The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 3
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 3
" NEWS BRIEFS
CALEDONIA TOWNSHIP, Mich.
Helicopter crash
in northern Mich.
kills two men
A Macomb County man and his
friend were killed when a small,
private helicopter crashed as they
flew to a hunting cabin in Michi-
gan's northern Lower Peninsula.
The helicopter's wreckage
was found yesterday morning
by a hunter on his property in a
remote part of Alcona County,
Michigan State Police Detective
Gary Nesbitt said.
About the time the wreckage
was found yesterday, the pilot's
family had filed a missing per-
son's report at the state police
* post in Richmond, northeast of
Detroit, Nesbitt said.
The crash site is in a wooded
section of private land in Cale-
donia Township, about 85 miles
north of Bay City. The pilot's
cabin is in the Alpena area, about
15 miles northeast of Caledonia
Township.
NEW YORK, N.Y.
Strauss-Kahn asks
N.Y. court to reject
maid's lawsuit
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
0 claimed yesterday he has diplo-
matic immunity and asked a New
York court to dismiss a lawsuit
filed by the hotel maid who says
he sexually assaulted her.
Attorneys for the former Inter-
national Monetary Fund leader
filed the motion in a Bronx court,
arguing judges there do not have
the ability to try the case, because
Strauss-Kahn's time as head of
the fund gives him immunity
from the litigation.
The 62-year-old Strauss-
Kahn was initially charged with
attempted rape and held under
pricey house arrest after the
maid, Nafissatou Diallo, said he
attacked her in his hotel suite
May 14 and forced her to perform -
oral sex. The case was eventu-
ally dismissed when prosecutors
said they had lost faith in Diallo's
credibility after a series of lies she
told them unrelated to the assault
allegations.
FAIRFAX, Va.
Grandmother on
trial for murder of
S2-year-old girl
A woman who killed her
2-year-old granddaughter bytoss-
ing her off an elevated walkway at
Virginia's largest shopping mall
was motivated by hatred of her
son-in-law for getting her daugh-
ter pregnant out of wedlock, pros-
ecutors said yeterday.
Defense lawyers, meanwhile,
acknowledged that Carmela Dela
Rosa, 50, of Fairfax, tossed her
granddaughter, Angelyn Ogdoc,
off the sixth-level pedestrian
bridge but said she was mentally
ill and legally insane at the time.
A jury in Fairfax County heard
opening statements Monday at
Dela Rosa's murder trial.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
Gas blast kills
woman, hurts nine
others near city
An explosion wrecked two
homes, abusiness and several cars
early yesterday, killing a woman
and injuring nine people on the
outskirts of Argentina's capital.
Early reports by some witness-
es that they had seen a ball of fire
fall from the sky around the time
of the 2 a.m. explosion caused a
sensation, but authorities said
later that evidence pointed to an
explosion of leaking gas.
Officials said a search by the
more than 100 police and others
turned up a canister of natural gas
with a poor connection to a pizza
oven.
After the reports of a fireball
coming down, the government
dispatched the large number of
searchers to check for radioactiv-
ity and any material that might
have come from outer space.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U.S., Ukraine
agree to remove
uranium supply
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Ai-Moualem addresses the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters
yesterday.
Syrian nlnister: Violence
result of int'l ivoveen
Under deal, U.S.
to finish nuclear
research facility for
medical isotopes
NEW YORK (AP) - The Unit-
ed States and Ukraine signed a
deal yesterday to remove the for-
mer Soviet country's stockpile of
weapons-grade uranium by early
next year.
Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Ukrainian
Foreign Minister Kostyantyn
Gryshchenko represented their
nations in signing the agreement
to remove the stockpile, which
could provide enough material
to build several nuclear weapons.
The deal was announced last
year at an international nuclear
security conference hosted by
President Barack Obama but was
not formalized until yesterday.
Clinton and Gryshchenko had
hoped to sign the deal in July,
but it was delayed amid Ukrai-
nian reservations, according to
U.S. officials. Among other rea-
sons, Ukraine wanted assuranc-
es that the United States would
complete a $25 million nuclear
research facility called for under
the deal.
The research facility will be
able to produce 50 different types
of medical isotopes, using only
low-enriched uranium and Clin-
ton said the U.S. was fully com-
mitted to meeting the timelines
for constructing the facility so it
would be up dnd running by 2014.
The Ukrainian government
also wanted to ensure that the.
uranium deal was properly
approved under government
regulations. The government
may be particularly sensitive,
because former Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko was arrested
and charged with not obtaining
proper approval when signing a
natural gas import contract with
Russia in 2009.
Clinton praised Ukraine for
making the "bold commitment"
to world security.
"This deal is a win-win for
both countries and both peo-
ples," she said. "It provides tan-
gible benefits for the people of
Ukraine and it makes the world
safer for all people."
. The agreement calls for
Ukraine to remove all of its
bomb-grade uranium to Rus-
sia by April 2012. The mate-
rial would be blended down and
made useless for bombmaking.
Late last year, the United States
helped Ukraine make the first
shipment of 110 pounds.
Clinton also took the oppor-
tunity to gently chide the Ukrai-
nians for recent backsliding on
democratic principles, saying
that the 20th anniversary of
Ukraine's independence in 2011
is art opportunity to reflect on
U.S.-Ukrainian relations. She
noted that it isn't easy to build a
democracy from the collapse of a
Soviet republic, but said the U.S.
wanted to see improvements.
"We are very committed to
democratic progress continu-
ing in Ukraine and therefore it is
vital that the government avoid
any actions that could undermine
democracy or the rule of law or
political participation," she said.
She did not elaborate but her
comment was a clear reference to
the case of Tymoshenko.
The United States has criti-
cized the arrest as politically
motivated and said it raises ques-
tions about Ukraine's commit-
ment to the rule of law.
Mousalem diverts
blame of about
2,600 deaths from
President Assad
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -
The Syrian foreign minister,
ignoring the mounting death
toll from the bloody govern-
ment crackdown on dissent,
told the United Nations yester-
day that external critics were
to blame for the violence and
for causing delays in President
Bashar Assad's plans for demo-
cratic reforms.
In a speech to the U.N. Gen-
eral Assembly, Foreign Minister
Walid Moualem sought to paint
the Assad regime as having
been on the brink of wide-rang-_
ing democratic reforms when
foreign inspired religious radi-
cals and armed groups forced
the Assad regime to put down
the rebellion to hold the country
together.
Moualem said reforms "had
to take a back seat to other
priorities. Our overriding pri-
ority was facing the external
pressures which were at times
tantamount to blatant conspira-
cies."
The Syrian government is
under stiff sanctions by world
governments, including the
United States which has said
Assad should step aside.
The Syrian uprising began
in mid-March, inspired by the
Arab revolutions that have
driven out autocratic rulers in
Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Presi-
dent Bashar Assad unleashed a
deadly crackdown that the U.N.
estimates has killed some 2,600
people.
Assad insists the unrest is
being driven by terrorists act-
ing out a foreign conspiracy to
fracture Syria. The regime dis-
putes the accounts of civilian
deaths and says 1,400 people
have been killed, evenly split
between security forces and
the opposition.
The longtime foreign minis-
ter said that internal desires for
reform "have been manipulat-
ed to futher objectives which
are alien to the interests and
express desires of the Syrian
people.
Human Rights Watch was
quick to dispute Moualem.
"The facts on the ground, as
documented by the UN or our-
selves, speak louder: the Syrian
government has engaged in a
merciless campaign of killings,
torture, and arbitrary deten-
tions to silence its people. The
Security Council needsto take
notice and act," the human
rights monitor said in a state-
ment.
In a speech to the U.N. on
Wednesday, U.S. President
Barack Obama called on the
Security Council to sanction
Syria.
The Security Council's
response to months of violence
in Syria was a statement con-
demning Assad for turning his
forces against his people.
Start Your Career
in Accounting.
New Libyan leadership to
end state security courts
NATO continues
air strikes against
Gadhafi forces
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - Lib-
ya's transitional justice minis-
ter said yestserday that he has
approved a measure to abol-
ish the country's state security
prosecution and courts, which
sentenced opponents of the old
regime to prison.
At a press conference in Trip-
oli, Mohammed al-Alagi, part
of Libya's new leadership after
the ouster of Moammar Gad-
hafi, said he has signed a docu-
ment to disband the bodies. The
step still needs approval by the
National Transitional Council
that now runs the country.
"I am personally very happy
to sign an approval to end the
state security prosecution and
court, and the state security
appeals court," al-Alagi said.
He said the document
includes a request to abolish
a third court for special cases
where many opposition mem-
bers were sentenced to life
terms in prisons like Abu Salim
in Tripoli, where inmates were
massacred by Gadhafi's regime.
Libyans are. pressing for
ward with efforts to do away
with some of the most hated
remnants of the former regime
even though fighting continues
and the ousted leader's where-
abouts remains unknown.
Hundreds of civilians fled
Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte
yesterday to escape growing
shortages of food and medicine
and escalating fears that their
homes will be struck during
fighting between revolutionary
forces and regime loyalists.
Anti-Gadhafi fighters
launched their offensive
against Sirte nearly two weeks
ago, but have faced fierce resis-
tance from loyalists holed up
inside the city. After a bloody
push into Sirte again over the
weekend, revolutionary fight-
ers say they have pulled back
to plan their assault and allow
civilians more time to flee.
NATO, which has played a
key role in decimating Gadhafi's
military during the Libyan civil
war, has kept up its air cam-
paign since the fall of Tripoli
last month. The alliance said
yesterday its warplanes struck
eight military targets near
Sirte a day earlier, including an
ammunition and vehicle stor-
age facility and rocket launcher.
Sirte, 250 miles (400 kilo-
meters) southeast of Tripoli
on the Mediterranean coast, is
one of the last remaining bas-
tions of Gadhafi loyalists since
revolutionary fighters stormed
into the capital last month. The
fugitive leader's supporters also
remain in control of the town of
Bani Walid, southeast of Trip-
oli, and pockets of territory in
the country's south.
Civilians fleeing Sirte Mon-
day described grave shortages
of food, fuel, drinking water
and medicine.
Eman Mohammed, a
30-year-old doctor at the city's
central Ibn Sina Hospital, said
the facility was short on most
medicines and had no oxygen
in the operating rooms.She said
most days, patients who reach
the hospital find no one to treat
them because fuel shortages
and fear keep staff from coming
to work.
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