Opinion: A step towards involvement • Page 9
TWln RATTAT TONT
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Volume 109 • Issue 54 • 10 pages
www.thebatt.com
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Bush Museum unveils September 11 exhibit
By Jeremy Osborne
THE BATTALION
A new exhibit at the George Bush Presidential
library Complex details the devastation and
fleanup at Ground Zero and the international sup
port following the Sept. 1 1 terrorist attacks.
“After 9/11: Images from Ground Zero” fea-
yres hundreds of sympathy cards and letters
eived by U.S. consulates and embassies and
Ihotographs of Ground Zero taken by photographer
Joel Meyerowitz. Meyerowitz spent eight months at
ground Zero taking more than 7,()()() photographs.
Twenty-eight of Meyerowitz’s photographs are
lurrently on display in the Bush Library’s exhibit.
The images bring visitors from Sept. 23, 2001,
shortly after the attacks, to May 31, 2002, the day
the clean up officially ended.
The photos range from images of the skeletal
remains of the north tower to rescue workers
recovering bodies of victims.
Library Curator Patricia Burchfield said visitors
are having very emotional reactions to the images.
“(The photographs) really show the true
destruction in New York,” museum volunteer Dick
Birdwell said.
Brian Blake, library public relations director,
said he also was touched by the images.
“It’s a very powerful exhibit. When you see it
on TV you don’t really get the scale of the destruc
tion, Blake said. “(In the photographs) you see
these huge cranes that are tiny compared to the
huge craters.”
Also on display are condolence mementos,
including notes and cards, from people from
Germany, Japan, New Zealand and many other
countries. Burchfield said the cards show the mag
nitude of international support for the United States.
“They show how tremendous and immediate
the outporing of grief and support were,” she said.
The exhibit ends with a large paper panel on
which visitors can write their own messages.
Burchfield said visitors are having trouble signing
See Exhibit on page 2
Round we go
RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION
At the carnival in the parking lot of Post Oak Mall off Highway 6, the Wrights Amusements, travels to Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. It
kamakaze ride spins around Tuesday evening. The carnival, put on by will finish Sunday night and pack up on Monday.
1 idelity < > a 11 e rv features:
• Photos of Cround I£ero
• International news articles
• Personalized messages «■
• Drawings wmmmmmmmmmm
9:30 a.in. to 5 p.m
I 2 p.m. to 5 (•.in.
I RAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION
U.N. urges end
to embargo
for 11th year
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — For the 11th
straight year, the U.N. General Assembly on
Tuesday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution
urging the United States to end its four-decade
trade embargo against Cuba.
The resolution, which is not binding, was
approved by a vote of 173-3 with four abstentions
— a larger majority than last year when 167
nations voted to lift the embargo.
Only the United States, Israel and the Marshall
Islands voted in favor of keeping the embargo, as
they did last year.
Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s National
Assembly, in a speech before the vote, accused
powerful Americans of Cuban descent of acting
against what he called the “true interests” of the
United States by insisting on the embargo.
Cuba has been under a U.S. trade embargo
since Fidel Castro defeated the CIA-backed
assault at the Bay of Pigs in 196L Americans are
barred from traveling to the Caribbean island
nation except with special approval.
Creating a small opening in the trade embargo.
Congress two years ago legalized sales of food to
the communist island for the first time since 1961.
Cuba started buying U.S. food this year and
Alarcon said sales could reach $200 million.
Ambassador Sichan Siv, the U.S. representa
tive to the U.N. Economic and Social Council,
told the General Assembly that President Bush has
made clear he would only work to ease the embar
go if Cuba takes “concrete” steps toward political
and economic reforms.
Deadly weather saves
worst blow for Alabama
CARBON HILL, Ala. (AP)
J" Fate was trying to kill this
|old coal mining town decades
■before a tornado roared through.
1 The mines began closing in
I the 1950s, and the three sewing
Plants followed, along with the
'Mobile home factory. The car
dealers are gone and so is the
high school, which burned down
°ver the summer.
And now a wave of violent
feather that claimed 35 lives in
lv e states saved its deadliest
deadly twisters
Tornadoes during the weekend
3nd into Monday destroyed
homes and businesses and
caused a spike in the number of
tornado-related deaths.
Tornado statistics as of Nov. 12
35 t0rr >ado-related deaths
30
25
20
15
10 1 h 1
2000 2001
250 tornadoes
n Jiff
2000 2001
Preliminary numbers
Preliminnrx/
2002'
blow for Carbon Hill, killing
seven people and severely dam
aging scores of homes and the
remaining elementary school.
The cleanup was well under
way Tuesday, but nobody
expects Carbon Hill to come
back stronger. Just surviving
will be enough.
“We need to draw from each
other,” said Leah Bray, a City
Council member whose home
was destroyed. “If we don’t stay
together, we’ll die."
Nearly a third of the town of
2,070 about 70 miles northwest
of Birmingham was damaged or
destroyed by a twister that
struck Sunday as many residents
were returning from church.
The narrow streets were lit
tered with the splinters of
once-towering oaks and bits of
pink and yellow insulation.
School officials surveyed the
roofless elementary school and
its crumbling walls, and
declared it a total loss.
Speaking over the hum of a
gas-powered generator on his
front porch, Johnny Eads pon
dered life in Carbon Hill after
the storm. He concluded things
are only going to get worse.
“I’ve got a grandson in the
second grade,” he said. “I don t
know what he’ll do.
More than 70 tornadoes and
thunderstorms during the week
end and into Monday killed 16
people in Tennessee, 12 in
Alabama, five in Ohio, and one
each in Mississippi and
Pennsylvania.
The weather system respon
sible for the violent weather
showed it still had power left
Tuesday. It spawned a tornado
near Mora, Georgia.
Sorority helps fight breast cancer
F a c film
the risk of breast cancer;
• Having more than one drink of
alcohol per day astiiSiai
• Being overweight as an adult
Taking birth control pills for 5 years
or longer i; -a ; :\„ ■
Being exposed to large amounts
of radiation m
source:
By Esther Robards-Forbes
THE BATTALION
When Kelli Walker’s mother
was diagnosed with breast can
cer more than 14 years ago, she
was only 6 years old.
“Even though I was so little,
I still remember being scared
because I didn’t know exactly
what was going on,” said
Walker, a junior exercise and
physiology major.
The Zeta Tau Alpha, (ZTA)
sorority member said this year
is her mother’s 14th anniver
sary of being cancer-free.
“I have seen the way it has
changed (my mom’s) life and
that is motivation enough for
me to do everything I can to
stop this horrible disease,”
Walker said.
ZTA is a supporter of breast
cancer awareness and research
funding.
“It makes us so proud to be
members of a sorority that has
such an active role in our phi
lanthropy,” Walker said.
ZTA was able to give a large
amount of money to help fund
breast cancer research last
week. During a fund-raiser held
on Oct. 27, the Texas A&M
chapter of ZTA raised $13,500
for the Susan G. Komen
Foundation, which funds breast
cancer research.
Sorority President Lisa
Parrish said the Strike-A-Thon
bowling tournament, held at
Wolf Pen Creek Bowling
Center, brought in a record
amount of participants and
money this year. The annual
fund-raiser has been going on
four years. The first tourna
ment, held in 1998, had 25
teams. This year’s event had
100 teams and the tournament
had to be split into two sessions
to accommodate the large num
ber of players.
“It’s been a really neat expe
rience,” Parrish said. “I never
thought that young people
could come together and raise
this kind of money.”
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
The local chapter, as well as
the national ZTA organization,
have been long-time supporters
of the Komen Foundation.
Many A&M ZTA sisters partic-
See Sorority on page 2
Bin Laden’s voice praises terrorism via radio
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — In an audiotaped
message aired across the Arab world
Tuesday, a voice purported to be that of
Osama bin Laden praised terrorist strikes in
Bali and Moscow in a message that clearly
warned U.S. allies against following the
United States in the war on terror.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the
voice sounds like Osama bin Laden, as the
Bush administration tried to authenticate
what would be the first hard evidence in a
year that the al-Qaida leader was still alive.
In a rambling statement, the speaker on
the tape broadcast on Al-Jazeera television
referred to recent attacks, including the
Oct. 12 Bali bombings “that killed the
British and Australians,” the killing last
month of a Marine in Kuwait, the bombing
of a French oil tanker last month off Yemen
and “Moscow’s latest operation, “ — a
hostage-taking by Chechen rebels.
Speaking in a literary style of Arabic
favored by bin Laden, he said the attacks
were “undertaken by sons who are zealous
in the defense of their religion,” and that
they were “only a reaction in response to
what (President) Bush, the pharaoh of the
age, is doing by killing our sons in Iraq and
what America’s ally Israel is doing, bom
barding houses with women and old people
and children inside with American planes.”
“Our people in Palestine are being
killed, are being subjected to the worst kind
of suffering for almost a century now,” the
speaker said. “If we defend our people in
Palestine the world is disturbed and allied
against Muslims under the banner of com
bating terrorism.”
Al-Jazeera identified the speaker as
Osama bin Laden and said they received the
tape on Tuesday. The audiotape was aired
alongside an old photograph of the al-Qaida
leader but there was no new video of him.
The speaker then castigated U.S. allies
that have joined the war against terrorism,
specifically Britain, France, Italy, Canada,
Germany and Australia.
After listing those countries, he
warned: “If you don’t like looking at your
dead...so remember our dead, including
the children in Iraq.”
“What business do your governments
have to ally themselves with the gang of
criminality in the White House against
Muslims? Don’t your governments know
that the White House gang is the biggest
serial killers in this age?”
In Washington, intelligence officials
were evaluating the tape.
“It does sound like bin Laden’s voice,”
said a U.S. official, speaking on condition
See Bin Laden on page 2