The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Monday, September 26, 2011 - 3A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday, September 26, 2011 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
KALAMAZOO, Mich.
Man surrenders
after opening fire
in apartment
Police in Kalamazoo say a
22-year-old man surrendered
soon after shooting a 29-year-old
man to death in the hallway of an
apartment building.
The Department of Public
Safety says the killing happened
about 10:40 p.m. Saturday at the
Fox Ridge Apartment Complex.
They say police officers found
the victim lying in a second-floor
hallway.
He lived in the apartments.
So far, police haven't released
the names of the victim or the
suspect, who's also a Kalamazoo
resident. He's in the Kalamazoo
County Jail on an open murder
charge.
MEETEETSE, Wyo.
Once considered
extinct, rare breed
of ferret rebounds
The only ferret species native
to North America is well on its
way to recovery since biologists
concluded the creatures went
extinct in 1979.
Thirty years ago this month,
a ranch dog named Shep killed a
black-footed ferret near Meetee-
tse (me-TEET'-see) in northwest
Wyoming.
Shep's owner found the dead
ferret. Word got out and it didn't
take long for biologists to find
about 100 black-footed ferrets
living on a nearby ranch.
A federal captive breeding
program has helped to re-estab-
lish about 1,000 black-footed
ferrets in eight Western states,
Canada and Mexico.
ALBANY, N.Y.
NY Senator
accuses OnStar of
inv di igprivacy
The OnStar automobile com-
munication service used by 6
million Americans maintains
its two-way connection with a
customer even after the service
is discontinued, while reserving
the right to sell data from that
connection.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of
New York says that's a blatant
invasion of privacy and is calling
on the Federal Trade Commis-
sion to investigate. But OnStar
says former customers can stop
the two-way transmission, and
ni> driving data of customers has
been shared or sold.
"OnStar is attempting one
of the most brazen invasions
of privacy in recent memory,"
said Schumer, a Democrat. "I
urge OnStar to abandon this
policy."
But the General Motors Corp.
OnStar service says customers
are thoroughly informed of the
new practice. If a customer says

he or she doesn't want to have
data collected after service is
ended, OnStar disconnects the
tracking.
CASABLANCA, Morocco
Protesters call for
election boycott
Thousands of Moroccans
demonstrated against the gov-
ernment in the North African
kingdom's biggest city, threat-
ening to boycott the upcoming
elections.
The weekly demonstration by
the pro-democracy February 20
movement yesterday attracted
around 10,000 people in Casa-
blanca, making it the largest
demonstration in months.
The march took place in the
sprawling lower income neigh-
borhood of Sbata, where in May
pro-democracy demonstrators
were attacked and beaten by
police.
"Once we were beaten here,
now we have returned," chanted
the exultant marchers, who were
calling for greater freedoms and
an end to government corrup-
tion.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports''"

Saudi women
can run, vote in
2015 election

President Barack Obama greets supporters after speaking at a Democratic fundraiser at the Paramount Theater in
Seattle, Wash., on Sunday, Sept. 25.
Pres. says GOP vision
would cripple' nation

With next election
Thursday, women
not satisfied
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP)
- Saudi Arabia's King Abdul-
lah, considered a reformer by the
standards of his own ultracon-
servative kingdom, decreed yes-
terday that women will for the
first time have the right to vote
and run in local elections due in
2015.
It is a "Saudi Spring" of sorts.
For the nation's women, it is a
giant leap forward, though they
remain unable to serve as Cabi-
net ministers, drive or travel
abroad without permission from
a male guardian.
Saudi women bear the brunt
of their nation's deeply conserva-
tive values, often finding them-
selves the target of the unwanted
attention of the kingdom's intru-
sive religious police, who enforce
a rigid interpretation of Islamic
Shariah law on the streets and
public places like shopping malls
and university campuses.
In itself, yesterday's decision
to give the women the right to
vote and run in municipal elec-
tions may not be enough to sat-
isfy the growing ambition of the
kingdom's women who, after
years of lavish state spending on
education and vocational train-
ing, significantly improved their
standing but could not secure the
same place in society as that of
their male compatriots.
That women must wait four
more years to exercise their
newly acquired right to vote adds
insult to injury since yesterday's
announcement was already a
long time coming - and the next

local elections are in fact sched-
uled for this Thursday.
"Why not tomorrow?" asked
prominent Saudi feminist Waje-
ha al-Hawaidar. "Ithink theking
doesn't want to shake the coun-
try, but we look around us and
we think it is a shame ... when we
are still pondering how to meet
simple women's rights."
The announcement by King
Abdullah came in an annual
speech before his advisory
assembly, or Shura Council. It
was made after he consulted
wiih the nation's top religious
clerics, whose advice carries
great weight in the kingdom.
It is an attempt at "Saudi
style" reform, moves that avoid
antagonizing the powerful cler-
gy and a conservative segment
of the population. Additionally,
it seems to be part of the king's
drive to insulate his vast, oil-
rich country from the upheavals
sweeping other Arab nations,
with popular uprisings toppling
regimes that once looked as
secure as his own.
Fearing unrest at home, the
king in March announced a stag-
gering $93 billion package of
incentives, jobs and services to
ease the hardships experienced
by some Saudis. In the mean-
time, he sent troops to neighbor
and close ally Bahrain to help the
tiny nation's Sunni ruling fam-
ily crush an uprising by majority
Shiites pressing for equal rights
and far-reaching reforms.
In contrast, King Abdullah
in August withdrew the Saudi
ambassador from Syriato protest
President Bashar Assad's brutal
crackdown on a seven-month
uprising that calls for his ouster
and the establishment of a demo-
cratic government.

Obama attempts
to re-engage with
liberal supporters
on West Coast
SEATTLE (AP) - Presi-
dent Barack Obama charged
yesterday that the GOP vision
of government would "funda-
mentally cripple America," as
he tried out his newly combat-
ive message on the liberal West
Coast.
Aiming to renew the ardor
of Democratic loyalists who
have grown increasingly dis-
enchanted with him, the presi-
dent mixed frontal attacks on
Republicans with words of
encouragement intended to
buck up the faithful as the 2012
campaign revs up.
"From the moment I took
office what we've seen is a con-
stant ideological pushback
against any kind of sensible
reforms that would make our
economy work better and give
people more opportunity,"
the president said at an inti-

mate brunch fundraiser at the
Medina, Wash., home of former
Microsoft executive Jon Shirley.
About 65 guests were paying
$35,800 per couple to listen to
Obama at the first of seven fun-
draisers he was holding from
Seattle to Hollywood to San
Diego yesterday and today. The
three-day West Coast swing,
ending tomorrow in Denver,
offered him the chance to re-
engage with some of his most
liberal and deep-pocketed sup-
porters.
The trip comes as Obama
has shifted from focusing on
compromise with Republi-
cans on Capitol Hill to call-
ing out House Speaker John
Boehner and others by name.
The president has criticized
them as obstructionists while
demanding their help in pass-
ing his $447 billion jobs bill.
The revamped approach
is a relief to Democratic
activists fed up by what they
viewed as the president's
ceding of ground to the GOP
on tax cuts and other issues
while the economy has
stalled and unemployment is

stuck above 9 percent.
Obama said 2012 would be
an especially tough election
because people are discour-
aged and disillusioned with
government, but he also said
he was determined because so
much is at stake.
The GOP alternative, Obama
said, is "an approach to govern-
ment that will fundamentally
cripple America in meeting the
challenges of the 21st century.
And that's not the kind of soci-
ety that I want to leave to Malia
and Sasha."
Obama got a friendly wel-
come from invited guests at
his first stop. But later, liberal
activists greeted the president
with a demonstration.

Series of bombings
kill 10 injIraq city

Iraqi Prime
Minister calls
bombings a
'heinous crime'
BAGHDAD (AP) - Back-
to-back bomb blasts ripped
through one of the holiest cities
in Shiite Islam yesterday, killing
at least 10 people in a commu-
nity still reeling from a deadly
bus hijacking earlier this month
that left Iraq's Shiites again
feeling hunted.
Four explosions struck the
city of Karbala over a five-min-
ute period, government officials
said, sending thick black smoke
over the city. Two of the bombs
targeted an Interior Minis-
try office that issues ID cards.
Another struck near a house,
shredding its walls and ceiling.
And one of the explosions went
off half a mile from an impor-
tant gold-domed shrine.
"Once again, the terror-
ist enemies of both Iraq and
humanity have committed a
new crime against the innocent
people of Karbala," said Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi-
ite.
He called the bombings a
"heinous crime," and promised
those behind them and the ear-
lier attack on the bus would be
punished. He also warned peo-
ple not to be drawn back into
sectarian revenge killings.
"We should stay united and
cease statements or acts that
would help the criminals in
their efforts to ignite sedition,"
al-Maliki said.
Ferocious bombing attacks
bySunii"insurgent groups like

al-Qaida in Iraq targeted
the Shiite community whose
leaders came to power after
the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The bloodshed pushed the
nation to the edge of civil war.
Violence in Iraq has fall-
en dramatically since the
bloodletting of 2006 and
2007, but militant attacks
still appear aimed at re-
igniting the nation's volatile
ethnic and religious divide.
The Sept. 12 bus attack
targeted Shiite pilgrims from
Karbala who were headed to
a shrine in neighboring Syria.
The gunmen stopped the
bus at a fake checkpoint in
the western desert of Anbar
province, heavily populated
by Sunnis and once one of
the heartlands of the insur-
gency.
The assailants pulled 22
men from the bus and shot
them execution-style, leav-
ing the women and children
weeping beside a remote
highway.
Al-Maliki has been try-
ing to tamp down tensions
between officials in Karbala
and Anbar since the high-
jacking. Four suspects are
being held in the case, and al-
Maliki's military advisers say
at least some foreigners were
among the plotters.
Yesterday's bombings in
Karbala were meant to raise
tensions further, officials
said.
"The aim of these explo-
sions is to ignite the sectar-
ian sedition after the killing
of 22 Karbala residents in the
Anbar desert two weeks ago,"
said provincial councilman
Hussein Shadhan al-Aboudi.

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