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 Pro .1 TEH thousas ing "D( burnin leader, than a in the protest Riot Basij m cycles f oughfai with cl tors hui protest cans ab "Dea er it's t student witness parison Ayatoll, pro-U.S since h Islamic . The univers force o tion - govern mainsti struggl dent M Iran's c Insid Tehran out bet line stu ment.I 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 nd nd ion ters aile ney ing sts dy Obama sending U.S. envoy to North Korea Tuesdays Are South Of The Border IooaSol/Nodellalfacif ice Specials All Night £.,aw Pee ftcaa& $2.50 Tequil Sunrise & Vodka Drinks 25%Off Mexican Fare All With NO COVER 310 Maynard St. - To Go Orders 734.995,0100 -Next to the Maynard Parking Strscture 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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