The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, October 8, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday, October 8, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Industrial plant to
be remodeled into
learning center
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder
launched the rebuilding of a more
than century-old neglected manu-
facturing site near the Detroit
River into an adventure and edu-
cation center.
On Saturday, Snyder kicked off
the planned $12.8 million trans-
formation of Detroit's Globe
* Trading Company complex. He
punctuated the news conference
by bicycling the Dequindre Cut,
a pedestrian and bike pathway
built on an abandoned rail line
running alongside the Globe, the
Detroit Free Press reporte.
Construction is expected to
start late this year or early next
year and the complex could open
by late 2013. Expected features
include a climbing wall, kayak-
ing simulator and demonstra-
tions on Michigan's historic
lumber industry.
ATLANTA
Fungal meningitis
outbreak linked to
recalled steroid
The pharmacy that distributed
a steroid linked to an outbreak of
fungal meningitis has issued avol-
untary recall of all of its products,
calling the move a precautionary
measure.
The New England Compound-
ing Center announced the recall
Saturday. The company said in
a news release that the move
was taken out of an abundance
of caution because of the risk of
contamination. It says there is no
indication that any other products
have been contaminated.
The Food and Drug Admin-
istration had previously told
health professionals not to use
any products distributed by the
center.
LONDON
American artist's
mural vandalized
A vandal scrawled graffiti on a
mural by modern American mas-
ter Mark Rothko at London's Tate
Modern on Sunday.
The mural, one of Rothko's
Seagram series, was defaced
when a visitor to the Tate applied
"a small area of black paint with
a brush to the painting," the gal-
lery said.
A photograph posted on Twit-
ter by a gallery visitor showed
words, including the name Vladi-
mir, scrawled in the corner of
the painting. The gallery, which
attracts 5 million visitors a year,
was briefly closed Sunday after
the incident.
The graffiti on the painting
also appears to read "a potential
piece of yellowism." According to
an online manifesto, Yellowism is
an artistic movement run by two
people named Vladimir Umanets
and Marcin Lodyga.
MOSCOW
Putin comments
on Russia's issues
in documentary
Russian President Vladi-
mir Putin said in a first-person
documentary aired on his 60th
birthday Sunday that the current
generation of opposition lead-
ers needs to be cast aside and he
brushed aside concerns the two-
year jail sentence for punk bank
Pussy Riot was too severe.
The documentary that aired
Sunday portrays Putin as a tireless
and no-nonsense leader contemp-
tuous of domestic and internation-
al criticism.
Putin says in the program that
he welcomes opposing views, but
that they should come from people
willing to take responsibility for
running the country.
Celebrations took place Sunday
all over Russia to celebrate Putin's
birthday, although the Kremlin
has said the president opted for
low-key celebrations with friends
and family.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
France ups security at
Jewish religious sites
Cmdr. Jeffrey Self, of U.S. customs and Border Protection, flanked to his left by Acting Chief Patrol Agent Manuel
Padilla, releases a statement on Friday at the Tucson Sector Headquarters in Tucson, Ariz.
Agent who died last week
was killed from friendly fire
Ivie thought two
other agents were
drug smugglers
PHOENIX (AP) - The U.S.
Border Patrol agent killed last
week in a shooting in southern
Arizona apparently opened fire
on two fellow agents thinking
they were armed smugglers and
was killed when they returned
fire, the head of the Border
Patrol agents' union said Sun-
day.
The two sets of agents
approached an area where
a sensor had been activated
early Tuesday from different
directions early Tuesday and
encountered each other in an
area of heavy brush, National
Border Patrol Council president
George McCubbin said.
Agent Nicholas Ivie appar-
ently opened fire first and
wounded one of the other
agents but was killed in the
return fire.
"I don't know what it was
he saw or heard that triggered
this whole event," McCubbin
said. "Unfortunately it resulted
in his death and another agent
injured."
Acting Cochise County Sher-
iff Rod Rothrock confirmed the
scenario but would not say if
Ivie was the first to shoot, say-
ing that was up to the federal
agencies involved.
The new details add to a FBI
statement Friday that the shoot-
ing appeared to be a friendly
fire incident that involved no
one but the agents.
Sensors are set up in differ-
ent areas along the U.S.-Mexico
border to detect smugglers or
illegal immigrants, with Bor-
der Patrol agents responding
when they're set off. The shoot-
ing occurred in a rugged hilly
area about five miles north of
the border near Bisbee, Ariz.,
an area known for illegal traf-
ficking.
McCubbin and Rothrock
both said the two sets of agents
knew the others were heading
to the area on foot but appar-
ently didn't know they were so
close. McCubbin said he'd been
briefed by the agency, while
Rothrock's agency has been
involved with the investigation.
"It was dark, very, very rug-
ged terrain, and what they
could see of each other was fur-
ther obscured by the fact that
there was brush and cacti and
stuff like that between them,"
Rothrock said. "I have no doubt
that these agents were in as
heightened a state of alert as
you can get due to the proxim-
ity to the border and the history
of trafficking in that area."
Rothrock said that when the
agents spotted each other in
the dark, "they apparently took
defensive postures, which was
probably interpreted as aggres-
sive postures. Like readying
your weapons, for example."
Ivie, 30, died at the scene,
and one of the other agents was
wounded but has since been
released from the hospital.
Tensions high
between country's
Jewish and Muslim
commnuities
PARIS (AP) - France is boost-
ing security at Jewish and other
religious sites after blanks were
fired at a synagogue and police
accused a suspected cell of radi-
cal Islamists of ties to a grenade
attack on a kosher grocery.
President Francois Hollande
sought Sunday to allay tensions
between Jews and Muslims
aggravated by a recent series of
violent incidents in the country.
Hollande singled out hate-
ful extremists for criticism and
urged respect for all religions ina
country that is officially secular,
but which has Western Europe's
largest Jewish and Muslim com-
munities.
He said that authorities "in
the coming days, in the coming
hours" would increase security
at religious sites so they won't be
subject to the kind of attack that
targeted a synagogue in the Paris
suburb of Argenteuil on Saturday
night.
A synagogue representa-
tive said witnesses heard what
sounded like a weapon being
fired and that police said blanks
had been fired and empty bul-
let casings found. Local police
would not comment on the inci-
dent to the AP. Services were
canceled at the synagogue Sat-
urday night because of the inci-
dent, the representative said on
condition of anonymity because
a police investigation is under
way.
No one was injured, though
the rabbi and about a dozen
others were inside the syna-
gogue at the time, according to
the Jewish Community Protec-
tion Service, a group set up to
monitor anti-Semitic incidents
in France.
The incident came hours after
police killed one man and arrest-
ed 11 in raids across France tar-
geting a suspected cell accused
of links to a grenade attack on a
kosher grocery store last month.
DNA on the grenade led them to
a member of the cell, who was
killed by police after he opened
fire on them. The suspected cell
members are young Frenchmen
recently converted to Islam.
Officials said the man who was
killed had been under surveil-
lance since last spring - around
the time a French Islamist radi-
cal went on a shooting rampage
against a Jewish school in Tou-
louse and French soldiers, killing
seven people.
Hollande said authorities
expected the jihadist cell was
ready to strike again in the com-
ing weeks.
He met Sunday with leaders
of the country's Jewish commu-
nity and pledged to fight extrem-
ism and anti-Semitism "with the
greatest firmness."
Richard Prasquier, the presi-
dent of France's leading Jewish
group, CRIF, warned French
authorities against compla-
cency before what he called the
"monstrous ideology" of radi-
cal Islamists, comparing it to
Nazism. He said he has been
worried about the security of
France's Jewish community
since the killings in Toulouse.
TheToulouseattacksinMarch
shook the country and prompted
heightened security at Jewish
schools and synagogues around
France. Theyalso inspired a new
counter-terrorism law currently
in the works.
Hollande said authorities
should show "intransigence"
toward racism and anti-Semi-
tism. "Nothing will be tolerated,
nothing should happen. Any act,
any remark will be prosecuted
with the greatest firmness."
Hollande also spoke Sunday
with Mohammed Moussaoui,
head of an umbrella group of
Muslim organizations called
CFCM, and assured him that
French officialdom would not
stigmatize all Muslims for the
acts committed by a radical
fringe.
Private capsule sent
to Int'l Space Station
Syrians carry a rebel injured duringfighting with the Syrian army in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad to the Turkish city of
Akcakale on the Turkey-Syria border, Friday.
Turkey, Syria exchange artillery
mortars for fifh consecutive day
Damascus gives
unusual apology,
fighting continues
AKCAKALE, Turkey (AP)
- Turkey and Syria fired artil-
lery and mortars across their
volatile border for a fifth con-
secutive day on Sunday, in one of
the most serious and prolonged
flare-ups of violence along the
frontier.
The exchange of fire stoked
fears that Syria's civil war will
escalate into a regional con-
flagration drawing in NATO
member Turkey, once an ally of
President Bashar Assad but now
a key supporter of the rebels
fighting to topple him.
Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu warned on
Saturday that Ankara would
respond forcefully to each
errant Syrian shell that lands on
Turkish soil.
Ankara's warning was cou-
pled by an apparent diplomatic
push by the Turkish leadership
to promote Syrian Vice Presi-
dent Farouk al-Sharaa as a
possible figure to head a transi-
tional administration to end the
conflict in the country.
In an interview with Turkish
state television TRT Saturday,
Davutoglu said that al-Sharaa
was a figure "whose hands are
not contaminated in blood" and
therefore acceptable to Syrian
opposition groups.
Al-Sharaa, 73, a close associ-
ate and longtime loyalist to the
Assad family, has been a contro-
versial figure since the start of
the uprising.
He appeared in public in
late August for the first time in
weeks, ending repeated rumors
that he had defected. The
regime has suffered a string of
prominent defections in recent
months, though Assad's inner
circle and military have large-
ly kept their cohesive stance
behind him.
Early on in the uprising, the
Syrian president delegated to
al-Sharaa, a skilled diplomat,
responsibility for holding a dia-
logue with the opposition. A
Sunni from the southern town
of Daraa, birthplace of the Syr-
ian uprising, al-Sharaa's silence
since the start of the uprising
made him a prime candidate for
rumors that he broke with the
regime.
Meanwhile, there was little
sign that the exchange of fire
near the border, although still
at a fairly low level, was ebbing.
It began five days ago when a
Syrian shell killed five civilians
in a Turkish border town. Tur-
key's parliament subsequently
approved a bill that would allow
cross border military operations
there.
Damascus offered a rare
apology, but shells and mortar
rounds continue to fly into Tur-
key.
On Sunday, an Associated
Press journalist witnessed a
round landing some 200 meters
(yards) inside Turkey, near the
border town of Akcakale. A short
time later, eight artillery shells
could be heard fired from Turkey.
In the Turkish town of
Akcakale, mayor Abdulhakim
Ayhan said shrapnel from the
Syrian mortar round caused
some damage to a grain depot,
but no one was hurt. He con-
firmed that Turkish artillery
immediately returned fire.
Inside Syria, forces loyal to
Assad clashed with rebels across
the country, from the northern
city of Aleppo to the southern
border with Jordan, killing
according to activist groups at
least 90 people across the coun-
try. Activists said opposition
fighters were strengthening
their hold over the village off
Khirbet al-Jouz, in the northern
province of Idlib, which borders
Turkey and where violent clash-
es broke out a day earlier.
SpaceX sends
supplies, ice cream
to astronauts
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
- A commercial cargo ship rock-
eted into orbit Sunday in pursuit
of the International Space Sta-
tion, the first of a dozen supply
runs under a mega-contract with
NASA.
It was the second launch of
a Dragon capsule to the orbit-
ing lab by the California-based
SpaceX company. The first was
last spring.
This time was no test flight,
however, and the spacecraft car-
ried 1,000 pounds of key science
experiments and other precious
gear. There was also a personal
touch: chocolate-vanilla swirl ice
cream tucked in a freezer for the
three station residents.
The company's unmanned
Falcon rocket roared into the
night sky right on time, putting
SpaceX on track to reach the
space station Wednesday. The
complex was soaring southwest
of Tasmania when the Falcon
took flight.
Officials declared the launch a
success.
In more good news, a piece of
space junk was no longer threat-
ening the station, and NASA
could focus entirely on the deliv-
ery mission.
NASA is counting on private
business to restock the space sta-
tion, now that the shuttles have
retired to museums. The space
agency has a $1.6 billion contract
with SpaceX for 12 resupply mis-
sions.
Especially exciting for NASA
is the fact that the Dragon will
return twice as much cargo as it
took up, including a stockpile of
astronauts' blood and urine sam-
ples. The samples - nearly 500
of them - have been stashed in
freezers since Atlantis made the
last shuttle flight in July 2011.
The Dragon will spend close to
three weeks at the space station
before being released and para-
chuting into the Pacific at the end
of October. By then, the space
station should be back up to a full
crew of six.
None of the Russian, Euro-
pean or Japanese cargo ships
can bring anything back; they're
destroyed during re-entry. The
Russian Soyuz crew capsules
have limited room for anything
besides people.
Space Exploration Technolo-
gies Corp., or SpaceX - owned by
PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - is
working to convert its unmanned
Dragon capsules into vessels that
could carry astronauts to the
space station in three years. Other
U.S. companies also are vying to
carry crews. Americans must ride
Russian rockets to orbit in the
meantime, for a steep price.
Musk, who monitored the
launch from SpaceX Mission
Control in Hawthorne, Calif.,
called the capsules Dragon after
the magical Puff to get back at
critics who, a decade ago, con-
sidered his effort a fantasy. The
name Falcon comes from the
Millennium Falcon starship of
"Star Wars" fame.
An estimated 2,400 guests
jammed the launching center to
see the Falcon, with its Dragon,
come to life for SpaceX'sfirst offi-
cial, operational supply mission.
It was no apparition.
"Just over a year since shuttle
retirement, to be able to do that
is, I think, what people are very
excited about," said NASA's dep-
uty administrator, Lori Garver.
Across the country at SpaceX
headquarters, about 1,000
employees watched via TV and
webcast.
SpaceX is shooting for its next
supply run in January.
Another company looking to
haul space station cargo, Vir-
ginia's Orbital Sciences Corp.,
hopes to launch a solo test flight
in December and a demo mis-
sion to the station earlynext year.
ruled that the men had no more
grounds for appeal and could be
sent to the U.S. immediately.
ft