The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Chrysler posts
first annual net
profit since 1997
Higher sales of Jeeps and
other new vehicles propelled
Chrysler to its first annual net
income since 1997, capping a
pivotal turnaround that many
thought would never happen.
The U.S. automaker, now pri-
vately held and majority owned
by Italy's Fiat SpA, earned $183
million last year, reversing a
$652 million loss in 2010, its
first full year out of bankruptcy
protection.
Just three years ago Chrys-
ler was close to running out of
cash and heading for the auc-
tion house. But a government-
funded bankruptcy cut debt
and expenses, and Chrysler
spent last year rolling out 16
new or revamped models to
boost sales. Now the company
is expanding into small cars
and adding jobs.
Chrysler expects an even
better 2012, despite a sluggish
and uncertain economy. The
company, which sells most of
its vehicles in the U.S., predicts
it will make about $1.5 billion
this year and increase revenue
18 percent.
DETROIT
Major Michigan
drug ring busted,
12 charged
An investigation of a major
drug ring in southeastern Michi-
gan has turned up more than $20
million in cash as well as real
estate and 10 vehicles, including
a Rolls Royce and Bentleys, fed-
eral authorities said yesterday.
An indictment unsealed in
federal court charged 12 people,
including a former state law-
maker.
"This should serve as clear
evidence that the growing opi-
ate/heroin abuse problem in
southeastern Michigan is real
and is being addressed," said
Robert Corso, head of the Drug
Enforcement Administration in
Detroit.
INDIANAPOLIS
Indiana gov. signs
right-to-work bill
Indiana is the first Rust Belt
state to enact the contentious
right-to-work labor law prohibit-
ing labor contracts that require
workers to pay union representa-
tion fees, after Republican Gov.
Mitch Daniels signed the bill
yesterday.
The Senate approved the mea-
sure a few hours earlier yester-
day, following weeks of discord
that saw House Democrats boy-
cott the Legislature and thou-
sands of protesters gather at the
Statehouse.
"Seven years of evidence and
experience ultimately demon-

strated that Indiana did need a
right-to-work law to capture jobs
for which, despite our highly
rated business climate, we are
not currently being considered,"
Daniels said in a statement. A
spokeswoman said he would not
take questions on the measure
 yesterday.
BOGOTA, Colombia
Bomb kills five,
wounds 40 in
Pacific coast city
A bomb exploded outside a
police station in the Pacific port
city of Tumaco just as lunch hour
ended yesterday, killing at least
five people and wounding more
than 40, authorities said.
The bomb appeared to be a
motorcycle packed with explo-
sives, Tumaco security chief
Hernando Cortes told The Asso-
ciated Press.
Gen. Rodolfo Palomino, the
national police director of citi-
zen security, initially reported
five deaths and 20 injuries. Doris
Balderizo, head of the Tumaco
hospital emergency department,
later said that more than 40 peo-
ple had been wounded, a dozen
of them with serious injuries.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Brussels yesterday to attend a NATO conference to discuss foriegn forces in Afghanistan.
U.S. to leave Afghanistan by 2013

U.N. Security Council
works on Syrian plan
Diplomats hope to ernment.
The plan also calls on Assad,
overcome Russian. who has beenusing police and the
military to put down an uprising
objections for the past 10 months, to end the
violence.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice
Diplomats claimed considerable said the call for Assad to step
progress yesterday toward over- aside remained "one of the more
coming Russian objections to a difficult issues."
U.N. Security Council resolution "There's no certainty. These
aimed at halting the violence in are tough issues," Rice said, add-
Syria, but demands that President ing that a "constructive and
Bashar Assad step aside remained roll-up-your-sleeves manner"
a major sticking point. during the session gave her hope
Following a closed-door meet- for eventual agreement on a reso-
ing, several diplomats said they lution being drafted by Morocco.
were encouraged by a new con- "We're not talking weeks, but
structive attitude in discussions we're not talking tomorrow," she
and some held out the possibility said.
of a vote before by tomorrow. Ambassadors from India, Ger-
"We are still looking for a vote many and other countries said
this week," British Ambassador they expected Morocco, the reso-
Mark Lyall Grant said. "But there lution's key sponsor, to prepare a
are a lot of difficult issues and we new draft for discussion by coun-
are not there yet." cil members today.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Russian officials have said
Churkin also sounded upbeat, they'll oppose the resolution if
saying: "I think we have a much it contains any hint of a military
better understanding of what we intervention or regime change in
need to do to reach consensus." Syria, a major ally.
Western diplomats insist the Churkin told reporters before
U.N. resolution be based on an yesterday's session that a change
Arab League peace plan calling in the current language calling
for Assad to step down, allowing for Assad to step aside "would
for the formation of a new gov- make it easier for us" to approve.
Vice president visits
Grand Rapids company

Forces to remain in
advisory, training
role until 2014
BRUSSELS (AP) - Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta laid
out the administration's most
explicit portrayal of the U.S.
drawdown in Afghanistan, say-
ing yesterday that U.S. and other
international forces in Afghani-
stan expect to end their com-
bat role in 2013 and continue a
training and advisory role with
Afghan forces through 2014.
Panetta's remarks to reporters
traveling with him to a NATO
defense ministers meeting in
Brussels showed how the foreign
military role in Afghanistan is
expected to evolve from the cur-
rent high-intensity fight against
the Taliban to a support role with
Afghans fully in the lead. The
timeline fits neatly into the U.S.
political calendar, enabling Pres-
ident Barack Obama to declare
on the campaign trail this year
that in addition to bringing all
U.S. troops home from Iraq and
beginning a troop drawdown in
Afghanistan, he also has a target
period for ending the U.S. com-
bat role there.
It also serves to possibly
bridge an apparent gap between

France and the rest of the NATO
partners of the U.S. on defining
the end game in Afghanistan.
All NATO members in
November 2010 endorsed a plan
to keep forces in Afghanistan
until the end of 2014. But France
this week appeared to throw
that plan into doubt when Presi-
dent Nicolas Sarkozy proposed,
with Afghan President Hamid
Karzai at his side and seemingly
in agreement, that NATO end its
mission in 2013 - one year ear-
lier than planned.
Sarkozy also said, however,
that France would provide sup-
port for the training of Afghan
forces beyond 2013, so his
approach might not be entirely
different from the one Panetta
outlined in which allied troops
shed their combat role in the
second half of 2013 but remain
through 2014 to train, advise
and assist.
Panetta said he hoped to
hear more from the French del-
egation at the NATO talks today
and tomorrow.
Panetta called 2013 a critical
year for the Afghanistan mis-
sion that has dragged on for
more than a decade with little
sign that the Taliban will be
decisively defeated. He noted
that NATO and the Afghan gov-
ernment intend to begin a final

phase of handing off sections of
the country to Afghan security
control in mid-2013.
"Hopefully by the mid to lat-
ter part of 2013 we'll be able to
make a transition from a com-
bat role to a training, advise and
assist role," he said. He added
that this "doesn't mean we're
not going to be combat-ready,"
but rather that the U.S. and
other international forces will
no longer be in "the formal com-
bat role we're in now."
Panetta said the administra-
tion wants to make sure that
the Afghan forces, after foreign
troops depart, are "sufficient
and sustainable," but noted
that will require continuing
financial support not only from
the United States but also from
allies and many other countries.
"One of the things we'll be
discussing (in Brussels) is what
the size of that (Afghan) force
should be, but a lot of that will
be dependent on the funds that
are going to be put on the table
in order to sustain that force,"
he said. "That's one of the
things, frankly, I'm going to be
pushing at this (meeting)."
A senior defense official trav-
eling with Panetta said the U.S.
believes Afghanistan will not
need as big a force as is now
being built.
n battle to
re Court
and indeed cannot as a matter
of principle, exercise judicial
authority."
Rose said that putting the
power to arrest suspects in the
hands of the same prosecutors
bent on trying and convicting
them was completely unfair.
She said this is not a parochial
British view but rather a vener-
able rule whose origins go back
1,500 years to the laws of the
Byzantine Empire.
"No one may be a judge in
their own case," Rose said, call-
ing it "about as fundamental a
principle as you can have."
Rose spent the next four
hours combing through British
case law and parsing European
draft treaties to buttress her
case - sometimes even slip-
ping into French to make finer
points about the documents'
wording.
Evidence showed, she said,
that drafters believed "that the
European arrest warrant was a
very serious measure that has to
be issued by a court."

I

Assange takes extraditio
the Great Britain Supren

Wikileaks founder's
last chance to avoid
going to Sweden
LONDON (AP) - Julian
Assange took his extradition
battle to Britain's Supreme
Court yesterday, arguing that
sending him to Sweden would
violate age-old legal tradition.
The two-day hearing is
Assange's last chance to per-
suade British judges to quash
efforts to send him to Scandi-
navia, where he is wanted on
sex crimes allegations. The case
will continue Thursday, but no
decision is expected for several
weeks.
Assange - who leads the
WikiLeaks anti-secrecy web-
site - was accused of rape, coer-
cion and molestation following
encounters with two Swedish
women in August 2010, shortly
after his group published sensi-
tive U.S. government documents
relating to the Afghan war.

He denies the allegations,
claiming the sex was consen-
sual.
Assange's case before the
Supreme Court hinges on a sin-
gle technicality: whether Swe-
den's public prosecutor could
issue a warrant for Assange's
arrest.
In Britain as in the United
States, generally only judges
can issue arrest warrants, and
U.K. courts only honor Euro-
pean arrest warrants issued by
what they describe as judicial
authorities.
The warrant seeking
Assange's arrest was issued by
Sweden's public prosecutor, but
British courts have so far upheld
it on the grounds that Swedish
prosecutors, like some of their
European counterparts, play a
quasi-judicial role.
Assange lawyer Dinah Rose
blasted that argument Wednes-
day, telling the seven justices
gathered in the building's
wood-panelled Courtoom One
that a prosecutor "does not,

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Biden tours The vice president's visit comes
less than a week after President
Michigan Barack Obama spoke at the Uni-
versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
seatmaker Obama called for colleges and
universities to hold down tuition
ND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) costs and talked of other ways
President Joe Biden told to support to the middle class.
s yesterday at American The White House said that visit
Co. they're an example of wasn't a campaign stop.
S. companies can prosper Biden echoed the middle-class
ping production at home, theme yesterday as he addressed
that a stronger manufac- the workers, who were seated
sector is playing a crucial on stackable plastic-and-metal
the nation's economic chairs that American Seating pio-
y. neered in the 1970s. He called for
never outsourced, you bringing jobs back to the United
eft, you never abandoned" States so that skilled American
nited States, Biden told workers could earn a living wage.
200 American Seating He also promised that, under the
ees. "I'm absolutely con- . Obama administration, "your
because of you workers kids are going to hear as much
loor, America is absolutely about insourcing as you heard
back and will lead the about outsourcing."
n the 21st century." The White House wants to
125-year-old Grand Rap- eliminate incentives to ship jobs
apany employs nearly 500 overseas that put U.S. companies
in the Grand Rapids area that keep jobs here at a disadvan-
kes seats for buses, trains, tage. In their place, the admin-
urniture, auditoriums and istration would offer tax breaks
is, including Fenway Park to companies that close overseas
on and Radio City Music factories and return jobs to the
New York City. It has United States.
noved production overseas "You give people a moving
'st of its parts come from- expense to come home, you don't
an, Ohio and Indiana. give them a moving expense to
in American Seating are go abroad," Biden said, earn-
mf doing our part to rebuild ing applause. "That's why I'm so
ericaneconomy,"said plant proud of this company. They did
ons manager John Burns. not budge."

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