The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, April 9, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday, April 9, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
25-year old opens
private bus line in
downtown Detroit
A young entrepreneur from
the suburbs is planning to start
a private bus line in downtown
Detroit.
The Detroit News reported
hndy Didorosi is set to open the
Detroit Bus Co., a private com-
pany with three full-size school
buses.
The 25-year-old Ferndale resi-
dent says he's invested $10,000,
Ind insurance will cost another
$10,000 per bus per year.
Didorosi's first bus will launch
the last week of April, and the
other two will follow.
JUNEAU, Alaska
7-year-old boy
confesses to
multiple arsons
A fire marshal in Alaska's
capital city says a 7-year-old boy
has admitted setting five arson
fires over a little more than four
months.
Juneau fire marshal Dan Jager
tells the Juneau Empire that the
boy caused about $1,000 in dam-
ages by setting fires in restrooms
yt Harborview Elementary
School and the Terry Miller Leg-
islative Building, plus a down-
town grass fire and two fires at a
red Meyer store.
Jager says the boy told him he
used a lighter.
Fire Chief Richard Etheridge
says the arson case will be for-
Warded to probation officers at
Juneau's juvenile detention cen-
ter.
LONDON
Banned Islamic
activist gets across
British borders
An Islamic activist in Israel
who entered Britain despite
being banned has won an appeal
against his deportation.
Islamic Movement in Israel
leader Sheikh Raed Salah flew
to Britain in June, despite an
brder from Home Secretary
Theresa May banning him over
his political activities. He was
detained, held for three weeks
And released on bail.
The Palestine Solidarity Cam-
paign said yesterday that Salah
received a letter from Britain's
Upper Immigration Tribu-
oal saying his detention was
"entirely unnecessary" and that
his appeal has succeeded "on all
grounds."
Britain's Home Office said
that it was "disappointed" with
the tribunals decision. "We are
considering the detailed judg-
ment and if we can appeal, we
will," it said in a statement.
Salah's legal team claimed he
had not been aware of the ban,
had entered the country with a
passport issued in his name, and
had made "no attempt" to con-
ceal his identity.
BEIJING
Famous (hinese
dissident dies at 76
Fang Lizhi, one of China's
best-known dissidents whose
speeches inspired student. pro-
testers throughout the 1980s,
has died in the United States,
where he fled after China's 1989
military crackdown on the pro-
democracy movement. He was
76.
Once China's leading astro-
physicist, Fang and his wife
hid in the U.S. Embassy for 13
months after the crackdown. In
exile, he was a physics professor
at the University of Arizona in
Tucson.
Fang's wife, Li Shuxian, con-
firmed to The Associated Press
in Beijing that Fang died Friday
)morning in Tucson.
Fang inspired a generation,
said his friend and fellow U.S.-
based exiled dissident Wang
Dan, who announced the death
on Facebook and Twitter.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
A6
Three shot to death
in Oklahoma, race
a suspected factor
AN HYOUNG-JOON/AP
South Korean activists rally against North Korea's proposed satellite launch to honor late President Kim II Sung's birth.
North Korea readies long-range
rocket despite international ban
Officials claim
reasons for
pending launch are
peaceful
TONGCHANG-RI, North
Korea (AP) - North Korean
space officials have moved all
three stages of a long-range
rocket into position for a con-
troversial launch, vowing yes-
terday to push ahead with their
plan in defiance of international
warnings against violating a
ban on missile activity.
North Korea announced
plans last month to launch an
observation satellite using a
three-stage rocket during mid-
April celebrations of the 100th
anniversary of the birth of
North Korean founder Kim II
Sung. The U.S., Japan, Britain
and other nations have urged
North Korea to cancel the
launch, warning that firing the
long-range rocket would vio-
late U.N. resolutions and North
Korea's promise to refrain from
engaging in nuclear and missile
activity.
North Korea maintains
that the launch is a scien-
tific achievement intended to
improve the nation's faltering
economy by providing detailed
surveys of the countryside.
"Our country has the right
and also the obligation to devel-
op satellites and launchingvehi-
cles," Jang Myong Jin, general
manager of the launch facility,
said during a tour, citing the
U.N. space treaty. "No matter
what others say, we are doing
this for peaceful purposes."
Experts say the Unha-3
rocket slated for liftoff between
April 12 and 16 could also test
long-range missile technology
that might be used to strike the
U.S. and other targets.
North Korea has tested
two atomic devices, but is not
believed to have mastered the
technology needed to mount a
warhead on a long-range mis-
sile.
Yesterday, reporters were
taken by train past desolate
fields and sleepy farming ham-
lets to North Korea's new launch
pad in Tongchang-ri in North
Phyongan province, about 35
miles south of the border town
of Sinuiju along North Korea's
west coast.
All three stages of the 91-ton
rocket, emblazoned with the
North Korean flag and "Unha-
3," were visibly in position at
the towering launch pad, and
fueling will begin soon, Jang
said. He said preparations were
well on track for liftoff and that
international space, aviation
and maritime authorities had
been advised of the plan, but
did not provide exact details on
the timing of the fueling or the
mounting of the satellite.
Authorities say
revenge may have
motivated the
shootings
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Two
men were arrested yesterday
in a shooting rampage that left
three people dead and terrorized
Tulsa's black community, and
police said one suspect may have
been trying to avenge his father's
shootingtwoyears agobyablack
man.
Police identified both suspects
as white, while all five victims in
the rampage early Friday were
black.
Police and the FBI said it is too
soon to say whether the attacks
in Tulsa's predominantly black
north side were racially moti-
vated. Police spokesman Jason
Willingham said that investi-
gators are considering many
possible motives but based on
Facebook postings, revenge
appeared to be a factor.
In a Thursday update on
Facebook that appeared to have
been written by 19-year-old Jake
England, he angrily blamed his
father's death on a black man
and used a racial slur. He said
Thursday was the second anni-
versary of his father's death.
"It's hard not to go off," given
the anniversary and the death of
his fiancee earlier this year, the
posting said.
"It's apparent from the post-
ing on the Facebook page that
he had an ax to grind, and that
was possibly part of the motive,"
Willingham said. "If you read
the Facebook post and see what
he's accused of doing, you can
see there's link between the two
of them."
The Facebook page had been
taken down by yesterday after-
noon.
A family friend, Susan Seven-.
star, told The Associated Press
that England was "a good kid"
and "a good, hard worker," who
"was not in his right mind" after
losing his father and the Janu-
ary suicide of his fiancee, with
whom he'd recently had a baby.
"If anybody is trying to say
this is a racial situation, they've
got things confused," said Sev-
enstar, who described England
as Cherokee Indian. "He didn't
care what your color was. It
wasn't a racist thing."
The Tulsa World reported
that England's father, Carl, was
shot in the chest during a scuf-
fle with a man who had tried to
break into his daughter's apart-
ment. England later died.
The man chargedintheshoot-
ing is serving a six-year sentence
on a weapons charge, according
to Department of Corrections
records.
Acting on an anonymous
tip and backed by a helicopter,
police arrested Jake England
and Alvin Watts, 32, about 2
a.m. yesterday at a home in
Turley, just north of Tulsa. The
two men were roommates, and
officers went to their home, then
followed them several blocks to
another home, where they were
arrested without incident, police
said.
Authorities said they planned
to charge them with murder and
other offenses. Task force com-
mander Maj. Walter Evans said
that investigators recovered a
weapon but that it was not clear
who fired the shots. They also
found a truck that had been
burned.
Police previously said they
were looking for aman in a white
truck.
The Rev. Warren Blakney Sr.,
president of the Tulsa NAACP,
said the arrests came as a big
relief. Black community leaders
had met Friday night amid fear
over the shootings and concerns
about possible vigilantism in
retaliation.
"The community once again
can go about its business with-
out fear of there being a shooter
on the streets on today, on Easter
morning," Blakney said.
It was not immediately known
if the suspects had lawyers.
Police Chief Chuck Jordan
said the gunmen appeared to
have chosen their victims at
random. Police identified those
killed as Dannaer Fields, 49,
Bobby Clark, 54, and William
Allen, 31. Two men were wound-
ed but were released from the
hospital, Jordan said.
The shootings come at a
fraught moment for black
Americans. In late February, an
-unarmed black teen, Trayvon
Martin, was fatally shot by a
neighborhood watch volunteer
in Sanford, Florida, raising
questions about racial profiling
and touching off protests across
the nation.
While Tulsa police were
reluctant to describe the shoot-
ings there as racially motivated,
City Councilman Jack Hender-
son was not.
"Being an NAACP president
for seven years, I think that
somebody that committed these
crimes were very upset with
black people," Henderson said.
"That person happened to be a
white person, the people they
happened to kill and shoot are
black people. That fits the bill for
me."
After controversial-poem, Israel
bars German author Guenter Grass
Nobel-winner was
drafted by Nazis in
World War II
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel
yesterday declared Guenter
Grass persona non grata, deep-
ening a spat with the Nobel-
winning author over a poem
that deeply criticized the Jew-
ish state and suggested it was as
much a danger as Iran.
The dispute with Grass, who
only late in life admitted to a
Nazi past, has drawn new atten-
tion to strains in Germany's
complicated relationship with
the Jewish state - and also was drafted into the Waffen-SS
focused unwelcome light on Nazi paramilitary organization
Israel's own secretive nuclear at age 17 in the final months of
program. World War II.
In a poem called "What Must Grass' subsequent clarifi-
Be Said" published last Wednes- cation that his criticism was
day, Grass, 84, criticized what he directed at Israeli Prime Minis-
described as Western hypocrisy ter Benjamin Netanyahu, not the
over Israel's nuclear program country as a whole, did little to
and labeled the country a threat calm the outcry.
to "already fragile world peace" Yesterday, Israel's interior
over its belligerent stance on minister, Eli Yishai, announced
Iran. that Grass would be barred from
The poem has touched a raw Israel, citing an Israeli law that
nerve in Israel, where officials allows him to prevent entry to
have rejected any moral equiva- ex-Nazis. But Yishai made clear
lence with Iran and been quick the decision was related more
to note that Grass admitted only to the recent poem than Grass'
in a 2006 autobiography that he actions nearly 70 years ago.
DESTINATION B SUMMER
Summer 1: May 22-June 29 This summer, come
Summer 2: July 2-August 10 study in Boston.
Register today at
bu.edu/summer.
Boston University Summer Term
* More than 700 courses
* 70 academic subjects
* 17 foreign languages
* Summer study internships
* Award-winning BU faculty
An equal opportunity, affirmative action institution.