NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
11A
Monday, August 21, 1995
Iraqi newspaper blames U.S. for tension
The Associated Press
BAGHAD, Iraq — As U.S. troops were deployed around Iraq, Saddam Hussein sought Saturday to reassure Jordan while accusing the United States of whipping up hysteria and spreading false fears of war.
"Why Does America Heighten the Situation?" asked a headline in the state-run daily Al-Jumhouriya, a day after the Pentagon announced that 1,400 U.S. soldiers were being sent to Kuwait for a military exercise.
Some 2,000 U.S. Marines and Special Forces also are in Jordan, Iraq's
western neighbor, for joint maneuvers, and Washington is moving warships and military supplies toward the Persian Gulf to deter possible military action by Iraq.
The United States has been alarmed by Iraqi unusual troop movements south of Baghdad following the defections to Jordan this month of two Iraqi officials close to Saddam. U.S. officials said the Iraqi defectors indicated he had contemplated attacking Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
Iraq denies it is engaged in any unusual military activity, but says its armed forces have held several
training exercises lately.
Kuwait said Saturday that although it was concerned about the Iraqi troop movements, Saddam's forces have not advanced south of the 32nd parallel, the boundary line agreed to last year.
LL Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, head of Iraq's weapons program, and his brother defected to Jordan Aug. 8 along with their wives — both Saddam's daughters.
More defections were reported Saturday. An Iraqi opposition group, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said in Damascus, Syria, that another of Saddam's advisers had
also defected with a "large number' of military officers.
It identified him as another of al-Majid's kinsmen, Hashem Hassan al-Majid, and said Iraqi security forces were searching for the defectors in northern Iraq after demolishing their homes. There was no independent verification of the claim.
The exercises in Kuwait and Jordan had been scheduled for later this year, but now will begin this week, apparently to intensify U.S. efforts to keep Saddam off balance.
The Iraqi newspaper called the U.S. military moves part of a propaganda campaign against Iraq.
One dead following Colombian earthquake
The Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.5 hit Colombia on Saturday, damaging buildings, triggering a landslide and spawning panic across hundreds of miles.
One man reportedly died of a heart attack in the quake. Six people were reported hurt, including a woman who smashed a window and jumped out of the second floor of a building, fearing it would collapse.
In Andes, a town near the epicenter in western Colombia's coffee-growing region, the quake damaged two churches, a school and
several homes, RCN radio said. In the nearby village of Anserma, two people were hurt by falling roof tiles. A landslide blocked a highway outside the town.
Saturday's quake, which hit at 4:45 p.m., was felt strongly in Bogota. It hit the capital in a rolling motion and sent residents running for cover. Tremors also were felt in Medellin — Colombia's second-largest city, 165 miles northwest of Bogota — and as far north as Apartado, near the Caribbean and 180 miles from the epicenter.
The Seismic Institute of Manizales said the quake had a preliminary reading of 6.5 and was centered 120 miles west of Bogota.
John Minsch, spokesman for the United States Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., gave the Colombia quake a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and said it hit about 10 miles west-southwest of Manizales.
In Manizales, the quake caused tall buildings to sway, slamming open windows against the buildings and shattering them, RCN radio reported.
Electrical power and telephone service in Manizales and nearby Armenia were cut off by the quake, radio reports said. However, officials in those cities, interviewed by radio telephone, told RCN radio there were no immediate reports of damage.
In Call, 130 miles south of the epicenter, a woman panicked by the quake leaped out of a second-story window and had to be hospitalized.
The heart attack victim was in Riosuco, 96 miles east of Bogota.
On Feb. 8, a 6.5-magnitude tremor that leveled apartment buildings in the western Colombian city of Pereira killed 46 people, many under tons of debris. In March, at least eight people died in a 5.2-magnitude earthquake in southern Colombia.
Felix not a welcome guest in Bermuda
The Associated Press
HAMILTON. Bermuda — Hurricane Felix lurked in the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, its threat of a return trip to Bermuda looking increasingly like a bluff.
The storm weakened overnight and made little progress south. At 5 a.m. EDT, the center of Felix was stalled 255 miles northwest of Bermuda, with winds clocked at about 75 mph, just barely over the limit for a hurricane.
Felix was expected to turn northeast last night, away from land. However, a tropical storm watch remained in effect for Bermuda, where winds were gusting up to 40 mph overnight. Bermuda posted the storm watch early Saturday because of the hurricane's uncertain course.
"He's not welcome," said Christine Barritt, 33, who operates a small guest house near the capital, Hamilton. "I'm just finishing cleaning up from the first hit."
The announcement of Felix's possible return prompted Delta Air Lines to cancel flights to Bermuda on Saturday. American Airlines canceled one flight from New York. USAir canceled flights from Boston, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Baltimore.
Felix passed within 70 miles of Bermuda last week, packing 80 mph
winds. Residents and tourists awoke Tuesday to downed trees and power lines, but little serious damage. Some fishing boats were lost, and a few hotels on Bermuda's vulnerable south shore were damaged.
After passing Bermuda, Felix moved toward the United States, prompting hurricane warnings and beach closings along the East Coast before it turned back into the Atlantic Ocean.
Still, the storm continued to push large swells onto the coast from the Carolinas to southern New England. The rough surf claimed at least nine lives, and experts said the sustained pounding caused heavy beach erosion.
As Hurricane Felix headed away from land, a weather system between Jamaica and the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea was moving westward at 10 mph. The system was expected to develop into a tropical depression.
In the Dominican Republic, the rains left more than 400 families homeless Saturday when a swollen river, the Ozama, flooded near Santo Domingo. A 10-year-old girl was reported killed, as well as two other people in San Pedro de Macoris and in La Romana.
In Puerto Rico, the National Weather Service on Saturday posted an island-wide flash flood watch.
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