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University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Friday, Oct. 4, 1985
News Briefs
New shuttle lifts off with military cargo
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Atlantis joined America's space shuttle fleet yesterday with a dazzling lifoft on a mission of mystery, carrying five astronauts and a pair of military satellites built to withstand nuclear radiation.
NASA reported that the crew was doing well and all systems were working satisfactorily. The next report expected from the secret mission is to be a 24-hour notice that the shuttle will land at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Defector becomes 18
LOS ANGELES - Walter Polovchak, the Ukrainian youth who ran away from his parents five years ago rather than return to the Soviet Union, yesterday celebrated his 18th birthday on television saying, "this is the most happiest day of my life."
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — People who make or sell small, cheap handguns should know they are used mainly by criminals and therefore can be sued by victims shot in criminal attacks with the so-called Saturday Night Specials, Maryland's highest court ruled yesterday.
Pistol sellers liable
The dark-haired, husky teenager, whose decision to abandon his parents in favor of the United States sparked a five-year legal battle, he planned to seek citizenship next week now that he is a legal adult.
The unanimous Court of Appeals decision was the first in the nation to hold that the manufacturer or seller of a handgun is liable for damages simply because the weapon is eventually used by a criminal to wound or kill.
Summit T-shirts sold
GENEVA, Switzerland — Summit T-shirts have appeared on the market six weeks ahead of the Nov. 19-20 meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
From staff and wire reports.
Reactor restart feared by group
United Press International
MIDDLETOWN, Pa. — Linda Brasher left her comfortable suburban home yesterday shortly before the restart of the undamaged nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island.
In her station wagon — sporting a bumper sticker that said "Shut TMI Forever" — were her 6-year-old son and her 4-year-old daughter, who will spend the weekend with relatives in Pittsburgh.
"I need to know they're safe, at least in the initial hours," Braasch said. "I'm praying that everything will go all right. But I don't believe in that technology down there."
Brasch, 38, lived in the same brick-and-frame house during the March 1979 near-meltdown of the
Unit 2 reactor. She was pregnant and remembers the incident with horror.
Braasch and other members of a small group called Concerned Mothers and Women are convinced the restart is a mistake.
"The government thinks we're a bunch of anti-nuclear kooks. But we've got legitimate concerns that they've failed to address." Braasch said.
The Supreme Court cleared the way for Unit I's operation Wednesday and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission promptly gave the plant's operator permission to restart the reactor.
GPU Nuclear Corp., which operates TMI, began activating Unit 1's reactor at 3 a.m. EDT and said the process was completed $10\%$
The 800-megawatt Unit 1 reactor is expected to begin producing electricity within a week, said GPU Nuclear spokeswoman Lisa Robin-Nash, and claimed, it will be operating at 10 percent capacity in about three months.
The reactor was not damaged in the March 28, 1979, accident that wrecked its twin Unit 2 reactor at the island plant on the Susquehanna River.
Philip Clark, president and chief executive officer of GPU Nuclear, said, "We've been working toward this a very long time. The instructions to the crew are to proceed deliberately and cautiously. We feel we've been under a microscope of in-
hours later without major technical problems at 1:30 p.m.
creased scrutiny for 6 1/2 years. We feel we're still under it."
Few other residents of this south central Pennsylvania borough of 10,000 reacted as strongly as Brassach.
When a referendum was taken several years ago, a majority was opposed to reopening TMI. Reid said
"The court made its decision and we're going to have to live with it," said Mayor Robert Reid, who teaches government at the local high school. "I think there's a lot of apathy. Six years c' rallies, six years of court fights . . . people are fed on with it."
TMI is owned by Metropolitan Edison Co., Jersey Central Power & Light Co. and Pennsylvania Electric Co., all subsidiaries of New Jersey-based General Public Utilities Corp.
Panel sends prayer issue to the Senate
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday approved and sent to the full Senate a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow a moment of silent prayer in the public schools.
After several weeks of parliamentary hassling, the committee voted 12-6, over the objections of four Democrats and two Republicans, to send the controversial proposal to the full Senate.
"The aim is to promote religion," he said. "I don't think this is something the federal government should get involved in."
In September the Senate decisively rejected legislation designed to allow organized, recited prayer in public schools. It would have prohibited federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing any case involving prayer in public schools.
The proposal must be approved by both houses of Congress and ratified by 37 states before it becomes part of the constitution. The Senate has not scheduled debate on the proposal.
Sen. Paul Simon, D-III., an opponent of the amendment, said there was no secular purpose for the amendment.
Soviets publicize arms plan
United Press International
PARIS — Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev yesterday made public his new arms proposal, calling for the superpowers to halve their nuclear weapons arsenals and to ban weapons based in space. He also announced that Moscow had removed some SS-20 missiles aimed at western Europe.
Gorbachev, on his first visit to the West since he took power in March, made a 45-minute speech at the residence of the National Assembly president. It was the first public Soviet announcement of proposals made this week at the Geneva superpower arms talks.
tion of space-strike arms for both sides and to reduce really radically, by 50 percent, the nuclear arms capable of reaching each other's territory," said Gorbachev.
"A few days ago, we proposed to the government of the United States to come to terms on the total prohibi-
The Soviet leader spoke on the second of his five-day state visit, which is being viewed as a device to strengthen his diplomatic hand before his Nov. 19-20 summit with President Reagan in Geneva.
Some diplomats said the Soviet arms proposal has put Reagan on the defensive. He faces mounting pressure at home and from European allies to trade at least part of his Strategic Defense Initiative — a $26 billion research plan to develop a space-based missile defense shield
cinnati, Ohio, that he did not feel pressured by the Soviet disclosure
"It would be nice to hope they may have gotten religion," Reagan said.
- for all arms sold at Geneva
But Reagan told reporters in Cin-
In a surprise announcement, Gorbachev said he had removed some SS-20 missiles deployed last year against western Europe to counter the installation of U.S. cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in five European nations.
Gorbachev said 243 SS-20 missiles, each carrying three warheads, were now on standby alert in areas that can reach western European targets. That was the same number before Moscow began increasing the number of missiles deployed in response to the U.S. missile deployment.
Bill supported to balance budget by 1991
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republican leaders yesterday joined together in support of a plan to balance the federal budget by fiscal year 1991 and urged its passage along with a bill to raise the national debt ceiling to $2 trillion.
Treasury Secretary James Baker, in a new letter to Congress, underscored the necessity of increasing the federal borrowing authority — now at $1.8 trillion — by Monday to
keep_government checks from bouncing.
The Senate began debate on the debt bill yesterday, but recessed without completing action.
"If the debt limit is not increased by October 7, the government likely will be unable to meet all of its essential obligations when they fall due—including Social Security checks, defense contracts and principal and interest on its securities," Baker wrote.
President Reagan also supported the six-year budget-balancing measure. At the White House, chief of staff Donald Regan confirmed support of the plan. "Yes, we're for it," he said.
Senate Republican leader Robert Dole said at a news conference that
The budget-balancing plan, formulated by Sens. Philip Gramm, R-Texas, and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., along with Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., would put a gradually decreasing limit on how high the annual deficit could be in each of the next six years.
Militiamen aid Soviets in security
United Press International
BEIRET, Lebanon — Squads of Lebanese militiaman beefed up security at the Soviet Embassy and other Soviet buildings yesterday to prevent possible attacks by Muslim extremists believed to be holding three kidnapped Soviet officials.
The discovery of the body of a fourth hostage — counselor Arkady Katkov, 32 — in mostly Muslim west Beirut on Wednesday raised fears about the safety of the other three prisoners.
A statement issued Wednesday night by the kidnappers warned that the three remaining hostages would be killed unless demands for a ceasefire in the northern port of Tripoli were met. No deadline was set.
Soviet diplomats and Lebanese authorities established a crisis center to coordinate efforts to find the men, kidnapped Monday from two embassy cars in west Beirut. The Christian Central News Agency said security forces knew where the Soviets are being held and gave the information to the Soviet embassy. The report could not be immediately confirmed.
There was no new word from the kidnappers — who claim to be the Khaled Islambuli Brigade of the Islamic Liberation Organization — on the three men. But a caller, saying he represented the group, claimed responsibility for the assassination Wednesday of a leading member of the Lebanese Communist Party, Selim Yamout, as part of an effort to win their demands.
At the Soviet Embassy in west Beirut, militiamen of the Drusie Progressive Socialist Party and Lebanese Communist Party strengthened security following a threat Wednesday to blow up the building unless all Soviet personnel had left Beirut by this afternoon.
Police said they were skeptical of the threat, made in a call to two Western news agencies not usually contacted by Lebanese guerrilla groups. But authorities said they cannot ignore the warnings.
Soviet personnel in Beirut remained in the capital yesterday, but security was tightened at all Soviet institutions in the country, including media offices and diplomats' homes.
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