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Aggielife: Chi Omega hosts Songfest • Page 3 Opinion: RHA dresscode ruling mindless • Page 11
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Volume 109 • Issue 59 • 12 pages
www.thebatt.com
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
Texas A&M is a strong competitor to
jecome the center of homeland security
esearch efforts after the Senate moved
toward final passage of a bill Tuesday which
ivould grant President Bush’s demand for a
lew Cabinet agency to protect Americans
Tom terrorists.
The Senate voted 52-47 to reject
an
would have removed
from the bill that
T' ■:. B)emocrats said were favors to friends of
leisamb, mend merit which
even provisions
Republicans. Among the disputed provi-
iions was a proposal to create a university
research center to study security issues that
ivas drafted, critics said, to give A&M an
Uvedur. ■ l unfair advantage over other institutions.
In order to gain the votes necessary to
lass the bill. Senate Republican Leader
jaoo uiw L/iii, i iciiv- iwcui i—CUU1C1 lllCd, SUG11 dS
Bush urges allies
to join U.S. fight
to disarm Iraq
PRAGUE, Czech Republic Threats surroundine
Trent Lott promised to rescind three provi
sions next year when Congress reconvenes
in January, including the A&M provision.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, inserted the
language in the bill and said while A&M
was a front-runner, other schools would
have the opportunity to compete for federal
research dollars.
“We have the best and brightest minds
already in place,” said Brady, whose district
includes College Station. “If Texas universi
ties work together to present a state-of-the-
art proposal, we can land a national research
center in College Station.”
At stake is an estimated $3 billion in new
federal research funds for homeland securi
ty, Brady said.
To be selected as the center for homeland
security, the provision Brady drafted estab
lished a set of criteria few schools but A&M
could meet, such as affiliations with emer
gency response and rescue teams and with
veterinary diagnostic labs, as well as strong
programs in engineering and food safety.
A&M recently formed a consortium with
the University of Texas, the University of
Houston and Texas Tech University to lobby
for homeland security research funds. This
cooperation will give a crucial advantage to
Texas schools in the competition for
research dollars, Brady said. If the consor
tium is designated as the national research
center, each school would get a small slice
of the research pie, but A&M will likely be
the headquarters of the research center,
Brady said.
“Science can make Americans safer, and
this new research center would be a major
step forward,” Brady said.
With Democratic challenges to the bill
Department of
Homeland
Security
The Senate worked on the final touches
Tuesday for legislation that will create
a new federal agency dedicated to
protecting the United States. A look at
how the organization may take shape:
► Border security Human
► Transportation capital
security ► Finance
► Information
technology
► Procurement
► Preparedness
► Mitigation
► Response
► Recovery
► Science and ► Infrastructure ► Immigration
technology protection services
development (Includes tele- (Includes visa
► Chemical communications and
» Rinioninni/ and cyber- naturalization
agricultural security) processing)
► Radiological/ ^ Threat
nuclear analysis
See Security on page 2 SOURCE: Associated Press
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PRAGUE, Czech Republic
(AP) — President Bush urged
NATO allies to “come with us”
and help disarm Saddam
Hussein, even as summit diplo
mats said Tuesday the alliance
will not take up arms collective
ly against Iraq.
Bush, arriving first among
19 NATO leaders for a two-day
gathering shadowed by intense
security, said alliance nations
can find ways individually to
[support his campaign against
Saddam.
“Everybody can contribute
something,” he told Czech TV
as White House aides sought to
lower expectations for concrete
action by NATO against Iraq.
“It all has got to be done
within the strategy of the true
threats we face in the 21st cen
tury, which is global terrorism.
That’s the biggest threat to free
dom right now,” Bush said.
NATO intends on Thursday
to create a 21,000-strong rapid
response force that could mobi
lize in seven to 30 days to con
front threats from terrorists,
renegade governments or
regional crises.
In a historic reach toward
Russia, the alliance also plans
to invite seven former commu
nist states into NATO —
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia,
Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia
a nd Bulgaria.
The threat of terrorism
loomed over the summit as the
Czech government mobilized
12,000 police officers, 2,200
heavily armed soldiers and
special anti-terrorist units to
Protect the presidents and
prime ministers.
Engines growling from
above, U.S. warplanes helped
Czech airmen in small, aging
Soviet-era planes protect the
Prague airspace. Intelligence
officials fear the leaders are an
inviting target for al-Qaida and
other terrorist organizations.
Threats surrounding a Bush
speech to students on
Wednesday about the planned
NATO force were so serious
that it was moved from Radio
Free Europe’s headquarters to a
sequestered hotel along the
riverfront, law enforcement
officials said.
“Terrorist attacks can happen
wherever and whenever,” Czech
President Vaclav Havel said.
“Our police and security forces
have prepared a wide network of
measures and have done the
maximum so that nothing like
that would happen. But 100 per
cent certainty cannot be found
in the world today.”
Railway workers found an
explosive device on railroad
tracks within the city limits
while checking a section of
track that appeared to have been
sabotaged, police spokeswoman
Eva Brozova said.
Police are worried, too, about
how to handle the thousands of
protesters who have said they
will demonstrate.
NATO’s new rapid response
force, proposed in September
by U.S. Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld, will not
be ready for action in Iraq
should Saddam defy a United
Nations Security Council reso
lution to disarm.
Still, Bush seemed eager for
NATO nations’ help to confront
Saddam.
“If he refuses to disarm,,
then we will lead a coalition of
the willing and disarm him,”
Bush said. “And of course, I
hope our NATO friends will
come with us.”
“I think they will realize it’s
in the interest of peace and sta
bility that that happen,” the
president said. “But we’re not
close to that decision point yet
because we’re just beginning the
process of allowing Saddam the
See NATO on page 2
Here it is
Chemical engineering PhD student Rubayat Mahmud gives
a geographic explanation of his hometown, Mirpur Dhaka,
Bangladesh as Jibran Khan, a freshman computer science
major, looks on. Mahmud and Khan, members of the
JOHN C. LIYAS •THE BATTALION
Bangladesh Student Association, joined various other inter
national student associations in the MSC Flagroom as part
of the "International Living Room" promoting international
education week.
Academics important to all ethnicities
WASHINGTON (AP) — Black and
Hispanic students surveyed in diverse,
upper-income communities have as much
desire to succeed in school as their white
and Asian peers, says a study that challenges
the idea that some minority groups are less
focused on school.
Researchers for the Minority Student
Achievement Network study said the find
ings released Tuesday, based on a survey of
40,000 middle, junior and high school stu
dents in 15 school districts across the coun
try, show that black and Hispanic students
are actually more likely than white students
to report that their friends think it is very
important to study hard and get good grades.
But nearly half of the black and Hispanic
students surveyed said they understood their
teachers’ lessons about half the time or less,
compared with 27 percent of white students
and 32 percent of Asian students.
“As we present these data to teachers, we
find that it sort of gets their attention,” said
Ronald Ferguson, senior research associate
at Harvard’s Wiener Center for Social
Policy. “And I think we’re better able to
engage teachers and communities to say we
need to do something about it.”
Ferguson, who helped analyze the
responses for the network, said some teach
ers were surprised and even questioned the
accuracy of the data when told that for stu
dents within the same course level, there
was virtually no difference in the amount of
time that blacks, Hispanics and whites
devoted to their homework. Only Asians
spent significantly more time on homework.
“How well students understand what
they’re being taught or what they’re asked to
read for school depends a great deal on how
they are being taught and what kinds of sup
ports are in place to encourage learning,”
said Allan Alson, superintendent of
Evanston Township High School District
202 in Illinois and founder of MSAN.
The survey — the first major study by the
suburban school network — was conducted
in the fall and winter of the 2000-01 school
year. It also covered issues such as teacher-
student relationships, students’ understand
ing of classroom material, homework and
peer pressure.
See Minorities on page 2
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Oil tanker sinks off Spains northwest coast; environmental disaster looms
Sunken tanker poses major threat
The oil tanker Prestige, damaged in a storm last week, broke in
two and sank off the northwest coast of Spain on Tuesday. The
wreckage held more than 20 million gallons of
fuel oil, which if lost would be nearly twice the
size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
r SPAIN
9 200 mi
0 200 km
Galician
Bank \
Nov. 13: Tanker hull ruptures,
leaking 1.3 million to 2.6 million
gallons of fuel oil. ijr***-
A Coruna
Nov. 16
Nov. 17
Nov. 18.
Nov. 19: Tanker breaks in two; stem section sinks
still holding more than 20 million gallons of fuel oil.
50 km
»
SOURCES: Associated Press; Portuguese Navy Hydrographic Institute:
World Wildlife Fund
AP
MADRID, Spain (AP) — An oil tanker
carrying 20 million gallons of fuel oil broke
in two and sank Tuesday in the Atlantic
Ocean, threatening a spill nearly twice as big
as the Exxon Valdez’s and an environmental
catastrophe along a scenic Spanish coastline.
The hope was that the oil would sink and
harden in waters more than two miles deep
before it could inflict disaster and engulf the
area’s rich fishing grounds. But it has already
soiled 125 miles of Spanish coastline, and its
highly viscous and toxic load is far bigger
than the 10.92 million gallons dumped off
Alaska by the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
As the Bahamas-flagged tanker Prestige
sank, it leaked between 800,000 to 1.02 mil
lion gallons of oil, according to government
estimates. SMIT, the Dutch salvage compa
ny hired to keep the ship afloat, estimated
the spillage at 13 percent of its load. Nor
was it clear much oil might reach land, or
where. Portugal said it was monitoring a
slick 22 miles by one-third of a mile.
Shut out of Spanish and Portuguese ports
after its hull split in a storm six days ago, the
tanker was towed some 150 miles out to sea
off the coast of Spain’s Galicia region.
When it finally capsized and sank crews
were already cleaning up Galicia’s coast,
where an estimated 800,000 gallons of oil
has contaminated fisheries, blackened
beaches and killed wildlife.
The calamity has highlighted concerns
about older, single-hull ships like the 26-
year-old Prestige that are due to be phased
out by 2015 — and about what Europe
should do to keep them safe and inspected in
the meantime.
The European Union charged Tuesday
that single-hull ships skirt European ports to
avoid tough new EU-mandated inspection
rules. It urged national governments to work
harder to enforce them.
Spain said the ship had not been inspect
ed since 1999, but the ship’s Greece-based
management company. Universe Maritime
Ltd., claimed the vessel underwent an
inspection last May.
At stake in Spain’s misty, green, north
west corner is a fishing and seafood industry
that feeds much of the country and does
more than $330 million in annual business.
It employs tens of thousands of people who
catch, process or sell everything from monk
fish to mussels.
Fuel oil, used to power ship engines and
electricity plants, is harder to clean up than
the crude spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
Crude disperses in sea water but fuel oil
turns to sticky lumps.
“It’s a big, sticky, gooey mess — a bit
like molten asphalt,” said Unni Einemo, sen
ior editor at Bunkerworld, a London-based
news service for the marine fuels industry.
See Oil Tanker on page 2