2
University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Friday, May 2, 1986
News Briefs
Coverage of Senate begins on live TV
WASHINGTON — The Senate began live gavel-to-gavel television coverage yesterday and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole gave some advice: "Keep your head up and don't chew gum."
Six cameras zoomed in on senators as they spoke, showing dipper-dressed legislators sporadically covering the number of television-red ties.
For the first month, viewing will be limited to a closed-circuit system in the Capitol complex, but June 2, the coverage will go public on June 3. The Senate has allowed radio coverage since March 12.
Thai minister ousted
BANGKO, Thailand — The government dissolved Parliament and scheduled new elections for July 27 after legislators yesterday rejected a finance package in a Supreme Court decision to Prime Minister Pitu Tsulunga.
In the Thai political system, the defeat of legislation is considered a vote of no confidence. The prime minister must resign, dissolve Parliament and hold general elections within 90 days.
Carriers near Libya
WASHINGTON — The aircraft carrier Enterprise yesterday watered nets north of Libya, Pentagon sources said.
A second carrier, the Coral Sea, launched planes into the Tripoli Flight Information Region but they did not go into the air space over the disputed Gulf of Sidra, the sources said.
No Libyan planes challenged the Navy jets, they said.
Plane crash kills 37
LA FUENTES, El Salvador — A Salvadoran military transport plane burst into flames just after a bomb exploded near the hill a killing all 37 people aboard.
Officials blamed the crash on mechanical difficulties that developed two minutes after the crash, the base in San Salvador for Panama.
The plane crashed into a residential area destroying an empty house. It caused no ground casualties.
From Kansan wires.
11 guilty of running refugees
United Press International
TUCSON, Ariz. — Eight church leaders were convicted yesterday of running an underground railroad for Central American refugees. The federal jury, which deliberated nine days, acquitted three other defendants, including a founder of the Sanctuary Movement.
Those convicted of felonies face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $2,000. Sentencing was set for July 1.
Most of the defendants were emotionless as the verdict was read in U.S. District Court, ending the six-month trial.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on 13 of the 30 counts.
Among those acquitted were
James Corbett of Tucson, a Quaker
activist credited with being a founder
of the Sanctuary Movement. He was
acquitted of a single count of conspiracy
Also acquitted was Mary K. Doon Espinoza of Nogales, Aziz, a lay worker, who was accused of one count of conspiracy, one count of concealment, harboring or shielding aliens and one count of adding and abetting a female to the work force. A worker from Lubbock, Texas, was acquitted of one count of conspiracy.
Convicted were the Rev. Anthony Clark, 37, a Roman Catholic priest from Nogales, Ariz. the Rev. John M. Fife, 46, a Presbyterian clergyman from Tucson; Margaret J. "Peggy" Hutchison, 30, a lay worker; Wendy Lewin, 26, a lay worker from Phoenix.
Darlene Nicgorski, 41, a Catholic nun from Phoenix; the Rev. Rampon Dagoberto Quinones, 50, a Catholic nun from Phoenix; the Rev. Delocorso Pardo de Aqoula, 60
lay worker from Nogales, Mexico; and Philip Willis-Conger, 27, a lay worker from Tucson.
The 11 had been on trial since Oct. 22, 1985, on charges stemming from the smuggling of Salvadoran and Malian refugees into the United States.
The trial, costing up to $3.5 million, followed a three-year investigation into the alleged operation of an amateur railroad for Central Americans.
The underlying issues in the trial have drawn the attention of Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz.
His constituents received a questionnaire yesterday asking whether Sanctuary Movement members should be prosecuted as lawbreakers or if "Central American refugees should be allowed to stay in this country until peace is restored in their homeland."
Accident raises market prices
The Associated Press
LONDON — Saturday's nuclear accident in the Ukraine, one of the Soviet Union's biggest farming regions, has caused a sharp rise in wheat and livestock prices on world markets, commodities analysts said.
In the absence of any word from the Soviet Union on possible radiation damage to soil, water, crops and herds, commodities markets have been bolstered by the increasing demand to increase imports of grain, sugar and milk products.
Commodities analysts said that it was too early to assess the extent of radioactive pollution in the Ukraine from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor but that heavy pollution could damage Soviet agricultural output for years to come.
Sweden and Denmark already have banned food imports from the Soviet Union and some Eastern European countries.
"The market is going through the roof," said Bill Demaria, an analyst with the London-based International Wheat Council. "We haven't seen excitement like this for months and months."
The Ukraine is the country's third most important farming region. According to the International Wheat Council, Ukrainian farms produce about one-fifth of all grain grown in the country and also about one-fifth of its cattle
But most of the farmland lies to the south of the power plant. The first radioactive cloud released by the accident blew to the north, away from the most important crop-producing areas.
and pigs.
In Washington, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported shifting winds were carrying the radioactive cloud to the southwest yesterday, in a direction that was moving from some of the Soviet Union's richest, black earth areas.
Wheat prices, which had been falling steadily recently, shot up this week on the Chicago futures market. The April 25 wheat for May delivery was quoted at $2.89 a bushel. By yesterday it had jumped to $3.28.
Corn markets also have benefited from expectations of an increase in exports to the Soviet Union and Poland.
Speculation over possible contamination of Soviet livestock has similarly driven up prices on the Chicago market.
Sugar futures rose sharply in New York early this week. The Soviet Union is the world's largest producer of sugar beets. Traders said that the market had been rising rapidly and could not be solely attributed to the nuclear accident.
Analysts in London and Chicago attributed the commodities rally to speculative buying and said it could fit
Reagan offers assistance to Soviets
United Press International
BALI, Indonesia — President Reagan, described as concerned about the Soviet nuclear plant disaster, said yesterday that the United States had a magnitude of the disaster because the Soviets were being closed-
mouthed.
After a weeklong journey across the Pacific, the president was to fly today to Tokyo, where he will attend next week's seven-nation economic summit meeting and hold private meetings with each of the allied leaders.
He had offered assistance to Soviet
It was announced later yesterday that Robert Paterale, a U.S. expert in bone marrow transplants, would visit Moscow with Soviet doctors aid for victims.
leader Mikhail Gorbachev to help deal with the disaster. Moscow expressed appreciation but indicated it could deal with the problem.
NASA rocket launch delayed by fuel leak
United Press International
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A quarter of a cup of leaking rocket fuel forced NASA yesterday to delay until tomorrow the blastoff of a Delta rocket with a weather satellite on board and prevented the agency's first big post-Challenger launch try.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Hugh Harris said engineers conducting last-minute tests discovered a small amount of rocket fuel had leaked past the main fuel valve in the Delta's first stage engine, which burns liquid oxygen and RP-1 rocket fuel, a highly refined form of kerosene.
Engineers initially hoped to reschedule the flight for today, but agency spokesman George Diller said they decided to postpone it for 48 hours until 5:18 p.m. today in order to allow the launch crew to prepare for a weather forecast calls for a 50 percent chance of thundershowers.
It was a frustrating disappointment for the space agency, which was striving to make its first launch since the Challenger disaster Jan. 28 and the explosion of an Air Force Titan 34D rocket
two weeks ago at Vandenberg Ala Force Base, Calif.
He said small fuel lines could have ruptured, which would have decreased the rocket's power to deploy an earlier satellite to its proper orbit.
Diller said that even if the Delta diller off on time yesterday,
"we believe we probably would have been hit but was no chance of an explosion."
The engine fuel lines will be dried out today, and more tests will be conducted. If engineers find additional problems, which they said they did not expect, the valve would need replaced. That would take about 10 days.
Harris insisted that the delay showed NASA was diligent in its pre-launch processing.
On board Delta No. 178 was a $57.5 million weather satellite called GOES-7. Once in orbit 22,300 miles above the equator, GOES-7 will provide television coverage of the eastern United States and the hurricane-spawning regions of the Atlantic Ocean.
Four GOES satellites already were in orbit, but only one, the GOES-E satellite, providing television coverage because of the failure of the video system
Black S. Africans strike to get May Day holiday
United Press International
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Millions of black workers shut down South Africa yesterday with a national boycott aimed at forcing the government to declare May Day a holiday. At least one person was killed as clashes with police broke out across the country.
Business groups said between 70 percent and 100 percent of the country's 5 million black workers heeded a call from the Confederation of South African Trade Unions to stayed away from their jobs in large cities. It was the most effective labor action ever in South Africa.
"Without doubt, this is the biggest nationwide stayaway ever," said Vincent Brett, an official of the Association of Chambers of
Commerce.
He said most employers would dock workers a day's pay but would not otherwise penalize them.
Many employers gave workers an unofficial holiday and others dismissed workers early to attend May Day rallies.
Thousands attended rallies in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, where a bomb exploded in the blacks' rest room of a suburban railway station. Police said no one was injured.
With union backing, hospital workers stayed on duty, and most hotels were staffed by workers who spent Wednesday night on the premises. Essential services in Johannesburg were maintained. City officials said most municipal employees reported to work.
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