The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 17, 2005, Page 3, Image 3
ir(iq • connnucD proui i
situation is going to be worse,”
said Sheik Abdul-Salam al
Kubaisi, a prominent cleric with
the influential Sunni Association
of Muslim Scholars, which
government officials accuse of
links to the insurgency.
In a sign of the relentless
danger, five U.S. soldiers were
killed Saturday by a bomb in
Ramadi, a hotbed of militants
west of Baghdad, the military
announced. It was the deadliest
attack on U.S. troops since a
Sept. 29 bomb blast in the same
town also killed five soldiers. A
Marine was also killed by a
bomb Saturday in the town of
Saqlawiyah, the military said.
The most recent deaths
brought to at least 1,976 the
number of U.S. service members
who have died since the war
began in 2003, according to an
AP count.
President Bush congratulated
Iraqis on the referendum, which
across the country saw few
attacks and no deaths of voters in
violence.
“The vote today in Iraq is in
stark contrast to the attitude, the
philosophy and strategy of al
Qaida, their terrorist friends and
killers,” Bush said.
The constitution is a crucial
step in Iraq’s transition to
democracy after two decades of
dictatorship under Saddam.
Washington was hoping it would
pass so Iraqis can form a
legitimate, representative
government, tame the
insurgency and enable the
150,000 U.S. troops to begin
withdrawing.
On Sunday, U.S. military
helicopters, Humvees and
armored vehicles were helping
transport the last ballot boxes
from polling stations to counting
centers in the provincial capitals.
Those centers were making
initial counts, then were to truck
the ballots to Baghdad for the
final tallying, which was likely to
begin on Monday and to last
into Tuesday.
In Baghdad’s main counting
center, workers tallied votes from
the region around the capital.
The center was shaken Sunday
when militants fired two mortars
into the Green Zone, the heavily
guarded district where the U.S.
Embassy, Iraqi government
offices and the counting site are
located. But the mortars did not
hit the center and caused no
casualties or significant damage.
Provinces in the south, where
most of Iraq’s Shiite majority are
concentrated, racked up big
“yes” 'numbers — over 90
percent in favor in most places.
Results were not yet available
from Kurdistan, but the Kurdish
community strongly supports
the charter.
Still, despite a call by their top
cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al
Sistani to support the charter,
Shiite participation in the south
was far lower than parliamentary
elections in January, when huge
numbers of Shiite voters —
more than 80 percent —
celebrated as they went to the
polls to mark their new
dominance of the country.
Between 54 and 58 percent of
voters showed up Saturday in
most parts of the south,
according to U.N. elections chief
Carina Perelli. The drop could
reflect a belief that the
constitutions victory was a sure
thing or a vein of discontent
among Shiites.
“Why should I care? Nothing
has changed since we have
elected this government: no
security, no electricity, no water,”
said Saad Ibrahim, a Shiite
resident of Baghdad’s Karrada
district who passed on voting.
“The constitution will not
change that. The main issue is
not getting this constitution
passed, but how to stop
terrorism.”
The Sunni “no” campaign
appeared to have made the two
thirds threshold in Anbar
province, the vast western Sunni
heartland; and Salahuddin,
where Sunnis hold a large
majority and as many as 90
percent of voters cast ballots.
But in two other provinces
where Sunni Arabs have only
slim majorities — Ninevah and
Diyala — the “yes” vote won.
Sunni leaden responded
angrily, some of them saying
they suspected fraud and
accusing American officials and
the Shiite parties that dominate
the government.
“There is no doubt that
America has interfered in the
process, since they and the Shiite
government are supervising the
whole operation, and since both
want this draft to pass,” al
Kubaisi said.
Khali A Mohammed / The Associated Press
An Iraqi soldier loads ballot boxes onto a truck before shipping them for vote counting in Baghdad,
Iraq. Election officials counted millions of paper ballots from Iraq’s constitutional referendum on
Sunday as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the draft was probably approved despite a
surprisingly large turnout by Sunni Arab opponents.
qurhc • conunucD PRom i
the quake’s death toll to more
than 54,000.
Abdul Khaliq Wasi, a
spokesman for Kashmiri Prime
Minister Sikandar Hayat Khan,
stressed the 40,000 number for
deaths in Pakistani-controlled
Kashmir was only “a closest
estimate” and did not reflect the
number of bodies recovered.
Khan gave a more grim
prediction to Pakistan’s Geo
television.
“Some people fear that the
death toll could be 100,000 and
they may be right,” he said.
A precise death toll will be
difficult to determine, because
many bodies are buried under
collapsed buildings and
landslides.
“The United Nations is still
operating on the governments
official numbers,” said Andrew
MacLeod, Humanitarian Affairs
officer with the U.N.
Coordination and Assessment
Team. “There are regions that
still have not been reached, and
the death toll is not final.”
There was confusion about
reports of soldiers rescuing a
young girl from the rubble of her
home Sunday.
The army spokesman, Maj.
Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said a
polio-stricken girl was pulled
from her flattened home in a
village near Balakot. But army
Maj. Majid Jahangir in Balakot
said the girl, described as 10 or
11, only had been unable to walk
and was carried from the village
by soldiers.
Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmed
Khan, the Pakistani relief
commissioner, voiced fears about
the chilly downpours that were
making conditions even more
miserable for quake survivors
forced to live in the open.
“There are bound to be
casualties because of bad
weather. Flow much? I don’t
know,” Farooq Ahmed Khan
said at a news conference.
He said 29,000 tents and
118,000 blankets had been
distributed in the quake zone,
but he estimated that 100,000
tents were needed.
studeiit • codthiued froidi
But the agents also showed
little care for the books, some of
which dated to the 17th
century. They piled them on
the floor or dumped them in
plastic bags. And their
questions quickly switched to
Turkyilmaz himself — his
political views, his Kurdish
ethnicity, who he knew in
Armenia and the subject of his
research.
That, he believes, was the real
issue. Turkyilmaz is studying
how . modern Armenian,
Kurdish and Turkish
nationalism developed after the
mass killings of Armenians in
Turkey during World War I. He
was the first Turkish scholar
allowed in the Armenian
national archives to conduct
research.
“His trip was unprecedented
for a Turkish citizen and also a
huge feather in his cap for his
academic career,” said Charles
Kurzman, an associate professor
of sociology at UNC-Chapel
Hill and one of Turkyilmazs
advisers. “That’s high-risk,
high-gain research.”
U.S. politicians and
diplomats were joined by a host
of academics who campaigned
for his release from Armenia,
while Turkyilmaz spent his days
in a small prison cell in Yerevan.
He was questioned almost
daily during the first month by
a
agents who examined his
computer files and CDs. They
also accused him of being a spy
— a charge that could bring a
15-year prison term.
But the only charge fded
against him, three days after his
arrest, involved the books.
Breaking the obscure law —■
unfamiliar even to the
booksellers — could have
gotten Turkyilmaz as much as
eight years in prison.
“The whole idea that you
could be sentenced to years in
prison for taking used books
out of the country was
preposterous,” said Orin Starn,
a professor of cultural
anthropology at Duke and
primary adviser to Turkyilmaz.
m--a
hoihe • conTinuED momi
Pendleton Street garage make
this an attractive option for
students hard up for cash.
An alumni cookout from
the College of Education will
also take place at the same
time in the Wardlaw
Courtyard.
A slightly more upscale
School of Law Alumni dinner
at the Columbia Metropolitan
Convention Center will cost
guests $50 and will begin with
cocktails at 6:30 p.m., with
dinner being served at 8 p.m.
The build-up for Saturday’s
game against Vanderbilt
continues with Cockfest
Friday night at 8 p.m. The
event will be held at Williams
Brice Stadium and will feature
a pep rally and comedian Loni
Love.
Game day will bring the
aptly titled Game Day Party at
1:30 p.m. at the S.C. National
Guard Armory on Bluff Road.
Tickets are $10 on a first
come-first-serve basis for the
Carolina Alumni Association
hosted event.
Shortly following the Game
Day Party, the main event will
get under way across the street
at Williams-Brice Stadium.
The Gamecocks will take on
the Commodores in their
annual SEC East clash with
bowl implications on the line.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockneurs@gwm. sc. edu
URccinc • connnucD mom i
ALA also estimated that
vaccinating every asthma
sufferer every year could prevent
up to 100,000 hospitalizations
each year.
An ALA report published in
July 2005 concluded that $379
million in hospitalization costs
would be saved each vear if only
half of adults and children with
asthma received a flu vaccine.
The organization offers a flu
clinic locator on its Web site,
www.lungusa.org. Flu vaccine is
expected to be available at the
Thomson Student Health
Center by the end of October.
October and November are
the best times to get vaccinated,
according to the ALA, because
flu season begins shortly
thereafter and immunizations
usually take two weeks to take
effect.
Last year’s flu vaccination
shortage left thousands without
flu shots.
Chiron Corporation, a flu
vaccine manufacturer out of
Liverpool, England, has passed
FDA inspections at its
headquarters and is waiting
only for the FDA’s approval of
its distribution centers to begin
shipping the orders. The
approval is reportedly a matter
of signed paperwork.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocknews@gxom. sc. edu
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