The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
Joblessness down
across Michigan,
up in Detroit
The employment picture has
improved across most of Michigan
while worsening in metropolitan
Detroit.
The state said Tuesday that the
seasonally unadjusted jobless rate
remained flat statewide, going
from 8.2 percent in September to
8.3 percent in October. The rates
were down in 16 of the state's 17
major labor markets but up 0.5
percentage points in metropolitan
Detroit.
The Department of Technol-
ogy, Management & Budget says
the Detroit labor market's unem-
ployment rate stood at 10.5 per-
cent in October, compared with
September's 10 percent.
The department says the rate
for the Grand Rapids fell from 6
percent in September to 5.6 per-
cent in October.
The statewide jobless rate is
down 0.8 percentage points since
October 2011's 9.1 percent.
TORRANCE, Calif.
Counselor charged
with murder
The convertible hit Phillip
Moreno so hard it knocked him
out of his shoes and lodged him in
the windshield.
As he lay dying on the hood,
police said, Sherri Lynn Wilkins
kept going another two miles until
other motorists swarmed her car
at a traffic light and grabbed her
keys.
Wilkins, who was charged
Tuesday with murder and driving
drunk, told police she struck the
man after leaving work and pan-
icked. Police said her blood alco-
hol level was more than double the
legal limit.
NEW YORK
Consumer
confidence helps
I stocks minimally
Investors are taking little com-
fort from the latest deal to deliver
financial aid to Greece and better
readings on consumer confidence
and durable goods orders in the
U.S.
Indexes were little changed on
Wall Street at midday Tuesday.
The Dow Jones industrial aver-
age was down 18 points at 12,949.
The Standard & Poor's 500 was
flat at 1,406 and the Nasdaq com-
posite index was up one point at
2,977.
Investors were unmoved by
two reports that suggested that
the outlook for the U.S. economy
may be improving.
Consumer confidence rose
this month to the highest level in
almost five years, pushed up by a
steadyimprovementinhiring. The
government reported separately
that U.S. companies increased
their orders of machinery and
equipment last month.
VIENNA
UN nuclear agency,
reports hacking
The International Atomic
Energy Agency acknowledged
Tuesday that one of its servers had
been hacked after a previously
unknown group critical of Israel's
undeclared nuclear weapons pro-
gram posted contact details for
more than 100 experts working
for the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
A group called "Parastoo" -
Farsi for the swallow bird and a
common Iranian girl's name -
claimed responsibility for posting
the names on its website two days
ago.
Israel is commonly acknowl-
edged to possess nuclear weap-
ons but has neither confirmed or
denied its status. It says Iran is
secretly working to make nuclear
arms - something Tehran denies
- and describes the Islamic
republic as the greatest threat to
the Mideast. But Iran and Arab
countries say the Jewish state's
nuclear capacities pose the great-
est menace.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
As takes shrink,
communities try to
save harbors
An employee of the Stock Exchange is reflected in a chart displaying stock prices in Athens on Tuesday. Greece has avied imminet
bankruptcy after its creditors agreed to give it the money it needs, but the country's economic distress is likely to drag on for years to come.
Greece averts bankruptcy
after economic struggjes
Partners and
IMF agree on new
measures, four loan
installments
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -
European and global financial
leaders have agreed to release
644 billion ($57 billion) in criti-
cal loans to Greece and provide
billions in additional debt relief
in order to help the country sta-
bilize its ailing economy.
After three weeks of nego-
tiations, Greece's euro partners
and the International Mone-
tary Fund agreed early Tuesday
morning to release the loans in
four installments beginning
next month. The leaders also
settled on a raft of measures -
including a debt buyback pro-
gram and an interest rate cut
on loans - that will reduce the
country's debts by about 40
billion.
Greek Prime Minister Anto-
nis Samaras hailed the agree-
ment in Brussels as a victory.
"Yesterday, a very grey, a very
dark time for Greece ended
definitively," he said in a tele-
vised address to the nation,
adding that the agreement
"managed to ensure us remain-
ing in the euro."
But the country will still face
years of economic pain as aus-
terity measures agreed to as
part of the bailout package are
implemented.
Most stock markets in
Europe were modestly higher
on the news out of Brussels with
the Stoxx 50 index of leading
European shares closing up 0.2
percent. Meanwhile the euro
gave up earlier gains to trade
0.4 percent lower at $1.2941.
The interest rate charged on
Greece's benchmark 10-year
bonds, an indicator of inves-
tor confidence in a country's
finances, fell .0.2 percentage
points to 14.47 percent on the
news of the debt deal.
"There remains the poten-
tial for this deal to fall apart in
the medium term as there are
a lot of moving parts and it is
a long way away from the per-
manent fix that the IMF had
been insisting upon," said Gary
Jenkins, managing director of
Swordfish Research.
"It is just one more big kick of
the can down the road."
For three years, Greece has
been struggling to convince
markets as well as its creditors
that it can get a grip on its pub-
lic finances, which had spiraled
out of control. The country is
predicted to enter its sixth year
of recession and is weighed
down by an unemployment rate
of 25 percent.
The so-called troika of the
European Central Bank, IMF
and the European Commission
has twice agreed to bail out
Greece, pledging a total of 6240
billion in rescue loans - of
which the country has received
about 6150 billion so far. In
return for its bailout loans,
Greece has had to impose sev-
Great Lakes-towns
preserve small
ports as lake levels
fall below average
ONEKAMA, Mich. (AP) -
For more than a century, easy
access to Lake Michigan has
made Onekama a popular place
for summer visitors and a ref-
uge for boaters fleeing danger-
ous storms. Now the community
itself needs arescue, from slump-
ing lake levels that threaten its
precious link to open water.
The Great Lakes, the world's
biggest freshwater system, are
shrinking because of drought
and rising temperatures, a trend
that accelerated with this year's
almost snowless winter and
scorching summer. Water lev--
els have fallen to near-record
lows on Lakes Michigan and
Huron, while Erie, Ontario and
Superior are below their his-
torical averages. The decline is
causing heavy economic losses,
with cargo freighters forced to
lighten their loads, marinas too
shallow for pleasure boats and
weeds sprouting on exposed
bottomlands, chasing away
swimmers and sunbathers.
Some of the greatest suffering
is in small tourist towns that lack
the economic diversity of bigger
port cities. Yet they are last in
line for federal money to deepen
channels and repair infrastruc-
ture to support the boating traf-
fic thatkeeps them afloat.
"How do you like our mud
bog?" Township Supervisor
Dave Meister asked on a recent
afternoon, gesturing toward the
shoreline of Portage Lake, part
of a 2,500-acre inland waterway
that connects Onekama to Lake
Michigan. A wide expanse that
normally would be submerged is
now an ugly patchwork of pud-
dles, muck and thick stands of
head-high cattails. A grounded
pontoon boat rested forlornly
alongside a deserted dock.
The Army Corps of Engineers
has estimated that about 30
small Great Lakes harbors will
need attention in the next couple
of years.
In bygone days, friendly
members of Congress would slip
money into the federal budgetto
dredge a harbor. But so-called
earmarks have fallen out of
favor, leaving business and civic
leaders wondering where to
turn. A desperate few are raising
money locally for dredging but
insist they can't afford it on a
regular basis.
Tourism has sustained
Onekama since the early 1900s,
when northwestern Michigan
coastal towns became popular
with wealthy visitors from Chi-
cago, Milwaukee and Detroit.
On a typical summer day, the
community's marinas are
crowded with yachts, speed-
boats and fishing charters.
But the falling water levels
are taking a toll, illustrating how
extensively the health of the
Great Lakes affects the economy
of a region that is home to more
than 30 million people extending
from Minnesota to New York.
Lake Michigan's level at the
end of October was more than
2 feet below its long-term aver-
age. The Corps of Engineers
says without heavy snowfall this
winter, the lake may decline to
its lowest point since record-
keepingbegan in 1918.
The channel that connects
Portage Lake and Lake Michi-
gan is now about 7 feet deep at
best. When the water is choppy,
some vessels can hit bottom. If
things get much worse, Oneka-
ma may be effectively cut off
from the biglake.
Insurgent attacks kill 30,
wound dozens in Iraq
Parked cars explode
simulataneously
minutes later
BAGHDAD (AP) - Insur-
gents launched attacks against
security forces and civilians in
central and northern Iraq on
Tuesday, killing at least 30 peo-
ple and wounding dozens, offi-
cials said.
Shiite mosques in Baghdad
were main targets, along with
a city claimed by squabbling
ethnic groups in a disputed
northern region. The conflicts
threaten the stability of Iraq fol-
lowing the final pullout of U.S.
military forces nearly a year ago.
Car bombs exploded near
three mosques shortly after
nightfall in the capital, killing
21. Police and hospital officials
said the first exploded near a
Shiite mosque following evening
prayers in the Hurriyah neigh-
borhood, killing nine worship-
pers and wounding 20 others.
Minutes later, another car bomb
went off near Gaereat mosque,
killing five people.
Later, police said a third car
bomb exploded, killing seven
Shiite worshippers and wound-
ing 21 others in Shula neighbor-
hood in northern.Baghdad.
Ali Habib, a taxi driver, said
he was driving near the Shiite
mosque in Hurriyah when he
heard aloudexplosion.Herushed
to the blast site and helped take
wounded to the hospital.
"The scene was horrific, with
people screaming for help," he
said. "Such attacks bring back
memories of the darkest days of
sectarian strife that took place
several years ago in Iraq."
In the north, a police officer
said three bombs in parked cars
exploded simultaneously in the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk, the larg-
est city in the area claimed by
several ethnic groups in a dis-
pute with the central govern-
ment in Baghdad.
The bombs hit two Kurdish
residential areas in the center
of the city. One went off near a
main Kurdish party headquar-
ters. Five people, including a
Kurdish security guard, were
killed and 58 others wounded,
he said.
A few minutes later, two
bombs exploded in a market in
the Sunni-dominated town of
Hawija west of Kirkuk, killing
two civilians and wounding five
others, he said. Also, five Iraqi
army soldiers were wounded
when militants detonated bombs
near their houses in the nearby
town of Tuz Khortmato.
Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180
miles) north of Baghdad, is home
to a mix of Arabs, Kurds and
Turkomen, who all have com-
petingclaims to the oil-rich area.
The Kurds want to incorporate
it into their self-ruled region
in Iraq's north, but Arabs and
Turkomen are opposed.
Violence has ebbed since
the peak of insurgency several
years ago, but lethal attacks
still occur frequently. No one
claimed responsibility for Tues-
day's attacks, but car bombs,
shootings and roadside devices
are the hallmark of al-Qaida in
Iraq.
In the northeastern province
of Diyala, gunmen in a speed-
ing car showered a checkpoint
manned by Sahwa, an anti-
al-Qaida group, with bullets,
killing one and wounding two
others, another police offi-
cial said. The Sahwa are Sunni
Arabs who joined forces with
the U.S. military to fight al-
Qaida at the height of Iraq's
insurgency. They have since
been favorite targets for Sunni
insurgents who consider them
traitors.
Also in Diyala, a -roadside
bomb targeted a passing police
patrol in the town of Khan Bani
Saad, killing a civilian bystand-
er and wounding two police-
men, the officer said. The town
is about 35 kilometers (20 miles)
north of Baghdad.
In the northern city of Mosul,
a parked car bomb went off
near a house of a Sunni law-
maker, wounding five bystand-
ers. The lawmaker, a woman,
was unharmed, another police
officer said. Mosul is 360 kilo-
meters (225 miles) northwest of
Baghdad.
A playground in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine,186 rmiles from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Ukraine on Tuesday. Workers on
Tuesday raised the first section of a structure that is planned to cover the exploded reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station,
Workers raise first section of new
Chernobyl containment structure
Officials hail step
to liquidate results
of world's worst
nuclear disaster
CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR
POWER STATION, Ukraine
(AP) - Workers have raised the
first section of a colossal arch-
shaped structure that eventually
will cover the exploded nuclear
reactor at the Chernobyl power
station.
Project officials on Tuesday
hailed the raising as a signifi-
cant step in a complex effort to
clean up the consequences of the
1986 explosion, the world's worst
nuclear accident. Upon comple-
tion, the shelter will be moved on
tracks over the building contain-
ing the destroyed reactor, allow-
ing work to begin on dismantling
the reactor and. disposing of
radioactive waste.
Suma Chakrabati, president
of the European Bank for Recon-
struction and Development,
which is leading the project,
called Tuesday "a very signifi-
cant milestone, which is a trib-
ute to the ongoing commitment
of the international donor com-
munity, and an important step
towards overcoming the legacy
of the accident."
The shelter, shaped like a gar-
gantuan Quonset hut, will be 257
meters by 150 meters (843 feet by
492 feet) when completed and at
its apex will be higher than the
Statue of Liberty.
The April 26, 1986, accident
in the then-Soviet republic of
Ukraine sent a cloud of radioac-
tive fallout over much of Europe
and forced the evacuation of
about 115,000 people from the
plant's vicinity. A 30-kilometer
(19-mile) area directly around
the plant remains largely off-
limits and the town of Pripyat,
where the plant's workers once
lived, today is a ghostly ruin of
detefiorating apartment towers.
At least 28 people have died
of acute radiation sickness from
close exposure to the shattered
reactor and more than 6,000
cases of thyroid cancer have
been detected in people who, as
children or adolescents, were
exposed to high levels of fallout
after the blast.
Officials who showed report-
ers around the construction site
Tuesday were clearly delighted at
the colossus taking shape before
them, but concerned about the
challenges ahead. The shelter
is to be moved over the reactor
building by the end of 2015 - a
deadline that no one wants to
miss given that the so-called sar-
cophagus hastily built over the
reactor building after the 1986
explosion has an estimated ser-
vice life of about 30 years.
The arch now under construc-
tion is only one of two segments
that will eventually form the
shelter, and so far it's only been
raised to a height of 22 meters
(72 feet). More structural ele-
ments have to be added before
it reaches its full height of 108
meters (354 feet), and the work
so far has taken seven months.
"There's no room for error ...
the schedule is very tight," said
Vince Novak, director of the
EBRD's nuclear safety depart-
ment, who added that staying
within budget is also a concern.
The overall shelter project is
budgeted at 1.54 billion ($2 bil-
lion) - 61 billion ($1.3 billion) of
that for the structure itself - and
much uncertainty lies ahead. One
particular concern is dismantling
the plant's chimney, which must
be taken down before the shel-
ter is put in place. The chimney
is lined with radioactive residue
that could break up and enter the
atmosphere as it is taken apart.
Laurin Dodd, managing director
of the shelter project manage-
ment group, said some sort of
fixative will have to be applied to
the chimney's interior.
"This is one of the most chal-
lenging parts, because it's an
unknown," he said.
I