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Show Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 Page 2 World&Nation Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com ClarifyCorrect 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 CLARKSDALE, Miss. (AP) – Academy-award winner Morgan Freeman says Mississippi is “starving” for the right leadership, so the actor is using his celebrity status to help his friend run for governor in 2011. FREEMAn Freeman has written a fundraising letter and is one of the hosts for a cocktail party in Los Angeles next week for Bill Luckett, an attorney seeking the Democratic nomination. NewsBriefs Broken dinosaur bones unearthed SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A vast collection of broken dinosaur bones unearthed in southeast Utah indicates they were smashed underfoot by other dinosaurs shortly after they died, according to paleontologists. Brigham Young University scientists have spent years analyzing more than 4,000 bones from a quarry just west of Arches National Park. They say the bone collection – which includes at least 67 dinosaurs representing eight species – suggests a mass-dieoff, likely from drought. LateNiteHumor David Letterman, Oct. 14, 2009 – Top 10 Things Christopher Columbus Would Say If He Were Alive Today. 10. Please tell me you’ve been TiVoing “Gossip Girl.” 9. Good Lord, this country got obese! 8. Forget me – salute the guy who discovered the bacon cheese doughnut burger. 7. Is that the same John McCain who was on the Pinta? 6. I discovered the country and all I get is a sale at Sears? 5. My most recent discovery? Paul Shaffer’s hilarious new memoir, ‘We’ll Be Here For The Rest Of Our Lives,’ available now. 4. Comedy at 10 p.m.? It’s about time! 3. I give A-Rod and Kate Hudson two months. 2. I believe that it is possible for man, with adequate rations and supplies, to circumnavigate Kirstie Alley. 1. I’m 558 years old and I still look better than Letterman. Report: Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 annually NEW YORK (AP) – Increased contraceptive use has led to fewer abortions worldwide, but deaths from unsafe abortion remain a severe problem, killing 70,000 women a year, a research institute reported Tuesday in a major global survey. More than half the deaths, about 38,000, are in sub-Saharan Africa, which was singled out as the region with by far the lowest rates of contraceptive use and the highest rates of unintended pregnancies. The report, three years in the making, was compiled by the New Yorkbased Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights and is a leading source of data on abortion-related trends. Researchers examined data from individual countries and multinational organizations. The institute’s president, Sharon Camp, said she was heartened by the overall trends since Guttmacher conducted a similar survey in 1999, yet expressed concern about the gap revealed in the new report. “In almost all developed countries, abortion is safe and legal,” she said. “But in much of the developing world, abortion remains highly restricted, and unsafe abortion is common and continues to damage women’s health and STATUES OF BABIES wrapped in plastic sit on display during a religious service by antiabortion groups in a cemetery in Mexico City in this 2008 file photo. AP photo threaten their survival.” The report calls for further easing of developing nations’ abortion laws, a move criticized by Deirdre McQuade, a policy director with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for ProLife Activities. “We need to be much more creative in assisting women with supportive services so they don’t need to resort to the unnatural act of abortion,” she said. Guttmacher estimated previously that the number of abortions worldwide fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003 – the latest year for which global figures were available. A key reason for that drop, the new report said, was that the portion of married women using contraception increased from 54 percent in 1990 to 63 percent in 2003 as availability increased and social mores changed. Guttmacher’s researchers said contraceptive use had increased in every major region, but still lagged badly in Africa – used by only 28 percent of married women there, compared with at least 68 percent in other major regions. The report notes that abortions worldwide are declining even as more countries liberalize their abortion laws. Since 1997, it said, only three countries – Poland, Nicaragua and El Salvador – substantially increased restrictions on abortion, while laws were eased significantly in 19 countries and regions, including Cambodia, Nepal and Mexico City. Despite this trend, the report said 40 percent of the world’s women live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, virtually all of them in the developing world. This category includes 92 percent of the women in Africa and 97 percent in Latin America, it said. The survey concluded that abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in countries where it is legal and where it is highly restricted. The key difference, according to the report, is the high rate of deaths and medical complications from unsafe clandestine abortions in the restrictive countries. Nobel jury speaks out in defense of Obama prize OSLO (AP) – One judge noted with surprise that President Barack Obama “didn’t look particularly happy” at being named the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Another marveled at how critics could be so patronizing. In a rare public defense of a process normally shrouded in secrecy, four of the Nobel jury’s five judges spoke out Tuesday about a selection they said was both merited and unanimous. To those who say a Nobel is too much too soon in Obama’s young presidency, “We simply disagree ... He got the prize for what he has done,” committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told The Associated Press by telephone from Strasbourg, France, where he was attending meetings of the Council of Europe. Jagland singled out Obama’s efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe. “All these things have contributed to – I wouldn’t say a safer world – but a world with less tension,” he said. For nine-year Nobel committee veteran Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, Obama’s demeanor spoke volumes when he first acknowledged the award during a news conference Friday on the lawn of the White House Rose Garden. “I looked at his face when he was on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and would come to Norway, and he didn’t look particularly happy,” she told the AP by telephone. “Obama has a lot of problems internally in the United States and they seem to be increasing. Unemployment, health care reform: They are a problem for him,” she said. She acknowledged there was a risk the prize might backfire on Obama by raising expectations even higher and giving ammunition to his critics. “It might hamper him,” Ytterhorn said, because it could distract from domestic issues. Still, she added: “Whenever we award the peace prize, there is normally a big debate about it” so the Obama controversy was not unexpected. It was unusual, however, for the Nobel jury to speak out so candidly about their selection. Even the most seasoned Nobel watchers were surprised by Obama’s Nobel – they hadn’t expected the U.S. president, who took office barely two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline, to be seriously considered until at least next year. Jagland said that was never an issue for the Nobel committee, which followed the guidelines set forth by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who established the prize in his 1895 will. “Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year,” Jagland said. “Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?” Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, also dismissed sugges- tions that Obama was undeserving of the honor. “Don’t you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?” Valle said from the coastal city of Bergen. “Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I’m not afraid of a debate on the Peace Prize decision. That’s fine.” World leaders have reacted positively to Obama’s Nobel in most cases, the committee said, with much of the criticism coming from the media and Obama’s political rivals. “I take note of it. My response is only the judgment of the committee, which was unanimous,” Jagland said. In announcing the award Friday, the committee, whose members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, applauded the change in global mood brought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation. They also praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change. The White House declined comment on the Nobel judge’s latest statements. However, Obama expressed surprise and humility at Friday’s news conference, saying the prize should be considered not a “recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.” IDAHO (AP) – The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement, a high-ranking Mormon said Tuesday. Elder Dallin H. Oaks referred to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in an address at Brigham Young University-Idaho that church officials described as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom. Oaks suggested that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices in the public square, according to his prepared remarks. “The extent and nature of religious devotion in this nation is changing,” said Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a church governing body. “The tide of public opinion in favor of religion is receding, and this probably portends public pressures for laws that will impinge on religious freedom.” Oaks’ address comes as gay-rights activists mount a legal challenge to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that overturned gay marriage in California. His comments about civil rights angered gay rights supporters who consider the struggle to enact same-sex marriage laws as a major civil rights cause. “Blacks were lynched and beaten and denied the right to vote by their government,” said Marc Solomon, marriage director for Equality California, which spearheaded the No on 8 campaign. “To compare that to criticism of Mormon leaders for encouraging people to give vast amounts of money to take away rights of a small minority group is illogical and deeply offensive.” Solomon said the Mormon church hierarchy has every right to speak out, “but in the public sphere, one should expect that people will disagree.” In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election’s aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy. “It may be offensive to some – maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” said Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice who clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Salt Lake City-based Mormon church, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has shied from politics historically but was a key player in the pro-Proposition 8 coalition. The LDS First Presidency, its highest governing body, announced its support for Proposition 8 in a letter read at every California congregation, and individual Mormons heeded the church’s calls to donate their money and time. Mormon leader says religious freedom is at risk |