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Nation/World
University Daily Kansan
Friday, Nov. 8, 1985
News Briefs
Reagan announces Heckler's successor
RUSH SPRINGS, Okla. — A 9-year-old boy saved two younger members of his family by pushing them through a window in their burning mobile home and then died in the fire, firefighters said yesterday.
WASHINGTON — Otis R. Bowen, a former Indiana governor, was selected by President Reagan yesterday to be the next secretary of health and human services, replacing Margaret Heckler, who will become U.S. ambassador to Ireland.
Reagan said he picked Bowen because, among other qualifications, Bowen was an experienced family doctor.
A question has been raised about Bowen's decision some years ago to treat his terminally ill wife with three drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but he has denied any illegal action.
David Spicer Jr. died Wednesday night in the fire that gutted his family's home four miles west of Oklahoma in springs in central Oklahoma.
Boy dies saving kids
Fire Chief Herb Miller said the boy apparently managed to knock out a bedroom window and push the younger children through it. Both parents were at work and Spicer was the oldest child there.
Vets visit River Kwai
KANCHANABURI, Thailand — World War II veterans and widows from Britain made an emotional visit yesterday to the "Death Railway" over the River Kwai, laying wreaths and paying a long-awaited tribute at a war cemetery.
About 16,000 prisoners of war died from disease, hard labor and Japanese executions while building the link between Thailand
The trip was part of a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Shiites say Americans executed
From Kansan wires.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — An anonymous caller claiming to speak for Islamic Jihad said yesterday that the terror group decided to execute its long-held American hostages by firing squad because negotiations with the Reagan administration "treated a dead end."
United Press International
Police searched a bombed-out Coca-Cola factory in west Beirut, where a second caller said the bodies of six missing Americans would be dumped, but found no trace of the men.
In Washington, when President Reagan was asked whether the Americans had been executed by their presumed Shiite Moslem captors, he said, "Evidently, there's no substantiation of that at all."
An anonymous caller claiming to represent Islamic Jihad, or Holy War, told a Western news agency in Beirut. "We decided to execute the American hostages by firing squad. Wait for another call from us at 1 p.m. regarding the status of the corpse of the American hostages and where these corpse will be found."
The same caller did not telephone the agency at 1 p.m., however. Authorities said the second call, telling police where to find the men's bodies, appeared to be a hoax.
The failure of the first caller to call back at 1 p.m. raised speculation that the captors were trying to put new pressure on the Reagan administration.
As the price for the men's release, Islamic Jihad has demanded U.S. pressure on Kuwait to free 17 Iraqi and Lebanese Shites convicted of bombing and Kuwait targets in Kuwait in December 1983.
Moslem west Beirut over the past 19 months. Buckley's captors say they killed him last month, but a corpse has not been found.
"We wish to tell America that this sad end of the American hostages will not be the last," the first anonymous caller warned. "We shall shake the earth under America's feet and the feet of its agents."
Six Americans, including U.S. diplomat William Buckley, disappeared or were kidnapped in mainly
The caller said a videotape of the Americans before their deaths would be sent to news organizations. He made no mention of four Frenchmen the Islamic Jihad also claimed to be holding.
The new standards are likely to encourage changes in toxic waste disposal methods, with less reliance on dumping and increased use of in-incineration to dispose of hazardous wastes, he added.
Delinquent toxic dumps to be closed
United Press International
WASHINGTON — "Black Friday" is at hand for the nation's 1,600 toxic waste dumps, with hundreds very likely to shut down because of their failure to meet the deadline for compliance with new federal standards.
Under the law, toxic waste dumps that miss the deadline today — labeled "Black Friday" by some — must shut down immediately.
Winston Porter, the EPA's assistant administrator for hazardous waste programs, said that most of the facilities involved were private dumps used by factories to handle their own hazardous wastes. But, he said, a few are commercial landfills whose shutouts could lead to isolated regional shortages of dumping space.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 500 of the facilities — landfills, deep injection wells, pits, ponds and lagoons — cannot meet today's deadline to install equipment required to check for leaks. Another 50 to 100 firms have been unable to obtain the necessary liability insurance to cover $6 million a year in cleanup costs in case of an accident.
Colombian rebellion ended
United Press International
BOGOTA, Colombia — Security forces recaptured the Supreme Court building yesterday, ending a 27-hour siege by leftist rebels in which the court's president and the leader of the guerrillas were killed, authorities said.
Carlos Martinez, national Red Cross director, said outside the Justice Palace after the assault, "All the rebels died. There is complete
At least 30 rebels died during the siege, and 14 of the bodies were burned Wednesday night when the four-story court building caught fire, Martinez said.
Police said the rebels also tied
sticks of dynamite to their belts and legs to make sure they died before they could be captured.
Other leftist rebels this week released three U.S. missionaries they had kidnapped last month, U.S. Embassy officials said yesterday. The missionaries were released to members of a government-sponsored peace commission in Colombia's eastern jungle.
"They didn't want to give themselves up." Martinez said.
Timothy Cain, 35, Keokuk, Iowa, his wife, Bonnie "Bunny" Cain, 33, of Alexandria, Va., and Steve Estelle, 34, of Douglas, Ariz., were released at 9 p.m. Wednesday at a remote jungle site about 200 miles southeast
of Bogota. There was no immediate word on their conditions.
Radio reports citing police and military officials said the missionaries were released by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC, without any ransom payment.
Police said that Alfonso Reyes, Supreme Court president, and Andres Almarelas, rebel leader, died during the siege. Also reported killed was Judge Maria Inez Ramos, who had supported a law granting pardons to guerrillas, but her death could not immediately be confirmed.
Martinez said that the assault in the court building was a triumph for the armed forces and the government. In suite of the sacrifice of life.
Helms offers to help Soviet sailor
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Sen. Jessie Helms, R-N.C., declaring he was trying "to save this young man's life," issued a subpoena yesterday that could pry seaman Marisel Medvid off a Soviet grain ship in the Mississippi River.
yesterday on behalf of Medvid, asking yet another federal court to keep the ship in port until Medvid is questioned again.
George Dunlap, a staff member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said that Helms signed the subpoena at 2 p.m. EST yesterday and dispatched the committee's deputy counsel to New Orleans to attempt to serve the papers.
In New Orleans, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit late
"We have to do everything we can and hope that somehow someone in a position of authority will grant the relief Medid need to save his own life," said Martha Kegel, ACLU director in New Orleans.
In Florida, a Romanian sailor who walked into a Jacksonville immigration office and asked for political asylum had his wished granted yesterday, and started a new life in the United States.
Asylum for Stefan Vernea, 38, of Constanta, Romania, was granted by
Perry Rivkind, Miami district director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
At the White House, President Reagan said he had asked U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese to look into the case of Medvid, who twice jumped ship in apparent efforts to defect but was returned to the vessel by U.S. officials.
Asked whether he thought the subpoena could hurt U.S.-Soviet relations on the eve of the Reagan Gorbachev summit, Helms quoted Rhett Butler's famous retort in "Gone With the Wind" — "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
3rd round barren in arms talks
In a prepared statement, Kampelman said Soviet proposals presented Sept. 30 contained some unacceptable aspects, but also some "seeds to nurture."
Max Kampelman, leader of the U.S. delegation, said that the latest round was productive, but that the United States had hoped to be closer to agreement. Kampelman said the fourth round of talks would begin Jan. 16.
United Press International
But Karpov told reporters when the new U.S. proposals were presented that the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, a space-based missile defense program popularly known as Star Wars, remained the biggest obstacle to reducing nuclear arms.
Viktor P. Karpov, Soviet arms delegation leader, did not make a statement at the close of the latest round, the third since talks began March 12.
GENEVA, Switzerland — The United States and the Soviet Union recessed the third round of their arms control talks yesterday without any sign of definite progress before this month's summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Soviets are demanding that any arms agreement include a ban on Star Wars and other space-based weapons systems. Reagan has said repeatedly that he would not scrap Star Wars.
After talks in Moscow this week with Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, Soviet foreign minister, George Shultz, secretary of state, said that differences remained on arms control issues in advance of the summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in Geneva on Nov. 19-20.
The third round began Sept. 19 and lasted seven weeks. Two hours after they ended, Kampehnan called in reporters to read his statement but did not reply to questions because of a rule of confidentiality agreed to by both sides.