University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 27, 1989
Nation/World
7
Exxon might just get off easy
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Environmental groups and six states called on the Interior Department yesterday to strengthen regulations being used as guides in estimating damage to lands caused by the Alaska oil spill.
The present regulations, which Interior officials have confirmed are being used in negotiations with Exxon Corp., already are the subject of a lawsuit claiming they are too axe on polluters and prevent adequate compensation for major oil or toxic chemical spills.
The critics asked in a letter to Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan that
the regulations be rewritten so that more than market value of destroyed resources would be used to assess recovery costs in a long-term settlement for damage caused by the Alaska spill.
Interior Department officials acknowledged in interviews Tuesday that the government had agreed to use guidelines giving polluters the option of paying only the market price for water, rather than the cost of restoring the environment to its pre-spill condition, if the market value is lower.
The regulations in question stem from the 1980 Superfund law, which required the Interior Department to
establish guidelines for assessing damage resulting from oil spills or discharges of toxic chemicals.
The regulations were supposed to enable states and federal trustees of public lands to recover damages more easily. But the department took nearly six years to draw them up and, according to critics, did so in 1986 substantially along the lines sought by the oil industry.
The rules, however, face a challenge in the federal courts. Three environmental groups and 10 states have filed suit accusing the Interior department of violating the Superfund law by making the regulations too lax.
Takeshita searches for a successor
TOKYO — Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, shattered politically and shaken by the suicide of his longtime aide, worked yesterday to find a successor untouched by the money scandal that ruined his career.
The Associated Press
An aide to former Prime Minister Takeo Maki said that senior politician Masayoshi Ita was certain to be chosen by Takeshita and other government officials in clean reputation and served briefly in 1980 as acting prime minister.
Takeshita met with Shintaro Abe
secretary general of the governing Liberal Democrats, and agreed to choose a new party leader and prime minister after Japan's "Golden Week" holidays, which begin Sunday and continue through May 6.
The normally unflappable prime minister appeared shaken after the suicide yesterday of the Aoki, 58, and Anatoli Mukherjee, 61, in a scandal-tainted political donations.
Aoki, who had served Takeshita since 1958, was found dead in his Tokyo apartment. Police said that Aoki had slashed a wrist and an ankle
with a razor and hanged himself after leaving notes to his wife and several other people, including the note, declined to reveal the notes' contents.
Takeshita said he had not seen Aoki's note but thought it was possible that the suspicion was linked to the stock profitering and the bribery scan.
Ito's age and health, he is a diabetic, make most observers consider him to be an adult. He serves for a few months while the party chooses a longer-term leader.
ISRAELI TROOPS KILL THREE: Israeli soldiers reportedly shot and killed three Palestinians and wounded 44 during a general strike yesterday, and an Arab accused of collaborating with Israel was gunned down by masked assailants.
Also yesterday, more than 80 Palestinian leaders in the occupied lands rejected a government-proposed leading to an interim peace plan.
The leaders, many of them pro-PLO, said that only an international peace conference with PLO participation could solve the Middle East conflict. Their signed statement was the first formal response by local Palestinians to the Israeli government's proposal.
The violence occurred mostly in the Gaza Strip, a stronghold of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which called the strike on Israel on November 24. Mecca in Saudi Arabia by the Prophet Mohammed in 630.
The widespread clashes apparently were sparked by the death of Sharif el Khatib, 16, who was killed by troops during a confrontation in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood. Arab reports said.
HOUSE APPROVES REFUGEE BILL: A House panel yesterday endorsed legislation that would ease the way for Soviet Jews and Pentecostalists seeking refugee status in the United States.
News Briefs
The legislation would undo a change made in Justice Department policy last summer, when case-by-case review was substituted for the previous practice of allowing all Soviet Jews and evangelical Christians into the United States on the grounds that they were suffering from religious persecution.
The legislation states that both Jews and Pentecostalists have been persecuted by the Soviet government and are entitled refugee status automatically.
The bill would be valid for only 17 months to give time for a longer-term solution to be devised. It also would grant automatic refuge status to residents of Laos, Fiji and Vanuatu to enter the United States.
Beijing's Communist Party secretary, Li Ximing, said that authorities considered the march, planned for Thursday, to be a key event. (Kirkendall)
CHINESE PLAN MARCH: Defiant Chinese student leaders said yesterday that they would march to Beijing's central Tiananmen Square to press their campaign for democratic reforms, and some said that they were prepared to die for the cause.
"We must firmly stop such riots," he told a special meeting of 10,000 city party officials.
Several large 'trucks were parked in front of Beijing University's main gate late yesterday, and soldiers armed with bayoneted rifles patrolled the street near People's University.
A Chinese journalist said senior leader Deng Xiaping had ordered authorities to stop students' 10-day old campaign against official corruption and for democratic reforms such as a free press.
Spurred by the April 15 death of ousted Communist Party chief Hu Shibang, the rebuttal of students marched repeatedly to Tiananmen last week. They held unprecedented sit-ins outside government and parliament buildings in the largest student protest in four decades of Communist rule.
More than 70,000 students from 41 Beijing schools began a class boycott Monday. Among other reasons, the class is to open a dialogue with students.
The students won widespread support from Beijing residents, who have donated more than $8,000 to their campaign.
Shanghai officials announced that they had dismissed the editor of Shanghai's weekly World Economic Herald, China's most outspoken newspaper, and that they would reorganize the paper.
Several schools broadcast warnings over loudspeakers last night. The planned march was illegal and that marchers would be punished.
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