The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, January 24, 2011 -3A The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, January 24, 2011 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS DETROIT Midtown growth encouraged by employer incentive Three of Detroit's largest job suppliers are offering cash incentives and loans to get their employees to settle into the city's Midtown area. About 30,000 people work for the Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health System and Wayne State University which will invest in the "Live Midtown" incentive program. Foundations will bolster or match what the three institu- tions put in. First-year funding is pegged at $1.2 million. Incentives include a $3,500, two-year leasing allowance for new renters; a $1,000 allowance for lease renewals this year, and a $20,000 forgivable loan for the purchase of anew home. CHARLESTON, S.C. Prisoner updates Facebook with contraband phone South Carolina prison officials say they have seized a cell phone from an inmate who was updating his Facebook page from prison. Corrections officials told The Post and Courier of Charleston that 22-year-old Quincy How- ard is in disciplinary detention and can't make collect calls or have visitors after the contraband mobile phone was taken from his cell earlier this month. Howard is serving a 30-year sentence for manslaughter from Marion County. The newspaper reports Howard spent most of his time on Facebook last year playing the Mafia Wars and Cafe World games. But he occasionally gave status updates like: "RAILROADED BY THIS CROOKED A JUDICIAL SYS- TEM IN SOUTH CAROLINA." NEW YORKCITY Two die as bitter cold hits Northeast An Arctic front is ushering in some of the coldest weather the Northeast has seen in two years. The front will bring bitter cold through this morning as a high- pressure area builds over New England. This will translate into frigid daytime highs of about 10 to 30 degrees below average. The coldest spots will dip to less than 30 degrees below zero. Police in North Haven, Conn., say a woman apparently fell in a driveway and froze to death Sat- urday night, when temperatures were close to zero. About 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia, a man died after spending a night in his car. The National Weather Service says New York City could see a high of 19 degrees today. That would be the coldest it's been there since Jan.16, 2009, whenthe high was 16. In Philadelphia, the city extended an alert issued Thursday that gives officials the power to go out onto the streets and bring in homeless people to shelters because the weather conditions pose a threat of serious harm or death. SANAA, Yemen Hundreds protest activist's arrest . Yemeni police have arrested a woman activist for leading anti- government protests, setting off a second day of street demonstra- tions. Police used tear gas and batons to disperse hundreds of students, activists and lawmakers who demonstrated in the capital Sanaa to demand the release of Tawakul Abdel-Salam Karman, who was arrested early yesterday. Interior Minster Mouthar al- Masri said on state television yesterday that people have the right to express their views but demonstrations, gatherings and marches should be staged within the boundaries of the law. -Compiled from Daily wire reports U.N. chides Iraqi refugee deporters FILE PHOTO/AP Rock star Bono meets an unidentified boy suffering from heart problems at a health center in Mayange,;Rwanda in 2006. Global ADShealth fund fraud uncovered About 2,000 Iraqis flee homeland each month BAGHDAD (AP) - The head of the U.N. refugee agency scolded nations yesterday for deporting Iraqis back into danger, deliver- ing his criticism on a day when insurgents rattled the Baghdad area with a series of bombings that killed 10 people. Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said an estimated 2,000 Iraqis have been fleeing their homeland every month, including a "signifi- cant number of Christians." But some countries have turned back dozens of refugees - forcing many to return to some of Iraq's most violent regions. "There are still some areas in central Iraq in which we believe people should not be sent back against their will," Guterres told reporters after meeting withIraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. "And this is the position we have very clearly expressed to some of the counties that have been doing that, against our opinion." Guterres did not identify those countries, but they are believed to include Sweden, which accepted thousands of Iraqis during the height of the war. Underscoring the continued danger, a spate of bombs rocked the capital and its suburbs Sun- day, killing 10 people over a three- hour span. The bombs struck indis- criminately, with the dead including policemen, pilgrims, farmers, commuters and even young schoolchildren. Police and hospital officials said at least 34 more people were injured. Yesterday's assaults were the latest in a series of bombings that have killed more than 120 people since Tuesday, shattering a two- month period of relative calm. The deadliest attacks includ- ed a suicide bombing Tuesday against police recruits in Tikrit that killed at least 50 people and a string of blasts near Karbala that claimed 65 lives, many of them Shiite religious pilgrims. Yesterday, the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, claimed responsibility for the Tikrit attack as well as two bomb- ings last week at security force headquarters in Baqouba that together killed 10 people. Although the bombings have killed mostly Muslims, the con- tinuing violence has focused attention on Iraq's dwindling Christian community since an Oct.31 assault by suicide bombers against a Roman Catholic church. AIDS fund financed by Bono, other celebrities GENEVA (AP) - A $21.7 bil- lion development fund backed by celebrities and hailed as an alternativetothe bureaucracyof the United Nations sees as much as two-thirds of some grants eaten up by corruption, The Associated Press has learned. Much ofthe moneyis account- ed for with forged documents or improper bookkeeping, indicat- ing it was pocketed, investiga- tors for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria say. Donated prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market. The fund's newly reinforced inspector general's office, which uncovered the corruption, can't give an overall accounting because it has examined only a tiny fraction of the $10 billion that the fund has spent since its: creation in 2002. But the levels of corruption in the grants they have audited so far are astonish- ing. A full 67 percent of money spent on an anti-AIDS program in Mauritania was misspent, the investigators told the fund's board of directors. So did 36 percent of the money spent on a program in Mali to fight tuber- culosis and malaria, and 30 per- cent of grants to Djibouti. In Zambia, where $3.5 mil- lion in spending was undocu- mented and one accountant pilfered $104,130, the fund decided the nation's health min- istry simply couldn't manage the grants and put the United Nations in charge of them. The fund is trying to recover $7 mil- lion in "unsupported and ineli- gible costs" from the ministry. The fund is pulling or sus- pending grants from nations where corruption is found, and demanding recipients return millions of dollars of misspent money. "The messenger is being shot to some extent," fund spokes- man Jon Liden said. "We would contend that we do not have any corruption problems that are significantly different in scale or nature to any other internation- al financing institution." To date, the United States, the European Union and other major donors have pledged $217 billion to the fund, the domi- nant financier of efforts to fight the three diseases. The fund has been a darling of the power set that will hold the World Economic Forum in the-Swiss mountain village of Davos this week. It was on the sidelines of Davos that rock star Bono launched a new global brand, (Product) Red, which donates a large share of profits to the Global Fund. Other prominent backers include former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, French first lady Carla Bruni- Sarkozy and Microsoft found- er Bill Gates, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives $150 million a year. The fund's inspector gen- eral, John Parsons, said donors should be reassured that the fund is serious about uncovering corruption: "It should be viewed as a comparative advantage to anyone who's thinking about putting funds in here." But some donors are out- raged at what the investigators are turning up. Sweden, the fund's 11th-biggest contributor, has suspended its $85 million annual donation until the fund's problems are fixed. It held talks with fund officials in Stockholm last week. Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Peter Larsson said in a statement that his country is concerned about "extensive examples of irregularities and corruption that the fund has uncovered" in nations like Mali and Mauritania. "For Sweden, the issues of greatest importance are risk management, combating cor- ruption and ultimately ensuring that the funds managed by the Global Fund really do contrib- ute to improved health," he said. The investigative arm of the U.S. Congress also has issued reports criticizing the fund's ability to police itself and its overreliance on grant recipi- ents to assess their own perfor- mance. Fund officials blame the mis- spending on the lack of finan- cial controls among the grants' recipients, many of which are African health ministries whose budgets are heavily supported by the fund. Others are nations or international organizations without the resources to deal with pervasive corruption. Resorts attacked across Zimbabwe President Mugabe's militants target more than 20 clubs As Zimbabwe tried to spruce up its tourism image, militants of President Robert Mugabe's party- launched raids at boating clubs and tourism lodges on the shores of the capital's main fishing and leisure area, tour operators said yesterday. A safari lodge about 18 miles (30 kilometers) west of Harare reopened after being sealed off by more than 200 militants since Friday, said owner Gary Stafford. The seven-chalet Kuimba Shiri lodge is a popular getaway for locals, foreign visitors, diplomats and U.N. staff. Militants told witnesses more than 20 clubs and holiday facili- ties were being targeted on the shores and hinterland of Lake Chivero, a dam five miles (8 kilo- meters) in length - bordered by a wildlife preserve - that serves as Harare's main water supply res- ervoir. Incidents began Friday, coin- ciding with the launch of a new campaign by Tourism and Hos- pitality Minister Walter Mzembi who branded Zimbabwe as "the _woar.f wonders," during a con- vention in Spain. After collapsing during a decade of political and econom- ic turmoil, tourist visits have crept upward since 2009 when a coalition government between Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader, abandoned the hyperinflationary local currency and adopted the U.S. dollar as legal tender. Tourists had been kept away from the famed Victoria Falls in northwestern Zimbabwe and the country's animalreservesbecause of recurring political violence and acute shortages of gasoline and the most basic goods during the nation's economic meltdown. As teenagers abuse bath salts, lawmakers look to ban sales Unregulated chemicals facing federal scrutiny When Neil Brown got high on dangerous chemicals sold as bath salts, he took his skin- ning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown sur- vived, but authorities say oth- ers haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous- sounding names as Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky. Some say the effects of the powders are as powerful as abusing methamphetamine. Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control cen- ters say the advertised bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in sev- eral U.S. states where authori- ties talk of banning their sale. From the Deep South to California, emergency calls are being reported over-exposure to the stimulants the powders often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV. Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Light- ning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallu- cinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. The chemicals are in products sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet as bath salts and even plant foods. However, they aren't necessarily being used for the purposes on the label. Mississippi lawmakers last- week began considering a pro- posal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving exposure to the chemicals. In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from her- oin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the advertised bath salts. "I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his scars. "The psychological effects are still there." While Brown survived, sher- iff's authorities in one Missis- sippi county say they believe one woman overdosed on the pow- ders there. In southern Louisi- ana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot. Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the influence of the bath salts. The stimulants aren't regu- lated by the U.S. Drug Enforce- ment Administration, but are facing federal scrutiny. Law offi- cers say some of the substances are being shipped from Europe, but origins are still unclear. Gary Boggs, an execu- tive assistant at the DEA, said there's a lengthy process to restrict these types of designer chemicals, including reviewing the abuse data. But it's a process that can take years. Dr. Mark Ryan, director of Louisiana's poison control cen- ter, said he thinks state bans on the chemicals can be effective. He said calls about the chemi- cals have dropped sharply since Louisiana banned their sale in January. Ryan said cathinone, the parent substance of the drugs, comes from a plant grown in Africa and is regulated. He said MDPV and mephedrone are made in a lab, and they aren't regulated because they're not marketed for human consump- tion. The stimulants affect neu- rotransmitters in the brain, he said. "It causes intense cravings for it. They'll binge on it three or four days before they show up in an ER. Even though it's a horrible trip, they want to do it again and again," Ryan said. 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