
murders Americans in this country,
they should be tried in the U.S., said
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chair-
man of the Senate Judiciary Com-
mittee.
FLINT, Mich.
Michigan residents
may see lower
heating, gas costs
The Michigan Public Service
Commission says Michigan resi-
dents could be in store for a cost-
efficient winter.
The Flint Journal says the com-
mission estimates that home heat-
ing costs will decline by as much as
16 percent compared with last year
due to a mild winter forecast and
adequate supply.
The panel says last winter was
4.8 percent colder than normal and
a return to normal temperatures
could reduce monthly heating bills
by tens of dollars.
The outlook for motorists
appears equally favorable.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
President
takes first
China visit
An aerial view of the maximum-security Thomson Correctional Facility in Thomson, III. on Saturday.
Oficials diOscuss plans to
relocate Git-mo inmates
Facility 150 miles
west of Chicago the
primary location
of interest
CHICAGO (AP) - Gov. Pat
Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin
yesterday tried to build support
and counter criticism of a proposal
to sell a prison in rural northwest-
ern Illinois to the federal govern-
ment to house Guantanamo Bay
detainees and other inmates.
Federal officials are expected to
visitthe maximumsecurity Thom-
son Correctional Center, about 150
miles west of Chicago, today.
Both Quinn and Durbin said
the possibility of selling the prison
to the federal government was a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
help create about 3,000 jobs, both
at the prison and directly in sur-
rounding communities in an area
where unemployment has topped
10 percent.
"We have an opportunity to
bring thousands of good-paying
jobs to Illinois when we need them
the most," Durbin said at a news
conference in Chicago, one of sev-
eral Illinois stops yesterday. "We
have an opportunity to bring them
to a part of our state that has been
struggling and that's an opportu-
nity we are not going to miss."
Critics, including Republican
members of Congress from Illinois
and GOP candidates for governor,
have been quick to condemn the
prospect of the sale because of
safety concerns.
GOP gubernatorial candidate
Andy McKenna said Quinn's plan
to cut spending and create jobs
includes bringing "terrorists to
Illinois."
"I wholeheartedly oppose
Governor Quinn and President
Obama's efforts to move Gitmo
detainees to our neighborhoods,"
McKenna said in a statement.
The plan to consider using the
Thomson facility was first report-
ed by the Chicago Tribune.
Thomson has been largely
vacant since its construction in
2001 because of budget problems.
The prison was built with 1,600
cells, but only about 200 minimum
security inmates are held there.
Durbin brushed off security
concerns, saying convicted ter-
rorists are already incarcerated in
federal prisons without incident.
He said fewer than 100 of the
inmates at Thomson would be
Guantanamo Bay detainees if the
Federal Bureau of Prisons buys
the facility. Federal officials would
even erect a more secure perim-
eter around the prison to beef up
security, he added.
"We're here today to let the peo-
ple know we're not going to let the
fearmongers carry the day," Quinn
said. "We're going to do things
right, the Illinois way."
President Barack Obama's
administration wants to close
Guantanamo Bay, a military run
detention center in Cuba, and
move the detainees to the U.S.
so they can be prosecuted for their
suspected crimes.
The detainees are alleged ter-
rorism suspects who have been
held often without charges since
the beginning of the war in
Afghanistan.
Local and state officials will be
at Thomson today for an inspec-
tion by the Federal Bureau of Pris-
ons and Department of Defense
representatives.
U.S. Rep. Donald Manzullo,
a Republican whose district
includes Thomson Correctional
Center, was invited to today's
meeting with federal officials at
the prison but he did not plan to
attend, his spokesman Rich Carter
said Sunday.
Manzullo said he adamantly
opposes the proposal, despite the
jobs it would bring to the area.
Federal officials were consider-
ing Thomson along with a facility
in Florence, Colorado and a site in
Hardin, Montana.
Some 215 detainees remain at
Guantanamo Bay, and Durbin says
the administration has talked to
other countries about taking some
of them.
Durbin said he didn't know
when the Obama administration
would decide, but hoped Illi-
nois would have an advantage
because of Obama's connection
to the state.
In Shanghai, Obama
to hold talks with
local politicians today
SHANGHAI (AP) - President
Barack Obama is walking a tight-
rope on his first trip to China,
seeking to enlist help in tackling
urgent global problems while
weighing when and how - or if -
he should raise traditional human
rights concerns.
Obama arrived in Shanghai late
at night, in a driving rain, hustling
through a phalanx of umbrella-
holding dignitaries to reach his
limousine. Today, the president
is holding talks with local politi-
cians and, in one of the marquee
events of his weeklong Asian trip,
conducting an American-style
townhall discussionwith Chinese
university students.
Thirty years after the start of
diplomatic relations between the
two countries, the ties are grow-
ing - but remain mixed on virtu-
ally every front.
The two nations are partnering
more than ever on battling global
warming,buttheystill differ deep-
ly over hard targets for reductions
in the greenhouse-gas emissions
that cause it: China has supported
sterner sanctions to halt North
Korea's nuclear weapons program,
but it still balks at getting more
aggressive about reining in Iran's
uranium enrichment.
China is a huge and lucrative
market for American goods and
services, and yet it has a giant.
trade surplus with the U.S. that,
like a raft of other economic
issues, is a bone of contention
between the two governments.
The two militaries have increased
their contacts, but clashes still
happen and the U.S. remains wor-
ried about a dramatic buildup in
what is already the largest stand-
ing army in the world.
Amid all that, Obama has
adopted a pragmatic approach
that stresses the positive, some-
times earning °him criticism for
being too soft on Beijing, particu-
larly in the area of human rights
abuses and what the U.S. regards
as an undervalued Chinese cur-
rency that disadvantages U.S.
products.
Obama recognizes that a rising
China, as the world's third-largest
economy on the way to becoming
the second and the largest foreign
holder of U.S. debt, has shifted
the dynamic more toward one
of equals. For instance, Chinese
questions about how Washington
spending policies will affect the
already soaring U.S. deficit and the
safety of Chinese investments now
must be answered by Washington.
Second, Obama wants not to
anger Beijing, but to encourage it
to pair its growing economic and
political clout with greater lead-
ership in solving some of the most
urgent global problems, includ-
ing a sagging economy, warming
planet and the spread of danger-
ous weapons.
Obama has talked warmly
toward China, particularly in the
days leading up to his visit.
"The United States does not
seek to contain China," Obama
said in a speech from Tokyo on
Saturday. "On the contrary, the
rise of a strong, prosperous China
can be a source of strength for the
community of nations."
One test of the line Obama is
walking on China will be human
rights, including religious free-
dominthe officially atheistnation.
Aides said in advance that Obama
would raise several human rights
issues privately with Chinese
leaders, including President Hu
Jintao.
But it was unlikely he would
repeat those messages too stri-
dently in public, out of concern for
angering his hosts. Even before
arriving in China, for example,
he declined to get specific about
human rights concerns with
China in his Tokyo speech and
eschewed the traditional presi-
dential meeting with the Dalai
Lama while he was in Washing-
ton in June.
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