The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
NEWS BRIEFSF
DETROIT
Bond insurers
reach deal inr
Detroit bankruptcy
Bond insurer Syncora Guaran-
tee Inc. reached a comprehensive
deal Monday with Detroit follow-
ing marathon weekend negotia-
tions on the sidelines of the city's
bankruptcy case.
And in a stark reversal, the bond
insurer's legal team filed a four-
page apology Monday to Chief U.S.
District Judge Gerald Rosen, medi-
ator Eugene Driker - mediators
who had been accused of engineer-
ing a "fraudulent" plan to rescue
city pensioners and preserve city-
owned art at the expense of other
creditors - and Driker's wife.
"We are deeply sorry for the
mistake we made and for any
unfounded aspersions it may have
cast on Chief Judge Rosen and the
Drikers," Syncora lawyer James
Sprayregen wrote.
TEXAS
First U.S. Ebola
patient in Dallas in
critical condition
In a press conference Tuesday
evening, Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention (CDC) Direc-
tor Thomas Frieden provided
more information about a patient
confirmed to be carrying Ebola-
the first to be diagnosed in the
United States.
The patient, who has been iden-
tified as a male, left Liberia on
September 19 and arrived in the
United States on September 20.
Four days later, the man began
showing symptoms. On Septem-
ber 26, he reportedly "sought
care," which Frieden declined
to elaborate on. On the evening
of September 28, the patient was
placed in isolation. By 1:22 p.m.
Tuesday, experts in Dallas had
confirmed that the patient had
Ebola. Frieden said the patient is
now "critically ill" and that the
CDC, i ylnoring "experimental
Ebol treatments."
WASHINGTON D.C.
Secret Service asks
for more funding
* after White House
intrusion incident
A series of missteps by a top
Secret Service official during a
Congressional grilling has law-
makers openly questioning the
agency's leadership - especially
their claim that the $1.5 billion-
organization charged with pro-
tecting the president didn't have
enough money to do the job.
Secret Service Director Julia
Pierson told the Congressional
Oversight committee Tuesday
that the agency was hundreds of
employees short of its "optimal
level" due to the automatic budget
cuts known as sequestration.
"Across the organization, the
Secret Service is down 550 per-
sonnel," Pierson said, later adding,
"I do see the difficulty in trying to
operate a critical federal agency in
times of fiscal constraint."
HONG KONG
Protesters spend
a peaceful night in
Hong Kong streets
Protesters in Hong Kong
launched another day of demon-
strations Tuesday with every indi-
cation they have lost little of their
zeal for democracy-and every
signal that China has no intention
of caving to their demands for full
universal suffrage. "The central
government will not change its
mind as a result of such tactics,"
Hong Kong's chief executive,
Leung Chun-Ying, said Tuesday
morning in his first public com-
ments on the unrest.
After flatly rejecting calls to
resign, the chief executive, also
known as CY Leung, laid down
Beijing's hardline position, telling
Occupy Central demonstrators to
"stop this campaign immediately."
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - 3A
MICHIGAN ation in Israel and the actions
From Page 1A of the Israeli government, but
believes that the best way for-
ward would begin with an apol-
burg said, referring to the ogy.
boycott, divest and sanction "I always thought, start
movement on campus." from 'I'm sorry' andwe canfix
Kashua closed by saying he it," he said.
remains frustrated by the situ-
hinas gov'
shuts down
protest news
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
Albanian President Bujar Nishani at Aven
PRESIDENT.
From Page 1A
sity students with experiences
in Albania. Tickets for the event
were $250, Camaj said.
Klementina Sula, director of
International Giving and Engage-
ment at LSA, said Nishani's visit
provided a good context for,
establishing an endowment fund
as a way of commemorating his
visit. The fund was created three
weeks ago and recently surpassed
its goal of $100,000, Sula said.
Nishani said he was impressed
by the harmony among Albanian
Americans and especially among
different religious communities.
tura Restaurant Tuesday.
This tolerance, he added, is essen-
tial to Albanian culture.
"Above all, I asked them, the
Albanian American community, to
preserve their identity, to preserve
their culture, evento make the cul-
ture oftheir origin country a part of
the culture of this country, which is
already a rich one," Nishani said.
Nishani said while reforms are
still needed, Albania is progress-
ing in terms of democratic and
institutional development,; eco-
nomic growth, and social men-
tality. Among the many dramatic
changes he believes the country
has undergone, Nishani high-
lighted that young Albanian peo-
ple now travel and study abroad.
He said he hopes these students
return to Albania and help the
country to further prosper.
"He is pretty interested in
Albanian students here and he
obviously wants us all to go back
and be involved with Albania,"
Egli Lika, Engineering freshman
and a member of the AASO said.
Nishani said he advocates cre-
ating an education-driven envi-
ronment in Albania.
"I have supported the objec-
tive and aims of the government
to do a ranking of high schools
and universities in Albania, but it
must be transparent, it must be a
real one and it must be considered
by appropriate mechanisms and
institutions."
HOLOCAUST
From Page IA
The medal is annually awarded
to someone who embodies Wal-
lenberg's courage and dedica-
tion to humanitarian values. Past
recipients of the award include
Ele Wiesel, Miep Gies and Ten-
zin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama of Tibet.
Instead of presenting a lec-
ture on the podium, Heller broke
with tradition and chose to havea
conversation with Judaic Studies
Chair Scott Spector, who is also
profssor of history, German an'd
Germanic Languages and Litera-
ture.
During much of the conversa-
tion, Heller reflected on her expe-
riences during the Holocaust and
Hungary under Soviet control
and how those periods influenced
her work. She said philosophy is
an expression of experiences.
"I had the experiences of total-
itarianism and the Holocaust,"
Heller said. "When I started to
write, these two experiences
inspired me to think about eth-
ics." .
Heller also discussed her
thoughts on higher education.
She criticized the high cost of the
European and American univer-
sity system and the persistent idea
that a university education is the
sole path in gaining knowledge
and becoming successful.
"Sometimes in the universi-
ties people are not encouraged to
think with their own mind," Hell-
er said. "Whenithre are100 stu-
dents in a class, you cannot teach
them as individuals."
John Godfrey, assistant dean
for International Education in
the Rackham School of Graduate
Studies, said Heller is a remark-
able speaker and a passionate
individual.
"She has always been dogged
and fearless and persistent in her
fundamental inquiry in morality
of good and evil in the modern
world," said John Godfrey, assis-
tant dean for International Edu-
cation in the Rackham School of
Graduate Studies. "She has always
spoken out against repression and
efforts to distinguish free and
open inquiry. She is a remark-
able intellectual of extraordinary
accomplishments and enormous
personal resilience."
When the floor was opened for
questions, Heller wakr:2 rff
stage to stand next to the students
lined up at the microphone so she
could answer them directly.
"I thought it was a master
class on teaching," Godfrey said.
"Her absolute direct and hon-
est engagement with the ques-
tions and the students who asked
questions was profoundly mov-
ing. She's utterly fearless and she
showed how important courage is
in the classroom."
Regime ensures
no images of Hong
Kong events are
seen in mainland
BEIJING (AP) - China's
government has cut off news
about Hong Kong's pro-
democracy protests to the rest
of the country, a clampdown so
thorough that no image of the
rallies has appeared in state-
controlled media, and at least
one man has been detained
for reposting accounts of the
events.
By contrast, media in semi-
autonomous Hong Kong have
been broadcasting nonstop
about the crowds, showing
unarmed students fending off
tear gas and pepper spray with
umbrellas as they call for more
representative democracy in
the former British colony.
The contrast highlights the
differences in the "one coun-
try, two systems" arrange-
ment that China's Communist
Party agreed to when it nego-
tiated the 1997 return of Hong
Kong. It also reflects Beijing's
extreme sensitivity about any
possible sparks of pro-democ-
racy protest spreading to the
mainland.
"The authorities see this
a a a'r of life and death,"
said Shanghai-based colum-
nist and independent analyst
Zhao Chu. "Thy don't see it as
alocal affair but a fuse that can
take downotheir world."
In Hong Kong, broadcasters
NOW and Cable TV.have car-
ried wall-to-wall coverage of
the unfolding events, includ-
ing student leaders storming
government headquarters Fri-
day and the running clashes
with police over the weekend.
Hong -Kong's pro-democracy
newspaper, the popular Apple
Daily, has run its own live
Internet feed that features
aerial images of the crowds
captured bya drone.
Beijing clearly has not been
pleased with the unfettered
coverage and has appeared to
lump the Hong Kong media
outlets in with foreign ones.
"Several Western media are
making a big fuss, and some
even have done live casts," said
an editorial on the party-run
news site of the People's Daily.
While Hong Kong enjoys
civil liberties unheard of
on the mainland under the
"one country, two systems"
arrangement, the situation
is vastly different in Beijing's
official media, through which
the authorities can largely
control the narrative on any
outbreaks of unrest in the
mainland.
The coveage of the Hong
Kong protests has been con-
fined in mainland China to
TV anchors reading brief
statements with no video and
text reports with no photos.
The reports have mostly men-
tioned illegal gatherings in
Hong Kong and the efforts of
authorities to disperse them.
The Hong Kong-based
China Media Project counted
only nine articles in Chinese
newspapers Tuesday about the
protests, six of them stemming
from asnews release by the offi-
cial Xinhua News Agency say-
ing the protestsahad hurt Hong
Kong's economy and misquot-
ing a high-profile university
administrator as saying stu-
dents should disperse.
The other three pieces
appeared in the nationalis-
tic newspaper Global Times,
which called the gatherings
illegal, disruptive of social
order andharmfulto the econ-
omy.
Censorship of microblogs
- including phrases such as
"tear gas" - has kept online
discussion muted. The image-
sharing Instagramservice was
shut down in China over the
weekend.
"The clampdown has been
most thorough, covering all
media - traditional or new,
central or local, governmen-
tal or market-oriented," Zhao
said.
Some images from Hong
Kong's streets haveseeped into
the mainland via cellphone
messaging services. Many
users have converted words
into images to avoid having
searchable text that can be
easily caught by censors. Still,
users are complaining of posts
being deleted, including in pri-
vate chatsawith friends.
Activist Wang Long in the
southern city of Shenzhen,
who repost nes about the
protests on the instant sies-
saging service WeChat, was
detained Monday by police on
suspicion of causing trouble,
his lawyer friend Fan Biaowen
said.
The controls have been
largely effective.
"The majority of the Chi-
nese public does not know
what's going on in Hong Kong.
Only a handful know," said
Beijing-based journalism pro-
fessor Zhan Jiang.
While Hong Kong is out-
side China's "Great Fire Wall"
that blocks mainland access
to many foreign Internet news
and social sites, authorities
could conceivably shut down
the Internet there - as they
have done in the country's res-
tive ethnic regions - because
of their control of telecommu-
nications companies.
For now, that seems unlike-
ly because the move would
dent Hong Kong's image as an
open financial center.
Nevertheless, rumors of
that possibility have fueled a
rush to download Firechat,
a messaging service that can
send and receive messages
without an Internet connec-
tion. Instead, the handsets can
message each other ina daisy-
chain fashion that creates a
cloud-like network.
Beijing is on edge because
it fears the social movement
in Hong Kong and its appeal
for democracy could galvanize
members of the Chinese pub-
lic, said Zhao, the analyst from
Shanghai.
"It must be tightly con-
trolled so it will not infect the
mainland," he said.
Coalition aims to educate
youth on health insurance
Intiative to highlight
how to enroll for
universal healthcare
By NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT
For the Daily
Get Covered America, a
national health care enrollment
coalition, launched the Michigan
Youth Outreach Advisory Coun-
cil last month in an effort to edu-
cate young adults and encourage
enrollment in the Affordable
Care Act.
The Youth Advisory Outreach
Council will be led by GCA com-
mittee members state Reps.
Adam Zemke (D-Ann Arbor)
and Phil Phelps (D-Flushing),
Lansing-area philanthropist
Lauren Aitch and Emily Tode-
bush, State Public Affairs Chair
of the Michigan State Council of
Junior Leagues.
"Health coverage outreach
and education to young adults
is critically important," Zemke
said. "While young consumers
stand to benefit greatly from the
new options under the Afford-
able Care Act, they are often new
to health insurance and tend to
lack health coverage literacy."
The council is emphasizing
the special enrollment period,
which is eligible for those who
have a "qualifying life event,"
such as loss of current coverage,
marriage, birth, adoption or a
change in immigration status.
Otherwise, under the ACA,
Americans can only enroll dur-
ing specific periods. After the
initial enrollment period ended
March 31, the next opportunity
will begin Nov. 15.
The campaign-is also targeting
college campuses due to the large
number of people who will soon
experience' a health insurance
change. At the age of 26, citizens
can no longer use their parents'
healthcare plan.
"This is an opportunity to
reach a group of people who
are not going to be on their par-
ents' insurance for much longer,
whether they're going into the
Marketplace or they're lucky
enough to find a job that offers
them care," Todebush said.
Erin Knott, state director of
GCA, said the mission of the
program is informing Michigan
youth, improving the conditions
for ACA overall as more young
citizens are aware of its benefits.
"Our goal is educating young
adults about what it means to
have health insurance, the dif-
ference between co-pays and
premiums," Knott said. "But stu-
dents also become messengers.
They go and talk to their friends
about it and spread the word."
In previous years, GCA used
local areas to target the youth.
According to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Health and Human Ser-
vices, more than 8 million people
enrolled in the Health Insur-
ance Marketplace over the first
enrollment period. In the state
of Michigan, a reported 272,539
people enrolled.
"This year, our staff is dedi-
cated to beingbigger and bolder,"
Knott said. "We're trying to go
deeper into communities and
find those folks who didn't sign
up, and we're tryingto get people
to enroll with no competing cir-
cumstances."
Todebush, who was diagnosed
with multiple sclerosis in early
2013, offers a unique perspective
on the health care issue.
"My condition is not easily
diagnosed because it's a long pro-
cess of tests and meetings with
doctors that are all expensive,"
Todebush said. "If something
like this could happen to me, it"
can happen to anyone, no matter
how young and healthy."
The ACA, commonly referred
to as "Obamacare," has been: a
prominent and polarizing politi-
cal issue on the national level. It
also experienced multiple tech-
nical issues and failures in its'
initial launch. Sept. 30 marked
a deadline for enrolled families
to verify their incomes or else
pay back subsidies they received
under the ACA. The council
stresses that this is now law, and
politics are no longer an issue or a
barrier to enrollment.
"This isn't a left or right issue,"
Knott said. "What we're doing is
cutting out the rhetoric and just
giving people the facts."
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