The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com M y u 5 0 Monday, January 25, 2010 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS AUBURN HILLS, Mich. * New models a big part of Chrysler turnaround plan Chrysler sold more than 118,000 Sebring sedans in 2001. Eight years later, the automaker barely sold 27,000 as its bank- ruptcy filing sent customers fleeing to the car's newer, better competitors. Chrysler now has a turnaround plan that promises improved quality and a stream of new models. But it won't work unless Chrysler can get cars like the Sebring back on people's shopping lists. To do that, Chrysler is going back to the basics: Reinventing its car brands - Chrysler as a luxu- ry line, Dodge as a quirky value brand - and reintroducing them with head-turning ads. It's a tall order, but Chrysler insists it can be done. "We've had troubles. Yeah. We saw death. But the whole world needs to realize we're serious about this plan," Dodge brand chief Ralph Gilles told The Asso- ciated Press in a recent interview. "We're no dummies. We know what a good car is and what a good car isn't." DENVER Man who attempted to open airplane door released A man accused of attempting to I open an airplane's exterior door while in flight has been released after investigators determined it wasn't a terrorism matter, author- ities said yesterday. The incident occurred Saturday on a United Airlines jetliner en route from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas. The plane, which had more than 100 people aboard, was diverted to Denver International Airport. FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright said a passenger tried opening one of the front doors of the airplane and may have tried to open the cockpit door before passengers restrained him. The man wan taken into cuatody, ques- tioned and released for a medical evaluation, she said. Authorities will decide on charges after reviewing the inci- dent, Wright said. WASHINGTON Unemployment rates rose in 43 states last month Unemployment rates rose in 43 states last month, the government said Friday, painting a bleak pic- ture of the job market and illus- trating nationwide data released two weeks ago. The rise in joblessness was a sharp change from November, when 36 states said their unem- ployment rates fell. Four states - South Carolina, Delaware, Florida and North Carolina - reported record-high jobless rates in December. New Jersey's rate, meanwhile, rose to a 33-year high of 10.1 per- cent while New York's reached a 26-year high of 9 percent. Analysts said the report showed the economy is recovering at too weak a pace to generate consistent job creation. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Lashing, prison for * Saudi teen accused of attacking teacher A teenage girl has been sen- tenced to a 90-lash flogging and two months in prison as punish- ment for assaulting a teacher, a Saudi judge said in an interview published yesterday. Human rights group Amnesty International said the assault hap- pened after the girl was caught with a camera phone at school. The teenager's name was not immediately available. She could be spared with a pardon from King Abdullah, said Judge Riyadh al- Meihdib. "The verdict was read out to her at the court and she did not object," al-Meihdib told Al-Watan, a nation- al Saudi daily newspaper. He said the teacher refused to forgive the girl, who will not appeal the case. Camera phones are banned at the school. Al-Watan quoted the school headmaster describing the girl as "about twenty" years old. - Compiled from Daily wire reports Bin Laden claims credit for terrorist plot Authorities say bin Laden endorsed Christmas Day attack for visibility CAIRO (AP) - Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the Unit- ed States in an audio message released yesterday that appeared aimed at asserting he maintains some direct command over al- Qaida-inspired offshoots. However, U.S. officials and sev- eral researchers who track ter- rorist groups said there was no indication bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with or even knew in advance of the Christmas plot by a Yemen- based group that is one of sev- eral largely independent al-Qaida franchises. A U.S. State Department spokesman said al-Qaida's core leadership offers such groups strategic guidance but depends on them to carry it out. "He's trying to continue to appear relevant" by talking up the attempted attack by an affiliate, the spokesman,.P.J. Crowley, said. The one-minute message was explicit in its threat of new attacks. Like the airline plot, bin Laden said they would come in response to America's support for Israel. "God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your sup- port for the Israelis continues," bin Laden said in the recording, which was released to the Al- Jazeera news.channel. "The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmu- tallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11," he said of the Nigerian suspect in the Dec. 25 botched attack. "If our messages had been able to reach you through words we wouldn't have been delivering them through planes." Directing his statements at President Barack Obama - "from Osama to Obama," he said - bin Laden added: "America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine." The message, which White House officials said could not immediately be authenticated, raised again the question of how much of a link exists between al-Qaida's top leadership along the Afghan-Pakistani border and the handful of loosely affiliated groups operating in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Iraq. The al-Qaida leader, who was last heard from in September, seemed intent on showing he remains more than an ideological figurehead, as most analysts have suggested he has become during the terror network's evolution into decentralized offshoots. But some questioned whether al-Qaida's core leadership was involved. "They weren't putting the final touches on this operation," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York- based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants. Still, the Saudi and Yemeni leaders of al-Qaida in the Ara- bian Peninsula, which formed in Yemen a year ago, have a long history of direct personal contact with bin Laden. It is plausible that - if they were able to - they would have informed bin Laden of the airliner plot and sought his approval, Kohlmann said. The Yemen-based group's lead- er, Nasir al-Wahishi, was once bin Laden's personal secretary, and its top military commander, Qassim al-Raimi, trained in bin Laden's main camp in Afghanistan, Kohl-. mann said. Two of the group's top mem- bers were detainees at the Guan- tanamo Bay U.S. military prison who were released in November 2007. The Yemen offshoot is largely self-sustaining, with its own theo- logical figures, bomb makers and a network for funneling in recruits. "The training and the definition of the attack was by the local lead- ers of al-Qaida in the Arabian Pen- insula," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror." "So, in many ways you can say bin Laden is exploiting for his benefit this particular attack. Bin Laden still wants to claim lead- ership for the global jihad move- ment." U.S. investigators say the Nigerian suspect in the Dec. 25 attempted bombing told them he had been trained in Yemen and given the explosives there by al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Abdulmutallab is accused of attempting to blow up the plane with an explosive powder hidden in his underwear as the aircraft approached Detroit Metro Air- port. The device failed to deto- nate. Bin Laden's message came four weeks after the Yemen- based group made its own claim of responsibility for the bomb plot with a differeut justification - linking it to Yemeni military attacks on al-Qaida targets with the help of U.S. intelligence. There was no way to verify the voice on the audio message was actually bin Laden's, but it resem- bled previous recordings attribut- ed to him. U.S.-based IntelCenter, which monitors militant messag- es, said the manner of the record- ing's release, its content and other factors indicated it was credible. Whit e House adviser David Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" that whatever the source, the message "contains the same hollow justification for the mass slaughter of innocents." On Friday, Britain raised its terror threat alert to the sec- ond-highest level, one of several recent steps the country has taken to increase vigilance after the Christmas Day bombing attempt. The online edition of Britain's The Sunday Times reported that the heightened alert was prompted in part by an Islamic terrorist plot to hijack an Indian passenger jet and crash it into a British city. WANT TO WRITE FOR DAILY NEWS? E-mail berman@ michigandaily.com to get started. ,The Princeton Review MCAT 10 Point - Avg Score Increase 12 Point -Top Quarter increase 105 hours live instruction 5 expert instructors MCAT COURSES START AS SOON AS FEB 71 8OO-2Rsview Prncw ysn.nor Comr o f5,. Univesity &S.Forst RODRIGO ABD/AP A woman carries fruit as she walks through Port-au-Prince. Haiti's capital city was devastated by a Jan. 12 earthquake. At least 150,000 dead after Haiti quake, government says --U,0 Tho in mc nun PORT (AP) -' mass grt ever hig 150,000 buried b cial said That under tf relatives quake zo "Nobo bodies a 200,000 the over official, { Marie-L Deali while, at was getti hands, b short. "V quicker," usands buried Program chief Josette Sheeran, visiting Port-au-Prince. ass graves, total In the Cite Soleil slum, U.S. sol- diers and Brazilian U.N. peace- mber dead still keeping troops distributed food. unknown Lunie Marcelin, 57, said the hand- outs will help her and six grown children "but it is not enough. We -AU-PRINCE, Haiti need more." the truckers filling Haiti's Yet another aftershock, one of aves with bodies reported more than 50 since the great quake her numbers: More than Jan. 12, shook Port-au-Prince on quake victims have been Sunday, registering 4.7 magnitude, y the government, an offi- the U.S. Geological Survey said. yesterday. There were no immediate reports doesn't count those still of further damage. he debris, carried off by The Haitian government was or killed in the outlying urging many of the estimated ne. 600,000 homeless huddled in open dy knows how many areas of Port-au-Prince, a city of re buried in the rubble - 2 million, to look for better shel- ? 300,000? Who knows ter with relatives or others in the 'all death toll?" said the countryside. Some 200,000 were Communications Minister believed already to have done so, aurence Jocelyn Lassegue. most taking advantage of free gov- ng with the living, mean- ernment transportation, and oth- global army of aid workers ers formed a steady stream out of ng more food into people's the city yesterday. rut acknowledged falling International experts searched Ve wish we could do more, for sites to erect tent cities for said U.N. World Food quake refugees on the capital's outskirts,butsuch short-termsolu- tions were still weeks away, said the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency. "We also need tents. There is a shortage of tents," said Vincent Houver, the Geneva-based agen- cy's chief of mission in Haiti. Their Port-au-Prince warehouse has 10,000 family-size tents, but some 100,000 are needed, he said. The organization has appealed for $30 million for that and other needs, and has received two-thirds of that so far. In the aftermath of the 7.0-mag- nitude earthquake, the casualty estimates have been necessarily tentative. Lassegue told The Asso- ciated Press the government's fig- ure of 150,000 buried, from the capital area alone, was reported by CNE, a state company collecting corpses and burying them north of Port-au-Prince. That number would tend to con- firm an overall estimate of 200,000 dead reported last week by the European Commission, citing Hai- tian government sources. . Financial aid is available to assist U-M students participating in U-M study abroad programs. If you will enroll in a study abroad program sponsored by another institution/agency, contact the Office of Financial Aid immediately to review your options.