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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 11, 2003)
NEWS THE BATTALION H • THE BATTALION Each team had lough to house support up to veight. S IN BRIEF files lawsuit DAMMADD Sports: New Jersey hopes for second title • Page 3 Opinion: Read him his rights • Page 5 THE BATTALfON 1 109 Years Serving Texas A&M University [Volume 109 • Issue 150 • 6 pages flHHHHHHHHK ;vww ' thebatt ’ colT1 IflMHHNH Wednesday, June 11, 2003 Area trains for possible attacks By Karen Yancey THE BATTALION The cities of College Station and Bryan, Brazos County and Texas A&M held a mock sce nario Tuesday as part of their first emergency response drill involving weapons of mass destruction. As part of the drill, organiz ers held a press conference dealing with a suspected case ofsmallpox at the Hilton Hotel in College Station. Preparations for the mock scenario included the closing of Easterwood Airport and A&M due to the discovery of two bombs at Baylor University, all done to prepare the city in case a similar scenario happens. The two-and-a-half day exercise is being run by the Texas Engineering Extension Service at A&M and is funded by the Texas Department of Public Safety-Division of Emergency Management. “The city holds these emer gency exercises once or twice a year, but this one is different because it is concerning weapons of mass destruction,” said Marilyn Martell, director of public information forTEEX. Patti Jett, interim public information manager for the City of College Station, said the scenario is good practice. “This particular incident is set up to really overload us,” she said. “It puts us all to the test to see how we are doing so when a real incidenf occurs, we have the basic skills.” This drill is only a functional exercise that involves manage ment officials in Bryan-College Station and the University. In a full-scale exercise, ambulances and fire trucks would be sent out on the streets. Bart Humphries, public information officer for the College Station Fire Department, said preparation for the exercise started several weeks ago. Training classes for city management officials were conducted to help them partici pate in the exercise. Jett said the drill uses its own time ciock and the discoveries were made early in the morning. “In game time, the press conference was only two hours after the event,” she said. The press conference consist ed of Jett and Humphries stand ing at a podium at College See Drill on page 2 Mock weapons of mass destruction drill Two and a half days long > Run by TEEX £> Funded by the Texas Department of Public Safety P> Involves the cities of College Station and Bryan, Texas A&M and Brazos County RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION SOURCE: TEXAS ENGINEERING EXTENSION SERVICES Iraqis combat crime against women By Azedeh Moaveni LOS ANGELES TIMES CAROLYN COLE • LOS ANCLELES TIMES College students Shireen Khalil, left, and her friend Mahi, both 21, wait behind a temporary bar rier to be picked up by the+r fathers. ‘‘I can't go out-alone anymore, only with my father,” Khalil said. Tm scared of kidnappings.” BAGHDAD, Iraq — Every school day morning five fathers stand guard outside a girls’ high school in west Baghdad, making sure their daughters are not kidnapped and raped. From the opening to the closing tinkles of the school bell, they peer suspiciously into the chaotic street when cars slow down or strangers loiter. At noon on this day, Mohammed Abdel- Hassan pries his two daughters away from a circle of chatting girls in navy-blue uni forms and takes them home. The next day, five different fathers will have watch duty under the scorching sun, in shifts organized by a newly formed committee of men ded icated to keeping their daughters both safe and in school. The insecurity that reigns in Iraq is the defining reality of postwar life. But the lawlessness is felt disproportionately by young women and girls who have yet to complete their education. In one of the most secular capitals in the Arab world, where women were until recently a visible and integrated part of public life, females have all but disap peared. Men are the ones doing the shop ping, turning up for what jobs remain and helping plan the future of Iraq with the U.S. reconstruction authority. “There’s so little security, and they are vulnerable as girls,” said Abdel-Hassan. “We hear rumors constantly of kidnappings and rape.” In fact, the recorded numbers are small, but in a city with few police on the street and where law and order are at best tenu ous, even talk of such crimes is enough to stir worry. The fear of rape in the city is now so widespread that families are rearranging their daily activities around providing security for their daughters. Dedicated fathers such as Abdel-Hassan take person al steps to ensure their safety at school, but many who are unable or disinclined to take on an additional burden are simply opting to keep their daughters at home. “We decided to give up on this school year entirely,” said a man who hires out his services as a driver. He said his daughter’s schooling is important to him but that his long hours don’t allow him to drive her around himself. “Being safe is more impor tant than being a year behind.” In Iraqi society, still shaped by tribal norms that define a family’s honor by its women's reputations, there is no greater shame than rape. Rapes are only rarely reported, though, because news of a sexual assault would sully a family’s name and doom the victim to either marrying her assailant or a stigmatized life of spinsterhood. Even the word “rape” is difficult fpr Iraqis to utter; they generally use kidnap ping as a euphemism. With the chaotic conditions in the capital, it’s impossible to know the number See Iraqis on page 2 N.Y. 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Steiner lives in i Broome County south of Syracuse. University dismantles Grove hangout By Natalie Younts THE BATTALION A once well-known social gathering place has been demol ished due to unsafe conditions. Only the concession stand and the bleachers remain from The Grove, located west of Simpson Drill Field and south of Albritton Bell Tower, once home lo Thursday night yell practices and Ring Dance. The stage, restrooms and metal building were all torn down, said Jim Reynolds, Memorial Student Center director. He said he had planned on improving The Grove with upgrades and renovations, but that they never evolved. The existing band shell had to be torn down, he said. Les G. Swick, the Physical Plant’s associate director for facilities, said the stage and rest rooms were in such poor condi tion that it was a good decision to take them down. “There were tremendous maintenance problems with those restrooms,” Swick said. “They failed to satisfy current code requirements, and the stage was becoming equally dangerous.” According to The Grove Web site, the bathrooms and stage failed to comply with the American’s with Disabilities Act. Portable buildings at The Grove currently house the Department of Student Life’s Conflict Resolution Services, and Adult, Graduate and Off- Campus Student Services. The Department of Residence Life is also in a portable building. The departments are currently in trailers, waiting until the planned residence life and student servic es building, located by Haas Hall, is completed. Former students who spent numerous nights at The Grove recall that movies shown at The Grove were once a major event. Betty Cook of Hurst, Texas, said her father was an agricultural economics professor from 1957, when Cook was in fourth grade, until the late 1970s, so she was always on the A&M campus. “It was packed the night they showed the movie about the See Grove on page 2 RUBEN DELUNA & TERESA WEAVER • THE BATTALION SOURCE: MEMORIAL STUDENT CENTER DIRECTOR'S OFFICE Israel attacks militants, peace promises dwindle By Ibrahim Barzak THE ASSOCIATED PRESS GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel sent helicopters to kill a senior Hamas political leader in the crowded streets of Gaza on Tuesday but failed, leaving two other Palestinians dead and 27 wounded. Hie missile attack threatened to rekindle 3 cycle of violence and wreck a new U.S.-backed peace effort. The strike against Abdel Aziz Rantisi drew a reproach from President Bush, % said he was “deeply troubled” by •be violence, and vows of vengeance from the Islamic militant group, which threatened new suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli political leaders. Hours after the attack on Rantisi, five homemade rockets fired from Gaza landed in Israel, the Israeli army said. Israeli helicopters and tanks responded by firing on an area in northern Gaza, hilling three Palestinians, including a lb-year-old girl. Two other Palestinians were killed Tuesday by Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza. Palestinian officials angrily accused Israel of sabotaging their attempts to per suade Hamas and other militant groups to stop attacking Israelis. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas called the strike a “terrorist attack.” Still, Egyptian mediators were going ahead with an attempt to secure a Hamas cease fire. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the strike, saying it compli cated efforts by Abbas to halt violence. Annan’s spokesman Fred Eckhard said the secretary-general will go to Washington on Wednesday for talks on the peace blueprint with Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. The talks will also cover Iraq, Eckhard said. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made clear Israel would not restrain its troops from retaliating against militants, despite U.S. efforts to push forward the peace plan, inaugurated by Bush, Sharon See Israel on page 2 Three Palestinians killed, 30 wounded Israeli tanks and helicopters fired toward a residential neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Beit Hanoun Jabaliya # '7 Gaza City* Sderot Gaza ISRAEL Strip leiXTj SYR ' A ISRAEL 1/Vest Bank O JORDAN Jerusalem 0 25 mi 0 25 km SOURCES: Associated Press; ESRI AP Old Ags make By C.E. Walters THE BATTALION Separated by distance, attitudes and several generation gaps, current and fonner students are finding a way to come togeth er and share the Aggie spirit. Aggie Hostel, a program that allows former students to return to Texas A&M, was conceived as the basis for a Master’s degree thesis in 1988, said Rosella Garcia, class programs coordinator in the former student programs department of the Association of Fonner Students. The annual program was held June 2 to June 6, with 37 attendees and 21 hosts. Sixteen years after its conception, the program is getting positive feedback from organizers and attendees. “(It’s) an incredible event to see these two generations exist as one,” Garcia said. The program allows Aggies ages 60 and older to return to A&M for a week and attend classes and lectures that students attend, she said. The attendees, called Hostlers, also attended evening events such as banquets and Ring Dance. They stayed in the Southside modular residence halls Eppright and Wells. new memories The program costs $600 for a single person or $1,100 for a double. The cost pays for everything, including food and lodging. This is the first year that the program age limit was lowered from 65 to 60. Former students are informed of the pro gram through flyers and class newsletters. Trey Tarwater, a junior speech com munications major, spent the week with two other students escorting a group of five around campus. Tarwater, a first-time host, said he spent every morning waking up early trying to beat his Hostlers to breakfast, but said he could not. Tarwater said he got involved the pro gram because of advice from a member of the Class of 1986. The program required a great deal of his time throughout the week, but he does not regret it, he said. “(The Hostel was) one of the best expe riences I’ve ever had at A&M,” he said. Jennie Walsh, who attended the pro gram with her husband Don, received a Master’s degree in sociology from A&M in 1966 and a Ph.D. in education in 1971. See Ags on page 2