The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Friday, September 28, 2012 - 3

The Michigan Lially - michigandaily.com Friday, September 28, 2012 - 3

NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT -
Detroit corruption
case widens scope
Michigan's former state budget
director told jurors Thursday that
she was "angry" when she learned
that public grants approved in
2000 at the urging of Kwame Kil-
patrick ended up in the hands of
the former mayor's wife.
Kilpatrick is on trial for
alleged corruption, mostly com-
mitted at City Hall from 2002
through 2008, but federal prose-
cutors turned the clock back fur-
ther to show questionable deals
from when he was a Democratic
leader in the Michigan House.
* Kilpatrick was able to get
grant money for Detroit nonprof-
it groups when lawmakers passed
a budget for arts and community
projects in 2000. The government
alleges that $37,500 of it was even-
tually passed from a neighborhood
group to Kilpatrick's wife, Carlita
Kilpatrick. In 2001, state officials
wanted to know more about how
the money was spent.
LOS ANGELES
'Sons of Anarchy'
actor dies after
killing landlady
An actor whose character died
a violent death on the TV drama
"Sons of Anarchy" plunged to his
death in a driveway after appar-
ently killing his landlady ahd
attacking neighbors near Holly-
wood, police said Thursday.
Johnny Lewis, who played Kip
"Half-Sack" Epps in the FX show,
is the only suspect in the death
of 81-year-old. Catherine Davis,
according to Los Angeles police.
Authorities found them dead
Wednesday morning after neigh-
bors reported a woman scream-
ing inside the home, Cmdr.
Andrew Smith said.
Lewis' death ended in a turbu-
lent nearly 10-month span during
which he was repeatedly arrested
and officials expressed concerns
about his mental health and the
danger he posed to others.
LOS ANGELES
Anti-Muslim film
maker detained
A federal judge on Thursday
ordered a California man behind
a cr'udely produced anti-Islam-
ic video that inflamed parts of
the Middle East to be detained
because he is a flight risk.
U.S. Central District Chief
Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal
said Nakoula Basseley Nakoula
should be held after officials said
he violated his probation term for
a 2010 check fraud conviction.
A federal prosecutor said
Nakoulahad eight probationviola-
tions, including lying to his proba-
tion officers and using aliases.
After his 2010 conviction,
Nakoula was sentenced to 21

months in prison and was barred
from using omputers or the Inter-
net for five years without approval
from his probation officer.
UNITED NATIONS
Syrian army sends
ominous text to
rebel fighters
Cellphones in Syria rang,
buzzed and chirped Thursday
with an ominous text message
from the military to members of
the armed rebellion: "Game over."
The rebels provided their own
response to the regime's warn-
ing *to surrender and disarm by
launching new attacks to drive
government troops out of the larg-
est city of Aleppo.
There's no indication that the
stalemated civil war has taken
a decisive turn in any direction,
however, and the bloodshed that
has already claimed more than
30,000 lives looks likelyto dragon
for many more months.
Compounding the grim out-
look, sharp disagreements
between Syria's foreign friends
and foes - on display at the U.N.
General Assembly this week -
have prevented a diplomatic solu-
tion from taking shape.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Israeli leader gives
Iran ultimatum at
the United Nations

CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP
Republican presidential nominee MittRomney campaigns at American Legion Post176 in Springfield,Va.on Thursday
Rom-ney I..attacks Obama
over military budget cuts'

Romney seeks to
reverse declining
support in wake of
"secret" videotape
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP)
- President Barack Obama
pledged to create many more
jobs and "make the middle class
secure again" in a campaign-
closing appeal on Thursday -
more than five weeks before
Election Day - to voters already
casting ballots in large numbers.
Republican Mitt Romney,
focusing on threats beyond
American shores, accused the
commander in chief of back-
ing dangerous cuts in defense
spending.
"The idea of cutting our mili-
tary is unthinkable and dev-
astating. And when I become
president we will not," declared
the challenger, struggling to
reverse a slide in opinion polls.
Romney and Obama cam-
paigned a few hundred miles
apart in Virginia, 40 days before
their long race ends. They'll be
in much closer quarters next
Wednesday in Denver - for
the first of three presidential
debates on the campaign cal-
endar and perhaps the chal-
lenger's best remaining chance
to change the trajectory of the
campaign.
In a race where the economy
is the dominant issue, there was
afresh sign ofnational weakness
as the Commerce Department
lowered its earlier estimate of
tepid growth last spring. Rom-
ney and his allies seized on the
news as evidence that Obama's
policies aren't working.
There was good news for the

president in the form of a survey
by The Washington Post and
Kaiser Family Foundation sug-
gesting he has gained ground
among older voters after a
month-long ad war over Repub-
lican plans for Medicare.
The pace also was quickening
in the struggle for control of the
U.S. Senate.
Prominent Republican con-
servatives pledged financial and
political support for Rep. Todd
Akin in Missouri. That compli-
cated Democratic Sen. Claire
McCaskill's bid for re-election.
But it also left Romney, running
mate Paul Ryan and the rest of
the GOP hierarchy in an awk-
ward position after they tried
unsuccessfully to push Akin off
the ballot in the wake of his con-
troversial comments about rape.
Farther west, in Arizona,
Republican Rep. Jeff Flake
unleashed an ad calling Demo-
cratic rival Richard Carmona
"Barack Obama's rubberstamp."
It was not meant as a compli-
ment in a state seemingly head-
ed Romney's way, a response for
sure to Democratic claims that
the Senate contest was unex-
pectedly close.
In the presidential race, early
voting has already begun in Vir-
ginia as well as South Dakota,
Idaho and Vermont. It began
during the day in Wyoming as
well as in Iowa, like Virginia
one of the most highly contested
states. Early voters had formed
a line a half block long in Des
Moines before the elections
office opened at 8 a.m.
Campaigning in Virginia
Beach, Obama said, "It's time
for a new economic patriotism,
an economic patriotism rooted
in the belief that growing our
economy begins with a strong

and thriving middle class." It
was a line straight from the
two-minute television commer-
cial his campaign released over-
night.
He said that if re-elected he
would back policies to create
a million new manufacturing
jobs, help businesses double
exports and give tax breaks to
companies that "invest in Amer-
ica, not ship jobs overseas." He
pledged to cut oil imports in half
while doubling the fuel efficien-
cy of cars and trucks, make sure
there are 100,000 new teachers
trained in math and science, cut
the growth of college tuition in
half and expand student aid "so
more Americans can afford it."
He also touted a "balanced
plan to reduce the deficit by $4
trillion," but he included $1 tril-
lion in reductions that already
have taken place, and he took
credit for saving half of the
funds budgeted for the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan that no
longer are needed.
Obama also said he would
"ask the wealthy to pay a little
more," a reference to the tax
increase he favors on incomes
over $200,000 for individuals
and $250,000 for couples. It is
perhaps his most fundamental
disagreement on policy with
Romney, who wants to extend
expiring tax cuts at all levels,
including the highest.
Obama's campaign put out
a second, scathing commer-
cial during the day based on
Romney's recorded comments
from last May that 47 percent
of Americans don't pay income
taxes and feel they are victims
entitled to government benefits.
Romney added that as a candi-
date his job is not to worry about
them.

Netanyahu shows
cartoon-like bomb
to emphasize point'
UNITED NATIONS (AP)
- In his most detailed plea to
date for global action against
Iran's nuclear program, Israe-
li Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said Thursday the
world has until next summer at
the latest to stop Iran before it
can build a nuclear bomb.
Netanyahu flashed a dia-
gram of a cartoon-like bomb
before the U.N. General Assem-
bly showing the progress Iran
has made, saying it has already
completed the first stage of ura-
nium enrichment.
Then he pulled out a red
marker and drew a line across
what he said was a threshold
Irangwas approachingandwhih
Israel could not tolerate - the
completion of the second stage
and 90 percent of the way to the
uranium enrichment needed to
make an atomic bomb.
"By next spring, at most by
next summer at current enrich-
ment rates, they will have fin-
ished the medium enrichment
and move on to the final stage,"
he said: "From there, it's only
a few months, possibly a few'
weeks before they get enough
enriched uranium for the first
bomb."
Israel considers a nuclear-
armed Iran to be an existential
threat, citing Iranian denials
of the Holocaust, its calls for
Israel's destruction, its devel-
opment of missiles capable of
striking the Jewish state and its
support for hostile Arab mili-
tant groups.
Neither the U.S. nor any of its
international partners are ready
to abandon diplomacy in favor
of military or other actions to
resolve the decade-long stand-
off over Iran's nuclear program.
On Thursday, six world pow-
ers decided to lay the ground-
work for another round of

negotiations with Iran, a senior
U.S. official said, but they want
a significantly improved offer
from the Islamic republic.
The new hope for negotiated
end came after U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham iClin-
ton met with the foreign min-
isters of Britain, China, France,
Germany and Russia - powers
that have sought, over several
rounds of talks, to persuade
Iran to halt its production of
material that could be used in
nuclear weapons.
The latest stab at a diplomat-
ic compromise collapsed this
summer after Iran proposed to
stop producing higher-enriched
uranium in exchange for a sus-
pension in international sanc-
tions, which Clinton has termed
a "nonstarter." The U.S. official
said Iran would have to bring a
murl3 better offer to the table
this,'!time, but stressed that
nations wereseeing some signs
for optimism and that diploma-
cy remained "far and away the
preferred way to deal with this
issue."
No date was set for the possi-
ble resumption of the so-called
P5+1 talks with Iran, said the
U.S. official, who spoke on con-
dition of anonymity because she
wasn't authorized to comment
publicly about the closed-doors
meeting at the United Nations.
After looking for a diplomatic
solution there, Clinton met later
Thursday with Netanyahu at a
New York hotel where she was
expected to hear the alternative
argument for possible military
action.
Their face-to-face occurred
just hours after the Israeli pre-
sented his case to the world
just why a nuclear armed Iran
would be a danger to many
countries.
Casting the battle as one
between modernity and the
"medieval forces of radical
Islam," Netanyahu said deter-
rence would not work against
Iran as it had with the Soviet
Union.

4

Abbas lambasts Israel
over East Jerusalem

Venezuelan ruler loses support
among once faithful lower classes

Chavez maintains
narrow majority in
opinion polling 4
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)
- Liliana Carias used to hope
President Hugo Chavez would
change her life. Not anymore.
She's been living for years in a
dirt-floor shack without running
water, and aftervotingfor Chavez
in the last three presidential elec-
tions, the single mother of four
said she's tired of waiting for help.
She was among thousands
of people who cheered for the
president's rival recently in the
serpentine streets of Caracas'
Petare slum, which used to be
a bastion of support for Chavez.
She held out a handwritten let-
ter addressed to "My future
President Henrique Capriles,"
the opposition challenger, writ-
ing that her salary as a super-
market cashier was no longer
enough to support her family
and she was worried her land-
lord would evict them.
"We need change," Carias
said as the drum-beating cara-
van paraded by. "I thought it
would come with Chavez but

I'mvery disappointed. He prom-
ised us everything but nothing
changed. I still don't have run-
ning water, sewer or electricity."
From single mothers to con-
struction workers, some Chavez
supporters have been turning
away from the president to con-
sider new leadership. They've
become key to the Oct. 7presiden-
tial vote and Capriles' strategy.
Surveys don't indicate
exactly which "Chavistas" are
becoming "Caprilistas," but the
group appears to include work-
ing-class and lower-middle-
class Venezuelans. Polls also
reveal weariness over a grow-
ing yet troubled economy, 18
percent inflation and one of the
world's highest murder rates.
Despite billions of dollars
in government spending on
social programs, solutions to
problems such as the country's
severe housing shortage have
been elusive. Slums have grown
during Chavez's presidency,
and the government's construc-
tion of new housing projects
hasn't kept up with the legions
of poor people like Carias who
have applied for apartments and
ended up waiting for years.
Now Chavez is spending heav-

ily building apartments and pay-
ing out more benefits to poor
families. But some in the working
class still complain that they're
beingbypassed andhavelost faith
in the government's promises.
Chavez held a 10-point
lead over Capriles in a survey
released this week by the Vene-
zuelan polling firm Datanalisis.
But the 49 percent who said they
intend to vote for Chavez was
dramatically lower than the 63
percent who re-elected him in
2006. The latest poll said 11 per-
cent of those interviewed didn't
reveal a preference.
A survey by the Venezuelan
polling firm Consultores 21 put,
the two candidates roughly
even, with 46.5 percent saying
they would vote for Capriles
and nearly 46 percent saying
they would vote for Chavez.
The poll questioned 1,500peo-
ple Sept. 7-18 and had an error
margin of 3 percentage points.
It also included a second ques-
tion, in which people were asked
to mark their choice in secret, in
case they didn't want to reveal
their preference to the pollster.
Under that method, Capriles had
almost 49 percent and Chavez
just under 46 percent.

Calls settlements
'ethnic cleansing'
in disputed city
UNITED NATIONS (AP)
- Palestinian President Mah-
moud Abbas accused Israel of
ethnic cleansing Thursday for
building settlements in east
Jerusalem.
"It is a campaign of ethnic
cleansing against the Palestin-
ian people via the demolition
of their homes," Abbas said in
his speech to the U.N. General
Assembly.
Shortly after, Israel Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanya-
hu rebuked Abbas in his own
address to the assembly.
"We won't solve our conflict
with libelous speeches at the
U.N.," Netanyahu said.
Israel conquered the eastern
part of Jerusalem from Jordan
during the 1967 Mideast War.
It later annexed it but the move
has not been internationally
recognized. The Palestinians
want east Jerusalem to the
capital of their future state in
the West Bank.
Abbas also said he has
opened talks on a new bid for
international recognition at
the U.N., but didn't specify
exactly when he will ask the
General Assembly to vote.
"Intensive consultations
with the various regional orga-
nizations and the state mem-
bers" were underway, he said.
The Palestinians will apply
to the General Assembly for
nonmember state status.
That stands in sharp con-
trast to last year, when they
asked the Security Council to
admit them as a full member
state, but the bid failed.
Abbas insisted that the new
quest for recognition was "not
seeking to delegitimize Israel,
but rather establish a state that
should be established: Palestine."

Palestinian officials said
their bid is likely to be submit-
ted on Nov. 29.
Abbas said in a speech to the
assembly that efforts to win
Palestine status as an observer
state - a lower level than last
year's failed bid for recogni-
tion as a full state - were not
intended to pose any threat to
Israel.
"We are not seeking to dele-
gitimize Israel, but rather
establish a state that should be
established: Palestine," Abbas
said.
However, Abbas said he was
"speaking on behalf of an angry
people," who believed they
were not winning their rights
despite adopting a "culture of
peace and international resolu-
tions,
"Israel gets rewarded while
continues the policies of war,
occupation and settlements,"
he said.
Abbas also accused Israel of
seeking to "continue its occu-
pation of East Jerusalem, and
annex vast parts of West Bank
... and refuses to discuss seri-
ously the Palestinian refugees
issue."
He claimed that Israeli
actions threatened to under-
mine the Palestinian Author-
ity to the point "which could
lead to its collapse."
Palestinian officials said
that their bid for recognition
will likely be submitted to
the General Assembly on Nov.
29, after the U.S. presidential
election. Abbas has sought to
avoid entangling the Palestin-
ian statehood bid in U.S. presi-
dential politics.
Appealing to other nations
for their support, Abbas asked
world leaders to help avoid
a new "catastrophe" in Pal-
estine. "Support the estab-
lishment of the free state of
Palestine now, and let peace
win before it's too late," he
-said.

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