NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, February 9, 1995
5B
Poland's government wants to end deadlock
The Associated Press
WARSAW, Poland — President Lech Walesa, a fierce anti-Communist, yesterday accepted a former Communist as Poland's next prime minister in an effort to break the nation's deadlocked politics.
The move came after Walesa forced the resignation of Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak by threatening to dissolve parliament. Pawlak, 35, resigned Tuesday night.
Walesa does not oppose the candidacy of Jozef Oleksy, the speaker of parliament, his spokesman said. Walesa telephoned Oleksy to discuss the possibility of his forming a new Cabinet. The two men are expected to meet Thursday.
Olekys, 48, is a leading member of the Democratic Left Alliance, the reconstituted Communist party that formed the current Cabinet with Pawlak's Peasants' Party after 1993 elections.
Oleksy's appointment would require approval by the parliament, but his and Pawlak's party have 301 seats in the 460-member lower house.
"The next few days will be a real test for Wales," Democratic Left Alliance leader Aleksander Kwasniewski said. He said talks on Cabinet appointments were beginning immediately and would be difficult.
Wales battled with Pawlak for most of the young farmer's 15-month tenure as prime minister, accusing him of undermining the economic reforms that gave Poland the fastest-growing economy in Europe last year.
It was not immediately clear whether Oleksy would be any more compliant to Walesa's demands, although he is a politician of considerably more experience than Pawlak. A former regional Communist chief, Oleksy took part in the 1989 talks in which the Communists surrendered their political monopoly to forces led by Walesa.
Opposition parties, however, were not expecting marked changes.
"This is purely a cosmetic change, within the same company," said Andrzej Potocki, spokesman for the center-right Freedom Union party, the largest opposition party.
Critics say Pawlak discouraged private and foreign investment that Poland badly needed to speed up its transformation to a market economy.
Inflation now stands at 32 percent and 2.9 million of the nation's 39 million people are unemployed.
Pawlak's government, which replaced Walesa's moderate Solidarity-led coalition, won on popular discontent with the high costs of reform. It had delayed the privatization of state industries and other moves, saying it might aggravate unemployment.
Pawlak's government also had been tainted by charges of corruption, and widely criticized for trying to control the news media and for opposing government decentralization.
Much of the battle between Walesa and Pawlak had been ideological, including a fierce feud over the new defense and foreign ministers, who must be approved by both.
The posts have been vacant for weeks and Walesa was upset about Pawlak's nomination of a former Communist propagandist for the defense minister's job. He and Oleksey would have to agree on replacements.
Walesa's five-year presidential term ends in December and he has been lagging far behind in the polls, though his present actions have improved his support.
Last week, Walesa said he might not seek re-election in November.
Kwasniewski is among potential presidential candidates and polls show him far more popular than Walesa.
Rapper sentenced to maximum
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A judge sentenced rapper Tupac Shakur to the maximum 41/2 years in prison for sex abuse, saying the attack followed crimes that had been "escalating in violence as his career has progressed."
Shakur wept and apologized to the victim before his sentencing Tuesday, but insisted that he had committed no crime. He also apologized to the youth of America "for falsely representing them."
Fitzgerald.
He must serve 18 months before being eligible for parole. He was returned to jail after sentencing.
"This was an act of violence against a helpless woman," said State Supreme Court Justice Daniel
Shakur, 23, has been arrested six times since 1983 on charges including violating probation, weapons possession and assault.
He was convicted of groping and fondling a 20-year-old woman he met in a Manhattan nightclub in November 1993.
She testified that she had sex with Shakur in his hotel room the night she met him. When she returned to the hotel four days later, she said, Shakur told her, "What you do for me, you have to do for my boys." She said she was then forced to perform oral sex on Shakur and three friends.
In December, Shakur and his road manager, Charles Fuller, were convicted of first-degree sex abuse, which means they fondled and
groped the woman without her consent. They were acquitted of sodomy and weapons charges.
Fuller, 24, was sentenced to four months in jail and five years probation. Shakur cried as he referred to Fuller, saying he never realized he would cause his friend's downfall.
A third man faces a separate trial.
The fourth fled and was never found.
The fourth kid was his fourth Shakur, who was shot and robbed in an unrelated incident during the trial, appeared to be fully recovered from his wounds.
Shakur began his rap career with the group Digital Underground, then scored a hit in 1992 with "2Pacalypse Now," the first of two solo albums. He also starred in the films "Juice," "Poetic Justice" and "Above the Rim."
THE NEWS in brief
NEW YORK Man charged in subway bombing leaves hospital, pleads not guilty
The man accused of building a firebomb that turned a subway car into an infemmo climbed out of his hospital bed and into a courtroom yesterday to plead innocent to a new set of charges.
The defendant, Edward Leary, and 47 other people were injured Dec. 21 when the bomb went off while the subway train was parked in a station. He is charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and attempted grand larceny.
Leary, 49, was arraigned on a superseding indictment that added 35 counts from the Dec. 21 blast, along with charges stemming from another subway firebombing six days earlier.
Leary, who suffered burns in the explosions, is being held in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital. He limped when he entered the courtroom yesterday.
He had already pleaded innocent at a bedside arraignment on the original indictment Jan. 10.
Leary, of Scotch Plains, N.J., is accused of making the firebomb as part of terror campaign aimed at extorting money from the city Transit Authority. Authorities charge that the bomb was in his lap and went off accidentally.
Defense lawyer Stephen Murphy claims his client was simply one of the victims of the firebomb, and that threatening notes found in Leary's home were outlines for unpublished novels.
WASHINGTON Presidents to swing in golf classic
That's quite a golf foursome President Clinton has signed up for next week.
His partners at the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Springs on Wednesday will include Hope and former Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush. The president will first travel to San Francisco on Tuesday to address the American Council on Education.
Clinton's press secretary gave two reasons for the golf outing.
"The president thought it was a good opportunity to do something fun," said Mike McCurry. "Second, it was a good opportunity to see President Ford and President Bush, and I think he looks forward to having good conversations with them that probably will go beyond whether one or the other of them has a slice or a hook."
PORTLAND, Ore.
Error lets thieves take ATM for bucks
Four thieves took advantage of a computer glitch to commit one of the largest cases of automated teller fraud in the nation, withdrawing $346,770 on a stolen bank card, authorities say.
The card was used 724 times over a 54-hour period in November. The ATM machines usually limit withdrawals
to $200 a day, but the limits weren't working that weekend because Oregon TelCo Credit Union was changing its computer software.
"It was absolutely dumb luck on their part," said Jim Clime, a Secret Service special agent.
Three people were arrested Tuesday and a fourth was being sought. Police recovered $29,000.
The thieves struck 48 cash machines, making $820,000 in fake deposits to fool the credit union's computer into recording enough money to cover the withdrawals.
WASHINGTON Charges aimed at credit company
Equifax Credit Information Services Inc., one of the nation's largest consumer credit reporting agencies, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges over the accuracy and privacy of its reports.
The FTC had alleged that Equifax violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to ensure "the maximum possible accuracy" of the consumer information it compiles and sells to employers and creditors nationwide.
The commission also alleged that the Atlanta-based company failed to properly reinvestigate information after consumers disputed it and that it illegally issued reports to people who weren't allowed to have them.
A proposed settlement the FTC announced yesterday would require Equifax to take steps to ensure the accuracy of its information, improve procedures for handling disputes and follow the reporting act's privacy provisions.
The law makes it illegal for consumer reporting agencies to give reports to third parties unless they have a permissible purpose for them, such as reviewing applications for credit, employment or insurance.
The Federal Trade Commission will decide whether to make the agreement final after a 60-day period for public comment.
CLEVELAND City denies Farrakhan, ACLU sues
The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the city over its refusal to allow Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to use the convention center for a men-only gathering.
The U.S. District Court suit was filed Tuesday against the city on behalf of Minister Roland Muhammad, head of Cleveland's Nation of Islam Mosque No. 18. The suit asked for an injunction requiring the city to allow Farrakhan use of the center.
The city allowed the Billy Graham Crusade to use the Cleveland Convention Center on two occasions last year for single-gender meetings, the ACLU said.
"From the city's own behavior, it didn't express any gender discrimination concerns when approached by the Billy Graham Crusade," said Kevin O'Neill, legal director of the ACLU in Ohio. "It expressed them only when approached by a controversial organization seeking a forum for a controversial speaker."
Compiled from The Associated Press.
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AWARD PRESENTATION AND ACCEPTANCE REMARKS
AT 1:30 P.M. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10
WOODRUFF AUDITORIUM OF THE KANSAS UNION
Public Invited
Ellen Goodman Syndicated Columnist
Recipient of the William Allen White Foundation's 1995 National Citation for Journalistic Merit
AOI AOI AOI AOI AOI AOI AOI AOI
At a reception afterwards, the Foundation and the William Allen White Schoolof Journalism and Mass Communications will begin celebrating their 50th anniversary. The event will feature entertainment by the student vocal group, 8:1, as well as exhibits concerning:
• debut of Channel 14 television at KU
• KJK radio's world-wide audience on Internet
• 25th anniversary of the Jayhawk Journalist magazine
• national intercollegiate championship won by Daily Kansan writers
• prize-winning student work in advertising, photojournalism and business communications
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ATTENTION ALL PRE-MED STUDENTS
Meeting Thursday Feb. 9
Watkins Health Center
We will provide information about the KU Medical Center tour on Friday Feb.10
If you can't make today's meeting, come to Hardees on 23rd. Street tomorrow (Feb.10) at 12:45
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