The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, October 7, 2010 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, October 7, 2010 - 3A
NEWS IRIEFS
0 LANSING
Bernero, state
officials want freeze
on foreclosures
Two congressional members and
gubernatorial candidate Virg Ber-
nero say Michigan should be added
to the list of states where mortgage
companies have frozen home fore-
closures.
Three banks have halted fore-
closures in 23 states after evidence
surfaced that their employees
or outside lawyers signed docu-
ments without reading them or
* filed inaccurate paperwork, rais-
ing concerns about potential legal
violations.
Democratic U.S. Reps. John
Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kil-
patrick said yesterday the foreclo-
sure moratorium for the 23 states
that require foreclosures to go
through judicial review should be
extended to all states, including
Michigan. Bernero agrees.
Republican gubernatorial can-
didate Rick Snyder says the banks
should be investigated. He doesn't
favor a statewide moratorium
because he says that could affect the
availability of credit.
COLUMBIA, S.C.
Prison faces legal
trouble in book ban
A South Carolina jail was sued
yesterday over its policy barring
inmates from having any reading
material other than the Bible.
The American Civil Liberties
Union filed the federal lawsuit
seeking to overturn the policy on
behalf of Prison Legal News, a
monthly journal on prison law. The
16-page complaint says officials at
the Berkeley County jail in Moncks
Corner, about 100 miles southeast
of Columbia, are violating several
of the magazine's and inmates'
constitutional rights including free
speech, freedom of religion and
right to due process.
Since 2008, the publishers of
Prison Legal News have tried to
send magazines, letters and self-
help books about prison life to
several inmates at the jail, the com-
plaint says.
"Our inmates are only allowed to
receive soft back bibles in the mail
directly from the publisher," First
Sergeant K. Habersham noted in
the e-mail. "They are not allowed to
have magazines, newspapers, or any
other type of books."
MOSCOW
Three Russians
sentenced for
terrorist attacks
A Russian court has handed long
sentences to three ultranationalists
convicted ofhate killings and bomb-
ings.
The Moscow City Court said in a
statement yesterday that the three
were in a militant neo-pagan cult
and preyed on labor migrants from
ex-Soviet Central Asia and the Cau-
casus.
It said between 2008 and 2009
they killed 10 people and arranged
bombings at a Russian Orthodox
church, a McDonald's restaurant
and a railway station that left one
womanwounded.
Itsaid twoofthe defendants were
underage and received sentences of
between 8 and 9 years. The third
defendant was over 18 at the time of
the murders and got a 21-year sen-
tence.
HILLSBORO, Ore.
Suspect pleads
guilty to murder of
pregnant woman ,
An Oregon woman accused of
murdering a pregnant woman from
Maryland and cutting the unborn
child from her womb pleaded guilty
yesterday to a charge of aggravated
murder and was sentenced to life in
prison.
The sentence prohibits parole for
Korena Roberts. The battered body
of 21-year-old Heather Snively was
found in the crawl space of Roberts'
home in June 2009 after Roberts'
boyfriend cal led 911.
Prosecutors say Roberts blud-
geoned Snively in the bathroom
with a collapsible police baton, then
used a sharp instrument to cut the
unborn baby from Snively's abdo-
men. The baby was due a month
later.
For months before the killing,
Roberts told neighbors was she was
pregnant, going so far as to acquire a
stroller, baby formula and parenting
magazines.
- Compiled from
# Daily wire reports.
U.S. accord with.[
.
Mexico expands
gun-tracing plan
Officials say database that can trace the manu-
facture, import, sale and owner-
program is essential ship of guns.
It will also expand access to
to preventing eTrace to the Attorney General's
intelligence and data-gathering
weapons smuggling divisions across Mexico.
About 20 people have been
MEXICO CITY (AP) - U.S. . trained to use eTrace in Mex-
and Mexican officials are just now ico. U.S. and Mexican officials
fully employing a gun-tracing pro- announced in January 2008 that
gram touted as a key deterrent to the system would be introduced in
weapons-smuggling, nearly three Mexico, but it was not implement-
years after it was first announced ed in Spanish until last December.
in Mexico and weeks after an Melson said the system, when
inspector general's preliminary used properly, can provide strate-
report called it underused and gic and intelligence information
unsuccessful. to fight gun-smuggling, establish-
Not enough Mexican investiga- ing trafficking patterns as well as
tors had been trained on or had identifying weapons sources.
access to the electronic database "We're now at a point where we
designed to trace illegally seized can process much more informa-
weapons to origins in the U.S., a tion quickly, information that will
top official at Bureau of Alcohol, be more accurate and more com-
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives plete," Melson said.
said yesterday. More than 28,000 people have
"It doesn't mean the system is died in drug violence since Presi-
not working. It's not working as dent Felipe Calderon launched a
well as it can," said ATF deputy crackdown on organized crime in
director Kenneth Melson. "The late 2006, a battle that Calderon
information was being submitted says is fueled by a flow of illegal
by people who didn't know how to weapons coming from the United
trace guns." States.
He and Mexico Attorney Gen- From September of last year to
eral Arturo Chavez Chavez signed July 31, 2010, the Mexican gov-
a memorandum of understanding ernment seized more than 32,000
on Tuesday that will increase to illegal weapons, though fed-
30 a month the number of peo- eral statistics don't indicate how
ple trained to use the program, many were submitted for tracing
known as eTrace, an electronic to the U.S.
U .S apologizes for
recent helicopter
attacktt in Pakistan
Apology could
lead to key border
crossing reopening
ISLAMABAD (AP) - The U.S.
apologized yesterday for a recent
helicopter attack that killed two
Pakistani soldiers at an outpost'
near the Afghan border, saying
American pilots mistook the sol-
diers for insurgents they were
pursuing.
The apology, which came after
a joint investigation, could pave
the way for Pakistan to reopen a
key border crossing that NATO
uses to ship goods into land-
locked Afghanistan. Pakistan
closed the crossing to NATO sup-
ply convoys in apparent reaction
to the Sept. 30 incident.
Suspected militants have
taken advantage of the impasse to
launch attacks against stranded
or rerouted trucks, including two
yesterday where gunmen torched
at least 55 fuel tankers and killed
a driver.
"We extend our deepest apol-
ogy to Pakistan and the families
of the Frontier Scouts who were
killed and injured," said the U.S.
ambassador to Pakistan, Anne
Patterson.
Pakistan initially reported that
three soldiers were killed and
three wounded in the attack, but
one of the soldiers who was criti-
cally injured and initially report-
ed dead ended up surviving, said
Maj. Fazlur Rehman, the spokes-
man for the Frontier Corps.
Pakistani soldiers fired at the
two U.S. helicopters prior to the
attack, a move the investigation
team said was likely meant to
notify the aircraft of their pres-
ence after they passed into Paki-
stani airspace several times.
"We believe the Pakistani
border guard was simply firing
warning shots after hearing the
nearby engagement and hearing
the helicopters flying nearby,"
said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Tim
Zadalis, NATO's director for air
plans in Afghanistan who led the
investigation. "This tragic event
could have been avoided with
better coalition force coordina-
tion with the Pakistan military."
The head of U.S. and NATO
forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David
Petraeus, also expressed his con-
dolences, saying in a statement
that "we deeply regret this tragic
loss of life and will continue to
work with the Pakistan military
and government to ensure this
doesn't happen again."
Pakistan moved swiftly after
the attack to close the Torkham
border crossing that connects
northwestern Pakistan with
Afghanistan through the famed
Khyber Pass. The closure has
left hundreds of trucks stranded
alongside the country's highways
and bottlenecked traffic heading
to the one route into Afghanistan
from the south that has remained
open.
There have been seven attacks
on NATO supply convoys since
Pakistan closed Torkham, includ-
ing those yesterday.
NATO officials have insisted
that neither the attacks nor the
border closure have caused sup-
ply problems for NATO troops
since hundreds of trucks still
cross into Afghanistan each day
through the Chaman crossing in
southwestern Pakistan and via
Central Asian states.
But reopening Torkham is
definitely a priority for NATO
because it is the main crossing
in Pakistan, the country through
which NATO ships the majority
of its supplies into Afghanistan.
Other routes are more expensive
and logistically difficult.
Both U.S. and Pakistani offi-
cials have predicted Torkham
would reopen soon, and the apol-
ogies issued yesterday could pro-
vide Pakistan with a face-saving
way to back down.
Reopening the border could
reduce the frequency with which
militants have attacked NATO
supply convoys in recent days,
although such attacks occurred
regularly even before Torkham
was closed.
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