The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, January 23, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday, January 23, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Two dozen hearses
lead anti-violence
parade through city
About two dozen hearses led
a motorcade yesterday through
Detroit as part of a campaign to
call attention to killings in the
city.
The United Communities of
America organized the "Thou
Shall Not Kill" motorcade, with a
course from downtown through
several crime-ridden neighbor-
s hoods before ending with a rally
at Fellowship Chapel.
"God does speak," Pastor Ovel-
la Andreas, an organizer, told the
crowd. "And I pray today that
those who have ears will hear
what He is saying."
The Detroit Free Press report-
ed that the funeral home hearses
were followed for blocks by cars,
trucks and vans. Police cars with
their sirens blaring escorted the
procession.
LOS ANGELES
Severed body
parts found near
Hollywood sign
Authorities have determined
that a dismembered head and
other body parts found in a rug-
ged hillside park near the famed
. "Hollywood" sign are the remains
of a man who lived in an a nearby
apartment.
The victim was Hervey Medel-
lin, a 66-year-old from Los Ange-
les, coroner's Lt. David Smith said
Friday night.
Investigators, who are search-
ing for suspects, served a search
warrant on a Hollywood apart-
ment in the area a day earlier, but
it wasn't immediately clear if it
was Medellin's apartment.
"We don't want to give out too
much information because the
investigation is ongoing," Andrew
Smith said.
MANILA, Phillipines
All 32 passengers
aboard ships saved
after sinking
A cargo ship loaded with
cement sank in the central Philip-
pines yesterday and another ves-
sel carrying iron ore went down
off the country's eastern coast, the
coast guard said. All 32 crewmen
from both ships were rescued.
The ship carrying iron ore, the
Panamanian-registered M/V Sun
Spirit, began to list Saturday off
Catanduanes province and sent a
distress signal.
Though coast guard officials
immediately deployed three ships
and a helicopter for a search and
rescue, it was a Philippine cargo
* ship and a fishing boat that saved
the crew of 12 Indonesians and
two Koreans, who had abandoned
the ship, coastguard Adm. Ramon
Liwag said.
SANAA, Yemen
Yemeni president
leaves for U.S. due
to health problems
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah
Saleh left his battered nation yes-
terday on his way to the U.S. for
medical treatment after passing
power to his deputy and asking
for forgiveness for any "shortcom-
ings" during his 33-year rein.
But in a sign that Saleh's role as
Yemen's top power broker is likely
far from over, he said he would
return to Yemen before the offi-
cial power transfer next month
to serve as the head of his ruling
party.
Saleh's departure marks a small
achievement in the months of dip-
lomatic efforts by the U.S. and
Yemen's powerful Gulf neighbors
to ease the nearly year-old politi-
cal crisis in the Arab world's poor-
est country. An active al-Qaida
branch there has taken advantage
of the turmoil, stepping up opera-
tions and seizing territory.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U.S. top officials talk
to Afghan insurgents'
SUNDAY ALAMBA/AP
Soldiers stand guard at a major road junction prior to Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan's visit to the site of a suicide
bombing at the police headquarters in Kano, Nigeria yesterday.
More than 150 people killed in
attack in northern Nigerian city
Discussions hope
to speed up peace
moves
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Anx-
ious to accelerate peace moves,
top-level U.S. officials have held
talks with a representative of
an insurgent movement led by a
former Afghan prime minister
who has been branded a terrorist
by Washington, a relative of the
rebel leader says.
Dr. Ghairat Baheer, a represen-
tative and son-in-law of longtime
Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hek-
matyar, told The Associated Press
this week that he had met sepa-
rately with David Petraeus, for-
mer commander of NATO forces
in Afghanistan who is now CIA
director, and had face-to-face dis-
cussions earlier this month with
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker
and U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen,
currently the top commander in
the country.
Baheer, who was released
in 2008 after six years in U.S.
detention at Bagram Air Field in
Afghanistan, described his talks
with U.S. officials as nascent and
exploratory. Yet, Baheer says the
discussions show that the U.S.
knows that in addition to get-
ting the blessing of Taliban chief
Mullah Mohammad Omar - a
bitter rival of Hekmatyar even
though both are fighting inter-
national troops - any peace deal
would have to be supported by
Hekmatyar, who has thousands
of fighters and followers primar-
ily in the north and east.
Hizb-i-Islami, which means
Islamic party, has had ties to
al-Qaida but in 2010 floated a
15-point peace plan during infor-
mal meetings with the Afghan
government in Kabul. At the time,
however, U.S. officials refused to
see the party's delegation.
"Hizb-i-Islami is a reality that
no one can ignore," Baheer said
during an interview last week at
his spacious home in a posh sub-
urb of Pakistan's capital, Islam-
abad. "For a while, the United
States and the Kabul government
tried not to give so much impor-
tance to Hizb-i-Islami, but now
they have come to the conclusion
that they cannot make it without
Hizb-i-Islami."
In Washington, National
Security Council spokeswoman
Caitlin Hayden would not con-
firm that such meetings took
place but said the U.S. was main-
taining "a range of contacts in
support of an Afghan-led recon-
ciliation process."
AU.S. official, speakingon con-
dition of anonymityto discuss the
high-level meetings, said Petrae-
us last met with Baheer in July
2011 when he was still command-
ing NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Petraeus took over as CIA direc-
tor in September.
Stench of death
permeates Kano as
hospitals overflow
with patients
KANO, Nigeria (AP) - People
in this north Nigeria city once
wore surgical masks to block the
dust swirling through its sprawl-
ing neighborhoods, but swarm-
ing children hawked the masks
for pennies apiece yesterday to
block the stench of death at a hos-
pital overflowing with the dead
following a coordinated attack
by a radical Islamist sect.
The Nigerian Red Cross now
estimates more than 150 people
died in Friday's attack in Kano,
which saw at least two suicide
bombers from the sect known
as Boko Haram detonate explo-
sive-laden cars. The scope of
the attack, apparently planned
to free sect members held by
authorities here, left even Presi-
dent Goodluck Jonathan speech-
less as he toured what remained
of a regional police headquarters
yesterday.
"The federal government will
not rest until we arrest the per-
petrators of this act," Jonathan
said earlier. "They are not spirits,
they are not ghosts."
However, unrest continued
across Nigeria as unknown
assailants in the northern state
of Bauchi killed at least 11 people
overnight Saturday in attacks
that saw at least two churches
bombed, a sign how far insecu-
rity has penetrated Africa's most
populous nation.
Friday's attacks by Boko
Haram hit police stations, immi-
gration offices and the local head-
quarters of Nigeria's secret police
in Kano, a city of more than 9
million people that remains an
important political and religious
center in the country's Muslim
north. The assault left corpses
lying in the streets across the city,
many wearing police or other
security agency uniforms.
Yesterday, soldiers wearing
bulky bulletproof vests stood
guard at intersections and
roundabouts, with bayoneted
Kalashnikov rifles at the ready.
Some made those disobeying
traffic directions do sit-ups or in
one case, repeatedly raise a bicy-
cle over their head.
Signs of the carnage still
remained. Police officers wear-
ing surgical masks escorted
a corpse wrapped in a white
burial shroud out of Murtala
Muhammed Specialist Hospital,
the city's biggest. Hospital offi-
cials there declined to comment
yesterday, but the smell of the
overflowing mortuary hung in
the air.
An internal Red Cross report
seen yesterday by an Associated
Press reporter said that hospital
alone has accepted more than
150 dead bodies from the attacks.
That death toll could rise further
as officials continue to collect
bodies.
At least four foreigners were
wounded in the attack, the
report showed. Among the dead
was Indian citizen Kevalkumar
Rajput, 23, the Press Trust of
India news agency reported.
Jonathan arrived to the city
late yesterday afternoon, trav-
eling quickly by a motorcade to
meet with the state governor and
the Emir of Kano, an important
Islamic figure in the country. His
motorcade later rushed to what
used to be the regional command
headquarters for the Nigeria
police, with an armed personnel
carrier trailing behind, a soldier
manning the heavy machine gun
atop it.
The Christian president,
wearing a Muslim prayer cap and
a black kaftan, looked stunned as
he stood near where the suicide
car bomber detonated his explo-
sives. Officers there said guards
on duty shot the tires of the
speeding car, forcing it to stop
before it reached the lobby of the
headquarters.
However, it didn't matter in
the end as the powerful explo-
sives in the car shredded the
cement building, tore away its
roof and blew out its windows.
Blood stained the yellow paint
near a second-story window, just
underneath a 10-foot-tall tree
uprooted and tossed atop the
building by the blast.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon also condemned the
multiple attacks yesterday.
"The secretary-general is
appalled at the frequency and
intensity of recent attacks in
Nigeria, which demonstrate a
wanton and unacceptable disre-
gard for human life," a statement
from his office read. He also
expressed "his hope for swift
and transparent investigations
into these incidents that lead to
bringing the perpetrators to jus-
tice."
A Boko Haram spokesman
using the nom de guerre Abul-
Qaqa claimed responsibility for
the attacks in a message to jour-
nalists Friday. He said the attack
came because the state govern-
ment refused to release Boko
Haram members held by the
police.
State legislators break
law with no punishment
Arizona bill would
grant law makers
immunity
PHOENIX (AP) - An Ari-
zona senator gets in a fight
with his girlfriend on a Phoe-
nix freeway and avoids arrest.
An Arkansas legislator leads
officers on a high-speed chase
through two counties and
doesn't get taken into custody.
A Georgia lawmaker claims
he couldn't be prosecuted on a
DUI charge.
In each case, a little-known
privilege called legislative
immunity that prevents the
arrests of legislators while they
are in session came into play.
The issue is getting a closer
look in Arizona this year after a
lawmaker introduced a resolu-
tion seeking to amend the state
Constitution to delete wording
barring the arrest of legisla-
tors during, and 15 days before,
legislative sessions. Like those
in many other states, Arizona's
legislative immunity protects
legislators from arrest except for
"treason, felony or breach of the
peace."
Then-Sen. Scott Bundgaard
became a part of the debate
after he was involved in a
domestic violence incident on
a Phoenix freeway last year. He
and his girlfriend at the time
pulled off to the side of the
road after an argument while
returning home from a Danc-
ing with the Stars-type compe-
tition. The ensuring fight left
both with cuts and bruises.
Police showed up and put
Bundgaard in handcuffs. Offi-
cers testified that he identified
himself as a legislator, cited the
constitutional provision and
demanded that they remove
handcuffs, even though Bund-
gaard denies invoking legisla-
tive immunity.
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