The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
. LANSING
MDOT warns
money running out
for Michigan roads
Michigan officials are delay-
ing future road projects because of
dwindling revenue.
The Michigan Department of
Transportation says in a recent
report that lack of money has forced
it to consider dropping more than
100 road projects and a similar num-
ber of bridge projects off the drawing
board from 2010 through 2014.
The state could lose hundreds of
millions in federal highway dollars
each of te next five years because
it can't raise enough to receive all its
matching funds.
It could go from spending more
than $1.4 billion annually on high-
ways this year with the help of fed-
eral stimulus money to less than
$600 million three out of the next
four years, costing thousands of
highway jobs.
WASHINGTON
EPA: Climate-
changing gases
endanger health
The Obama administration took a
major step yesterday toward impos-
ingthefirstfederal limits onclimate-
changing pollution from cars, power
plants and factories, declaring there
was compelling scientific evidence
that global warming from manmade
greenhouse gases endangers Ameri-
cans'health.
The announcement by the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency was
clearly timed to build momentum
toward an agreement at the interna-
tional conference on climate change
that opened yesterday in Copenha-
gen, Denmark.Itsignaled the admin-
istration was prepared to push ahead
for significant controls in the U.S. if
Congress doesn'tactfirst on its own.
The EPA finding clears the way for
rules that eventually could force the
sale of more fuel-efficient vehicles
and require plants to install costly
new equipment or shift to other
forms of energy.
WASHINGTON
Abortion is Senate's
obstacle in passage
ofhealth care bill
The divisive issue of abortion
emerged yesterday as an obstacle to
Senate passage of President Barack
Obama's health care overhaul as a
moderate Democrat proposed tough
restrictions that liberals said they
could not possibly accept.
The amendment by Sen. Ben Nel-
son, D-Neb., would bar any private
insurance company from offer-
ing plans to cover abortion if they
receive federal subsidies. In prac-
tice, the restriction would apply to
most plans within a proposed new
insurance marketplace, or exchange,
since most people shopping in the
exchange would be using federal
subsidies to purchase coverage.
The amendment also would block
a proposed new government insur-
ance plan from covering abortions
except in cases of rape, incest or dan-
ger to the mother's life.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.
Mullen expects
casualtes to rise in
Mghanistan
The nation's highest-ranking mili-
tary officer told soldiers and Marines
Monday that the insurgency in
Afghanistan has grown in the last
three years and he expects casualties
to rise next year as additional U.S.
troops pour into the war.
"This is the most dangerous time
I've seen growing up the last four
decades in uniform," Adm. Mike
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, told about 1,000
Marines at Camp Lejeune.
Many attending Mullen's talks
at Camp Lejeune and Fort Camp-
bell, Ky., will be sent to Afghanistan
in President Barack Obama's plan
announced last week.
After the first of the year, the
Marines will begin sending an
additional 6,200 from Lejeune and
Camp Pendleton, Calif., the Penta-
gon announced Monday. The Army
will also begin sending in the first of
its forces in the spring - a training
brigade with about 3,400 soldiers
from Fort Drum, N.Y. Three bri-
gades from Fort Campbell's 101st
Airborne Division are also heading
to Afghanistan and about 4.100 sup-
port forces from various places will
deployearly.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Iran students protest leader
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The As
wearin
tests echo riots pposition's signature color
had blood streaming down his
1979 I nian face after a beating. In another, a
young woman, overcome by tear
Revolution gas, slumped to the ground, as two .
other students tried to help her.
[RAN, Iran (AP) - Tens of Journalists working for foreign
nds of students, many shout- media organizations, including the
eath to the Dictator!" and AP, have been banned from covering
g pictures of Iran's supreme opposition protests, including yes-
took to the streets on more terday's demonstrations.
dozen campuses yesterday A fierce government crackdown
biggest anti-government crushed gigantic protests -by hun-
s in months. dreds of thousands that erupted
police and pro-government immediately after June's disputed
ilitiamen on fleets of motor- presidential elections, which the
looded Tehran's main thor- opposition says Ahmadinejad
res,beatingmen and women won by fraud. The wave of arrests
ubs as crowds of demonstra- swept up not only protesters but
rled bricks and stones. Some also many pro-reform politicians
ers set tires and garbage and activistsideeply damaging the
laze. movement.
th to the oppressor, wheth- Since the summer, the opposi-
he shah or the leader!" the tion has been able to hold only
s chanted, according to about one protest a month, all far
ses - making a daring com- smaller than the ones in June and
between Supreme Leader July.
ah Ali Khamenei and the Yesterday's mass mobilization AP Pt
. shah, despised inIran was unlikely to mean a new wave An anti-governwent Iranian student wears a scarf to oppose the clerical leadership at a protest yesterday at the Tehran Uni-
is overthrow in the 1979 of more frequent protests - activ- versity Campus in Tehran, Iran.
Revolution. ists say escalation remains diffi- University beginning at dawn, fear of retaliation. As riot police fired tear gas, m
protests reflected how cult under the crackdown. But the vowing to prevent any unrest from Authorities also slowed Internet tiamenchargedcthecrowds,beati
ity students - the driving large turnout showed that even spilling out into the streets. connectionsto acrawlinthe capital people on the head and back, w
f the 1979 Islamic Revolu- months of intense arrests and They sought to seal off the to stifle activists' communications. nesses said. The youths regroup
have revitalized the anti- intimidation have failed to stamp campus from the outside world, Still, large crowds massed in oii street corners, where they
ment movement even as out the movement. draping the university fence with the streets outside the university tires and garbage on fire and pelt
ream opposition politicians Opposition leader Mir Hos- banners and signs bearing slogans in support of the students, chant- the militiamen with stones a
e to dent the power of Presi- sein Mousavi declared the clerical from Khamenei to hide what took ing "death to the dictator!" and bricks, according to witnesses a
ahmoud Ahmadinejad and establishment was losing legitima- place inside. . taunting the - plainclothes Basij footage posted by the oppositi
lerical leadership. cy in the eyes of Iranians. Cell phone networks were shut militiamen. on the Internet.
le the walled campus of "A great nation would not stay down, and police and members Footage posted on YouTube Witnesses said many protest(
University, fistfights broke silentwhensomeconfiscateitsvote," of the elite Revolutionary Guard showed some protesters burning were arrested on yesterday, wh
ween protesters and hard- said Mousavi, who claims to be the surrounded entrances, checking pictures of Khamenei - breaking the semiofficial Fars news agen
idents loyal to the govern- real winner of the June 12 election. IDs to prevent oppositioan activ- a major taboo against insulting cited a judiciary statement sayi
In one photo obtained by Thousands of riot police, Revo- ists from entering, said witnesses. the supreme leader, who stands an unspecified number of arre
ssociated Press, a student lutionary Guard forces and Basij. They, like all those who spoke to at the pinnacle of Iran's clerical took. place and those in custo
g a green headband - the militiamen surrounded Tehran the AP, requested anonymity for leadership. were being interrogated.
ili-
ing
'it-
ped
set
ted
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ion
ters
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Obama sending U.S.
envoy to North Korea
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U.S. to ask about
whether officials
will return to
disarmament talks
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
After a year of tensions, President.
Barack Obama is sending a veteran-
diplomat to North Korea today for
the highest-profile talks between
Pyongyang and Washington since
he took office pledging to reach out
to America's adversaries.
A key quetion is whether Ste-
phen Bosworth can extract a firm
commitment from Pyongyang to
rejoin nuclear disarmament talks
- whether North Korea is seri-
ous, this time, about peace on the
peninsula.
Bosworth was .scheduled to
fly from a U.S. military base near
Seoul to the North Korean capi-
tal today to see if the North will
return to the international disar-
mament talks that it abandoned
earlier this year.
- Neither side has said which
North Korean officials Bosworth
will meet in Pyongyang during
his three-day trip, though he is
widely expected to sit down with
Kang Sok Ju, the first vice foreign
minister, who is considered the
chief foreign policy strategist for
reclusive leader Kim JongIl.
"The main question is whether
Bosworth will meet with Chair-
man Kim JongT," said Kim Yong-
hyun, a professor of North Korean
studies at Seoul's Dongguk Uni-
versity. "Such a meeting would
demonstrate that both the U.S.
and North Korea intend to resolve
the nuclear issue."
State Departoient spokesman
Ian Kelly told reporters yesterday
that Bosworth is seeking a meet-
ing with "appropriate officials,"
but not with Kim Jong I.
I The State Department has said
that the U.S. envoy has a narrow
mission - to find out whether the
North would return to the stalled
disarmament talks - and would be
carrying no inducements meant to
lure the North back to the negotiat-
ing table.While Chinese and North*
Korean officials have suggested
that Pyongyang might be willing
to return, U.S. officials maintained
that Bosworth did not know what
the North would decide.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton told reporters yesterday
that she hoped Bosworth would
be successful in persuading the
North Koreans to return to the
nuclear talks and that the North
would work for "a new set of rela-
tionships with us and with our
partners."
This week's talks - the first
direct U.S.-North Korean talks
since Obama took office in Janu-
ary.- come after a year of threat-
ening rhetoric and rising tensions
on the Korean peninsula.
The two Koreas remain in a
state of war, their border guard-
ed. by hundreds of thousands of
troops, because their three-year
conflict ended in a truce, not a
peace treaty,in 1953.
While democratic South Korea
strives to become a global player
and has the world's 15th larg-
est economy, communist North
Korea has retreated into isolation,
with dwindling sources of aid in
the post-Soviet era and few trad-
ingpartners.
]'yongyang says it needs nucle-
ar bombs to counter the strong
U.S. military presence in South
Korea. The impoverished country
has also used the atomic threat to
finagle aid and other concessions
from regional powers wary of the
unpredictable neighbor.
]Fifteen years ago, Kang, the
chief strategist, himself negoti-
ated an agreement with Washing-
ton in 1994 to freeze Pyon'gyang's
nuclear facilities in return for two
light-water reactors safer for pro-
ducing electricity.
That pact fell apart in 2002 after
then-Assistant U.S. Secretary of
State James Kelly said the North
Koreansadmittedtohavirtgasecret
uranium enrichment program.
The North denied the charge.
Then, it withdrew from the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
and restarted its nuclear facilities,
touching off an atomic crisis that
led to the creation of broader, six-
nation disarmament talks.
The six-nation talks - hosted by
China and involving both Koreas,
Japan, Russia and the U.S. - yield-
ed a 2005 deal calling on North
Korea to abandon its nuclear pro-
gram in exchange for aid and the
other secuity guarantees.
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