The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, September 29, 2011 - 3A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, September 29, 2011 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
WASHINGTON
Rev. Al Sharpton
to lead march in
Washington D.C.
The Rev. Al Sharpton says he
will lead a march in Washington
next month in support of Presi-
dent Barack Obama's jobs plan
- and he dismisses blacks who
criticize Obama over high black
unemployment.
As Sharpton announced plans
yesterday for the Oct. 15 March
for Jobs and Justice, he was asked
whether there is a double standard
in failing to hold Obama account-
able for joblessness among blacks.
The leader of the Congressio-
nal Black Caucus, Rep. Emanuel
Cleaver, has said there is.
The double standard, Sharpton
says, is that most black politicians
who publicly criticize Obama did
not initially back his 2008 presi-
dential bid -theysupported Hill-
ary Clinton, who is now secretary
of state.
EUGENE, Ore.
Gov't gives patients
monthly supply of
medical marijuana
The U.S. government consid-
ers marijuana among the world's
most dangerous drugs, classifying
it as a highly-addictive substance
that has no medical use.
But there's a catch: The gov-
ernment also supplies four people
with 300 marijuana cigarettes
each month. They are patients in
the government's Compassionate
Investigational New Drug Pro-
gram.
The program began when a
Washington, D.C., man sued the
government in order to get access
to marijuana to treat his glau-
coma. He won, and the program
was born.
The pot is grown in Missis-
sippi as part of the government's
research into marijuana. It's then
sent to a facility in North Caro-
lina, where it is rolled into ciga-
rettes.
WASHINGTON
U.S. Census shows
130,000 married
gay couples in U.S.
Increasingly visible, the num-
ber of gay Americans telling the
U.S. census they're living with
same-sex partners nearly dou-
bled in the past decade, to about
650,000 couples. And more than
130,000 recorded partners as hus-
band or wife.
Census figures released Tues-
day provide a rare snapshot of
married and unmarried same-sex
couples in the U.S. based on the
government count conducted last
year, when gaymarriage was legal
in five states and the District of
Columbia. It comes at a time when

public opposition to gay marriage
is easing and advocacy groups are
seeking a state-by-state push for
broader legal rights.
NAIROBI, Kenya
U.N. reports gains
in fight against
* famine in Somalia
The U.N. yesterday said food
assistance has reached nearly
half the Somalis in need, though
it warned cases of diarrhea and
cholera could spike with the sea-
sonal rains expected in October.
Famine relief has gotten to
about 1.85 million Somalis, the
U.N. Office for the Coordination
of HumanitarianAffairs said.
The World Health Organiza-
tion, meanwhile, reports that
cases of diarrhea and cholera
are down, though October rains
could pose a high risk of trans-
mission of waterborne diseases in
highly populated camps for those
displaced by the famine.
Tens of thousands of Somalis
already have died from a lack of
food, and the U.N. says 750,000
more are at risk of death from
famine in the next four months.
Six areas in southern Somalia
have been declared famine zones.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Emergency food
providers become
mainstay for many

An Afghan police officer, left, looks at a police vehicle damaged ina suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province,
Afghanistan, Tuesday, Sept.27, 2011.
U.N. reports a growing
i ntensity in Afghan war

17 million in U.S.
deemed 'food-
insecure' in 2010
NEW YORK (AP) - Rosa-
linde Block.receives $241 a
month in food assistance for her
and her 18-year-old son, to add
to the money coming in from the
piano lessons she teaches and
the art commissions she gets. In
one of the world's most expen-
sive cities, it's not enough.
"That goes pretty fast," said
Block, 59, of the amount she got
for September, "it was already
gone by the 12th or the 15th."
So Block, who lives on Man-
hattan's Upper West Side, adds
to it with visits every other
month to a food pantry in near-
by Harlem, where she'll get
some chicken or milk, or some
ingredients for soup or a few
other meals. It's been like this
for a couple of years.
A report released yesterday
by Feeding America, a hunger-
relief organization, finds that
food banks that were originally
created to serve as stop-gap
emergency food providers are
now taking a long-term, chronic
role for Americans turning to
them routinely to get enough to
eat.
The organization's study,
"Food Banks: Hunger's New
Staple," analyzed data com-
piled in 2009 as part of the

group's "Hunger in America
2010" report. The latest analysis
showed that 18 percent of those
surveyed said they used food
pantries six to 11 months of the
previous year, while 36 percent
they used them every month.
The survey also found that
among those 65 years and older,
56 percent went to a food pantry
every month. And even those
receiving aid in the form of
supplemental nutrition money
still needed more help, with 58
percent of them being frequent
or monthly users.
"Those dollars don't go very
far," said Vicki Escarra, presi-
dent of the Chicago-based Feed-
ing America.
The report "really puts kind
of a fine point on the fact that
food banks are becoming the
new normal for a large percent-
age of the population," she said.
It's not the role they were
created for, she said, "but we are
doing that right now because we
have to."
According to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture, 14.5 per-
cent U.S. households, about 17
million, were termed "food-
insecure" in 2010, a jump from
about 11 percent in 2007. Of
those households, 6.4 million
had very low food security,
meaning one or more members
of the household had eating pat-
terns disrupted because of lack
of money or other resources for
food.

Violent incidents
up 39 percent from
same time last year
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -
The monthly average of armed
clashes, roadside bombings and
other violence in Afghanistan
is running 39 percent ahead of
last year's figure, U.N. reported
yesterday, with more complex
suicide operations involvingmul-
tiple bombers and gunmen.
The statistics show that the
intensity of the nearly decade-old
war is growing, not abating, as
the U.S. and other nations start
to withdraw some forces with
an eye toward pulling all combat
troops out by the end of 2014. The
Taliban's resilience raises ques-
tions about whether the Afghan
government and its Western
allies have a solid grip on secu-
rity - and whether the Afghan
forces can ever secure the nation
by themselves.
NATO says it has made prog-
ress in taming the Taliban insur-
gency by routing its strongholds
in the south. But the Taliban have
hit back with several high-profile
attacks in the capital and assas-
sinations of government officials
and senior Afghan leaders.

In its quarterly report on
Afghanistan, the U.N. said that
as of the end of August, the aver-
age monthly number of incidents
stood at 2,108, up 39 percent over
the same period a year earlier.
It did not provide comparable
data. The figures include insur-
gent attacks as well as assaults
by NATO and Afghan forces on
Taliban figures and positions.
"Armed clashes and impro-
vised explosive devices contin-
ued to constitute the majority of
incidents," U.N. Secretary-Gen-
eral Ban Ki-moon said in his
report. "The south and south-
east of the country, particularly
around the city of Kandahar,
continued to be the focus of mili-
tary activity and accounted for
approximately two-thirds of the
total security incidents."
The U.S.-led coalition said it
disputes the U.N. figures and
planned to hold a news confer-
ence today to release its own sta-
tistics related to overall violence
trends in Afghanistan.
Kandahar, the birthplace of
the Taliban insurgency, was
where most of the 33,000 addi-
tional U.S. troops that President
Barack Obama sent to Afghani-
stan were deployed. The extra
U.S. and other NATO . forces
succeeded in routing insurgents

from their stronghold and now
are trying to hold those areas in
the south.
The militants, however, have
opened new fronts in the north
and west and have stepped up
attacks in the east, including
ones inside the heavily secured
capital, Kabul.
According to the U.N. report,
while the number of suicide
attacks remained steady, insur-
gents conducted more suicide
operations involving multiple
bombers and gunmen. It said
that on average, three complex
attacks have been carried out
each month from January to
August - a 50 percent increase
compared with the same period
last year.
"Complex suicide attacks
made up a greater proportion
of the total number of suicide
attacks," the report said.
Many of these attacks have
taken place in Kabul.
On Aug. 19, Taliban suicide
bombers stormed the British
Council, the U.K.'s international
cultural relations body, killing
eight people duringaneight-hour
firefight as two English language
teachers and their bodyguard
hid in a locked panic room on
the anniversary of the country's
independence from Britain.

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President of Haiti plans to
reinstate military presence

Human rights
groups wary of
army's restoration
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
(AP) - Haiti's president is mov-
ing forward with a controversial
campaign pledge to restore the
country's disbanded military
with an initial force of 3,500 sol-
diers, according to a document
obtained Tuesday by The Associ-
ated Press.
The role for the army replacing
the former discredited military
would be to patrol Haiti's border,
keep order during times of crisis
and provide opportunities for
young people, says the document
outlining the plan.
President Michel Martelly's
government proposes spending
$95 million to train and equip the
new armed force with the goal of
eventually replacing the 12,000
U.N. peacekeepers in the country.
"The fragility of the Haitian
state now makes it vulnerable to
the risks of internal unrest that
could plunge the country into
anarchy," the document says.
Martelly spokesman Lucien
Jura said Tuesday afternoon that
he was unaware of the document,
and referred questions to security
consultant Reginald Delva, who
told the AP he would comment
later.
Haiti has not had a military
since it was disbanded in 1995
under President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide after years of coups and
human rights abuses. Some Hai-

tians have said in recent months
they welcome the creation of a
new army, a reflection of patrio-
tism but also of the expectation
that it would create jobs in an
impoverished country.
Human rights groups have
expressed uneasiness with the
idea of restoring a military that
was notorious for abuses.
The Martelly administration's
proposal has been circulating
among foreign officials in Haiti
and would need the approval of
Parliament as well as funding
that would likely have to come
from international aid.
The AP obtained the document
from an official on condition of
anonymity because the person
was not authorized to distribute it.
Haiti's government notes in
the report that it does not face
any threat from other countries
but says a new army is necessary
to patrol the porous border with
the Dominican Republic, now fre-
quently used by drug traffickers
and for other types of smuggling.
The budget for the project,
known as the National Council
of Defense and Security, includes
$15 million to compensate for-
mer military personnel who lost
wages and pensions when Aris-
tide disbanded the military. That
is a long-standing grievance of
the former soldiers.
The 22-page proposal says
organizers would initially name
an interim military staff and
identify sites for military bases
in the countryside, with the first
class of troops recruited from
November to January.

The plan also calls for cre-
ation of a "national intelligence
service," a special unit to deal
with terrorism threats, criminal
syndicates and illegal trafficking
networks. It would also moni-
tor "extremist organizations and
movements intended to spread
anarchy."
A U.S. Embassy spokesman,
Jon Piechowski, said by email
that Haitian government officials
had recently met with embassy
personnel to discuss the plan.
"We are reviewing the informh-
tion theyhave shared in support of
their vision," Piechowski said.
A human rights lawyer criti-
cized the idea, noting that the
military has long been used in
Haiti as a tool to quash democrat-
ic movements.
"The problems raised in the
proposal are real, but there is
little basis for believing that the
army would be an effective solu-
tion," said attorney Brian Con-
cannon, director and founder
of the Institute for Justice and
Democracy in Haiti.
"The (army) did not success-
fully defend the borders against
foreign attacks, and the other
listed functions - development,
disaster response and policing
are done more cheaply and effi-
ciently by civilian entities. What
the army has done w611 through-
out its history is attack unarmed
civilians and stunt democracy."
Haiti-born political observer
Jocelyn McCalla said the country
would be better served by creat-
ing a job program thatfocuses on
young people.

TOM UHLMAN/AP
In this June 27, 2011 photo, a Kroger store receipt with a food recall notice sits
near a check out lane atla Cincinnati Kroger.
E. coli scare leads
son to recall
ground beef

Ohio family
becomes ill after
eating Kroger beef
CINCINNATI (AP) - Tyson
Fresh Meats Inc. is recalling
about 131,300 pounds of ground
beef because a family in Ohio
fell ill after eating meat pro-
duced by the company that was
contaminated with E. coli, the
U.S. Department of Agriculture
reported yesterday.
The recall involves beef sold
as Kroger brands at Kroger Co.
supermarkets; Butcher's Beef
at Food Lion supermarkets; and
generic beef sold to SAV-A-LOT,
Spectrum Foods, Supervalu and
the Defense Commissary Agen-
cy, company spokesman Gary
Mickelson told The Associated
Press.
Tyson produced the affected
meat at its plant in Emporia, Kan.,
on Aug. 23, the USDA said in a
news release.
Four children became ill after
eating the meat with their family
in Butler County, Ohio, in the sec-
ond week of September, said But-
ler County Health Department

director Pat Burg. A 9-year-old
child was hospitalized for about
10 days with severe diarrhea, said
Burg, who declined to release the
family's name.
Ground beef from the family's
home tested positive for the bac-
teria. No other cases have been
reported in the southwest Ohio
county, Burg said.
The Ohio Department of
Health confirmed that two But-
ler County siblings received
medical treatment after becom-
ing sick from E.coli, while other
two children reported to be ill
didn't get medical treatment,
spokeswoman Tessie Pollock
said.
The family told health officials
that they bought the beef at a
Kroger supermarket.
Cincinnati-based Kroger
spokesman Keith Dailey said
the ground beef in question
would have been taken off store
shelves on Sept. 12, because of
when it was produced. He said
Kroger tracked beef to three
geographic divisions where it
was distributed and will have
in-store signs notifying custom-
ers of the recall and details of
the recalled beef.

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