UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, August 30, 1993
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THE NEWS in brief
LAS VEGAS
Fire breaks out at new structure in casino district
Flames engulfed an under-construction observation tower yesterday and forced hundreds of gamblers to flee the adjacent 22-story Vegas World Hotel Casino. No one was hurt.
The fire broke out on the Stratosphere Tower around midnight and ragged for three hours until burning itself out, fire officials said. Flames leaping into the early morning sky could be seen for miles, and Las Vegas Boulevard became gridlocked before officials closed it to traffic.
Hundreds of guests evacuated the 1,049-room Vegas World casino and hotel but were allowed to return a few hours later.
Guest Gilbert Scheeringa of Tucson, Ariz., said he heard two big explosions and looked out "to see flames falling past my window."
The cause of the fire was not known, but Fire Chief Clell West said there was no indication of arson. The fire was fed by plywood construction materials and equipment inside the concrete tower.
The tower, which is about half completed, rises about 500 feet above the northern edge of the Las Vegas Strip. The finished version is to stand 1,012 feet high, and promotional material says it will be the tallest free-standing observation tower in the United States.
Construction of the $32 million tower began in February 1992, and it was scheduled to open next summer.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Suicide team attacks ship
A Tamil suicide squad rammed an explosives-packed boat into a naval vessel in northern Sri Lanka yesterday, killing 12 sailors, the military said.
There was no immediate information about rebel casualties in the attack off the northern Point Pedro, a military representative said.
Yesterday's attack was the most violent in several days of renewed fighting between the navy and guerrillas, who are fighting for a Tamil nation in the north and the east.
In the past, suicide teams have killed political and military leaders by driving explosives-packed vehicles into cars carrying their victims.
On Thursday, rebels attacked a naval boat in Kaliil lagoon in northern Jaffna province, killing five sailors and injuring four others.
More than 35 people have been killed in the past week.
More than 18,000 people have been killed in the decade-old war. Tamils, who account for 18 percent of Sri Lanka's 17-million population, complain of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
ROME
Fires blaze through Italy
Firefighters yesterday controlled blazes that threatened the museum home of 19th century unification hero Giuseppe Garibaldi and that raged across the tourist haven of Capri.
Fires, many blamed on arsonists, have been burning from Sicily through central Italy in one of the worst fire seasons in recent years. More than 173,000 acres of woods and brush land have been destroyed.
Saturday, fire destroyed the pine grove Garibaldi planted around his house on the island of Caprera, north of Sardinia, but firefighters saved his home.
Meanwhile, authorities said they are investigating why a chair lift continued to operate to Monte Solaro, the highest point on the island of Capri, while a fire burned nearby Saturn
Passengers leaped from the lift rather than risk being carried near the flames. Eleven people were injured in the 13-foot drop.
The fire on the tourist island burned through the night but was under control by yesterday morning.
Flames also were destroying more than 1,235 acres in a park in the southern region of Calabria. The causes of the fires yesterday were not immediately known, though strong winds and extremely dry conditions contributed to their spreading.
BONN, Germany
Neo-Nazis attempt to rally
rence detained 36 neo-Nazis who tried to stage a rally in southern Germany and arrested two other extremists who carved wasakitas at a former concentration camp near Berlin, authorities said yesterday.
Authorities in the southern city of Stuttgart had rejected a request by neo-Nazis for a rally permit and rounded up 36 militants Saturday night at a roadblock outside the club. Cubs, knives, flags bearing swastikas and neo-Nazi song books were confiscated, Stuttgart police said.
In a separate action, police in the east German community of Oranienburg arrested two men, one 19 and the other 20, and accused them of carving skwasikas into statues at a
Twenty-seven other extremists made it to the rally site, where police searched and dispersed them.
Holocaust memorial at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
A representative at the police station in Oranienburg, near Berlin, said he did not know what the statues portray.
AUSTIN, Texas AIDS linked to lesbian sex
A doctor who has handled dozens of AIDS cases says he is treating two HIV-positive lesbians who may have become infected through sex with women.
If so, David Wright's patients would be among the nation's first cases of the deadly virus transmitted through lesbian sex.
Wright said his two lesbian HIV patients likely did not contract the virus through shared needles or unprotected sex with men, two of most common ways the virus is transmitted.
Experts long have said HIV can be transmitted by vaginal secretions, especially if the receiving partner has an abrasion on the genitals or other body part in contact with the vagina.
"There's been a myth over the years that gay women were not at risk," said Jana Zunbrum, a lesbian and director of AIDS Services of Austin. "It's amazing, but there are still lots and lots of people who think only gay men are at risk."
CASABLANCA, Morocco
Graced by the planet's tallest minaret, a laser beam pointing the way to Mecca and a retractable roof, the world's second-largest mosque ones today.
Monarch dedicates mosque
King Hassan II will inaugurate the mosque bearing his name in a televised ceremony reinforcing his role as leader of Morocco's 24 million Muslims.
The inauguration culminates a controversy that began in 1986 to give this seedy port Africa's biggest, most luxurious mosque.
Some of the mosque's $500 million price tag was paid by forced donations from subjects in anation where many live in shacks of tin, scrap wood and plastic sheeting.
The Hassan II mosque ranks among the most magnificent religious edifices.
The main sanctuary is built on plings above the harbor. The 40,000-square-foot aluminum-tiled roof can open in five minutes, turning the area into a sunny patio. When the roof closes, the interior is lit by 50 Venetian chandeliers.
"I want the faithful who come here to pray to meet each other, to praise God, to be on firm ground while contemplating God's ocean and sky," Hassan said soon after announcing the project.
To keep the harbor's polluted waters from profaning the space under the mosque, a system of pumps, drains and filters will carry dirty water two miles away.
The sanctuary holds 20,000 worshipers. An additional 80,000 can gather on an esplanade outside and 50,000 more on sidewalks and ramps. An electronic command room replete
Travelers approaching Casabala can see the 656-foot, North African-style minaret from miles away. The tower is topped by a laser beam that shoots 20 miles in the direction of Mecca, so the faithful know where to turn to pray.
with video monitors operates the facility.
The minaret is more than twice the height of its nearest rival, the mosque in Mecca. But the covered sanctuary of the Hassan II mosque is only one-eighth the size of the one in Mecca, the Saudi Arabian city that is Islam's holiest site.
NORTHBORO, Mass.
Marijuana grown for taxes
NORTHBORO, Mass.
A 70-year-old man said he turned to growing marijuana to pay off the tax man.
Dean Firth Squier pleaded not guilty to charges after a raid Thursday netted 50 marijuana plants. But he admitted he planted the illegal herb seeking to settle a 1986 tax debt that has grown to $40,000.
"Oh yeah, it occurred to me I'd get caught," Squier said. "This was the last resort ... I would've been home free if I'd got the crop out."
He said he squandered his savings with hard drinking.
"I was drunk. I let things go," he said. "I felt I was being overtaxed, so I put it off. If you're drinking, you lose it."
Now he faces up to 17 years in prison and loss of his property.
Police Chief Kenneth Hutchins said people were feeling too sorry for Squier because he is a kindly grandfather.
"I'm a little concerned that people are looking at him with more sympathy than they should because of his age," Hutchins said.
GUGULETU, South Africa Township mourns student
Hundreds of Blacks from the squalid township of Guguletu outside Cape Town attended a church service yesterday for Amy Biehl, the American woman stabbed to death on their streets last week.
The regular service at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church was dedicated to Biehl, who was killed Wednesday by a mob of Black youths two days before she was to return to the United States.
The 26-year-old Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach, Calif., had been conducting research in South Africa for 10 months and had visited schools throughout the education programs for Gurukul township.
A procession at the service included a girl holding a picture of Biehl.
Six girls did a dance in Biehl's honor, while others read a poem and told how the slain woman's dedication to the disadvantaged inspired them.
Two teen-age suspects are to appear in court today, and police said they expected further arrests.
The racial attack was the first of three in three days in South Africa. Political violence and
racial attacks have increased since African-American and white negotiators last month see April 27 as the date for the nation's first multitribal election.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Minister on loan default list
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto accused the government of partisan politics yesterday after she was included on a list of loan defaulters that reads like a Who's Who of Pakistani politics.
A representative of Bhutto, who is trying to make a comeback, she repaid her loan and shouldn't have appeared on the list of about 16,000 names prepared by state banks at the request of interim Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi.
Several weeks ago, Qureshi, a former World Bank vice-president, said candidates in the Oct. 6 general elections would be disqualified if they were found to be delinquent on loans above $31,250.
It is estimated that delinquent loans taken from state banks since 1985 total nearly $2 billion.
Bhutto is on the list for a loan taken out to finance a newspaper that was seized by military rulers in 1979, said Shafqat Mahmood, a party spokesperson.
Also yesterday, the government ordered an inquiry into a prison riot Friday that ended Saturday when police fired on inmates, killing 16.
BEIJING
Dam break unleashes flood
A dam in a remote area of northwestern China burst yesterday, unleashing floods that have killed up to 200 people, officials said.
The Xinhua News Agency report said the dam in the Qinghai province burst Friday night but gave no details on casualties or property damage other than reporting "big losses."
But two days passed before the official media reported the disaster, an indication the human toll was heavy.
An anonymous official at the State Flu Control Headquarters in Beijing said 100 to 200 people died in the disaster.
Lan Rong, the head of the Qinghai Radio and Television Department in the provincial capital of Xining, said yesterday he had heard unconfirmed reports of more than 200 dead.
The dam of Gouhou reservoir burst about 11 p.m. Friday in Gonghe county, about 70 miles southwest of Xining, the Xinhua report said The structure was 231 feet tall and held 91 million cubic feet of water.
Xinhua said that an investigation was under way to determine why the dam burst and that a group from the Chinese Cabinet had arrived in the stricken area.
Compiled from The Associated Press.
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