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University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Monday, March 17, 1986
News Briefs
At least four killed in Vegas motel fire
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — A fire broke out at a residential motel yesterday, killing at least four people. Firefighters said more bodies might be found in the motel, which a judge closed a year ago for safety violations.
At least two dozen people were treated for smoke inhalation. As many as 50 people were in the two-story Motel 5.
Strike end ordered
Officials said the motel, which had a history of health and safety violations, had no sprinklers.
AUSTIN, Minn. — Members of a defiant meatpacker local met yesterday to study an order from the parent union to end the seven-month strike against Geo. A. Hormel & Co., an official union said.
The official, Pete Winkles, business agent for Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, would not speculate whether members would accept the order.
The 1,500-member local has been on strike since Aug. 17 in a dispute to regain wage cuts and maintain job security.
8 killed in tribal frav
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Workers from rival tribes battled with sticks and homemade weapons yesterday outside the shafts of the world's largest gold mine, leaving eight people dead and 67 wounded, mine officials said.
Fighting between miners from the Xhosa and Basatol tribe erupted at the Vaal Reefs mine west of Johannesburg just after midnight.
Man wants new trial
NEW YORK - Nearly 14 years after his conviction as a Watergate burglar, Frank Sturgis wants to recopen his case to clear his name, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Sturgis said he would use recently revealed records to show that prosecutors withheld information stating that FBI agents could find no naps planted on telephones in the Democratic headquarters after the Watergate break-in in June 1972.
From Kansan wires.
Divers salvage remnants
United Press International
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Navy divers battled strong ocean currents yesterday recovering more remnants of the shuttle Challenger's shattered crew cabin, trying to wrap up a grim salvage operation in murky water 16 miles offshore.
The remains of most, if not all, of the seven shuttle filers are on shore being examined by government pathologists for identification, sources said, but some remains still could be found amid the wreckage of the ship's battered flight deck.
See related story
The USS Preserver, a Navy salvage ship equipped with cranes that can lift up to 10 tones, was anchored over the wreck site yesterday to continue salvage operations after three straight days of bad weather.
A crack team of Navy divers aboard the Preserver already has recovered crew remains and a mound of debris from the cabin's flight deck in water 100 feet deep, a grisly job with visibility less than five feet.
Wreckage recovered to date includes the ship's flight computers and several voice and data recorders that could provide useful information about the shuttle's final milliseconds.
Members of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's internal investigation panel were scheduled to fly to the Kennedy Space Center late yesterday for a working session early in the week. A source who asked not to be identified said that among other topics, the team plans to investigate what data may be recovered from the data recorders.
Lt. Cmdr. Deborah Burnette, a Navy spokeswoman, said she did not know how long it would take to wrap up crew cabin salvage operations or the search for shuttle debris in general.
"We are not to the stage where there's any contemplation of slowing down or stopping the search," she said. The cost of the salvage operation, now nearly seven weeks old, is running about $4 million a month.
Burnette said the priorities of the search operation are recovery of solid-fuel rocket booster (SRB) debris, external fuel tank wreckage and crew cabin remnants.
A rupture in Challenger's right-hand booster rocket triggered the explosion of the ship's giant external fuel tank 73 seconds after blastoff Jan. 28, killing the seven-member crew.
The Orlando Sentinel reported yesterday that NASA plans to spend
The Scottish salvage vessel Slena Workhorse was at sea yesterday to recover two sections of booster debris. The first piece pulled on deck measured 6 feet by 18 feet and weighed 3,250 pounds.
up to $225 million redesigning the seal between booster fuel segment joints that are a prime suspect in the disaster.
Burnette said the Workhorse also planned to attempt recovery of a 500-pound segment that includes part of an attaching fitting that once held one of the boosters to the external tank.
The attach fitting was about 21 inches below the joint that ruptured and if the debris is from the right-hand rocker, it could prove to be the most significant find yet in the salvage effort.
The overall secrecy surrounding the salvage operation and other details of the investigation into the disaster apparently has been instigated by top NASA managers, including astronaut Robert Crippen, most approve every statement released by NASA public affairs officers.
Details of the salvage work, like other aspects of NASA's internal investigation, are coming to light only in bits and pieces, usually after reporters have found out about an event with tips from anonymous sources.
France's right-wing wins narrow victory
United Press International
PARIS — The French right captured control of parliament from the Socialist Party in national elections yesterday. The victory forces President Francois Mitterrand to contend with an opposition legislature.
Although the two-party, mainstream, rightist coalition failed to win a commanding majority, its victory could still force Mitterrand, a socialist, to choose his new prime minister from the opposition because of his losses in parliament.
It would be the first time since Gen. Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in 1958 that France's president and prime minister come from opposing parties — a situation that could prompt a constitutional crisis.
Mitterrand has 20 days to choose a new prime minister who has the support of the National Assembly. Mitterrand, who does not face reelection until 1988, has said he will disregard any calls to resign.
"France has made its choice," said Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, leader of the Rally for the
Republic and a likely candidate for prime minister. "They have censured the Socialist and communist majority and they have given the (rightist parties) an absolute majority.
The state-run French television station Antenne-2 predicted the mainstream conservative alliance of the Rally for the Republic and Union for French Democracy parties would win 289 seats — exactly the number needed for control of the 577-seat National Assembly.
The station predicted the ruling Socialists would win 211 seats and the Communist Party 40 seats.
The Interior Ministry reported that 76 percent of the nation's 37.5 million registered voters cast ballots, an average turnout.
Opinion polls before the election predicted the conservative alliance would win by a much larger margin. But it appeared the mainstream right would be able to govern without forming a majority with the extreme right.
The returns indicated voters had not forgiven the Socialists for the economically disastrous, freespending policies of their first two years in power.
Unemployment level takes February leap
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Civilian unemployment jumped 0.6 percent to 7.3 percent in February, the largest one-month gain in nearly six years, the Labor Department said yesterday.
Analysts said they were puzzled about the cause of the unexpected surge, but said it might have been the unusually severe weather that came after an abnormally mild January.
Two-thirds of last month's 700,000 increase in the number of unemployed came in just three states — California, Texas and Illinois. One-fourth of the increase came among Hispanic workers.
The big jump returned unemployment to the same level as the first half of 1985, when the jobless rate was stuck at 7.3 percent for six months.
The jobless rate began a gradual decline in August, eventually dropping to 6.7 percent in January, the lowest level since March 1980.
Labor Department analyst Howard Haygate speculated that flooding in California had kept agricultural workers out of the fields, pushing unemployment there from 5.8 percent to 7.2 percent.
Unemployment in Texas rose 2 percent to 8.4 percent. Joblessness in Illinois went to 9.5 percent, up from 7.7 percent.
Janet Norwood, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, cautioned against reading too much into the February rise.
In addition to the California flooding, she pointed to layoffs in the Texas petroleum industry as drillers cut back exploration efforts in the face of the prolonged slide in crude oil prices.
2 rescued in collapsed hotel
United Press International
SINGAPORE — Workers yesterday rescued two men trapped for 36 hours in the rubble of a collapsed hotel and carved tunnels in the concrete and steel wreckage to find others buried alive.
Ten were confirmed killed, 11 were rescued and 61 others were safe and accounted for among the estimated 80 to 100 people who were thought to be in the six-story New World Hotel, which contains a bank, when the structure collapsed at midday Saturday.
There was no explanation of what caused the collapse of the 15-year-old, reinforced-concrete structure, but Lee Wee Siong, 36, a transport company worker, said he saw workers erecting wood supports in the underground garage just before the collapse.
Two Chinese nationals were pulled yesterday from a concrete and steel
mound left by the collapse and were hospitalized for examinations. They suffered no visible injuries.
Their dramatic escape spurred an international team of rescue workers to intensify its efforts to reach others.
Rescuers blasted through building beams with high-powered water jets. They tunneled from the building's underground garage toward a woman, a man and a child trapped nearby and believed to be alive. Air pipes were pushed toward the three.
Five to seven other survivors were detected in other parts of the debris by engineers using sound-sensitive equipment, officials said.
The rescue efforts were stalled yesterday when a portion of a 30-foot tunnel collapsed. The entryway into the rubble was carved just wide enough for one rescuer to crawl through.
After huge concrete slabs were removed yesterday morning, rescue work accelerated steadily.
Human chains passed chunks of concrete, beams and baskets of debris out of the main pile of wreckage.
By late yesterday, much of the tunne-
neling was turned over to a multina-
tional team of subway construction
workers, including Japanese, French
and British engineers.
Tens of thousands of spectators were drawn to the wreckage — a heap of concrete, twisted steel, mattresses and chips of wood. Many said it looked like a scene from the Mexico City earthquake last year.
The scene outside the popular hotel, in an area known as Little India, was like a macabre death watch before the latest rescue.
Friends and relatives of those believed to be in the rubble kept their own undaunted vigil, praying.
Officials began assembling construction blueprints and other documents related to the New World. A commission of inquiry is to be appointed by President Wee Kim Wee.