News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 — 3A
Orchestra features science community
NEWS BRIEFS PELLSTON, Mich.
Snowfall increases, temperatures set to drop below zero Another round of frigid air is making its way into Michigan, with temperatures expected to drop to double-digits below zero in parts of the Lower Peninsula and up to a foot of snow forecast for some lakeshore areas. The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather warning for much of Michigan, predicting brisk winds and temperatures as low as minus 11 in the central Lower Peninsula early Tuesday. Ahead of the cold front, temperatures reached the mid-30s Monday afternoon in parts of southern Michigan. Kalamazoo and Lambertville reported 36 degrees at 1 p.m.
CHARLESTON, W.Va.
Legislators push to regulate chemical storage facilities West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday proposed tighter regulations for chemical storage facilities after a spill contaminated the water supply for 300,000 people. Tomblin, the Democratic governor, urged passage of a chemical storage regulatory program. The bill aims to address shortcomings that allowed 7,500 gallons of coalcleaning chemicals to seep into the Elk River on Jan. 9. Freedom Industries, which owned the plant that leaked the chemicals, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday. Freedom Industries’ safety flaws, including a last-resort containment wall filled with cracks, went largely undetected, because as a facility that neither manufactured chemicals, produced emissions, or stored chemicals underground, it was not subject to environmental regulations, state Department of Environmental Protection officials have said. The chemical that spilled also wasn’t deemed hazardous enough for additional regulation.
WASHINGTON
As states legalize, Obama says pot is better than alcohol President Barack Obama said he doesn’t think marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol, “in terms of its impact on the individual consumer.” “As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” the president said an interview with “The New Yorker” magazine.
TEHRAN, Iran
U.S., Europe to lift sanctions on Iran in nuclear deal Iran unplugged banks of centrifuges involved in its most sensitive uranium enrichment work on Monday, prompting the United States and European Union to partially lift economic sanctions as a landmark deal aimed at easing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program went into effect. The mutual actions — curbing atomic work in exchange for some sanctions relief — start a six-month clock for Tehran and the world powers to negotiate a final accord that the Obama administration and its European allies say will be intended to ensure Iran cannot build a nuclear weapon. In the meantime, the interim deal puts limits on Iran’s program — though it continues low levels of uranium enrichment. Tehran denies its nuclear program is intended to produce a bomb. —Compiled from Daily wire reports
Musicians range from students to professionals By NEALA BERKOWSKI For the Daily
LILY ANGELL/Daily
University alum Zafar Razzacki, a keynote speaker at the 12th annual South Asian Awareness Network Conference, addressed 144 participants of the SAAN conference this weekend.
Conference explores the gravity of social justice Annual event drew largest crowd in SAAN history with 440 people By ANNA GRAFF Daily Staff Reporter
Beginning Friday and continuing through Saturday evening, the South Asian Awareness Network held its annual social justice conference, entitled “Panorama: Capturing change through the lens of culture” at The Michigan League. Business senior Gaurav Ahuja, co-conference chair, said the conference’s theme encompassed taking one of the first steps towards social change and understanding different communities’ cultures. “Culture has no one set type or definition,” Ahuja said. “There are cultures defined by ethnicity, race, gender, geo-
graphical location, ability and so on. Our culture shapes the choices we make along with the way, and how we perceive the world and each other.” Ahuja added that he would consider this year’s conference “the best yet.” Guest speakers and entertainers for this year’s conference included Sedika Mojadidi, an Afghan-American documentary filmmaker; Bilal Qureshi, a multimedia journalist and reporter for National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”; Gautam Raghavan, an adviser in The White House Office of Public Engagement and Hasan Minhaj, a comedian, actor, host and writer based in Los Angeles. Speakers participated in facilitating two keynote presentations and three workshops on their specific fields throughout the course of the weekend. LSA sophomore Nayeem Huq, who attended the event, said she was inspired by the host of speakers and lecturers.
“This year’s conference has been the best by far,” Huq said. “It’s always an inspiration to hear the shared stories of how speakers have impacted cultural perspectives within their communities.” In addition to 12 speakers, Panorama had a staff of 22 members in charge of planning the event, 34 facilitators, 17 flex members, four social justice team members and nearly 50 mentors and mentees. Conference attendance this year — a reported 440 attendees — was nearly double that of the previous record of 250. Business senior Yash Bhutada, co-conference chair, said the organization has focused on growing over the past year, garnering its largest recorded conference attendance. “We continue to be excited by everything the organization the stands for,” Bhutada said. “This year we focused a lot on visible growth and have had the largest SAAN Conference ever.”
Islamic militants threaten Sochi Winter Olympic games Russia has deployed 100,000 police, soldiers and other forces for security MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s counter-terrorism agency says it’s studying a video posted by an Islamic militant group that asserted responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 34 people last month and is threatening to strike the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Security experts say the Russians are right in taking the threat seriously. The video was posted online Sunday by a militant group in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus. The Olympic host city of Sochi lies only 500 kilometers (300 miles) west of Dagestan. Two Russian-speaking men featured in the video are identified as members of Ansar alSunna, the name of a Jihadist group operating in Iraq. It was unclear whether the men in the video had received funding or training from that group or only adopted its name. There was no confirmation the two men were the suicide bombers who struck the southern Russian city of Volgograd last month as the video claims. Scores of people were also injured by the bombings of a train station and a bus. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said Monday it was studying the video and would have no immediate comment. The video couldn’t be viewed in Russia, where Internet providers cut access to it under a law that bans the “dissemination of extremist materials.” In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman Monday said the U.S. has offered support to the Russian government as it conducts security prepara-
tions for the Winter Olympics. Rear Adm. John Kirby said the U.S. will offer air and naval support, including two Navy ships in the Black Sea, to be available if requested “for all manner of contingencies,” in consultation with the Russian government. The video was released by the Vilayat Dagestan, one of the units that make up the socalled Caucasus Emirate, an umbrella group for the rebels seeking to establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus. Doku Umarov, a Chechen warlord who leads the Emirate, had ordered a halt to attacks on civilian targets in 2012. But he rescinded that order in July, urging his followers to strike the Sochi Olympics, which he denounced as “satanic dances on the bones of our ancestors.” The games run from Feb. 7-23. The Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya claimed last week that Umarov was dead, but the claim couldn’t be verified. The Vilayat Dagestan statement said the Volgograd attacks were carried out in part because of Umarov’s order, but it didn’t specifically say he had ordered them. Dagestan has become the center of an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed Russia’s North Caucasus after two separatist wars in Chechnya. Militants seeking to create an independent state governed by Islamic Shariah law in the Caucasus launch daily attacks on police and other authorities there. One of the two ethnic Chechen brothers accused of staging the Boston Marathon bombings spent six months in Dagestan in 2012. Andrei Soldatov, an independent Moscow-based security analyst, said the video threat need to be taken seriously. “They have capabilities to strike beyond the North Caucasus, which they demonstrat-
ed in Volgograd,” he said. “It’s extremely difficult to stop a ‘lone wolf’ suicide bombing attack.” Georgy Mirsky, a respected Russian expert on the Middle East, said the video reflected the increasingly close ties between Jihadists in the Caucasus and elsewhere. Russia’s war against Caucasus militants has made it an enemy on par with the United States and Israel for militant Islamic groups in the Middle East, he wrote on his blog. Russia has responded to the Islamic threat by introducing some of the most sweeping security measures ever seen at an international sports event. Some 100,000 police, army and other security forces have been deployed, according to analysts, and tight restrictions have been placed on access to the Sochi area. Anyone attending the Winter Olympics has to buy a ticket online from the organizers and obtain a spectator pass that requires providing passport details. Authorities have already barred access to all cars registered outside of Sochi and Russian police have gone house-to-house methodically screening all city residents. Soldatov argued, however, that Russia’s massive security presence at the Olympics could also have an adverse effect. “When you put so many troops on the ground, you might get some problems with the coordination of all these people,” he said. Soldatov noted that the ominous threat of a “present” for the visitors to the Games contained in the video is loosely phrased and could herald an attack outside tightly guarded Olympic facilities. “They never tried to specify the place where they might strike, that’s why everybody
On a blustery Sunday afternoon, more than 300 students and faculty attended the free, semiannual Life Sciences Orchestra concert in Hill Auditorium. LSO is one of the organizations included in the University’s Gifts of Art program, which brings a host of art and music programs to the University of Michigan Health System, according to Elaine Sims, the director of the University’s Gifts of Art. Representing the science and medical communities at the University, the 71 members of the group range from undergraduate students to professors and doctors in the medical field. The orchestra serves as an outlet for the high-stress jobs and intense studies of its members, said LSO co-founder Kara Gavin, who is also lead public relations representative for the University Health System. She also plays the French horn and is a member of the Executive Committee of the LSO. David Brown, associate professor of otolaryngology and a founding member of the LSO, echoed Gavin’s sentiments. “It is a creative outlet for the people playing in it, but it’s also an opportunity for others to hear a performance by their friends, family members and their colleagues, and to showcase their talents,” Brown said. With a theme based on water, the concert included performances of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” Op. 27, Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 and Claude Debussy’s “La Mer,” all performed under Music Director Adrian Slywotzky. “I looked at the recent of history of the LSO and tried to explore more composers that the orchestra hadn’t played in the past few years so that the players could have a little bit of variety,” Slywotzky said. “Since we have a long season … it’s important to find music that will keep us engaged for that many hours.” In a lecture before the concert, Slywotzky presented historical information about the music and composers that were featured in the concert. He also prompted the audience to listen for various aspects of the compositions. Gifts of Art is not funded by the University, and therefore relies
on donations from its members and friends and family. For the first time in the concert’s 14-year history, an individual donation underwrote the performance. The donation came from Lester Monts, senior vice provost for academic affairs and professor of musicology. Monts announced earlier this year that he will step down from his administrative position after holding it for 20 years. He will shift his focus to his faculty position and research starting in July. “For me, I’m always a little nervous until the second piece but I thought it (the concert) was lovely,” Sims said. “Every year it gets better.” In preparation for the concert, the LSO practiced almost every Sunday beginning in September. The group will continue practicing for their next free and public concert on April 27. Brown said LSO formed when he decided to expand his “doctor’s quintet” into something larger so that others could also contribute. “I met with Elaine Sims and Kara Gavin and a few others in August of 2000,” he said. “We scurried and had auditions (for the LSO) that September and that’s when the orchestra started.” In the beginning, the orchestra was going to be for leisurely activity, to get together and play music, according to Surgery Prof. Robert Bartlett, a founding member of the group. “After the first couple of weeks we said, ‘Alright, we have to play at some point,’” he said. All LSO members and aspiring members have to audition yearly for a chance to perform with the group. The process involves playing an intricate piece of music for the music director and one member of the executive committee. “There is that strange connection between medicine, music and science, and so there are just so many people who are … just thrilled to be able to have music back in their lives because of the LSO,” Sims said. LSA sophomore D’Arcy Cook said she has been playing with the LSO since she auditioned her freshman year. “When I was in high school my French horn teacher helped me explore possible ways to keep playing French horn even though I didn’t want to be a music major,” Cook said. “There was campus orchestra and everything but one of the orchestras that’s good for the science people is LSO, so that was one of the three or so orchestras that was an option for me.”
MICHIGAN IN COLOR Want to be a part of a new and exciting project? MiC is a designated space for and by the University’s students of color, where they can voice their opinions and share perspectives and experiences that may be overshadowed by dominant narratives on campus. We’re looking to build a team of passionate, creative contributors to share their stories and thoughts. If interested, please e-mail michiganincolor@umich.edu to request an application!