Today
Tuesday Wednesday
4«i it*.
High: 50 High: 52 High: 53
Precip: 20% Precip: 20% Precip: 40%
Bush pledges to push
for immigration reform
SANTIAGO, Chile — President
Bush, trying to mend relations with
Latin America, pledged Sunday to
make a fresh push for stalled immi
gration reforms and defended the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying that
“history will prove it right.”
While the Iraq war is widely op
posed in Latin America, Bush said,
“The United States of America will
stay the course and we will complete
the task. ”
Immigration is a sensitive issue
throughout the region and Bush said
that his proposed immigration initia
tive would strengthen border security
and help the economy.
“We would much rather have se
curity guards chasing down terrorists
or drug runners or drug smugglers
than people coming to work,” Bush
said at a brief news conference. “And
so, therefore, I think a guest worker
program is important. ”
Low: 41
Low: 40
Low: 45
IN BRIEF
Powell begins new
Mideast peace mission
JERUSALEM — Secretary of State
Colin Powell embarked Sunday on a
mission to revive the Middle East
peace process after Yasser Arafat’s
death, saying he will ask Israel to
help with the upcoming Palestinian
election to pick a successor.
Israel said it would consider
pulling back troops from disputed ar
eas in the West Bank.
On his way to the Middle East,
Powell told reporters on his plane
that U.S.-Palestinian cooperation in
setting up the elections “will encour
age a degree of cooperation that can
spread into other areas. ”
“This is a moment of opportunity,”
Powell said. “I’ll be encouraging both
sides to do everything they can to
make sure that this election comes off
and that the maximum number of
Palestinians get the opportunity to
participate. ”
He said there were “many things”
the Israelis could do to help, and he
will discuss them during a Monday
meeting with Israeli officials.
U.S. enforcement of civil
rights laws falls drastically
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal
enforcement of civil rights laws has
dropped sharply since 1999, even
though the level of complaints re
ceived by the Justice Department has
remained relatively constant, accord
ing a study released Sunday.
Criminal charges alleging civil
rights violations were brought
last year against 84 defendants,
down from 159 in 1999, according
to Justice Department data
analyzed by the Transactional
Records Access Clearinghouse at
Syracuse University.
In addition, the study found that
the number of times the FBI or
other federal investigative agency
recommended prosecution in civil
rights cases has fallen by more
than one-third, from more than
3,000 in 1999 to slightly more than
1,900 last year. Federal court data
also show the government has
sought fewer civil sanctions against
civil rights violators.
The study’s co-author, David Burn
ham of TRAC, said the results show
that civil rights enforcement dropped
across the board during President
Bush’s first term in office.
The Justice Department had no
comment about the TRAC study.
— The Associated Press
China plane crash
kills 54 people;
cause unknown
A China Eastern Airlines plane's midair explosion
kills all aboard, including one on the ground
BY STEPHANIE HOO
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING — A passenger plane
crashed in an ice-covered lake in
northern China seconds after take
off Sunday, killing all 53 people
aboard and one person on the
ground after an apparent midair ex
plosion, the government said.
There was no immediate word on
the cause of the crash, which was the
country’s deadliest in more than two
years and was a setback to China’s
efforts to improve air safety following
a string of accidents in the 1990s.
The China Eastern Airlines plane
went down in Baotou, a city in the
Inner Mongolia region 330 miles
northwest of Beijing, “only about a
dozen seconds” after takeoff at 8:20
a.m., the official Xinhua News
Agency said.
The plane, a Bombardier CRJ
200, was headed for Shanghai with
47 passengers and six crew mem
bers when it crashed into the lake
in Nanhai Park, Xinhua said.
Premier Wen Jiabao ordered all
out efforts to determine the crash’s
cause, state television reported in
its national evening newscast.
All CRJ-200 aircraft in China
were grounded, and cabinet-level
investigators were dispatched to the
crash site from Beijing, Xinhua said.
Witnesses told the agency they
heard an explosion before the plane
hit the ground, and one described
seeing “a big fireball” overhead.
Wang Yongqiang, who lives near
the park, said he saw black smoke
billowing from the tail of the plane
before it crashed and broke into fiery
fragments, Xinhua said. He also
heard “a big blast” when the plane
was still in the air, the agency' said.
All aboard were confirmed dead
— their remains pulled from the
lake by emergency workers who
had to break through ice on the lake
to get to the wreckage, reports said.
A worker on the ground at Nanhai
Park was also killed, Xinhua said.
China suffered numerous deadly
plane crashes in the 1990s, prompt
ing the government to tighten safe
ty measures and upgrade airplanes
in the completely state-controlled
aviation industry.
National elections set for Jan. 30
Iraq’s Electoral Commission
on Sunday set national
elections for Jan. 30,
and a spokesman
said ballots would
be cast nationwide, \
including areas
now wracked by
violence.
Mosul
V"
- U.S. troops found two
more bodies near a site
!, where nine Iraqi
i. soldiers were found
Saturday.
IRAQ
Jf
SYRIA
JOR.
Insurgents
ambush an Iraqi
’\ National Guard
patrol, killing
eight.
Ramadi
Baghdad
o
|- Four large
explosions
shook the area
near the U.S.
guarded Green
Zone.
► U.S. forces
detained more than
1,450 people during the
Fallujah offensive.
► U.S. troops have found close
to 20 “atrocity sites” used by
insurgents to imprison and kill hostages
Hillah
A suicide car \
bomber failed an
attempt to kill police ;
chief, killing himself1
instead.
IRAN
0 50 mi
0 50 km
SAUDI ARABIA
KUWAIT
SOURCE: ESRI
AP
IN BRIEF
Iraq sets date for new
election amidst violence
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi authori
ties set Jan. 30 as the date for the
nation’s first election since the col
lapse of Saddam Hussein’s dictator
ship and pledged that voting would
take place throughout the country
despite rising violence and calls by
Sunni clerics for a boycott.
Farid Ayar, spokesman of the In
dependent Electoral Commission
of Iraq, said voting would push
ahead even in areas still wracked
by violence, including Fallujah,
Mosul and other parts of the
volatile Sunni TYiangle.
The vote for the 275-member Na
tional Assembly is seen as a major
step toward building democracy af
ter years of Saddam’s tyranny.
But the violence, which has es
calated this month with the
U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah,
has raised fears that voting will be
nearly impossible in insurgency
torn regions, or that Sunni Arabs,
angry at the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown,
will reject the election.
If either takes place, it could un
dermine the vote’s legitimacy.
Ayar insisted that “no Iraqi
province will be excluded because
the law considers Iraq as one con
stituency, and therefore it is not le
gal to exclude any province.”
U.S. and Iraqi troops have been
clearing the last of the resistance
from Fallujah, the main rebel bas
tion stormed Nov. 8 in hopes of
breaking the back of the insurgency
before the election.
Secretary of State Colin Powell
said he believed the battle of Fallu
jah did “serious damage” to the in
surgency, adding that “it remains to
be seen how severe it was” and
whether the guerrillas will be able
“to regenerate.”
— The Associated Press
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN
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Donors are compensated $2,500 for their
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