Monday, November 22, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 7
Nation/World
Russian troops set to assault Grozny
The Associated Press
SLEPTSOVSKAYA, Russia More than 5,000 rebels have barricaded themselves in the Chechen capital, braced for a Russian offensive as federal troops closed in after weeks of relentless shelling, military officials said yesterday.
On Chechnya's borders, refugees pushed through wet snow and a damp wind to flee the breakaway republic. Most were on foot, though some crossed in cars sagging with sweaters, pots and blankets.
Russian forces had the capital, Grozny, 80 percent surrounded and were trying to complete the circle by advancing on the south and southwest, a Defense Ministry spokesman in Moscow said Sunday.
In some places, the Russians were as close as 3 miles from the city, said the press center of the Russian command in the northern Caucasus.
The Defense Ministry spokesman said 5,000 to 6,000 militants had taken up positions in Grozny and were preparing for the Russian offensive.
For weeks Russian aircraft have been bombing the city and suspected rebel bases throughout the Caucasus Mountains republic.
Warplanes and helicopter gunships flew 82 missions over Chechnya during the past 24 hours despite poor weather, the Defense Ministry said.
The attacks destroyed apartment buildings in southeast Grozny, an arms depot in a Grozny suburb, oil refineries and fuel stations selling oil stolen
from pipelines from the Caspian Sea, the military command said
"There will be no pauses." Putin said in an interview on national television Saturday night.
Despite mounting criticism from the West, Russia has not scaled back its offensive in Chechnya, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ruled out any easing of the intensity of what he called the anti-terrorist operation.
Chechnya has effectively been beyond Moscow's control since Russian forces withdrew in 1996 at the end of a two-year war. Moscow said its latest campaign is aimed at rooting out Islamic militants blamed for terrorist acts in Russia and insists it is targeting rebel fighters, despite claims from human rights groups and Chechens that the civilian toll has been high.
Drought ravages much of United States
Warm, dry weather causing problems for farmers,ranchers
The Associated Press
DALLAS—The calendar says mid-November, but you wouldn't know it by the summery temperatures and lack of rain from Texas to Nebraska, across the South to Georgia and even in Indiana.
Forests are becoming tinderboxes. Ranchers are using up feed that should be reserved for winter. Farmers fear their crops could die.
And there's little relief in sight.
"The prospects of recovering from such a drought are minimal because of the drier-than-normal and warmer-than-normal winter
we're expected to have," said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. "This drought is made worse by the lingering effects from droughts the last few years."
The dry, mild weather expected this winter is being attributed in part to La Niña, the global weather phenomenon marked by cooler-than-normal water in the eastern Pacific. Moist air from the Pacific is shifting farther north than usual, leaving the South and Westwest drier and warmer than normal.
The Dallas-Forth Worth area has broken its 72-year-old record of 11 consecutive days of 80-degree temperatures in November. Normal highs for this time of year are in the mid 60s.
Oklahoma also has had record highs in the 80s this month. Temperatures at Birmingham, Ala., and Nashville, Tenn., have been in the upper 70s instead of the normal 50s and 60s.
Vsboda said most of Texas, Louisiana and Indiana are in a severe drought. Georgia, Tennessee and most of the Midwest also are in the midst of a drought, with some pockets considered severe.
Missouri averaged less than 8 inches of rainfall from July through October. Normally, it gets 14 or 15 inches for that period, said Pat Guinan, a climatologist with University of Missouri at Columbia.
The drought center monitors conditions with five categories, ranging from abnormally dry to exceptional drought, with severe falling in the middle.
Burials begin; Aggies struggle to cope with loss
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Friends and families began burying their dead Saturday as Texas A&M University struggled to cope with the bonfire collapse that killed 12 people and injured 27.
The Associated Press
About 1,000 people attended the funeral service for Nathan Scott West, a 19-year-old sophomore oceanography major who was killed in the Thursday morning accident.
"Why does tragedy happen to good people who are going about doing good for others?" the Rev. Mark Young said. "We live in a world that is not always fair. To suggest it was Scott's time to leave earth is some kind of cruel joke."
At the end of the service in the Houston suburb of Bellaire, mourners linked arms and sang the Agile fight song.
Questions have begun to resurface about the safety of the annual bonfire, a venerated tradition on the A&M campus for 90 years.
Texas A&M President Ray Bowen has ordered the formation of a task force of engineers and other experts to look into the disaster
A former A&M engineering professor said he tried for years to warn students that the bonfire's design contained perilous flaws.
A&M professor emeritus Louis Thompson said the bonfire pile was flawed because it consisted of a relatively loose bunching of upright logs and because its base was too narrow to hold its looming tower.
"I kept telling them it was dangerous," said Thompson, a civil engineer who retired in 1991 after 25 years. "What's amazing to me is that it went on as long as it did."
More information
The online edition of the Texas A&M student newspaper has updates and photos about the bonfire tragedy and a tribute to the victims.
See www.kansan.com
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