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University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Wednesday, April 16, 1986
News Briefs
Gang leader dragged to the electric chair
STARKE, Fla. — Gang leader Daniel Morris Thomas was dragged kicking and screaming to the electric chair yesterday for killing a man and raping his wife as the man lay diving.
It it took seven men to strap Thomas into the chair only 24 minutes after the Supreme Court denied a stay of execution.
The leader of Florida's "Ski Mask Gang" accused of five rapes and two murders, Thomas was pronounced dead at 11:19 a.m.
He was convicted of the shooting death of Charles Anderson Jan. 1, 1976, during a robbery at Anderson's home. As Anderson lay dying, Thomas raped his wife.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — About 200 Harvard University students took turns yesterday occupying anti-apartheid shanties built in Harvard Yard to protest Harvard's investments in South Africa.
Protest shanties built
Officials said the shanties would not be removed unless health or safety problems or a violation of state or local law occurred.
MINEOLA, N.Y. — A State University freshman was charged yesterday with dropping a fraternity pledge on his head twice and beating him unconscious in a hazing last month.
Students also build a 20-foot-high ivory toower to symbolize the difference between living standards at Harvard and South Africa.
Hazing charges filed
nurt Ferguson, 19, of Mount Veron,
pleased inborn to third-degree assault and hazing charges
at his arraignment.
A school spokesman said two pledges who tried to help the injured student also were assaulted by fraternity members, but the three have recovered.
Soviets freeing man
LITTLE DIOMEDE, Alaska — Four state troopers flew to the frozen Bering Strait yesterday to retrieve an American jailed by Soviets for crossing their border.
John Weymouth was arrested April 2 when he walked onto the Soviet island of Big Diamede.
From Kansan wire reports.
United Press International
Soviets cancel pre-summit meeting
MOSCOW — The Kremlin yesterday canceled a crucial May meeting between the U.S. secretary of state and Soviet foreign minister because of the U.S. attack on Libya, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said the U.S. action had stamped out chances for better superpower relations.
Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze were to meet in mid-May to lay the groundwork for a summit meeting in the United States between President Reagan and Gorbachev, which would have been the second between the two leaders.
In Washington, White House spokesman Larry Speakes called the Soviet cancellation a mistake. He said the United States continued to accept the Soviets at their word that a summit would take place this year.
The Soviet Union canceled the Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting after a reported emergency session in the Kremlin on the U.S. bombing raids early yesterday against Libya, a Middle East ally of Moscow and recipient of billions of dollars in Soviet weaponry.
Until yesterday Moscow confined its Libyan support to words during the clash between Libyan and U.S. forces in the disputed Gulf of Sidra
last month. But hours after the U.S. bombed Libyan cities, an official Kremlin statement said that the U.S. actions made it impossible for the foreign ministers to meet.
"The U.S. administration itself has made impossible at the present time the planned meeting on the level of the ministers of foreign affairs of our two countries," the statement said.
"The Soviet government resolutely condemns the aggressive criminal action taken by the United States against Libya."
Diplomatic sources said the statement, read over. Soviet television, was prepared during an emergency session of the leadership convened by
Gorbachev, who earlier called the attack a deliberate aggravation of Soviet-U.S. relations.
Gorbachev met with visiting Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson and said the U.S. air strikes on Libya could not be justified by any arguments. He called the attack frustrating and said it impeded the search for ways of improving international relations.
The Soviet leader, whose remarks were reported on Soviet television and the Tass news agency, also said the action had stamped out hopes for an improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations.
Carlsson emerged from the
2½-hour meeting with Gorbachev to say, "He was very much concerned about it. We both agreed the situation was very serious."
Moscow earlier dismissed U.S. charges that Libya was behind terrorist attacks, labeling Washington the main source of international terrorism. The Tass news agency said President Reagan had made terrorism a state policy.
Foreign Ministry spokesman, Vladimir Momeiko said, "The U.S.S.R. views these brutal actions as a violation of international law, and total disregard for common human ethics."
House entreated for contra aid Khadafy sending Nicaragua military help, Reagan says
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Reagan implored the House yesterday to approve $100 million for Nicaraguan rebels known as contras, saying Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy has sent weapons and advisers there to "bring his war home to the United States."
As the House prepared to consider Reagan's request for military and other assistance for the rebels, the president told a group of business executives that Khadif 'has bragged that he is helping the Nicaraguans because
they fight America on its own ground."
Addressing the American Business Council on the day after U.S. warplanes bombed a host of targets in Libya in rebelal for terrorist acts against Americans, Reagan said, "I would remind the House voting this week that this arch-terrorist has sent $400 million and an arsenal of weapons and advisers into Nicaragua to bring his war home to the United States."
free people."
"We do not underestimate the brutality of this evil man," Reagan said. "Col. Khadafy ought not to underestimate either the capacity or legitimate anger of a
House Republicans, meantime, were fighting to overturn parliamentary ground rules which clouded prospects for approval of the administration's request.
The GOP leadership and the White House were upset by an attempt by the Democratic majority in the House to include the contra aid proposal in an unrelated spending bill that Reagan opposes.
The parliamentary jockeying came as lawmakers began to consider anew Reagan's contra aid program, which was defeated in the House 222-10 last month. The Senate subsequently approved the
plan in late March by a narrow margin, but with several conditions on how and when the money can be sent to the contras.
As the House opened its session, a man stood in the public galleries and yelled at Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., D-Mass., who was presiding.
"The blood of the contras will be on your conscience if you don't give them the money, Tip," he shouted, calling the speaker by his nickname.
As police ejected the man from the chamber he shouted, "God bless America." He was not immediately identified.
Employees' protest called success
AT&T to cut ties with South Africa
United Press International
WASHINGTON - American Telephone & Telegraph Co., yielding to an employee group's anti-apartheid efforts, wowed yesterday to cut virtually all its business ties with South Africa.
AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen said the corpany would halt computer sales, phase out $5.5 million a year in mineral purchases and drop plans to offer toll-free numbers and such services as video-conferencing and special data transmission in South Africa.
He said a seven-point program outlining the changes would be announced officially at AT&T's annual stockholder meeting today in San Francisco.
Under the plan, the only service AT&T will continue to provide in South Africa is long-distance voice telephone service, a $14 million business in 1985.
A contract with the Olivetti Co. which sold $600,000 worth of AT&T equipment in South Africa last year, will be discontinued. AT&T owns 25 percent of Olivetti.
"It is fair to say this is an unprecedented development," Linnen said, but he pointed out that AT&T has no plants or sales offices in South Africa and does not want to be seen as grandstanding.
"While our decision has not been lightly reached, it does not involve the deep and complex relationships that other American companies would have to consider in like circumstances," he said.
Groups fighting South Africa's policy of racial separation, however, hailed the action.
"This is a signal of the increasing pressure on companies and I think we're going to see more U.S. companies heading for the exit in South Africa," said Tim Smith, executive director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of churches with investing power of $12 billion.
A&TT originally opposed the proposal, backed by a group of employees at Bell Labs, but several months ago began negotiating when workers got Securities and Exchange Commission approval to put the plan to a stockholder vote.
Marcoses, 21 others under fire
United Press International
MANILA, Philippines — Deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, his wife, three children and 21 other people have been charged with illegally amassing wealth estimated at up to $10 billion, Good Government Minister Jovito Salonga said today.
The charges of graft and other corruption were filed April 7 by Attorney, General Sedfrey Ordonez with the Commission on Good Government, said Salonga, who runs the Cabinet department.
The complaint listed 26 people, among them Marcos and his wife, Imelda; their children, Imee, Irene and Ferdinand Jr., and sons-in-law Gregorio Araneta and Tomas Manotoc.
The complaint said the 26 defendants "willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, singly or . . . conspiring with each other", plundered public funds from 1966 until Marcos was ousted Feb. 25 in a civilian-backed military revolt that installed President Corazon Aquino.
The complaint said properties plundered by Marcos and the others were in the Philippines, the United States, Switzerland, England, Austria, Italy, Australia and Canada.
Salonga said that after hearings the commission would decide whether there was enough evidence to file criminal and civil charges against Marcos in court.
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