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THE DAILY ILLINI
TUESDAY September 3, 2013
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The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
Vol. 143 Issue 5
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ILLINOIS STUDENT SENATE
ISS discusses emergency phone network expansion BY LIZ AMANIEH STAFF WRITER
The Illinois Student Senate discussed a possible expansion of the University’s emergency phone network at its meeting last Wednesday. Following discussion, the issue was referred to the Committee on Academic Affairs pending further discussion. The University has a network of 68 emergency phones that are stationed in all campus buildings, parking garages and numerous bus shelters. But the functionality of these phones is of concern to Illinois Student senators Kevin Huang and Rachel Heller. Huang, a sophomore in LAS, said this expansion is necessary. “This resolution is for the safety of the students,� Huang said. “We have seen a lot of the emergency phones have been broken, ineffective or unclean.� The proposal explains that “an observable amount� of the emergency phones seem to be outdated and not user-friendly, which makes them unreliable and unusable. Emergency phones can pre-
vent incidences of crime, help report crimes or provide assistance during emergencies. According to the University’s Annual Security Report for 2011, the number of criminal offenses on campus decreased from 2009 to 2011, which ISS says can be associated with the success of emergency phones around campus. After this proposal was introduced during the meeting, senators addressed the issue of student fees funding emergency phones. Rhonda Kirts, ISS adviser, explained that students pay a $56 transportation fee a semester, which goes toward ChampaignUrbana MTD bus extended hours and SafeRides. “Working at the Office of the Dean of Students, I buy safety whistles with your student fee money,� Kirts said. “Other than the transportation fee that you can point for the safe rides, there is no safety fee.� Damani Bolden, student body president and senior in ACES,
Supporters rally for immigration reform
SEE PHONE | 3A
ISS suggests adding emergency phones There are currently 68 emergency phones on and off campus. The Illinois Student Senate prepared a proposal to replace old phones and expand the coverage of emergency phones.
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A young man stood inside the gazebo of Champaign’s West Side Park playing Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’� while community members held up signs proclaiming their support for immigration reform. Some used cards provided by Organizing for Action, a non-profit organization that held the event, to explain why they “#StandWith� immigration reform, while others made their own; one sign asked Rep. Rodney Davis, R-13, where he stood on the issue. OFA-Illinois held the event “to send a message to Rodney Davis that Champaign and its constituents support a pathway to citizenship and immigration reform,� said Scott Cross, chapter leader for OFA-Springfield. Cross said he wants to see Davis join with some of his fel-
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SCOTT DURAND THE DAILY ILLINI
low Illinois Congressmen, like Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. and Rep. Aaron Schock, R-18, by changing his views on immigration reform. Saturday’s event had 13 speakers from several levels of government. The ChampaignUrbana community was represented by small business owners, faith leaders, members of immigration-related organizations and State Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-103. The headliner was Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who watched his fellow speakers while standing amongst the crowd. “I feel very strongly about this comprehensive immigration reform and particularly about the DREAM Act, which I introduced 12 years ago,� Durbin said. “We have a chance to make history and to make America a stronger country.� The focus of comprehen-
HASAN KHALID THE DAILY ILLINI.
Top: Sen. Dick Durbin spoke at an event hosted by Organizing for Action this Saturday at West Side Park to talk to Rep. Rodney Davis about passing immigration reform. Other republican representatives from Illinois have showed that they realize there needs to be reform.
Bottom: Advocates of immigration reform hold up signs to show their support during an event hosted by Organizing for Action this Saturday at West Side Park. sive immigration reform is an earned pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country,
US case for attack on Syria said to be flawed, inconsistent BY HANNAH ALLAM AND MARK SEIBEL MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
WA SH I NGTON — The Obama administration’s public case for attacking Syria is riddled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial evidence, undermining U.S. efforts this week to build support at home and abroad for a punitive strike against Bashar Assad’s regime. The case Secretary of State John Kerry laid out last Friday contained claims that were disputed by the United Nations, inconsistent in some details with British and French intelligence reports or lacking sufficient transparency for international chemical weapons experts to accept at face value. After the false weapons claims preceding the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the threshold for evidence to support intervention is exceedingly high. And while there’s little dispute that a chemical agent was used
in an Aug. 21 attack outside of Damascus — and probably on a smaller scale before that — there are calls from many quarters for independent, scientific evidence to support the U.S. narrative that the Assad regime used sarin gas in an operation that killed 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. Some of the U.S. points in question: The Obama administration dismissed the value of a U.N. inspection team’s work by saying that the investigators arrived too late for the findings to be credible and wouldn’t provide any information the United States didn’t already have. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq countered that it was “rare� for such an investigation to begin within such a short time and said that “the passage of such few days does not affect the opportunities to collect valuable samples,� according to the U.N.’s website. For example, Haq added, sarin can be
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Ancient goblet inspires advances in research Cup’s design simplifies biological detection BY ARIELL CARTER STAFF WRITER
KRISTOFFER TRIPPLAAR MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
President Barack Obama, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, delivers a statement on Syria in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. detected in biomedical samples for months after its use. The U.S. claims that sarin was used in the Aug. 21 attack, citing a positive test on first responders’ hair and blood — samples “that were provided to the United States,� Kerry said on television Sunday without elaboration on the collection methods. Experts say the evidence deteriorates over time, but that it’s simply untrue that there wouldn’t be any value in an investigation five days after an alleged attack. As a
New York Times report noted, two human rights groups dispatched a forensics team to northern Iraq in 1992 and found trace evidence of sarin as well as mustard gas — four years after a chemical attack. Another point of dispute is the death toll from the alleged attacks on Aug. 21. Neither Kerry’s remarks nor the unclassified version of the U.S. intelligence he referenced explained how the U.S. reached a tally of 1,429, including 426 chil-
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A University professor is using Roman technology developed over a thousand years ago to help advance his work in biological detection. Gang Logan Liu, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, is being recognized for his work in nanotechnology inspired by a 1,600-year-old cup. The Lycurgus Cup is kept in the British Museum in London and, according to the museum’s website, dates back to the fourth century. The cup depicts mythical King Lycurgus attacking Dionysos, god of the grape harvest, and one of his followers, Ambrosia. He then calls out to Mother Earth, who turns Ambrosia into a vine so she can entrap Lycurgus while Dionysus tortures him. Ralph Mathisen, Roman history professor, said the cup
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was probably used for religious purposes and revels in the fact that there is nothing made quite like it anymore. The cup is an example of dichroic glass, which, in this case, contains tiny particles of gold and silver that causes it to change color from green to red when held in direct light. “How they did it, no one exactly knows,� Mathisen said. “It’s hard for people in the modern day to understand. It’s hard for them to admit that people back in ancient times were smarter than us.� Liu has taken what he referred to as an “engineering masterpiece� and received inspiration from it. Since the cup is being preserved in the British Museum, Liu couldn’t perform any experiments on it, so he recreated a much smaller plastic version using nanotechnology. Liu said he discovered that when different organic liquids were poured onto the surface of the plastic, the color changed dramatically, meaning that there was high activity in the vibrating
SEE GOBLET | 3A
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Durbin and Cross said. This pathway is a 10 to 13 year pro-
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