The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, February 13, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday, February 13, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Fisher Music
Center damaged
in gas explosion
Authorities say the home of
the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
has been damaged in a methane
gas explosion that sent at least
three manhole covers flying into
the air. No injuries were report-
ed.
It happened yesterday morn-
ing at Orchestra Hall, part of
" the Max Fisher Music Center
in Detroit's cultural center just
north of downtown.
DTE Energy Co. spokesman
Len Singer tells The Detroit
News and the Detroit Free Press
that an underground cable fail-
ure apparently triggered the
blast. WWJ-AM says officials
believe gas builtup in sewer lines
until it ignited.
MILWAUKEE
Sexual abuse
lawsuit against
0 Pope withdrawn
Lawyers for a man who was
sexually abused decades ago by a
priest at a Wisconsin school for
the deaf have withdrawn their
lawsuit naming Pope Benedict
XVI and other top Vatican offi-
cials as defendants.
Attorney Jeff Anderson filed
the lawsuit in 2010. He claimed
former Cardinal Joseph Ratzing-
er and his deputies knew about
allegations of sexual abuse at the
school and protected the priest
from punishment.
Anderson's firm withdrew the
case Friday in Milwaukee. He
explains the action by saying the
main thing he was seeking was
information and accountability,
and he's already received 30,000
pages of revealing documents
through bankruptcy proceed-
ings of the Archdiocese of Mil-
waukee.
CAIRO
United Nations
consultant shot,
killed in Egypt
" An Egyptian woman who
worked for the United Nations as
a freelance consultant was fatal-
ly shot in the head while driving
through an upscale Cairo neigh-
borhood on yesterday, security
officials said.
It was not immediately clear
whether the woman, identified
as 41 year-old Nermeen Gomaa
Khalil, was targeted or killed in
a random crime. Police said she
was shot by unidentified gun-
men passing in another car, but
no one has been arrested.
Khalil was shot in broad day-
light while driving her SUV on
one of Cairo's busiest streets in
the neighborhood of Mohandi-
seen, according to a security
official who spoke on condition
of anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to report-
ers. Khawla Mattar, director of
the UN Information Center in
Egypt, said Khalil was a consul-
tant with a women's fund at the
United Nations in Cairo and also
worked at a medical lab.
RESTELICA, Kosova
Avalanche kills 9,
one child saved
Rescuers have pulled a 5-year-
old girl alive from the rubble of
a house flattened by a massive
avalanche that killed both her
parents and at least seven of her
relatives in a remote mountain
village in southern Kosovo.
Col. Shemsi Syla, a spokesman
for the Kosovo Security Force,
said yesterday officers discov-
ered the girlwhen they heard her
voice and cell phone. Her home
was buried under 10 meters (33
feet) of snow.
Rescuers cheered and pumped
their fists in the air late Saturday
as the girl was pulled out alive. A
video aired on Klan Kosova TV
showed rescuers covering the
girl with blankets, before she
was rushed to hospital.
-Compiled from
SIlE INTEL GROUP/AP
Al-Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a still image from a web postng by al-Qaida's media arm, as-Sahab, yesterday.
A-Qaida backs Syrian
,-revolt and bombingsQ:
Violence increases
potential for
civil war, future
uncertain
BEIRUT (AP) - Al-Qaida's
leader has called for the ouster
of Syria's "pernicious, cancer-
ous regime," raising fears that
Islamic extremists will try to
exploit an uprising against Pres-
ident Bashar Assad that began
with peaceful calls for demo-
cratic change but is morphing
into a bloody, armed insurgency.
The regime has long blamed
terrorists for the 11-month-old
revolt, and al-Qaida's endorse-
ment creates new difficulties
for the U.S., its Western allies
and Arab states trying to figure
out a way to help force Assad
from power. Yesterday, the
22-nation Arab League called
for the U.N. Security Council
to create a joint peacekeeping
force for Syria, but Damascus
rejected it immediately.
In an eight-minute video
message released late Satur-
day, al-Qaida chief Ayman al-
Zawahri called on Muslims to
support Syrian rebels.
"Wounded Syria is still
bleeding day after day, and the
butcher (Bashar Assad) isn't
deterred and doesn't stop,"
said al-Zawahri, who took
over al-Qaida after Osama bin
Laden was killed by U.S. spe-
cial forces last May.
The United Nations esti-
mates more than 5,400 people
have been killed in Syria since
the uprising began in March.
But that figure is from Janu-
ary, when the U.N. stopped
counting because the chaos in
the country has made it all but
impossible to check the figures.
While many of the anti-
government protests sweeping
the country remain peaceful,
the uprising as a whole has
become more violent in recent
months as frustrated demon-
strators and army defectors
take up arms to protect them-
selves from the steady military
assault. An increasing num-
ber of army defectors known
as the Free Syrian Army have
launched attacks, killing sol-
diers and security forces.
Syria now has become one
of the deadliest conflicts of the
Arab Spring, and many fear
the country of 22 million at
the heart of the Arab world is
on the verge of a civil war that
could engulf the region.
In a grave escalation of the
violence, a string of suicide
attacks have killed dozens of
people since late December.
The latest, twin bombings
in the major northern city of
Aleppo, killed at least 28 peo-
ple on Friday, the government
said. Some 70 people were
killed in earlier attacks in the
capital, Damascus, on Dec. 23
and Jan. 6. All the blasts struck
security targets.
Nobody has taken respon-
sibility for the attacks, but
the regime said they have the
hallmarks of al-Qaida and
immediately blamed the global
terror group.
Saturday's statement by
al-Zawahri appears to bol-
ster Assad's accusations, but
the Syrian opposition and the
Free Syrian Army reject the
government's claims entirely.
They accuse forces loyal to the
regime of setting off the blasts
to smear the opposition, ter-
rify people into submission
and exploit fears of chaos and
sectarian warfare.
For many Syrians, the
uncertainty over the future is
cause for alarm in a country
that has watched neighboring
DATADRIVE
From Page 1A
tional Resources Network.
Focus: HOPE is a non-profit
organization based in Detroit
that was created in 1968 to over-
come racism, poverty and injus-
tice in southeast Michigan. The
problems and data Focus: HOPE
presented to the a2DataDive par-
ticipants concerned its HOPE
Village Initiative, a program
dedicated to creating a stable and
safe neighborhood for families in
Detroit and a section of Highland
Park.
Patrick Cooper, a represen-
tative of Focus: HOPE, said the
a2DataDive gave the organiza-
tion a clearer picture of the people
it helps by creating a map that
organizes participants not only by
where theylive, but also by income
level and level of involvement.
"Data scientists here have been
able to look at (our data) and been
abletodevelop anin-depthpicture
of who's in the HOPE Village ver-
sus the rest of the city of Detroit,
and what kind of programs need
to be developed to respond to their
needs," Cooper said.
Cooper added that apart from
the demographic map, one group
studied traffic and safety around
Focus: HOPE's location, which
will help make it easier for people
to travel to the program locations.
"Maybe some people are inhib-
ited from getting involved simply
because it's difficult to walk across
the expressway," Cooper said.
"We'll be able to use the informa-
tion that came out of this event to
help negotiate for improvement
for pedestrian traffic."
The other beneficiary of the
a2DataDive was African Health
OER Network, which is part of
OER Africa, an initiative estab-
lished by the South African Insti-
tute for Distance Education.
According to a handout at the
a2DataDive, African Health OER
Network aims to enhance health
education throughout Africa by
"creating and promoting free,
openly licensed teaching materi-
als created by Africans to share
knowledge, address curriculum
gaps, and support health educa-
tion communities."
Participants who worked with
the African Health OER Network
focused on two aspects of the
organization- the people who are
involved in the network and the
content generated by the network.
Kathleen Omollo, project man-
ager for the African Health OER
Network, said the information
analyzed during the a2DataDive
will help the organization see who
is active within the Health OER
Network.
"What I think will be most
valuable is seeing the people who
haven't been connected as much
and try to get them more involved
in events and reach out to them
more often," Omollo said.
The second group that worked
with the African OER Health
Network analyzed educational
YouTube videos that the network
generates. Omollo said the analy-
sis of the comments on the videos
was particularly interesting.
"Just that graphic they had
showing the frequency of words
'thank' and 'thank you' and 'grate-
ful' and 'very' being among the
highest is amazing," Omollo said.
... I can already think of so many
people who will be excited to see
that particular graphic."
Apart from collaborating
to help Focus: HOPE and the
African Health OER Network,
participants took part in three
information coding workshops
and hear from keynote speaker
David Burke, aprofessor of human
genetics at the University Medical
School.
Inaninterviewafterhisspeech,
Burke said he felt the a2DataDive
is centered around showing par-
ticipants how they can best utilize
what they learn.
"(The DataDive) is important
and useful, and you can feel that
when you talk to these people,"
Burke said. "They feel like they've
spent their time on something that
really has value and that is a good
part of what you have to do at a
university."
The a2DataDive was inspired
by the original DataDive created
by Data without Borders. Nikki
Roda, a first year masters student
in the School of Informatics and
one of the coordinators of a2Data-
Dive, attended the original event
in New York last October.
Roda said she, along with the
other coordinators of the event,
is already planning next year's
a2DataDive, and hopes this year's
success will allow the event to
expand.
"There's enough excitement
that maybe we can transition (the
a2DataDive) in such a way that it
will be easier for us to find non-
profits and it will be easier for us
to find participants," Roda said.
Santorum, chasing Romney,
expects to compete in Mich.
Rc
Plans to halt
omney's Maine
momentum
PORTLAND, Maine (AP)
- A day after Mitt Romney
regained some momentum in
the Republican presidential
contest, his rival Rick Santo-
rum went on the attack, calling
the front-runner "desperate"
while promising to compete
aggressively to win the state
where Romney grew up.
Santorum said yesterday he
could do "exceptionally well"
in Michigan, where Romney's
father served as governor. The
Midwestern state and Arizona
host Republican presidential
nominating contests on Feb.
28.
"We're going to spend a
lot of time in Michigan and
Arizona, and those are up
next. And that's where we've
really been focusing on,"
Santorum told ABC's "This
Week." He suggested that a
strong showing in those con-
tests would make the presi-
dential contest "a two-man
race," dismissing current
rivals Newt Gingrich and
Ron Paul.
Santorum shrugged off his
third-place finish Saturday
in caucuses in Maine, where
he didn't actively compete,
as well as his second-place
finish in a straw poll of con-
Read our tweets.
@michigandaily
servative activists.
Romney has been paint-
ing Santorum as a long-time
Washington insider who pur-
sued home-state projects. San-
torum on Sunday described
Romney's recent criticism as
"desperate."
"You reach a point where
desperate people do desperate
things," said Santorum, who
represented Pennsylvania dur-
ing his 16 years in Congress,
first in the House and then in
the Senate.
Maine GOP officials
declared Romney the winner
of Saturday's caucuses. The
results ended a three-state los-
ing streak to Santorum, who
swept contests in Colorado,
Minnesota and Missouri on
Tuesday.
With the next primaries
more than two weeks away, the
break seems unusually long in
the rapid-fire race that's fea-
tured six contests in the last
14 days. Romney and his rivals
now have 17 days to raise cash
and bolster their organiza-
tions for what's shaping up
to be a slog to the Republican
nomination and the right to
face President Barack Obama
in November.
As Santorum eyes Michi-
gan, Romney turns his atten-
tion to extending his huge cash
advantage over his rivals.
The Massachusetts gover-
nor left Maine before the cau-
cus results were announced to
attend a West Coast fundraiser
Saturday night. He issued a
written statement to mark his
victory in the low-turnout con-
test.
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I
Campus Mind Works
FREE drop-in education and support groups for any
U-M student with Depression, Bipolar, or Anxiety
Strategies for Improving Relationships
When: Tuesday, February 14 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Where: Chrysler Center, Room 165, North Campus
Visit www.campusmindworks.org
for more information.
Groups
N'
ti.
K.
University of Michigan
Depressio" Ce"te'
Presented by the U-M Depression
Center in collaboration with
the College of Engineering and
Psychological Clinic.
A