The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom

Thursday, January 30, 2014 - 5A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, January 30, 2014 - 5A

NEWS BRIEFS
EMPIRE,;Mich.
Sleeping Bear
Dunes wilderness
bill advances
A bill that would designate
32,000 acres of Sleeping Bear
Dunes National Lakeshore as
wilderness is moving closer to
congressional approval.
The measure won unanimous
backing this week from the
House Committee on Natural
Resources. A floor vote has not
been scheduled.
A similar version cleared the
Senate last year.
The lakeshore is headquar-
tered in Empire in the north-
western Lower Peninsula in
and is in the district of Rep. Dan
Benishek, who is sponsoring the
bill. He says it would preserve
the park's natural features while
protecting county roads, his-
torical structures and access to
recreation and enjoyment of the
lake.
WASHINGTON
Japan envoy urges
calm amid tensions
with China
Japan's ambassador called for
improved relations with Chinason
Wednesday as the top U.S. intel-
ligence official warned that ter-
ritorial disputes and nationalist
fervor are increasing the risk of
conflict in East Asia.
Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae
said people are afraid of the con-
sequences of a deteriorating rela-
tionship between the two Asian
powers, and appealed for a calm-
ing of "agitated remarks" from
both sides.
Sasae told a Washington think
tank that constructive dialogue
was needed but also said Japan
would notgive in to pressure over
its sovereignty claims.
The long-running dispute
over unoccupied islands that
Japan calls Senkaku and China
calls Diaoyu has grown more
intense since Japan, a key U.S.
ally, nationalized some of them
in 2012. China has stepped up
patrols around the islands, which
are controlled by Japan but
claimed by both nations. China
recently declared an air defense
zone over the islands, drawing
stiff international criticism.
NEW YORK
Super Bowl ads
show signs of
maturity
Forget slapstick humor, corny
gimmicks and skimpy biki-
nis. This year's Super Bowl ads
promise something surprising:
Maturity.
There won't be any close-up
tongue kisses in Godaddy's ad.
Nor will there be half-naked
women running around in

the Axe body spray spot. And
Gangnam Style dancing will be
missing from the Wonderful Pis-
tachios commercial.
In their place? Fully-clothed
women, well-known celebs and
more product information.
KIEV, Ukraine
Ukraine lawmakers
offer amnesty to
mass protesters
Ukraine's parliament on
Wednesday passed a measure
offering amnesty to those arrest-
ed in two months of protests, but
onlyifdemonstrators vacate most
of the buildings they occupy. The
move was quickly greeted with
contempt by the opposition.
The measure was put forth
by a lawmaker from the party of
President Viktor Yanukovych,
who is casting about for a way
to end the protests, which are
calling for his resignation. The
measure was a softer version of
an earlier proposal to only offer
amnesty if all protests dispersed.
But the opposition regards the
arrests during the protests - 328
by one lawmaker's count - as
fundamentally illegitimate.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Twenty journalists on
trial in Cairo courts

CARLOS OSORIO/A
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is floating to lawmakers whether the state should contribute money to shoreLop Detroit
pension plans to stave off the sale of city-owned pieces in an art museum.
Detroit's emergency manager
submits debt plan to creditors

Details not available
to public, will likely
be adjusted before
court hearing
DETROIT (AP) - The state-
appointed emergency manager
overseeing Detroit's finances
on Wednesday gave the bank-
rupt city's creditors copies
of his plan to restructure the
debt, though it could be modi-
fied before being reviewed by a
court.
Details of the plan were not
released publicly. In a writ-
ten statement to the media,
Orr said the so-called plan of
adjustment outlines how much
each class of creditors would
receive for claims submitted in
bankruptcy court.
The plan is expected to be
filed with the court in about
two weeks, Orr said.
Orr said the plan "offers the
most effective and efficient

way for Detroit to resolve its
numerous issues." He origi-
nally had said the plan would
be released in late December
but moved that back as medi-
ation continued with city
unions, banks, a group rep-
resenting retirees, and other
creditors.
"There is much work still to
do and we believe the proposed
plan provides the roadmap for
all parties to resolve all out-
standing issues and facilitate
the city's efforts to achieve
long-term financial health,"
said Orr, who was appointed
by the state last March to fix
Detroit's finances.
He filed the bankruptcy
petition in July. Bankruptcy
Judge Steven Rhodes approved
it in December. It's the largest
municipal bankruptcy in U.S.
history.
Experts have said the debt-
restructuring plan likely will
bear some similarities to a
June 14 report laid out to cred-

itors when Orr said Detroit
was insolvent. He placed
Detroit's debt at $18 billion or
more, including $3.5 billion in
unfunded pension liabilities
and $5.7 billion in unfunded
retiree health care obliga-
tions.
"Time is of the essence," Orr
said Wednesday. "The longer
we remain entrenched in our
positions and fail to reach an
agreement, the worse life gets
for Detroit's 700,000 residents
and the greater our collective
challenges become. My team
and I believe this plan pres-
ents each interested party with
fair and equitable treatment,
and we look forward to work-
ing with our creditors to adopt
this plan."
Since filing for bankruptcy,
Orr has proposed freezing
pension benefits to thousands
of city workers and reducing
health care ')enefits, affect-
ing about 28,500 o-rent and
retired employ

Egyptian gov.
accuses al-Jazeera
reporters of
assisting terrorists
CAIRO (AP) - Egypt said 20
journalists, including four for-
eigners, working for Al-Jazeera
will face trial on charges of
joining or aiding a terrorist
group and endangering nation-
al security - an escalation that
raised fears of a crackdown on
freedom of the press.
It was the first time authori-
ties have put journalists on
trial on terrorism-related
charges, suggesting authori-
ties are expanding the reach of
a heavy-handed crackdown on
the Muslim Brotherhood since
the military's ouster of tslamist
President Mohammed Morsi
on July 3.
A trial date was not set, and
the full list of charges and
names of defendants not yet
issued. But they are known
to include three men working
for Al-Jazeera English - act-
ing bureau chief Mohammed
Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian,
award-winning correspondent
Peter Greste of Australia and
producer Baher Mohamed,
an Egyptian. The three were
arrested on Dec. 29 in a raid on
the hotel suites in which they
were working.
The charges are based on
the government's designation
last month of the Brotherhood
as a terrorist organization.
Authorities have long depicted
the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera
network as biased toward
Morsi and the Brotherhood.
But police largely targeted its
Arabic service and its Egyp-
tian affiliate, which remained
one of the few TV stations
to provide a platform for the
Brotherhood after the govern-
ment crackdown. While jour-
nalists have been detained, the
decision to refer cases to trial
is unprecedented, experts said.
AI-Jazeera denies bias and
has denanded the release ofdits
reporters, whose arrest sparked
an outcry from rights groups
and journalist advocacy orga-
nizations. Authorities have also
denied the network's reporters
accreditation.
In the United States, which
has already suspended some of
its more than $1 billion annual
aid to Egypt, State Department
spokeswoman Jen Psaki said
Washington remained "deeply
concerned about the ongoing
lack of freedom of expressions
and press freedom."
"The government's targeting
of journalists and others on spu-
rious claims is wrong and dem-
onstrates an egregious disregard
for the protection of basic rights
and freedoms," she told report-
ers at a regular briefing. "We
strongly urge the government to
reconsider detaining and trying
these journalists."
The prosecutor's office said
Wednesday that 16 Egyptians
in the case are accused of join-
ing a terrorist group, while an
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two Britons were accused of
helping to promote false news
benefiting the terrorist group.
If found guilty, the defendants
could face sentences ranging
from three years for spreading
false news to 15 for belonging
to a terrorist group.
Prosecutors allege that the
20 journalists set up a media
center for the Brotherhood in
two suites in a luxury hotel.
The statement said the
defendants "manipulated
pictures" to create "unreal
scenes to give the impression
to the outside world that there
is a civil war that threatens
to bring down the state" and
broadcast scenes to aid "the
terrorist group in achieving its
goals and influencing the pub-
lit opinion."
An official from the high
state security prosecution
team investigating the case
said Famy, theactingbureau
chief, was an alleged member
of the Brotherhood, led the
media operation that "fabri-
cated footage" and broadcast
it with the "aim of harming
Egypt's reputation." The offi-
cial said equipment confiscated
included editing equipment,
microphones, cameras, com-
puters, Internet broadcasting
equipment and money.
The official said national
security agents also seized doc-
uments, and handwritten notes
including "students on strike
during exams," and "the most
important trials of December."
Student supporters of Morsi
were on strike and held protests
that frequently turned violent
for most of December.
The official spoke on condi-
tion of anonymity because he
was not authorized to release
the information.
Fahmy's brother, Adel,
said the family had given
evidence to the prosecutors
showing Mohammed Fahmy
was not paid by the Brother-
hood and did not adhere to
the group's conservative life-
style. He said his brother has
been kept in a high-security
prison with Islamists and
terror suspects.
"This is a cooked case and
they are trying to make it
bigger than what it is," Adel
Fahmy said.
Another relative said
Mohammed Fahmy's condi-
tions have sharply deteriorated
in the past week. The relative,
who declined to be identified for
fear of retribution, said Fahmy
has been denied food from out-
side, books and forced to sleep
on the floor without a blanket.
He has not been allowed out of
his cell to exercise and has no
concept of time.
The prosecutors' statement
said eight defendants were
in custody. Presumably they
include Fahmy and his two
detained colleagues. Two Al-
Jazeera reporters were arrest-
ed in August while covering a
police crackdown on pro-Morsi
protesters in Cairo that killed
hundreds. It was not known if
they are among the defendants

Uruguay president opposes the
business suit, other formalities

Saying they must
stay faithful to
cultural roots,
Mujica spurns the tie
HAVANA (AP) - War!
Imperialism! Racism! Formal
attire!
One after another, the
leaders of Latin America
denounced the ills of the
world at a regional summit in
Cuba on Wednesday.
It fell to famously casual
Jose Mujica, the Uruguayan
president, to tackle a subtler
evil plaguing humankind: the
business suit.
"We have to dress like Eng-
lish gentlemen!" exclaimed
Mujica, clad in a rumpled
white shirt. "That's the

suit that industrialization
imposed on the world!"
"Even the Japanese had
to abandon their kimonos to
have prestige in the world,"
he continued, gesturing force-
fully and rapping a pen on the
table to punctuate his words.
"We all had to dress up like
monkeys with ties."
Mujica's tirade was a light
moment in an otherwise
mostly sober gathering of the
Community of Latin Ameri-
can and Caribbean States that
focused on hunger, poverty
and inequality.
But Mujica was also try-
ing to make a serious point:
That Latin American leaders
must stay faithful to their cul-
tural roots and not alienate
the common man in a region
where the wealthy are a tiny
minority.

Mujica is known for his
homespun oratory, cantanker-
ous personality and insistence
on living simply in a world of
conspicuous consumption.
Even as president, he still
lives on a small, ramshackle
flower farm with his wife.
He gives away nine-tenths
of his salary, doesn't have a
bank account and drives a VW
Beetle that's more than four
decades old.
"To be free you have to
have time, a little bit of time,
to live, to cultivate the three,
four, five ungostionable,
fundamental things tiat ire
important in life," he said in
Havana. "All the rest is noise
and fuss."
Mujica is also famous for
never wearing a tie.
Wednesday was no excep-
tion.

Researchers link antioxidant
supplements to cancer risks

Some antioxidants
may paradoxically
increase risks for
tumors
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Antioxidant vitamins are
widely assumed to be cancer
fighters even though research
in smokers has found high
doses may actually raise their
risk of tumors. Now a new
study may help explain the
paradox.
Swedish scientists gave
antioxidants to mice that had
early-stage lung cancer, and
watched the tumors multiply
and become aggressive enough
that the animals died twice as
fast as untreated mice.
The reason: The extra vita-
mins apparently blocked one of
the body's key cancer-fighting
mechanisms, the researchers

reported Wednesday.
The scientists stressed that
they can't make general health
recommendations based on
studies in mice, but said their
work backs up existing cau-
tions about antioxidant use.
"You can walk around with
an undiagnosed lung tumor
for a long time," said study
co-author Martin Bergo of the
University of Gothenburg. For
someone at high risk, such as
a former smoker, taking extra
antioxidants "could speed up
the growth of that tumor."
Antioxidants are com-
pounds that help protect cells
from certain types of damage,
and antioxidant-rich fruits
and vegetables certainly are
healthy. The question is the
health effect of extra-high
doses in pill form. Studies in
people have shown mixed
results but haven't proven that
vitamin supplements prevent
cancer, and a few have suggest-

ed the possibility of harm. One
study in the 1990s found beta-
carotene increased the risk of
lung cancer in smokers. Nor
are smokers the only concern:
A 2011 study found Vitamin E
supplements increased men's
risk of prostate cancer.
As for people who already
have cancer, the National Can-
cer Institute says: "Until more
is known about the effects of
antioxidant supplements in
cancer patients, these supple-
ments should be used with
caution."
But biologically, scientists
couldn't explain why antioxi-
dants might harm. Wednes-
day's report in the journal
Science Translational Medi-
cine is a first step to do so.
The research doesn't exam-
ine whether antioxidants
might help prevent tumors
from forming in the first place
- only what happens if cancer
already has begun.

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