The Michigan Daily - michigandaily:com
Friday, October 25, 2013 - 3A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, October 25, 2013 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
KALAMAZOO, Mich.
WMU gets federal
funding for motor
research initiative
Western Michigan University
says the federal government is
giving $1.4 million for a center to
develop and promote better pub-
lit and non-motor transportation.
The Kalamazoo school said
Thursday that the grant comes
from the U.S.. Department of
Transportation. It says the center
is one of 33 being created nation-
wide.
The university says it's the lead
institution behind the Transpor-
tation Research Center for Liv-
able Communities.
MILLINGTON, Tenn.
National Guard
member opens fire
at U.S. Navy base
A member of the National
Guard opened fire at an armory
outside a U.S. Navy base in Ten-
nessee, wounding two soldiers
before being subdued and dis-
armed by others soldiers, officials
said Thursday.
Millington Police Chief Rita
Stanback said the shooter was
apprehended Thursday by other
NationalGuard members, and that
he did not have the small handgun
used in the shooting in his posses-
sion by the time officers arrived.
Stanback said two National Guard
members were shot, one in the
foot and one in the leg.
"I'm sure there could have been
more injury if they hadn't taken
him into custody," Stanback said.
VIENNA
Nuclear talks with
Iran continue with
IAEA official
A top nuclear negotiator from
Tehran will meet with the head
of the U.N.'s nuclear agency next
week just hours before agency
experts sit down with Iranian
counterparts to renew their push
for access to sites, people and
documents believed linked to
possible work on atomic arms, the
agency said Thursday.
The talks between Internation-
al Atomic Energy Agency special-
ists and Iranian negotiators have
been set for nearly a month. But
Iran's decision to send Deputy
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi
was only announced Thursday.
Araghchi's mission in Vienna
was unclear, but he played a key
role in nuclear talks last week
with six world powers that nego-
tiators from both sides described
as encouraging after years of
inconclusive meetings. Those
talks in Geneva were focused
on limiting Iranian nuclear pro-
grams that can be used both to
generate power and make fissile
warhead material.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
Saudi rights
activists call for
women to drive
It's been a little more than two
years since the last time women
in Saudi Arabia campaigned for
the right to drive. Now activ-
ists are calling for women to get
behind the wheel again Satur-
day, and they hope reforms made
by the monarchy since then have
readied the deeply conservative
nation for change.
The reforms made by King
Abdullah in recent years have
been cautious, showing his wari-
ness of pushing too hard against
influential ultraconservatives.
But given the overwhelming
restrictions on women in the
kingdom, where the strict inter-
pretation of Islam known as
Wahhabism is effectively the
law of the land, even the tiny
openings have had a resounding
effegt.
Perhaps one sign of the impact
of the changes is the loudness of
the backlash by conservatives
against Saturday's driving cam-
paign.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Turnaround
teamin Detroit
testifies about
city bankruptcy
MARK LENNIHAN/AP
One World Trade Center, left, and Brookfield Place, right, are now linked by an underground roncoorse, which opened
Thursday in New York City.
transit hub opens
Piece of the $4
billion project
officially opens
NEW YORK (AP) - The first
piece of a nearly $4 billion rede-
velopment of the World Trade
Center transportation hub
debuted Thursday with the offi-
cial opening of an underground
concourse that passes through
an area that has been closed
since 9/11.
The gleaming, marble-paved
expanse is expected to smooth
the way for tens of thousands
of commuters and visitors. It
ultimately will feature retail
outlets, but it offers something
new right now: A passageway
that links businesses and ferry
service to the west of the trade
center site to New Jersey-bound
PATH trains and the rest of
lower Manhattan to the east.
Prior to Sept. 11, pedestri-
ans used a bridge over heavily
traveled West Street. Since the
attacks destroyed the bridge,
they've used a temporary bridge
or crossed the streets at street
level. The temporary bridge is
being dismantled and is not in
use.
"The original World Trade
Center site eliminated the street
grid because that was the fash-
ion of the times," Port Author-
ity of New York and New Jersey
executive director Patrick Foye
said at Thursday's ribbon cut-
ting. "This restores that street
grid and adds an underground
grid that literally spans the
length of lower Manhattan."
Foye noted that designing
the $3.9 billion transportation
hub, scheduled to be completed
in 2015, provided the opportu-
nity for a "do-over" of sorts that
focuses more on linking mul-
tiple modes of transportation
than the original World Trade
Center site did.
The hub will connect the
PATH rail system, ferry service,
New York City subway lines and
the Fulton Street Transit Cen-
ter. Gone will be the days, Foye
said, of commuters having to
cross busy streets and trudge up
and down stairs to make transit
connections, Foye said.
The approximately 600-foot-
long underground concourse,
which features 40,000 square
feet of Italian marble, will house
stores and restaurants on two
levels, also by 2015. The Port
Authority is partnering with
Westfield Group to develop and
lease the more than 350,000
square feet of retail space.
Westfield had signed a long-
term retail deal with the Port
Authority not long before Sept.
11 and signed a new deal for the
redeveloped site in early 2008.
Other components of the
redeveloped World Trade Cen-
ter site will be rolled out over
the next several months.
The 72-story 4 World Trade
Center is scheduled to open next
month, and One World Trade
Center, once known as the Free-
dom Tower, is expected to have .
its official opening in early 2014.
The first new PATH rail plat-
form to replace the temporary
platforms that have been used
since Sept.11 should open by the
end of this year or early in 2014,
Steven Plate, World Trade Cen-
ter construction director, said.
. Yards from where hurry-
ing commuters passed through
the temporary PATH station
Thursday, workers continued
the construction of the massive,
800,000-square-foot transpor-
tation hub, whose dominant
feature will be an "oculus," two
wing-like sections of arches
separated by a huge skylight.
"To use a football anal-
ogy, we feel like we're on the
20-yard line and we're about to
punch it in," Plate said.
After two runs in Republi-
can gubernatorial primaries
and as the leader of successful
campaigns against ballot mea-
sures to raise a state sales tax
and fund stem-cell research,
Lonegan was a favorite of New
Jersey's relatively small right
wing.
The two candidates por-
trayed each other as too
extreme for the job.
Team members: City
was on edge weeks
before filing for
bankruptcy
DETROIT (AP) - Short of
cash, Detroit was delaying pay-
ments to vendors and "operating
on a razor's edge" weeks before it
filed for bankruptcy protection,
the head of the city's turnaround
team testified Thursday.
Ken Buckfire, a Wall Street
investment banker and Detroit-
area native, gave the most
detailed testimony so far on the
second day of a trial that will
determine whether the city can -
stay in bankruptcy court and
eventually unsaddle $18 billion
in debt.
Detroit must show it's broke
and tried in good-faith to nego-
tiate with creditors. Unions and
pension funds with much money
at stake claim the city didn'thold
genuinetalks and therefore the
case should be thrown out.
Buckfire's firm, Miller Buck-
fire, got involved in Detroit's
finances before the bankruptcy.
He arrived in 2012 as the state
of Michigan signed an agree-
ment with the city to make cer-
tain changes in exchange for
financial support. The deal fell
apart and eventually led to the
appointment of an emergency
manager last March.
Buckfire said many city assets
were considered for possible sale
but none were viable, including
a small airport - "effectively
worth nothing" - and the water
department, which he described
as a "very complicated situa-
tion."
He said art is being appraised
at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a
museum that is operated on the
city's behalf
By last spring, there were esti-
mates that Detroit soon would
be down to just $7 million, a
small vein of cash in an annual
budget of more than $1 billion,
while payments to vendors were
repeatedly delayed, Buckfire
said.
"The city was operating on a
razor's edge of liquidity.... There
was nothing of significance that
could be converted to cash to
avert a cash crisis in June or
July," he said.
Emergency manager Kevyn
Orr, appointed by the Michi-
gan governor to run Detroit,
announced in June that the city
would stop making payments on
$2.5 billion in unsecured debt.
The Chapter9 bankruptcy filing
came a month later.
Lawyers opposed to the bank-
ruptcy asked that much of Buck-
fire's testimony be stricken. They
said he offered too much opinion
about finances that went beyond
the scope of his role in Detroit.
European leaders
talk unemployment
Gambians arrested for hosting
gay party' in violation of law
National Intelligence
Agency member
lurks at gathering
before accusation
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - Alh-
aji, a 21-year-old gay man, knew
there was trouble when he heard
that an uninvited guest was
snapping photos in the middle
of his poolside birthday party in
Gambia's capital.
That photographer turned
out to be a member of Gambia's
feared National Intelligence
Agency, and accused Alhaji of
throwing "a gay party" in viola-
tion of Gambian law.
He and 17 other men were
taken into custody that night.
In the months that followed,
he said they were interrogated,
beaten and subjected to a very
public trial that destroyed their
reputations in a country where
President Yahya Jammeh has
called for sexual minorities tobe
decapitated.
As they were escorted from
the courtroom after their
acquittal, Alhaji heard someone
yell: "You think you're free, but
you're not. This is just the begin-
ning. When the law can't do any-
thing, we can do something."
Alhaji, a slight, soft-spoken
clothing vendor who insisted
that his full name be withheld
out of fear for his safety, fled
to neighboring Senegal where
he hoped to obtain refugee sta-
tus and then resettle in a third
country. More than a year later,
though, the Senegalese govern-
ment has made no progress on
his application, leaving him and
a dozen other gay Gambian men
stranded in a country where
homosexuality is also illegal
- and punishable by up to five
years in prison.
Rights workers advocating on
behalf of the would-be refugees
are calling for their cases to be
expedited. At the same time, Dji-
bril Balde, the Dakar-based rep-
resentative of the International
Refugee Rights Initiative, said
there was little hope for a posi-
tive outcome.
"I am fundamentally cer-
tain that these cases will be
rejected," he said. "People are
fundamentally hostile toward
gay-related issues. That's defi-
nitely clear."
Senegal's asylum office, the
National Commission of Eli-
gibility in Dakar, declined to
comment. The total number of
applications for refugee status
makes it impossible to ensure a
speedy process, said an official
at the commission who insisted
on anonymity because he was
not authorized to discuss its
work.
The commissionhas abacklog
of more than 2,000 refugee sta-
tus applications filed on all sorts
of grounds, meaning it is not just
homosexuals who are stuck in
limbo, said Mathijs Le Rutte,
regional representative for pro-
tection at the United Nations
refugee agency. But while most
refugee candidates from other
countries have removed them-
selves from immediate danger
simply by reaching Senegal, the
same cannot be said for homo-
sexuals.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender, or LGBT, asylum
seekers are considered to be
among the most vulnerable in
Africa because of the high like-
lihood they will face discrimi-
nation in the countries where
they seek protection. In coun-
tries like Senegal, Kenya and
South Africa that receive a high
number of gay men and lesbians
hoping to obtain refugee status,
reports of ill-treatment by the
local population and indiffer-
ence from government officials
are common.
Abductions,' mob attacks
and rapes targeting gay asylum
seekers have been documented
in Kenya and Uganda - inci-
dents the victims had difficulty
reporting to police because of
their ambiguous legal status,
according to a May 2012 report
by Human Rights First.
"LGBT refugees face many of
the same challenges that other
refugees do, but in addition
they also face a range of other
challenges," said Eleanor Acer,
director of refugee protection
for Human Rights First. "In
some cases they're doubly mar-
ginalized."
Of the 38 African countries
that criminalize homosexuality,
Senegal and Gambia are among
the strictest enforcers. Since
2008, Senegal has been gripped
by what Human Rights Watch
describes as an anti-gay "moral
panic," with arrests and mob jus-
tice on the rise. In some towns,
the corpses of men presumed to
have been gay during their lives
have been dug from their graves
and dragged through the streets.
In Gambia, Jammeh has made
clear that gays are unwelcome,
saying repeatedly that any who
are found in the country would
"regret" being born.
For two weeks after the raid
on his birthday party, Alhaji says
he was kept in solitary confine-
ment in Banjul. Guards woke
him up each morningby dousing
him in cold water, then beat him
during interrogation sessions so
he would divulge the names of
other gay men and lesbians.
Police then searched Alhaji's
home for items that would con-
firm he was gay. He said all they
turned up were some boxer-
briefs, which they deemed "fem-
inine."
Nobel Peace Prize
laureate says youth
joblessness a
'time bomb'
BRUSSELS (AP) - As
Europe's leaders convened to
discuss the continent's mas-
sive unemployment problem, it
was a visitor this week, Nobel
Peace Prize laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi, who most eloquently
summed up what is at stake.
"Youth unemployment is a
time bomb" said the Myan-
mar opposition leader, who
held talks on how Europe could
help her country emerge from
decades of dictatorship.
In the EU, the world's big-
gest trade bloc, some 23.3 per-
cent - or 5.5 million - of those
under the age of 25 are jobless,
according to EU figures.
EU government leaders will
specifically address the issue
at their summit Thursday,
but there are few solutions in
sight due to countries' high
debt, a lack of funds, some-
times strict labor laws and a
reluctance among the young
to relocate.
The leaders took heart in
signs that the financial crisis
might have reached a bottom
- a timid return to economic
growth promises a pickup in
employment. But with jobless-
ness still near 11 percent, labor
unions were not convinced.
"Twenty-seven million
unemployed in Europe see no
light at the end of the tunnel,
only the light of a high speed
train ready to run them over,"
said Bernadette Segol, the chief
of the European Trade Union
Confederation.
Business federations want
to revive the jobs market by
making labor laws more flex-
ible and making it easier to hire
and fire at short notice. Unions
decry such moves, arguingthey
have spawned an increase in
short-term contracts and low
wages that leave households
uncertain about the future and
undermine Europe's vaunted
welfare state.
A pre-summit meeting
between labor and employ-
ers' federations yielded little
beyond agreeing to disagree.
EU leaders will later seek to
agree on an 8 billion-euro
($11 billion) package to allevi-
ate youth unemployment that
would kick in early -next year.
But for many that is too little,
too late.
"We need a much bigger
investment plan," Segol said.
The rise in unemployment is
worsening divisions within the
EU between mostly wealthy
countries in the north and the
needy in the south.
Germany's youth unemploy-
ment stood at only 7.7 percent
in August, whereas Spain's was
over 50 percent. In Greece, the
rate at last count in June was
even worse, at a staggering 61.5
percent.
As well as being a burden to
on public finances, high youth
unemployment has a long-term
impact on the labor force by
denying potential workers the
chance to learn valuable skills.
That degrades the, country's
future employment and growth
potential and has also fueled
social tensions.
EU president Herman
Van Rompuy said Thursday
that efforts should be geared
toward preparing workers for
the burgeoning information
and communication technolo-
gy sector. He estimated that by
2015, there would be 900,000
vacancies in those sectors.
"With unemployment still
so high, it is not hard to do the
math. This is where we need to
invest," he said.
Instead of going high-tech,
some nations embrace some-
thing as traditional as agricul-
ture.
In Portugal, a growing num-
ber of young people, including
graduates, have been returning
to the land to take up farming.
The government is encourag-
ing the trend and now offers
six-month paid training agri-
cultural courses for 6,000
people aged between 18 and 35.
The number of applicants for
such schemes rose to 8,000 in
2012 from just 1,000 in 2008.
Some 35 percent had higher
education.
Greece offers subsidies to
new farmers, and also provides
state-owned land at a nomi-
nal price, or even rent-free, to
under 35-year-olds who are
prepared to cultivate it.
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