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Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, November 13, 2000
World
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole at 864-4810 or e-mail editor@kansan.com
Fumes delay Austrian cable car recovery effort
The Associated Press
KAPRUN, Austria — Relatives and friends who had waited through the night in this Alpine village began to get word yesterday whether their loved ones were among the dead in a cable car fire that killed about 170 people in a mountain tunnel.
With the village hall draped in black and candles burning on shop steps, shattered townfolk gathered in the Kaprun church for Sunday Mass. As they mourned, emergency crews tried to reach the spot where scores of people, many children and teenagers, were killed
Saturday by smoke and flames.
"We understand Christ's wail on the cross; 'My God, why have you forsaken me?' priest Peter Hofer said in his sermon.
Others gave thanks after realizing their loved ones were safe.
"My son is, thank God, all right," said Gottfried Nindl. His boy had planned to go on the cable car with his friends, but didn't because they had slept too late.
The car, pulled on rails underground for most of the 3,200 yards up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain to a glacier region, stopped, blazing, about 600 yards inside a mountain tunnel Saturday morning. The
cause of the fire has not been determined.
Rescuers could not reach the victims as the fire raged on. Passengers tried to flee through the deep tunnel, but most were felled by the thick smoke and flames. Eighteen people survived, mainly by fleeing downwards in the tunnel where the smoke was thinner.
It was still unclear how many people were in the cable car, but it was believed it had a capacity of 180 people and was full.
The retrieval of the bodies was delayed by toxic fumes inside the tunnel and the need to secure the charred car. Chief firefighter
Anton Brandauer said the tunnel was now almost smoke-free and the retrieval of the bodies could begin.
But as night rolled in, other officials said the accident site remained too dangerous, suggesting recovery efforts could be delayed until today.
Once the remains of the victims are brought into town, authorities plan to set up a large tent in the town center where relatives and friends can say final farewells.
Authorities said yesterday they had identified 155 of the victims with near certainty. Among them were 52 Austrians, 42 Germans, 10 Japanese, eight Americans, two
Slovenes and a Croat. Authorities had not yet established the nationalities of the remaining 40 people.
The victims were identified by eliminating those who had returned alive from a list of 2,500 people who had taken the cable car up the slope before the fire.
Three U.S. army personnel were confirmed among the dead. The Americans were part of a group of mostly military personnel from Wuerzburg, Germany, and their families, said Maj. Drew Stathis, a member of the group.
Erik Buxbaum, Austria's public security chief, said the fire may have started before the cable car disappeared into the mountainside.
couple and a man and his son.
"We have received information that the light of a fire was already visible to outside witnesses as the train was entering the tunnel," he said.
Buxbaum said when the car operator noticed the blaze, it was too late. Other officials later said it appeared the fire broke out at the rear end of the cable car.
The Austrian government declared Saturday and yesterday national days of mourning.
USS Cole bombing suspect detailed
The Associated Press
ADEN, Yemen — Last month's deadly USS Cole attack was masterminded by an Arab man who telephoned the bombers from the United Arab Emirates, a source close to the investigation said yesterday.
A suspect now in detention in Yemen said the attackers received their instructions and finances from the Arab man, a veteran of the 1800s Afghan war against the Soviets, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. He did not give the man's nationality.
The detained suspect admitted to purchasing the attack boat used in the bombing in the Emirates, said the source. He also bought a video
camera to record the attack, but got nervous and left the city the day before the Oct. 12 boat bombing, the Yemeni source added.
The source did not say if the suspect met the mastermind while he was in the Emirates. He said the group worked in small cells of two or three people, and many suspects did not know each other.
Suicide bombers in a small, explosives-laden boat apparently approached the Cole while it was refueling in Aden harbor and detonated the explosives, ripping a 40-foot-by-40-foot hole in the steel hull. The blast killed 17 American sailors and injured 39.
Yesterday, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat published a statement by
Rifai Ahmed Taha, a former leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamma'al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), that said the boat used in the attack was locally made and powered by an engine cannibalized from a farm tractor.
Taha said the operation cost between $5,000 and $10,000.
About 60 suspects remained behind bars after more than 20 were released, the official said on condition of anonymity. Police on Friday jailed an Islamic Jihad suspect they had been pursuing since Tuesday. The suspect escaped from jail in 1993
The debris and the car that pulled the boat to the port were shipped yesterday to the United States for further forensic tests, a Yemeni official said.
after being convicted of blowing up two Aden hotels frequented by foreigners.
The Islamic Jihad was formed by Arab veterans of the Afghan war and is linked to Osama bin Laden, America's ton terror suspect.
The Yemen official said American investigators were allowed this week to interview witnesses and to show composite sketches to suspects and ewitnesses.
Reports in the U.S. media have suggested strained relations between the FBI and the State Department over how far to push the Yemeni government for increased access to suspects and sources. Some FBI officials reportedly believe that some evidence may implicate high-ranking Yemeni officials.
OPEC offers no relief for soaring oil prices
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria - OPEC will hold oil production steady until cartel members meet again in January to assess crude prices. Kuwait's oil minister said yesterday, offering little hope of relief for consumers buffeted by soaring oil prices.
Sheik Saud Nasser al-Sabah of Kuwait made the announcement after an informal meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose every word and action is scrutinized regarding how it will affect the price of crude, which is hovering near 10-year highs.
OPEC ministers said they would meet again Wednesday, Jan. 17 to examine oil prices and possibly talk about a production cut.
Member countries still need to approve yesterday's decisions at an official meeting this morning.
Also yesterday, members of the oil cartel seemed to back away from a March agreement whereby production increases and decreases would be triggered automatically using a price-sensitive formula.
While OPEC still seeks to keep prices for its basket of crudes between $22 and $28 a barrel, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said production increases would be decided by ministers, not necessarily by the formula — the so-called price-band mechanism. That formula requires OPEC to add 500,000 barrels to its daily production if the average price for OPEC crude exceeds $28 for 20 consecutive trading days.
"The price band mechanism is
still in place but it doesn't replace good judgment," Naimi said after delegates broke up the informal policy meeting yesterday afternoon.
OPEC has already boosted output four times this year, bringing an extra 3.7 million barrels a day into the market. The cartel worries that another boost right now could swamp the market and cause prices to suddenly plummet if demand subsides as expected in the spring.
"We have said that we want to assess the impact of these increments on the market — it takes time to determine the effects," Naimi said.
At yesterday's informal session,
OPEC ministers also said they
would name Venezuelan Oil
Minister Ali Rodriguez the car-
tel's next secretary-general. Rodriguez will replace Nigerian Rilwan Lukman starting Monday, Jan. 1. Lukman's term ended in September 1999, but he has continued to serve because OPEC's 11 member countries could not agree on a successor.
OPEC is concerned about an expected price collapse brought on as winter demand for heating oil evaporates with warm spring weather. The cartel was burned by a dramatic plunge in demand after boosting output in December 1997 — right before the financial crisis in Asia and an abnormally warm winter caused demand to shrivel.
One year later, prices dropped to about $10 a barrel, battering oildependent OPEC members, who produce almost 40 percent of the world's crude.
Global warming talks to target emissions rules
The Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — As some 10,000 people open a major U.N. conference to draft rules on slowing global warming, differences remain vast on greenhouse gas emissions and there are concerns everything the parties have agreed to so far could unravel.
The problem some 100 participants will tackle when the two-week meeting begins today is stark: Most scientists now agree our cars, factories and power plants are pumping so much heat-trapping gas into the air that we are changing the world's climate, causing severe storms and droughts. New weather patterns threaten to extinguish animal species, submerge coastal areas and low islands and cause dramatic changes in the way we live.
The 1990s were the warmest 10 years in a millennium, and 1998 was the warmest year on record. Researchers said winters in the northern hemisphere were 18 days shorter than 150 years ago.
Yet despite three years of quiet negotiations to address the problem of emissions, countries disagree on crucial issues. Among them is whether nations falling short of their own emission reduction targets can strike deals with those able to reduce more than is required. The United States — the world's largest polluter — is arguing against the European Union for unrestricted trading of "credits."
"The Hague is about making sure the Kyoto
agreements are not reopened for debate.It's about putting them into practice."
Jan Pronk
practice"
Jan Pronk conference chairman and Dutch environment minister
The conference brings together government ministers, bureaucrats, environmentalists, lobbyists, students and a new breed of businessmen—pollution traders.
The road to The Hague began at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 when world leaders, alarmed by predictions of a climatic apocalypse, pledged to combat global warming.
Five years later, negotiators met in Kyoto, Japan, and agreed that the total amount of greenhouse gases released each year into the atmosphere should fall to 5.2 percent less than it was in 1990. The target date was set for 2012.
To meet that goal, the Kyoto Protocol needs to come into force by 2002. The agreement is yet to be ratified by any industrial nation.
"The Hague is about making sure the Kyoto agreements are not reopened for debate. It's about putting them into practice," said Jan Pronk, the conference chairman and Dutch environment minister.
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