The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Monday, March 21, 2011 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.
College student
pleads guilty in
pie-in-face case
A college student has pleaded
guilty to assaulting Michigan Sen.
Carl Levin with an apple pie in his
face.
Ahlam Mohsen, a senior at
Michigan State University, said
Friday she did it as an "anti-war
statement." She and co-defendant
Max Kantar accepted plea deals
to a misdemeanor. The maximum
penaltyis ayear injail.
Levin was stuck with a pie last
summer while meeting with con-
stituents at a deli in Big Rapids.
Kantar read a statement before
Mohsen struck the Michigan
Democrat with the pie.
Mohsen's lawyer, Allison Fol-
mar, says the crust was removed
so Levin wouldn't get hurt.
Mohsen and Kantar will be sen-
tenced onJune 20 in federal court
in Grand Rapids.
TRIANGE, Va.
About 30 arrested
after protest for
Wikileaks suspect
Hundreds rallied outside a
Virginia Marine Corps base
to protest the treatment of an
imprisoned Army private sus-
pected of providing classified
data to Wikileaks.
About 30 people were arrested
yesterday at the rally protest-
ing the pretrial detention of Pfc.
Bradley Manning. About two-
dozen rallies were held around
the world.
Manning is being held in soli-
tary confinement at the Quantico
base's brig. He's confined to his
cell 23 hours a day and forced to
strip naked before bed. The mili-
tary says the conditions of his
detention are justified.
Protesters chanted "Free Brad-
ley Manning" and confronted
dozens of police officers in riot
gear outside the entrance to the
base. A short scuffle ensued. The
arrests were made after protest-
ers refused to vacate the intersec-
tion at the base entrance.
OAXACA, Mexico
Gunmen rob $13
million from
Mexican company
Mexican authorities say armed
men have stolen some 157 million
pesos from a cash transporting
company in southern Mexico.
The Oaxaca state attorney
general's office says six gunmen
wearing masks and latex gloves
broke into the Cometra facility,
subdued four guards and made
off with cash equivalent to about
$13 million.
No one was hurt in the heist
early yesterday.
The attorney general's office
says the robbers apparently wore
uniforms of Cometra workers and
drove a vehicle with the company

logo.
The statement released no
other details and it isn't clear if
authorities suspect the theft was
an inside job.
CASABLANCA, Morocco
Thousands of
Morrocans stage
political protests
Several thousand protest-
ers have staged protests in cities
around Morocco to demand more
political changes.
A group of protesters in the
commercial capital Casablanca
clashed briefly with pro-govern-
ment activists who arrived at the
end of a demonstration.
The protests were organized by
the February 20 movement, which
has led protests for the past month,
with support from Morocco's best-
known Islamist movement, Adl
wal Ihsan, which is barred from
politics in the kingdom.
The state news agency MAP
says protests were held in Fes,
Tetouan, Tangiers and other cities
and towns.

Haitians cast votes to
elect new president

Some waited up to
three hours to vote
at election polls
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
(AP) - Haitians scarred by
decades of poverty, political
corruption and natural disas-
ters cast ballots yesterday for
president in hopes a new leader
could do what others have not:
Replace homes and schools
in the earthquake-devastated
capital, improve education and
create some optimism for the
future.
Voters chose between Michel
"Sweet Micky" Martelly, a pop-
ular musician who has never
held public office, and Mirlande,
Manigat, a former first lady and
senator and longtime fixture
on the political scene. Voters
formed what for the most part
were orderly lines, some shrug-
ging off delays of three hours.
Preliminary results are expect-
ed March 31.
"A lot of governments come
through to make change for
themselves and their families,"
Jean-Claude Henry, a 43-year-
old economist, said after he
voted at a school in the Del-
mas section of Port-au-Prince,
the capital. "We want radical
change for the population."
The vote was much calmer
than the first round of voting in

November, which was marred
by disorganization, voter
intimidation and allegations of
widespread fraud. Disputed pre-
liminary results had shown gov-
ernment-backed candidate Jude
Celestin edging out Martelly for
a spot in the runoff, but under
international pressure, Haiti's
provisional electoral council
reviewed the count and elimi-
nated Celestin from the race.
Whoever wins will face
enormous challenges in a coun-
try emerging from last year's
earthquake, which the govern-
ment estimates killed more than
300,000 people. A multibillion-
dollar reconstruction effort has
stalled, and some 800,000 peo-
ple still live in the camps that
emerged around Port-au-Prince
after the quake. Compounding
the misery is a cholera outbreak
that has killed more than 4,700
people and is expected to surge
again with the rainy season.
"There is a lot of frustration,"
said 28-year-old Jazon Didier,
a computer scientist and Mani-
gat supporter. "People want a
change and a better life."
Martelly seems to have cap-
tured the ardor of young jobless
voters. Hundreds cheered him
wildly like the pop star he is as
he danced on the roof of an SUV
after casting his ballot across
the street from a tent encamp-
ment of people who lost homes
in the earthquake.

JEROME DELAY/AP
Libyan soldiers survey the damage to an administrative building hit by a missile late yesterday in the heart of Moammar
Gadhafi s Bab Al Azizia compound in Tripoli, Libya, early today.
Gadhafi vows 'long war' after
allied air strikes a'ainst Libya

U.S. military says
goal is to protect
civilians
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -
Moammar Gadhafi vowed
a "long war" as allied forces
launched a second night of
strikes on Libya yesterday, and
jubilant rebels who only a day
before were in danger of being
crushed by his forces now boast-
ed they would bring him down.
The U.S. military said the inter-
national assault would hit any
Gadhafi forces on the ground
that are attacking the opposition.
The U.S. military said the
bombardment so far - a rain of
Tomahawk cruise missiles and
precision bombs from Ameri-
can and European aircraft,
including long-range stealth
B-2 bombers - had succeeded
in heavily degrading Gadhafi's
air defenses.
The international campaign
went beyond hitting anti-airca-
ft sites. U.S., British and French
planes blasted a line of tanks
that had been moving on the
rebel capital Benghazi, in the
opposition-held eastern half of
the country. Yesterday, at least
seven demolished tanks smol-
dered in a field 12 miles (20
kilometers) south of Benghazi,
many of them with their turrets
and treads blown off, alongside
charred armored personnel car-
riers, jeeps and SUVs of the kind
used by Gadhafi fighters.
A building in Gadhafi's
compound was hit and badly
damaged late yesterday. An
Associated Press photogra-
pher at the scene said half of
the round, three-story building
was knocked down, and smoke
was rising from it. About 300
Gadhafi supporters were in the
compound at the time. It was
not known if any were hurt.
"I feel like in two days max
we will destroy Gadhafi," said
Ezzeldin Helwani, 35, a rebel
standing next to the smolder-

ing wreckage of an armored
personnel carrier, the air thick
with smoke and the pungent
smell of burning rubber. In a
grisly sort of battle trophy, cel-
ebrating fighters hung a severed
goat's head with a cigarette in
its mouth from the turret of one
of the gutted tanks.
The strikes that began early
yesterday gave immediate, if
temporary, relief to Benghazi,
which the day before had been
under a heavy attack that killed
at least 120 people. The city's
calm yesterday highlighted the
dramatic turnaround that the
allied strikes bring to Libya's
month-old upheaval: For the
past 10 days, Gadhafi's forces
had been on a triumphant offen-
sive against the rebel-held east,
driving opposition fighters back
with the overwhelming fire-
power of tanks, artillery, war-
planes and warships.
Now Gadhafi's forces are
potential targets for U.S. and
European strikes. The U.N.
resolution authorizing interna-
tional military action in Libya
not only sets up a no-fly zone but
allows "all necessary measures"
to prevent attacks on civilians.
But the U.S. military, for the
time being at the lead of the
international campaign, is try-
ing to walk a fine line over the
end game of the assault. It is
avoiding for now any appear-
ance that it aims to take out
Gadhafi or help the rebels oust
him, instead limiting its stated
goals to protecting civilians.
At the Pentagon, Navy Vice
Adm. William E. Gortney
underlined that strikes are not
specifically targeting the Lib-
yan leader or his residence in
Tripoli. He said that anyof Gad-
hafi's ground forces advancing
on the rebels were open targets.
"If they are moving on oppo-
sition forces ... yes, we will take
them under attack," he told
reporters.
"We judge these strikes to
have been very effective in sig-
nificantly degrading the regime's

air defense capability," Gortney
said. "We believe his forces are
under significant stress and suf-
fering from both isolation and a
good deal of confusion."
A military official said Air
Force B-2 stealth bombers
flew 25 hours in a round trip
from Whiteman Air Force Base
in Missouri and dropped 45
2,000-pound bombs.
What happens if rebel forces
eventually go on the offen-
sive against Gadhafi's troops
remains unclear. Gortney
would not say whether strikes
would hit Libyan troops fight-
ing back against rebel assaults.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert
Gates said late yesterday that the
U.S. expects turn over control of
the operation to a coalition head-
ed by France, Britain or NATO
"in a matter of days," reflecting
concern that the U.S. military
was stretched thin by its current
missions. Turkey was blocking
NATO action, which requires
agreement by all 28 members of
the alliance.
Danish Defense Minister Gitte
Lillelund Bech confirmed to The
Associated Press that four Dan-
ish F-16s took part in missions
over Libya yesterday. "We are
using military means, but there
are also a lot of other means we
can use to make sure that Gad-
hafi will not be running Libya in
the future," she said.
Yesterday night, heavy anti-
aircraft fire erupted repeat-
edly in the capital, Tripoli, with
arcs of red tracer bullets and
exploding shells in the dark sky
- marking the start of a second
night of international strikes.
Gadhafi supporters in the
streets shot automatic weapons
in the air in a show of defiance.
It was not immediately known
what was being targeted in the
new strikes.
Libyan army spokesman Col.
Milad al-Fokhi said Libyan army
units had been ordered to cease
fire at 9 p.m. local time, but the
hour passed with no letup in
military activity.

North Korea warns South,
U.S. after border incident

Pyongyang alleges
that U.S. monitored
North activity
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
North Korea has warned South
Korea of deadly consequences for
allegedly allowing U.S. troops to
come close to the countries' tense
border for reconnaissance mis-
sions and to commit provocative
acts such as taking photos with
women and drinking there.
South Korea's Defense Min-
istry and the American-led U.N.
Command - which oversees an
armistice that ended the Korean
War in the 1950s - dismissed the
accusation as groundless. They
were "not true" and the North
made similar accusations in the
past, U.N. Command spokesman
Kim Yong-kyu said.
The U.N. Command has juris-
diction over the demilitarized
zone and command troops have
only patrolled along the Korean
demilitarized zone, Kim and
South Korean Defense Ministry

officials said.
North Korea's conveyed the
warning to South Korea yes-
terday, accusing. Seoul of per-
mitting "the U.S. imperialist
aggressor troops" to come as
close as some 65 feet (20 meters)
from the border to monitor vehi-
cle and personnel movements in
the North, according to Pyong-
yang's official Korean Central
News Agency.
A KCNA dispatch accused the
U.S. troops of bringing women to
the area and take photos togeth-
er, drinking and hurling liquor
bottles to North Korean guard
posts.
"The North side warns that it
will no longer tolerate the above-
said grave military provocation"
that could trigger unspecified
deadly retaliation, the KCNA
said.
Tension on the peninsula
sharply spiked last year after a
warship was sunk and the North
shelled a South Korean front-line
island, killing a total of 50 South
Koreans. North Korea denies it
attacked the ship.



MichiganEngineering

U-M Computer Showcase
Michigan Union - Pierpont Commons
http://showcase.itcs.umich.edu - www.apple.com/education
U--,l

The Interface of Energy
and Geopolitics
Condoleezza Rice
Stanford University
Professor of PoliticalzEconomy in the
Graduate SchoolofBusiness
Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow
on Public Policy at the HooverInstitution
Professor of Political Science
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
4 p.m.
Rackham Auditorium
Tickets avalablefrese of charge trough
www.mutotix.com or call 734-763-8587

-Compiled from
Daily wire reports