North Carolina Newspapers

ks: 'n to r be- k the hard- i our times npor- > in man ere is otthe onal t we izens im as 1 our ley^ve togo, them, mson with- ,» iley ;nce major The Blue Banner Sports “Baseball gears up for the 2002 series” ■ see page 6 Also inside: Features Beau Sia sparks laughter, thought” ■ seepage 4 Opinions “Unified Solar making an eflfort to improve campus,” by Zev Friedman ■ see page 2 Volume 35 Issue 4 The University Of North Carolina At Asheville New emergency phones installed on campus Whitney Setser News Reporter UNCA public safety and facilities management had two new emer gency phones installed in the park ing lots of Zageir and Owen Hall during the week of Feb. 12. “I’m glad they have put a safety phone out there, because I was con cerned about Zageir parking,” said Lindsay Thoma, a junior environ mental science major. “It is so far away for students to park and (have) to walk back to Founders and Mills Hall.” As new parking structures are built, all parking lots will be equipped with the wiring needed in case an emergency phone must be installed, said Lou Caliendo, director of pub lic safety. “We made a policy that as we expand parking areas and as we Wild parking decks, we will put in emergency phones as needed,” said Stephen Baxley, director of facili ties management. Now, UNCA has four emergency phones available, according to Caliendo. The phones are located in the dining hall and the parking lots for Campus Drive, Zageir Hall and Owen Hall. “I feel pretty safe anyway, but it’s nice to know they are putting the phones in,” said Jim DeBardi, an undeclared freshman. The older UNCA parking lots were not originally equipped with the wiring to support an emergency phone system, so installing the phones was costly, said Caliendo. The phones will be paid for out of the parking and safety fund, which was created out of parking fees. “There is a lot of cost involved in getting a parking area wired for these phones,” said Caliendo. In addition to the cost of the wir- mg, a lot of time and planning goes into the installation of the emer gency phones, said Baxley. “Vm glad they have put a safety phone out there because I was concerned about Zageir parking. It is so far away for students to park and (have) to walk back to Founders and Mills Hall.” -Lindsay Thoma junior environmental science major ED FICKLE/ PHOTO EDITOR Two new emergency phones were installed during the week of Feb. 12. When the emergency button is pushed, the call is automatically dispatched at the public safety office. First, the job must be advertised and competitively bid on by con tractors who are willing to do the job, according to Baxley. “We didn’t get bidders, and it delayed action,” said Baxley. “We had to start all over again getting bids for the job.” Caliendo said although UNCA's safety record is good, more arrange ments for emergency phones should be taken. “I’d like to see (an emergency phone) in the commuter parking lot near the main entrance,” said Jerry Adams, public safety investi gator. Installing emergency phones has been discussed for the past five or six years, according to Baxley. “Statistically, UNCA is a safe cam pus, but it only takes one incident to erase that record,” said Baxley Each emergency phone is assigned a phone number. When the button is pushed, even if the caller is un able to speak, the number is auto matically dispatched at the public safety office, accordingto Caliendo. “I’d rather have an officer tied up being an escort or doing something from the crime prevention aspect than have to go and write up an incident report for an attack or assault,” said Caliendo. Anytime, 24 hours a day, public safety can send an officer to check on anyone who uses the emergency phones, according to Caliendo. “Anything that makes people feel safer on campus is a good idea,” said Porscha Yount, an undeclared sophomore. Caliendo said the student body is interested in the emergency phone system. “I’ve spoken with students at dif ferent times around campus, and I know that they are interested in getting new phones put in around campus,” said Caliendo. Public safety and facilities man agement are both working with members of the Student Govern ment Association to gain informa tion on where new emergency phones are needed on campus, said Caliendo. “I’ve spoken with several SGA members about . . . where they would like to see additional phones placed,” said Caliendo. Baxley said he would like to listen to any ideas students may have about the placement of new phones. “Students who have ideas, sug gestions or opinions (about emer gency phones), we’d like to hear them,” said Baxley. “They will help give us direction and priority.” Several students said they wanted more phones to be placed in poorly lit areas of campus. “This is definitely a good idea for public safety to be looking out for (us), but we need to go further (with safety), especially consider ing the lack of lighting on campus,” said Hope Huskey, a junior litera ture major. “We need more phones.” “We should have courtesy phones in buildings far away so we can make on-campus calls without hav ing to use 35 cents to let people know we're fine late at night,” said Laura Lewandowski, a sophomore multimedia arts and sciences ma jor. Journalist kindnapped and killed, video sent to U.S. officials Elizabeth Moe News Reporter COUR'l tSY OF GOOGLE.COM Daniel Pearl reported for the ^all Street Journal. The Federal Bureau of Investiga tion now possesses a videotape that gives undeniable proof that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal re porter abducted four weeks ago, was killed by Islamic extremists. “His murder is an act of barbarism that makes a mockery of everything Danny’s kidnappers claimed to be lieve in,” said Wall Street Journal publisher Peter Kann. “They claimed to be Pakistani national ists, but their actions must surely bring shame to all true Pakistani patriots.” Pearl is the tenth reporter to die while involved in coverage of the war against terrorism, according to the Committee to Protect Journal ists. “The videotape showed Pearl speaking with someone, almost as if he were conducting an interview, when suddenly an unseen assailant grabbed him and slit his throat,” according to The Washington Post Web site. Feb. 20, someone posing as a jour nalist delivered the tape to Paki stani officials, who shortly sent it to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pa kistan. Then, FBI officials began examin ing it to determine the identities of the abductors, according to The New York Times. Pearl was the Wall Street Journal s South Asia bureau chief for about two years. He began investigation into the case of Richard C. Reid, the British citizen accused of attempting to blow up a commercial fight from Miami, Fla. to Paris with explosives in his shoes, according to the MSN Web site. Pearl was gathering information on Reid’s relationship with Sheikh Mubarik ali Gilani, who studied Islam with him in Pakistan, He was on his way to what he believed was an interview with Gilani when Islamic extremists kid napped him, according to the CNN Web site. Three days after Pearl failed to report home, Pakistani and West ern news organizations received an e-mail that showed Pearl with a gun held to his head. Jan. 30, the abductors threatened to execute Pearl if their demands were not met within 24 hours. The demands included the release of all Pakistani prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where captured al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are held, according to The New York Times. News organization officials re ceived no further messages from Pearl’s abductors until the video tape surfaced Feb. 20. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, sus pected for involvement with the kidnapping, admitted to luring Pearl to his abductors by suggesting the interview with Gilani. In court last week, he also said he believed Pearl had been killed, ac cording to the CNN Web site. American officials are attempting to extradite the main suspect to the United States for trial. Officials said the Pakistani gov ernment is reluctant to send the suspected kidnappers to the United See PEARL Page 8 February 28, 2002 Rain storm, cold spell kills butterflies Elizabeth Moe News Reporter A rain storm followed by a severe cold snap killed between 220 and 270 million monarch butterflies in the Mexican mountains, according to The New York Times. “It was macabre,” said Dr. Lin coln P. Brower, a butterfly biolo gist. “I’ve been going down there for 25 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it.” Monarch butterflies lay dead in piles more than a foot high in some places. Seventy-four percent of the mon- archs in the Sierra Chincua colony and 80 percent of the monarchs in the Rosario colony were killed by the storm, according to a report by Dr. Brower and research teams from the United States and Mexico. The Sierra Chincua and Rosario colony are the two largest colonies of mon arch but terflies in h e United States and Mexico. With a few other mall colonies, they com prise the entire breeding tock of monarchs for the Eastern United States and Canada. How ever, this incident should not jeopardize the existence of the species, according to Brower’s report. Scientists said the entire species was not endangered because other smaller populations of monarchs that don’t migrate to Mexico could be found elsewhere, according to the American Farm Bureau Federa tion Web site. “This recent major loss of mon arch butterflies is far from a chance event,” according to the Forest Conservation Web site. “In the last 30 years, nearly half the prime for est in the area had been degraded or destroyed. Their dwindling habitat virtually guarantees that when an infrequent severe mortality event occurs, most or all of the popula tion will be impacted.” The monarchs mass migration north from Mexico each spring, a highly unusual behavior for any insect, has been a subject of study for biologists for some time. COUKIMSY Oh GOOGLE.COM Over 200 million monarchs died in a cold rain storm. See MONARCH Page 8 Serving UNCA Since 1982 WWW. unca. edu!banner