The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, December 4, 2009 - 3 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, December 4, 2DD9 - 3 NEWSBRIEFS MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. Man's false 911 call fails to divert police during high speed car chase A Macomb County man is jailed after police say he tried to divert them by calling 911 to report a non- existent crime while being chased in a stolen truck. Sheriff Mark Hackel says 26-year-old Jesse Eden of Shelby Township is being held on $100,000 bond after his arraignment yester- day on charges including filing a false police report and possession of stolen property. Hackel says a deputy tried to stop Eden after he allegedly stole a bottle of liquor Monday from a store in Washington Township, about 30 miles north of Detroit. The sheriff says Eden drove off and called 911 to falsely report an armed robbery and shooting. Hackel says the chase ended in Troy in Oakland County when the truck hit another vehicle and over- turned. No serious injuries were reported. MEDFORD, Ore. Tree hunters stranded in snow Keith and Jennifer Lee were driving home on a remote moun- tain road, their prized Christ- mas tree strapped to the roof of their all-wheel-drive, when they rounded a backcountry corner and found themselves suddenly mired in snow. Out of cell phone range, and unaware a search was under way, the couple spentthree days and two cold nights before Keith Lee finally freed the Subaru and drove home, the tree still tied on top. They soon heard radio news reports about a search that had begun Wednesday with ahelicopter, Sno-Cats and ATVs. They called 9i, then phoned a close friend who was taking care of their four children. "I screamed, 'They're safe, they're coming home,"' said the friend, Sophie Smith. "Everybody just fell and cried." Just like thousands of Orego- nians each year, the Lees bought a Christmas tree permit from their local national forest office and headed out Tuesday morning to find the perfect tree - a silver-tip fir that only grows at high eleva- tion, just like the one they got a year ago. SAN DIEGO, Calif. Border agents seize $1.6M in counterfeit toys Officials have seized thousands of counterfeit toys worth $1.6 mil- lion alongsouthern Californiabor- dec points. U.S. Customs and Border Pro- tection says the toys included more than 2,500 knockoff Barbie dolls, worth $58,500, that were contained in boxes shipped to San Diego in October and November. At the Otay Mesa border point, agents seized 3,100 battery-oper- ated toy vehicles bearing fake "Jeep" labels in October. The manufacturer of the toy vehicles, which were designed for kids to drive, did not have permis- sion to use the Jeep trademark. SYDNEY, Australia. Australian man dives into jellyfish A man dove face-first into an extremely venomous, peanut-sized jellyfish in waters off northeast Australia and medics flew him to a hospital intensive care unit to treat the potentially fatal sting, officials said Friday. The 29-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was on a yacht yesterday off northeast Queensland state. As a precaution, he waswearingafull-length "sting- er suit," a lightweight version of a wetsuit that covers everything but the face, feet and hands and helps protect against venomous jellyfish that are common in northern Aus- tralia's waters during the Southern Hemisphere summer. But when he dove into the water near South Molle Island, he was immediately stung in the face by a potentially lethal Irukandji jelly- fish, Central Queensland Helicop- ter Rescue Service spokeswoman Leonie Hansen said. He was taken back to the island, where a rescue team rushed to his aid. - Compiled from Daily wire reports At NATO talks, Clinton praises allies Se Ob BRU of Stat arrivin ters, w of ann of add financ in Afgl Clin meetin minist of non troops She so Obama which contril the cor civilias develo Gen Ameri stan, a of NA to exp missio revise over c descril agains in its deteri Allif able t idea of ticular politic to be st alignm cretary of state new commitments, Clinton said. Clinton made the comments in aimed to sell an interview with reporters travel- ingwith her from Washington. She )ama's changing departed the U.S. capital yesterday shortly after testifying before the war strategy Senate Foreign Relations Com- mittee, where she joined Defense JSSELS (AP)--U.S. Secretary Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. te Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mike Mullen, chairmanofthe Joint ig today at NATO headquar- Chiefs of Staff, in defending the velcomed an expected series president's decision to send 30,000 ouncements by allied nations more troops to Afghanistan. itional military, civilian and Clinton told reporters she was ial support for the war effort pleased that allies have responded hanistan. positively to the Obama plan. ton was attending a string of "We are encouraged that they tgs here with allied foreign aregoingto-beginning(today)but ers and with representatives not ending (today) - have a num- i-NATO countries that have ber of public announcements about in Afghanistan, plus Russia. additional troop commitments and ught to sell President Barack additional civilian assistance and a's revamped war strategy, development aid, as well," she said banks on major new allied without naming any countries. butions, not just to escalate She said she had discussed the mbat effortbut also to bolster matter with her counterparts from n functions and provide more 20 to 25 countries over the past pment aid. week. ..StanleyMcChrystal, thetop NATO Secretary-General can commander in Afghani- Anders Fogh Rasmussen said iso was to attend the meeting Wednesday that the allies will con- TO's main political council tribute at least 5,000 more troops 'lain the 43-nation military to the war effort "and probably a n, which he has sought to few thousand more." and reinforce since he took The U.S. now has about 71,000 ommand last June. He has troops in Afghanistan, while 42 bed conditions in the fight other NATO andnon-NATO nations t Taliban extremists - now have a total of 38,000 troops there. ninth year -- as serious and They are fighting a far smaller col- trating. lection of Taliban militants who ed governments need to be enjoy a haven across the border in o sell their publics on the Pakistan. enlarging the war, and par- European countries have been 'ly those countries in which reluctant to add large numbers of al parties share power have soldiers to a war that often looks ure "the political stars are in unwinnable and to support an rent" before they announce Afghan government tainted by cor- MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reviews a document with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during a visit to.NATO headquarters yesterday. ruption and election fraud. Some leaders are waiting for an interna- tional conference on Afghanistan in London in late January before promising any more troops. Asked about the criticism that has focused on Obama's decision to announce a date in 2011 to begin the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, Clinton said that it has been misunderstood by some and that others were simply seek- ing to create a controversy. "There have been some mis- understandings about what that date meant," she said, referring to Obama's announcement that begin- ning in July 2011, the U.S. troop contingent would begin to be with- drawn. The administration has said the pace and scale of the withdraw- alwillbedetermined afterafurther assessment of conditions on the ground, starting with an adminis- tration review in December 2010. "Some people seized on that, for whatever reason or lack of under- standing, as a way to try to create a difference where I'm not sure there is one," Clinton said. She also took a gentle stab at the Bush administration's approach to running the war. She said Afghani- stan's defense chiefhad,toldherlast month that for the first time he felt like a full participant in the NATO military structure, as a result of changes made by McChrystal, who was appointed to the top command by Obama several months after he took office. Referring to the more limited Afghan participationbefore McChrystal's arrival, she said, "That's a little bit discouraging, when one looks back." Karzai supports troop withdrawal deadline for US Afghan president calls for direct talks with Taliban's leader KABUL (AP)-PresidentHamid Karzai put a brave face yesterday on President Barack Obama's deci- sion to start pulling out troops in mid-2011, telling The Associated Press in his first public response that it will push Afghans to take control of their own destiny. But he blamed the United States for stalling peace overtures in the past and offered to talk directly with the Taliban's top leader. Karzai appeared relaxed and confidentthroughoutthe exclusive AP interview - the Afghan presi- dent's first remarks since Obama's announcement Tuesday that he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall with the anticipation that they would start coming home in July 2011. Karzai said the deadline, just 18 months away, is "not a concern for us - it is rather an impetus." "For Afghans it's good that we are facing a deadline," he said. "We must begin to stand on our own feet. Even if it is with our own meager means - whatever those means may be. And we must begin to defend our own country. "If we, the Afghan people, can- not defend our country, ourselves, against an aggressor from within or without, then no matter what the rest of the world does with us, it will nowt produce the desired results," he said during the one- hour interview at the turreted brick palace in the heavily guarded heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Republicans have objected to the setting of a hard deadline for withdrawing troops for fear it would encourage the Taliban to play a waiting game and say Obama must be willing to delay the start of a pullout if security deteriorates.. But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates told U.S. lawmakers yesterday that the July 2011 date is flexible. Employers cut 130, 000 jobs in November - 70,000 fewer than in October. Forecasters estimate,however, that the unem- ployment rate will remain at a 26-year high rate of 10.2 percent. Unemployment levels drop but expected to remain high in 2010 Economy predicted to make steady but slow recovery WASHINGTON (AP) - New unemployment claims have fallen for a fifth straight week, boosting expectations that the economy shed fewer jobs in November and remains on a path to recovery. That optimism was tempered, though, by signs yesterday that the rebound will be slower and bumpier than those that followed previous recessions. Both retail sales and activity in the service sector unexpectedly shrank last month as consumers remained anxious about their jobs and hesi- tant to spend. The surprise dip in the service sector was worrisome, because this area accounts for nearly 80 percent of the nation's economic activity. It includes such diverse industries as health care, retail, financial services and transpor- tation. Productivity gains in the third quarter also showed that employ- ers are managingto squeeze more work out of fewer workers. That's a potentially ominous sign for the nearly 16 million unemployed Americans. Nigel Gault, chief U.S. econo- mist at IHS Global Insight, said the reports depicted an economy growing but only sluggishly. "We have got a recovery, but it is going to remain pretty slow and well below what you would normally see coming out of this deep of a recession," Gault said. Most worrisome for the econ- omy, perhaps, is that consumers - who drive 70 percent of the economy - continue to limit their spending. The latest evidence was the miserable November the nation's big chain retail stores reported yesterday. After posting two monthly gains after more than a year of declines, the stores said sales dipped last month - a criti- cal decline because it meant the holiday shopping season got off to a lackluster start. The more positive news yester- day was the Labor Department's report that the number of newly laid-off workers filing for unem- ployment benefits fell for a fifth consecutive week. It dropped to a seasonally -'adjusted 457,000 last week. That's the lowest total since the week of Sept. 6, 2008. The government is expected to report today that employers shed 130,000 jobs in Novem- ber, fewer than the 190,000 jobs lost in October. But forecasters think the unemployment rate will remain at 10.2 percent, a 26-year high. PresidentBarackObamakicked off a White House jobs forum yesterday, saying he was "open to every demonstrably good idea" to reverse the rising tide of job loss- es. But with limited government resources, the private sector ulti- mately will have to lead. "We have to be surgical, and we're going to have to be cre- ative," Obama said. Companies have been laying off fewer workers. But they have yet to ramp up hiring, and the jobless rate is expected to keep climbing, probably hitting 10.5 percent or higher by the middle of next year. The government's productiv- ity report said output per hour of work shot up at an annual rate of 8.1 percent in the July-September period. It was the sharpest quar- terly increase in six years. For now, that means companies can get by without hiring more workers. The question is how long they can do so. Nigel Gault, an econo- mist at IHS.Global Insight, said companies are reaching the lim- its of their ability to boost output with scaled-down work forces. Gault expects employers to begin rehiring in coming months to meet customer demand. That would help sustain the recovery, because it would bolster incomes and encourage more consumers to spend. Many analysts say the economy should begin seeing net job growth sometime early next year. For now, shoppers are being held back not only by job anxi- ety but by low wages. Over the 12 months that ended in October, wages and salaries - the most vital component of incomes - fell 2.9 percent, the Commerce Department said last week. Partly because of that, Gault forecast that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domes- tic product, will limp along at subpar rates of about 2.5 percent through mid-2010. High unem- ployment, which has depressed wages and consumers' ability to spend, will continue to restrain the economy, he said. On Wall Street, a late-day slide pulled stocks lower ahead of the jobs report today. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 86.53, or 0.8 percent. Other stock averages also dropped. All Day Fish Fry Platter for $6.99 ' - 7e ; ( , 10-CL Domestic Bottles Start At $1 310 Maynard St.-Food To Go 734.995.0100-Next to the Maynard Parking Structure A,.-,I