NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
7A
DINE (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
the sign-up sheets quickly. The program, which started on Sept. 9, will feature six lunches spaced throughout the fall semester: three for freshman through senior undergraduates, one for fifth-year undergraduate students and two for graduate students. Originally only five lunches were scheduled, but because of growing interest in the program, another date was added. Next semester, students will still have the opportunity to dine with the dean.
The school relies heavily on its bond with students, and dining with the dean is another way to create that connection.
Edited by Arthur Hur
"I hear other buildings aren't as warm and friendly as ours," said Connie Gentry, administrative associate with the School of Education welcome center. "We have a nice building and we're very lucky here."
INTERNATIONAL Plane crash in Moscow kills 88 Sundav morning
MOSCOW — A Russian investigator says the crash of a passenger jet that killed 88 people in a central Russian city was most likely caused by engine failure.
Vladimir Markin said in televised remarks that a failure of one of the Boeing-737-500's two engines may have caused Sunday's crash.
The Boeing-737-500 was traveling from Moscow when it went down on the outskirts of the city of Perm around 3:15 a.m. local time, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova. She said there was no indication terrorism was involved.
Eighty-two passengers.
including seven children, and six crew were on board, Andrianova said. Officials said there were no deaths on the ground and investigators were working to determine the cause of the crash.
The crash destroyed a section of railway and shut down part of the Trans-Siberian railway, a spokesman for the national railroad company said.
The plane, operated by a division of Aeroflot, was on its approach to land when it crashed into an unpopulated area of the city, just a few hundred yards from residential buildings, Andrianova said.
Investigators found the planes' "black box" flight recorders and were working to analyze them.
Associated Press
INTERNATIONAL Bolivia President Morales struggles with violence
LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales struggled to assert control over a badly fractured Bolivia on Sunday as protesters set fire to a town hall and blockaded highways in opposition-controlled provinces, impeding gasoline and food distribution.
At least 30 people have been killed in the poor Andean nation this week, Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said. All the deaths occurred in Pando province, where Morales declared martial
law on Friday, dispatching troops and accusing government foes of killing his supporters.
Pando's security chief, Alberto Murakami, told The Associated Press by telephone that 15 people had died and 55 were injured.
Associated Press
Presidency Minister Juan Ramon Quintana told local radio Red Erbol that authorities had arrested Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez,"for violating the constitution and generating the bloody killings of the peasants," and using "assassins" against his supporters.
U.S. denies claim of faulty intelligence
MIDDLE EAST
Casualties rise in Afghanistan during weekend
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KABUL, Afghanistan — An American bombing that killed up to 90 Afghan civilians last month was based on false information provided by a rival tribe and did not kill a single Taliban fighter, the president's spokesman said Sunday.
"There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces," Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.
The claim contradicted a U.S. contention that the Aug. 22 raid on the western village of Azizab killed up to 35 Taliban fighters.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the U.S. military false intelligence that led to the bombardment, the Interior Ministry has said.
An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a preliminary U.N. report.
The operation, conducted by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, targeted Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members — the reason the U.S. military recovered weapons after the battle, Hamidzada said.
The bombing strained the U.S.- Afghan relationship but the countries remain committed allies, Hamidzada said.
The U.S. has said its forces were fired on first during a raid that targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq. But villagers say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of U.S. forces. The coalition has declined to comment.
"How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces," Hamidzada said.
"Not a single Talib was killed," he added. "So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials, nor denials."
The U.S. at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed. A formal military investigation found that the operation killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians.
But after video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, the U.S. said it would send a one-star general from the United States to investigate the strike.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Friday three suspects had been arrested for allegedly giving false information to the American military, but it did not say who they were. Hamidzada and the Interior Ministry spokesman have also declined to say who was arrested.
A U.S. military spokeswoman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Villagers had gathered for a memorial ceremony in Azizabad to honor a tribal leader named Timor Shah, who had allegedly been killed by Tawakil, the rival
tribesman, about eight months ago. Villagers said families had traveled to Azizabad for the ceremony, one of the reasons so many children were killed.
officials are also reviewing the use of airstrikes by international forces.
The top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, has said the U.S. coalition, U.N. and Afghan government would hold a joint investigation, but Hamidzada said the Afghan government would not take part.
Hamidzada said Azizabad strained a relationship between friends.
"We can be critical of one particular issue but we are still part-
"There is no need to go around to the village and actually harass people one more time and remind them of the terrible ordeal they went through. We have the facts straight, we have all the information."
"Not a single Talib was killed. So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials,total denials."
Karzai has long pleaded with international forces to reduce the number of civilians killed in operations, and now the government is studying its "status of force" agreement governing U.S. and NATO operations in the country. Afghan
HUMAYUN HAMIDZADA spokesman for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai
"The Afghan government did not agree to a three-way investigation, because we have already completed two investigations," he said.
ners" he said, adding there are ways of killing Taliban without hurting civilians.
"If we only rely on air raids, we know these are not accurate, we know the potential for civilian casualties is extremely
high," he said. "So there has to be a combination of ground forces and the use of Afghan military forces. But you cannot just conduct operations from the air alone, because you hurt civilians."
In violence Sunday, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy carrying Afghan doctors working for the United Nations in southern Afghanistan, killing two doctors and their driver, officials said.
The U.N. said it was trying to determine whether the bombing was an explicit attack on the world body or if the doctors were a target of opportunity.
Also in the Afghan south, a British soldier was killed in an explosion on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense said.
Elsewhere, seven children died after ordinance they were playing with exploded, and militants ambushed and killed seven police, officials said.
INTERNATIONAL Bomb goes off near Indonesian airport
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Police say a suspected bomb has
field several miles from the Moses Kilangin airport in Papua province.
exploded near an international airport in easternmost Indonesia, but no one has been injured.
He refused to provide details, other than to say no one was hurt and that authorities suspected it was a bomb. Members of an elite antiterrorism unit have rushed to the scene to investigate.
Police chief Maj, Gen. Bagus Ekodante says the explosion occurred late Sunday in an empty
Associated Press