The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.cam

Thursday, November 10, 2011 - 3A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, November10, 2011 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
ROCHESTER, Mich.
Romney, Cain
continue Michigan
campaign today
Presidential candidates Mitt
Romney and Herman Cain plan
to stay in Michigan after yester-
day's Republican debate to get in
some campaigning.
Cain's campaign announced
Tuesday that the former head of
Godfather's Pizza plans to make
stops today in Ypsilanti, Kalama-
zoo, Grand Rapids and Traverse
City.
Romney's campaign says the
former Massachusetts governor
will attend a rally this afternoon
at the American Polish Cultural
Center in Troy. His wife Ann
plans to meet with voters this
morning in Lansing.
About 1,400 people are expect-
ed to attend.
NEW YORK
Occupy protesters
start march from
NYC to D.C.
About two dozen Occupy Wall
Street protesters have started a
two-week walk from New York
to Washington.
The activists left Manhattan's
Zuccotti Park yesterday. Police
on scooters flanked them as they
marched past the World Trade
Center site toward a ferry pier.
They planned to resume
their walk in New Jersey and go
through Pennsylvania, Delaware
and Maryland, then arrive in
Washington by Nov. 23.
That's the deadline for a con-
gressional committee to decide
whether to keep President Barack
Obama's extension of Bush-era
tax cuts. Protesters say the cuts
benefit only rich Americans.
They hope to pick up other
participants along their 240-
mile march and have likened
the effort to long-distance walks
during the civil rights era.
SAO PAULO
Students go on
strike in Brazil
after police raid
Students at one of Brazil's
most elite universities are going
on strike a day after riot police
forcibly removed them from an
occupied building on campus.
The students voted for the strike
after police raided an administra-
tion building and arrested 70 stu-
dents who were protesting police
patrols on the campus of the Uni-
versity of Sao Paulo.
A judge had ordered them to
leave the building by late Mon-
day, but the group refused.
Students complain they are
subjected to random searches and
intimidation by police on campus.
University administrators and
police signed an agreement in
September that allowed police
* to begin patrols in response to a

wave of assaults on campus.
ISLAMABAD
Aid running out
for victims of
Pakistan floods
International aid agencies
warn they are running short of
money and supplies to help mil-
lions of people affected by floods
in Pakistan.
The statement was issued yes-
terday by the United Nations and
several other aid groups, includ-
ing Oxfam, Save the Children,
Care and ACTED.
The U.N. says it has only raised
$96.5 million of the $357 million
six-month appeal it issued in Sep-
tember. It says relief supplies will
run out in weeks without more
money.
Oxfam has only raised about
$13 million of its $35 million
appeal and will have to cut back
help to nearly 4 million people at
the beginning of the year.
The floods first hit Pakistan
in August following unusually
* heavy monsoon rains and have
affected over 9 million people.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Minhaj Gedi Farah, a then seven-month-old child with a weight of 3.4kg on Tuesday, July 26, 2011, is photographed on
Aug. 6, 2011, in the hands of his mother Asiah Dagane in the Eastern Kenyan village of Hagadera.
Somalia still suffering
despi te aid for -millions

Nearly 2 million
Somalis without
access to food
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - As
Minhaj Gedi Farah lay silently
on a hospital bed three months
ago, even his mother had given
up hope that the skeletal Soma-
li baby would live. Weeks of
intensive feeding, though, have
transformed him into a chubby-
cheeked boy who crawls.
The is one of several sto-
ries highlighted yesterday in
an annual New York fundrais-
ing event held by the aid group
International Rescue Commit-
tee, which helped nurse Minhaj
back to health.
Famine has claimed the lives
of tens of thousands of Somali
children this year, but the U.N.
said despite restrictions by
Islamist insurgents, heavy rains
and fighting, aid agencies are
expanding their reach. Food aid
is now getting to 2.2 million of
the 4 million Somalis who need
it, the U.N. said.
"His mother never thought
he would recover. Every mem-

ber of his family is happy," said
Sirat Amin, a nurse-nutritionist
with the International Rescue
Committee who has been moni-
toring Minhaj's progress. "He
can sit without being supported,
he can have (nutritional supple-
ment) Plumpynut on his own.
He's crawling."
In July, the month that the
U.N. declared parts of Somalia
famine zones, Minhaj was one
of dozens of limp babies lying
under mosquito net shrouds in
the sweltering wards of the IRC
hospital in Dadaab, the world's
largest refugee camp. Seven-
month-old Minhaj weighedonly
3.2 kilograms (7.05 pounds), less
than some newborns.
Pictures of his gaunt cheeks
and bulging eyes made him the
face of the famine. But after
weeks of intensive feeding with
Plumpynut - a kind of sweet-
ened peanut butter packed with
nutrients - he is nearly 8 kilo-
grams (17.64 pounds), almost
normal for aboy his age.
Since the beginning of the
year, hundreds of thousands of
Somali families have poured
over the border, fleeing war and
hunger. Domes made from dirty

tarpaulins and scraps of cloth
mushroomed on the scrub-
lands of northern Kenya and the
U.N.'s famine announcement
brought planeloads of television
crews to capture images of their
suffering.
Now the torrent of refugees
fleeing into Kenya has slowed
to a trickle and the camera
crews have gone home. But that
doesn't mean the emergency is
over.
Nearly 2 million Somalis still
don't have access to food aid.
Rain has turned tracks through
the bush to slush and there's
been fighting along the border
after hundreds of Kenyan sol-
diers crossed into Somalia. Last
month's incursion followed a
string of kidnappings on Kenyan
soil by Somali gunmen.
Families wanting to flee may
fear being . caught up in the
fighting or be stuck in the mud.
Only the strongest are getting
through. When they arrive,
they are not only starving but
sick and exhausted, Amin said.
So although less are coming,
when they arrive in the refugee
camps in Kenya many are in a
more severe state of starvation.

DEBATE
From Page 1A
process, a private bankruptcy pro-
cess."
The candidates moved on to
discuss tax plans and govern-
ment regulation, during which
Cain's famous 9-9-9 plan took
center stage. The sexual harass-
ment allegations against Cain were
mentioned briefly and quickly dis-
missed when Cain said they were
"unfounded accusations."
"I value my character and my
integrity more than anything else,"
Cain said. "And for every one pr-
son that comes forward with a false
accusation, there are probably ...
thousands who would say none of
that sort of activity ever came from
Herman Cain."
The candidates' initiatives to cut
government spending and restruc-
ture the tax system were met with
applause and enthusiasm from
the audience, particularly when
Paul announced his desire to cut
$1 trillion from the federal budget
during his first year in office. The
candidates frequently reiterated
their support of businesses and the
imporanceof a free marketsystem.
"The right thing for America is
to have profitable enterprises that
can hire people," Romney said. "I
want to make Americanbusinesses
successful and thrive. What we
have in Washington today is a pres-
ident and an administration that
doesn't like business, that some-
how thinks they wantjobs,but they
don't like businesses."
The topic of economics based
on laissez-faire principles contin-
ued as the debate shifted into the
health care sector. Each candi-
date expressed their opposition to
Obama's health care law and said
they would act to repeal it upon
entering office.
The candidates disagreed, how-
ever, on the issue of the costly fed-
eral student loan program. Paul
announced his desire to cut the
program entirely in addition to
eliminating the Department of
Education to make education more
cost effective and beneficial for
students.
"So when the government gets
involved in the delivery of any ser-
vice - whether it's education, med-
ical care, or housing - they cause
higher prices, lower quality, create
bubbles and they give us this mess
thatwe'rein," Paul said.
Gingrich pointed to the College
of the Ozarks in Oliver Township,
Mo. - that uses a work-study pro-
gram in which students work 20
hours each week in exchange for a
free education - as an example of
an ideally cheap and high quality
approach to funding higher educa-
tion. But he called the program so
unusual that most young Ameri-
cans would experience a "culture
shock" if the system were changed.
Jesse Benton, Paul's national
campaign manager who spoke
with The Michigan Daily after the
debate, said Paul's plan does not
entail the immediate removal of
federal student loans, but rather

a gradual shift away from depen-
dency on the program so govern-
ment spending is minimized and
the quality of American education
is maintained.
"The truth is that the federalostu-
dent loan program has completely
messed up our higher education
system," Benton said. "Look at
the exploding cost and look at the
diminishing quality. Look at the job
market we're handing our students
whenthey getout and work."
In an interview with the Daily
after the debate, Santorum said the
increasing amount of federal sub-
sidies provided to students greatly
attributes to the skyrocketing cost
of higher education. He added that
in many regards, the costs associat-
ed with attending college, like the
price of textbooks, is a "scam." Ulti-
mately, the current state of higher
education is hindering the ability
for students to learn effectively,
Santorum said.
"There's all these artificial costs
that are built into a college educa-
tion, and they can get away with it
because kids aren't feeling the real
impact of the cost if they're bor-
rowing all that money and we have
to change that," Santorum said.
LSA sophomore Russ Hayes, a
member of the University's chap-
ter of College Republicans, was in
attendance at the debate and said
in an interview afterward that the
general sense of accordance among
the eightccandidates was important
to showcase the candidates' desire
- regardless of their background -
to progress the nation.
"Overall that consensus, that
universal agreement that some-
thing needed to change, that was
important," Hayes said.
Hayes said he agreed with com-
ments made by Paul regarding
divesting federal funds from high-
er education funding since it cul-
tivates higher inflation rates and
ultimately encumbers students'
abilities to find post-graduate
employment.
"The argument is that when the
federal government loans money
to people it inflates the value of an
education," Hayes said. "Education
is key. I think all sides agree that
education is incredibly important,
and what we need is people to get
jobs with their degrees."
Hayes added that despite the
lauding of education among gov-
ernment officials, the reality is
that students are failing to obtain
jobs with their degrees, creating
an issue similar tothe housingbub-
ble, as Paul mentioned, in which
students invest a large amount of
money that leads to little pay off, or
evenbankruptcy, in the longrun.
"The problem is we have people
coming out of college with degrees,
and they're just not working,"
Hayes said. "The degree is not what
it was 10 to 15 years ago. The prob-
lem that Ron Paul and a lot of the
Republican candidates see is this
bubble of education like what we
saw with the housing bubble. The
worry is if we keep pouring grants
and pouring loans to students that
won't be able to afford it and willbe
in debt, that's a worry."

Immigration crackdown leads
to labor shortage for harvest

About 70 percent
of Washington
farmworkers are
illegal immigrants
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -
Apple growers say they could
have had one of their best years
ever if a shortage of workers
hadn't forced them to leave
some fruit on trees.
Growers inWashington state,
which produces about half of
the nation's apples, say the labor
shortage was made worse by a
late start to their harvest. The
growing season got off to a
slow start because of a cold, wet
spring, and some migrant work-
ers didn't stick around to wait
for it.
But farmers say an immigra-
tion crackdown by the federal
government and states such as
Arizona and Alabama scared
off many more workers. They
have tried to replace them with
domestic workers with little
success and inmates at a much
greater cost. Many growers
have resorted to posting "pick-
ers wanted" signs outside their
orchards and asking neighbors
to send prospective workers
their way.
Jeff Pheasant and his sister
Darla Grubb are the fourth gen-
eration in their family to grow
apples near Soap Lake, about
120 miles east of Seattle. They
said their harvest was a week
behind because the fruit wasn't
ripe, then another week behind
because they had no workers to
pick it.
Pheasant Orchards usually
has 65 workers at the peak of

harvest. Only 50 pickers arrived
this year, and many were inex-
perienced, Pheasant said.
"You have to have people,"
Grubb said. "They're the reason
we have fruits and vegetables.
We couldn't do this without our
workers."
About 15 billion apples are
picked in Washington each
year, all by hand. Orchards line
the hillsides and valleys east
of the Cascade Range from the
Canadian border in the north
to the Columbia River in the
south.
Growers have struggled for
years with labor shortages, but
they say this harvest season is
one of the toughest yet. Typi-
cally, about 70 percent of the
state's farmworkers are in the
country illegally. But many
Mexican and other migrant
workers stayed away this year
after some states passed tough-
er immigration laws and the
federal government cracked
down.
"We've been dealing with
this for a number of years now,
and until something changes at
the federal level, growers are
going to struggle having enough
workers," said Mike Gempler, a
farm labor contractor for Wash-
ington growers.
Gov. Chris Gregoire assem-
bled a delegation of 15 farmers
last month for a trip to Wash-
ington, D.C., where they urged
Congress to enact comprehen-
sive immigration reform. At the
time, Gregoire estimated the
state still needed 4,000 workers
to complete the harvest, which
could have been the third-larg-
est in state history.
"Our problem now is: How do
we get it off the trees?" Gregoire

said. "We don't have a work
force, and that is at the doorstop
of the federal government."
Farmers in other states also
are struggling with a labor
shortage. A Georgia pilot pro-
gram matching probationers
with farmers needing harvest-
ers had mixed results. Some
Alabama farmers tried hiring
American citizens after the
state's new immigration law
chased away migrant workers,
but they said the new employees
were often ready to call it a day
by mid-afternoon. Many quit
after a day or two.
In Washington, a state office
that matches workers with
available jobs posted hundreds
of openings at orchards with
few takers, and many farmers
complained that those who did
apply were too inexperienced.
Some critics say growers
would have enough workers if
they paid more. Washington
has the highest minimum wage
in the country at $8.67 per hour.
Apple pickers are often paid
based on how much they pick,
but they're guaranteed at least
minimum wage.
Erik Nicholson, Pacific
Northwest director for the
United Farmworkers of Amer-
ica labor union, said that's not
enough to attract a steady labor
supply.
A growing number of farmers
have turned to a federal guest-
worker program to bring in
foreign workers, despite long-
standing complaints that it's
too cumbersome and expensive
to be of any real help. Growers
in the program generally must
pay a higher wage, plus provide
housing and transportation in
and out of the country.

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