The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Hyundai pledges
$15 million facility
near Ann Arbor
Hyundai Motor Co. announced
plans yesterday to build a Michi-
gan testing facility to help exam-
ine the effects of extreme hot
and cold temperatures for vehicle
development, a project that Gov.
* Rick Snyder said illustrates the
kind of help the state can provide
to encourage business expansion.
The new testing facility
announced at the North Ameri-
can International Auto Show in
Detroit will be built at the South
Korean automaker's Hyundai
America Technical Center in
Washtenaw County's Superior
Township, near Ann Arbor.
Hyundai said it will spend $15
million on the facility and other
upgrades, and SO full-time jobs
will be added in the coming years.
CAMP PENDLETON, California
Marine recounts
indiscriminate
killing of Iraqis
A former squad mate of a
Marine implicated in the deaths
of 19 Iraqis testified yesterday
that after a roadside bombing, the
group raced to nearby homes, fir-
ing rounds and tossing grenades
for 45 minutes, even though he
said the Marines did not take
gunfire, come across a single
insurgent or find a weapon.
Still, former Cpl. Steven Tatum
told a military jury at the Camp
Pendleton that he felt the squad
did nothing wrong that day in the
town of Haditha in 2005, when
Marines killed 24 Iraqis, includ-
ing unarmed women and chil-
dren.
Tatum gave his account during
the trial of Staff Sgt. Frank Wut-
erich, who led the squad and faces
nine counts of manslaughter.
HAVANA
Dissident arrests
* doubled in 2011
A leading Cuban human rights
campaigner said yesterday that
brief detentions of dissidents
nearly doubled in 2011 compared
to the year before.
The report released by Eliz-
ardo Sanchez, who monitors
arrests as head of the Cuban
Commission for Human Rights
and Reconciliation, said there
were 4,123 arrests of dissidents,
nearly all of them lasting "for
several hours or days," up from
2,074 in 2010.
Cuba's government, which
calls dissidents "mercenaries"
in the service of Washington,
disputes Sanchez's statistics. A
state-run website reported last
year that several names on his
list were Bolivian and Peruvian
athletes and an 18th-century
painter. He acknowledged the
mistakes but said his people had
been tricked by security agents
pretending to be dissidents.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia
7.3-magnitude
earthquake causes
panic,littledamage
A powerful earthquake hit
waters off western Indonesia
early today, prompting officials
to briefly issue a tsunami warn-
ing. Panicked residents poured
into the streets, but there were
no immediate reports of injuries
or serious damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey
said the 7.3-magnitude quake
struck 260 miles (420 kilome-
ters) off the coast of Aceh prov-
ince just after midnight. It was
centered 18 miles (30 kilometers)
beneath the ocean floor.
People in the provincial capi-
tal, Banda Aceh - still deeply
traumatized by the 2004 mon-
ster quake and tsunami - were
rattled from their sleep. They
fled their homes and waited out-
side as sirens blared from local
mosques, some hopping in cars
and motorcycles and heading for
high ground.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
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Syrian President Bashar Assad delivers a speech at Damascus University in Damascus, Syria yesterday.
Syria's Assad defiant as
government faces
United Nations
estimates death toll
rising
BEIRUT (AP) - By turns defi-
ant and threatening, President
Bashar Assad vowed yesterday
to use an "iron hand" to crush
what he called the terrorists
and saboteurs behind Syria's
10-month-old uprising in which
thousands of people have been
killed.
In his first speech since June,
Assad showed a steely confi-
dence in the face of the uprising,
one of the bloodiest of the Arab
Spring. But opponents called it
a rambling address by a leader
who is dangerously out of touch.
Assad repeated his past
claims that a foreign conspiracy
and terrorists are driving the
revolt, not peaceful protesters
seeking to reform the country.
"We will not be lenient with
those who work with outsiders
against the country," Assad said
in a nearly two-hour speech at
Damascus University in a con-
ference hall packed with cheer-
ing supporters. He also issued a
veiled threat against those who
have yet to choose sides.
"Those who stand in the
middle are traitors," Assad said,
flanked by Syrian flags. "There
is no alternative."
The conflict in Syria is enter-
ing a new and heightened
phase, with army defectors and
some members of the opposi-
tion increasingly turning their
weapons on government targets.
The regime, in turn, has intensi-
fied an already deadly military
assault, and a U.N. official said
yesterday that about 400 people
have been killed in the last three
weeks alone, on top of an ear-
lier U.N. estimate of more than
5,000 dead since March.
uprising
Since Dec. 23, three mysteri-
ous blasts have struck the capi-
tal, killing scores of people in
the kind of violence more com-
monly seen in neighboring Iraq.
It's unclear who is behind the
bombings, which the regime
said were suicide attacks.
The regime has blamed "ter-
rorists" for the explosions, say-
ing they proved that Syria was
fighting armed gangs. But the
opposition accuses forces loyal
to the regime of carrying out the
attacks as a way to tarnish the
uprising.
Assad also denounced the
Arab League, which sent a team
of observers into Syria in late
December to assess whether
the regime is abiding by an
Arab-brokered peace plan that
the regime agreed to on Dec.
19. On Monday, a group of Arab
League observers was report-
edly attacked in northern Syria,
suffering minor injuries.
British government to bypass legal
hurdles to Scottish independence
Cameron says he
opposes breakup of
United Kingdom
LONDON (AP) - Breaking
up is supposed to be hard to do
- but Britain's government con-
firmed yesterday it would hap-
pily offer Scotland the powers it
needs to sever centuries-old ties
to England.
Prime Minister David Cam-
eron's government said it would
sweep away legal hurdles to
allow the Scots a vote on wheth-
er their country should become
independent for the first time
since the 18th Century Act of
Union, which united Scotland
with England to create Great
Britain.
But in return, Cameron -
who opposes any breakup of the
United Kingdom, which also
includes Wales and Northern
Ireland - is urging Scotland to
make its intentions clear "soon-
er rather than later." He claims
investors are becoming increas-
ingly wary of Scottish leader
Alex Salmond's plans to delay a
vote for several years, damaging
Britain's economy.
Salmond, head of Scotland's
semiautonomous government,
has long championed inde-
pendence to allow the country
greater control over lucrative oil
and natural gas reserves in the
North Sea.
His separatist Scottish
National Party insists that win-
ning autonomy over tax and
spending policies - powers the
Scottish government doesn't
presently have - would help
replicate the economic success
of neighbors like Norway, which
has used its energy riches to
fund state pensions.
"This is a huge decision for
Scotland. This is potentially the
biggest decision we have made as
a nation for 300 years," Salmond
said yesterday, on a tour of an oil
facility in Dyce, eastern Scotland.
He insisted that Cameron
should not take any role in set-
ting out the timetable for the
crucial referendum.
"We are not going to be stam-
peded and dragooned by a Tory
prime minister in London," Sal-
mond said.
Since Scotland voted in favor
of a domestic legislative body
in 1997, its parliament has had
autonomy over education, health
and justice and can make minor
alterations to income tax. For
now, London retains primacy on
all matters relating to Britain as a
whole - including defense, ener-
gy and foreign relations.
The other nations of the U.K.
also have administrations with
some limited powers. Wales
voted for a national assembly
in 1997, while the Northern Ire-
land Assembly was created to
provide cross-community gov-
ernment in the province under
the U.S.-brokered Good Friday
peace accord of 1998.
Salmond accuses Cameron
of pushing for an early vote in
Scotland in the hope of kill-
ing off any split in the United
Kingdom. Both Cameron and
Britain's opposition leader, the
Labour Party's Ed Miliband,
plan to campaign against Scot-
tish independence.
The timing of the vote could
be crucial. Recent opinion polls
indicate rising support for inde-
pendence, after surveys showed
backing for the separation hov-
ering at about 30 percent for sev-
eral decades.
Fishermen saved after Korean
boat sinks, three still missing
Two nearby vessels
help rescue 37 as
ship caught fire
WELLINGTON, New Zea-
land (AP) - Three Korean
fishermen are missing while
another 37 were rescued today
after their vessel caught fire in
the Southern Ocean near Ant-
arctica.
The Rescue Coordination
Centre of New Zealand said the
167-foot (51 meter) Jung Woo
2 sent out a distress call early
today and two nearby fishing
vessels rushed to help out.
Center spokeswoman Sharon
Cuzens said three of the res-
cued crew were suffering from
serious burns and needed to be
moved by crane onto the rescue
boats. She said a U.S. research
vessel with onboard medical
facilities is steaming toward
the fishing boats to treat the
injured crew. It's expected to
arrive this evening.
Australian records show the
Jung Woo 2 is owned by the
Sunwoo Corporation and is
licensed to fish for Chilean sea
bass, crab and other bottom
fish. The ship was built in 1985
in Japan and is registered in
Busan, South Korea.
The ship got into trouble in
the Ross Sea about 370 miles
(595 kilometers) north of the
U.S. McMurdo Station Antarc-
tic base.
The sister ship Jung Woo
3 and another Korean vessel,
the Hong Jin 707, were able to
help out. When the U.S. vessel
Nathaniel B. Palmer arrives,
Cuzens said, it is expected to
initially treat the injured sea-
men and then put them ashore
at the McMurdo Base for more
extensive help.
The Jung Woo 2 is the second
fishing vessel within weeks to
get into trouble during the Ant-
arctic summer fishing season.
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