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Show Friday, Sept. 4, 2009 Page 2 World&Nation Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com ClarifyCorrect UN peacekeeping chief in The policy of The Utah Statesman is to correct any error made as soon as possible. If you find something you would like clarified or find unfair, please contact the editor at statesmaneditor@aggiemail.usu.edu Celebs&People RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Police in Virginia say singer Chris Brown will remove graffiti, pick up trash and wash cars as part of his sentence for beating ex-girlfriend Rihanna. The 20-yearold Brown was sentenced in California last Brown month to a fiveyear probation, six months of community labor and a year of domestic violence counseling for the February attack. He is performing the labor in Richmond near his home. NewsBriefs Darfur says war is over CAIRO (AP) – The outgoing U.N. peacekeeping chief in Sudan’s Darfur region said the world should no longer consider the long-running conflict a war after a sharp decline in violence and deaths over the past year. Activists and Darfur residents disagree, and the comments by Rodolphe Adada heightened anxiety that there will be less international focus on resolving the root problems in the troubled region. U.N. peacekeepers have recorded a sharp decline in fatalities from violence. There were 16 deaths in June, compared to an average 130 deaths per month last year. “We can no longer talk of a big conflict, of a war in Darfur,” Adada told The Associated Press this week before stepping down as head of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, or UNAMID. “I think now everybody understands it. We can no longer speak of this issue. It is over,” he said. The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, claiming discrimination and neglect. U.N. officials say the war has claimed at least 300,000 lives from violence, disease and displacement. They say some 2.7 million people were driven from their homes and at its height, in 2003-2005, it was called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. President Barack Obama’s new envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, caused an outcry in June when he said the violence in Darfur no longer amounted to genocide and then suggested easing sanctions against the In this Thursday, July 17, 2008 photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Joint AU-UN Special Representative Rodolphe Adada, left, greets members of the Chinese follow-up troop of engineering unit after their arrival in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. Sudan. Sudanese government. Adding to the complications, violence is on the rise on another front in semi-autonomous southern Sudan, more than four years after a 2005 peace accord ended a separate 21-year civil war that left 2 million people dead. If violence there escalates, it could potentially overshadow Darfur. Adada said the decline in violence in Darfur is an opportune time to push forward a peace process that so far has had no success. Obama speech to students draws conservative ire Police investigate assault of child at BK WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (AP) – Police say they are looking for a man who they believe sexually assaulted a 7-year-old boy in a restroom of a West Valley City restaurant. West Valley police Capt. Tom McLachlan says a mother and her two children went to a Burger King on Aug. 15. While she was placing an order, police say her 7-year-old son went to the restroom. When the boy didn’t return after a while the mother walked toward the restrooms just as police say the suspect was exiting. LateNiteHumor David Letterman, Sept. 2, 2009 – Top Ten Dumb Guy Tips To Combat The Swine Flu 10. Give your pigs and hogs Advil, vitamin C and plenty of liquids. 9. Let President Nixon figure it out. 8. Be extra vigilant when shopping at Piggly Wiggly. 7. Tax cuts for the rich. 6. Forget swine flu, you should be worried about the Obama death panels. 5. Lock yourself in Y2K bunker. 4. Spray your pork chops with Lysol. 3. Initiate talks with the leader of the pigs, see if we can’t work this out. 2. If you see a pig, run! 1. Those microscopic germs don’t stand a chance against Dr. Jack Daniels. During a visit to Darfur in July, Gration appealed to refugees in one of the largest camps to return to their villages. He also suggested easing sanctions against Sudan, telling a Senate hearing that month there was no longer any evidence to support the U.S. designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism. His comments were welcomed in Sudan, which has always maintained the death toll in Darfur was greatly exaggerated and said it was fighting a counterinsurgency, not a war. U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (AP Photo) Herbert, Hatch criticize federal energy SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch on Thursday criticized proposed federal legislation that calls for the nation’s first limits on pollution linked to global warming. The Republicans released a report that said the price of electricity in Utah would increase under the bill, which has already passed in the House. “Cap-and-trade legislation has the potential to have a significant impact on our economy,” said Herbert, who contends Utah’s energy prices would be disproportionately increased under the bill. Hatch and Herbert spoke at a forum in a state office building where critics in the energy industry assailed the bill. No environmental groups were invited to be participants at the forum, although it was open to the public. Hatch contends that the costs associated with the bill outweigh any benefits achieved from a reduction in global warming. Herbert, meanwhile, still isn’t convinced whether humans have an impact on global warming despite wide- spread acceptance in the scientific community that they do. Herbert is planning a conference later this year to have what he says will be the first legitimate debate on global warming. In opening comments, Herbert didn’t mention climate change or global warming once in reference to the federal bill. “All of us understand the benefit, at least being proposed, by a cap-and-trade piece of legislation, which is cleaning the air. Something that we all ought to lock arms on say ‘We all want to have cleaner air,’” said Herbert, who has received significant campaign donations from energy companies in the past three months. “But what is not talked about as much is, ‘What is the cost in proportion to the benefit that comes with a cap and trade piece of legislation?’ It’s not without controversy.” The legislation would require the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by about 80 percent by mid-century. DALLAS (AP) – President Barack Obama’s back-toschool address next week was supposed to be a feel-good story for an administration battered over its health care agenda. Now Republican critics are calling it an effort to foist a political agenda on children, creating yet another confrontation with the White House. Obama plans to speak directly to students Tuesday about the need to work hard and stay in school. His address will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at noon EDT, a time when classrooms across the country will be able to tune in. Schools don’t have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to watch. Districts in states including Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech to students. Others are still thinking it over or are letting parents have their kids opt out. Some conservatives, driven by radio pundits and bloggers, are urging schools and parents to boycott the address. They say Obama is using the opportunity to promote a political agenda and is overstepping the boundaries of federal involvement in schools. “As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality,” said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell. “This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” Arizona state schools superintendent Tom Horne, a Republican, said lesson plans for teachers created by Obama’s Education Department “call for a worshipful rather than critical approach.” The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. He will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. “I think it’s really unfortunate that politics has been brought into this,” White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they’re good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously.” She noted that President George H.W. Bush made a similar address to schools in 1991. Like Obama, Bush drew criticism, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of making the event into a campaign commercial. Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.” “That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it,” Higginbottom said. In the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, the 54,000student school district is not showing the 15- to 20-minute address but will make the video available later. PTA council president Cara Mendelsohn said Obama is “cutting out the parent” by speaking to kids during school hours. “Why can’t a parent be watching this with their kid in the evening?” Mendelsohn said. “Because that’s what makes a powerful statement, when a parent is sitting there saying, ‘This is what I dream for you. This is what I want you to achieve.’” Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, said in an interview with the AP that he’s “certainly not going to advise anybody not to send their kids to school that day.” “Hearing the president speak is always a memorable moment,” he said. But he also said he understood where the criticism was coming from. “Nobody seems to know what he’s going to be talking about,” Perry said. “Why didn’t he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it?” |