Nation/World
7
Washington
Nation/World briefs
Ouake deaths increase in 1990
Earthquakes killed nearly as many people last year as in the entire decade of the 1980s, the most recent such event.
More than 52,000 fatalities were reported in earthquakes around the world in 1990, according to the geologists. None of the fatalities were in the United States.
Boosting the 1990 total was a tremor in western Iran on June 21 that killed about 50,000 people, the agency said.
By comparison, quakes claimed 57,500 lives during the whole decade of the '80s.
The earthquake fatality total for 1990 was the highest since 1976, when a quake in China killed several hundred thousand people. The exact total is in dispute.
There were 68 significant earthquake records recorded around the world last year, eight more than in 1989 and six more than the annual average in the 1980s.
Forty of the significant quakes occurred on the so-called Ring of Fire, the long line of volcano- and earthquake-prone regions encircling the Pacific Ocean.
The survey defines a quake as significant if it measures 6.5 or more on the Richter Scale or if it causes casualties or extensive damage.
Norfolk. Va.
Bombs part of insurance scam
An insurance scam was the motive behind bombs planted at a chemical facility near Norfolk Naval Base, the FBI said.
While bomb experts were removing the six crude pipe bombs Feb. 4 from two large chemical storage tanks, the FBI received a telephone tip that led to the arrests Friday night and Saturday of three suspects in the alleged scheme to collect a $2.7 million insurance policy.
According to an affidavit, the FBI was told that the alleged insurance conspiracy would have netted a $1 million profit for the three men. Half of that profit would have gone to Charles Edward Gresham, 57, who owned Applied Technology Inc in Elliott City, Md.
Gresham, Joseph Wayne Openshaw, 36 of St. John, Ariz., and Cecil Ross, 13 of Glendale, Ariz., were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud in the furtherance of a mail and wire fraud scheme.
The bombs were found attached to a tank that contained 1 million gallons of highly flammable methanol and a nearby tank owned by Gresham and a nearby 2 million gallons of less volatile sodium sulfates.
Vilnius, U.S.S.R.
Lithuania approves resolution
Lithuania's parliament, acknowledging the sweeping approval of a plebiscite on independence, said yesterday that a new constitution would make Lithuania republic as an independent, democratic state.
The parliament voted 116-0, with one abstention, to approve the resolution. It came hours after Lithuanian President Vyautas Landsbergis said he feared the Kremlin might crack down on his homeland unless the West showed more support.
In the nonbinding popular vote Saturday, Lithuanian citizens backed a declaration of independence by a 13-to-1 margin, according to the U.S. news agency yesterday by the State Election Commission.
From The Associated Press
Absence of key witness delays Mandela's trial
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Winnie Mandela pleaded not guilty yesterday to kidnap and assault charges, but the trial was halted suddenly when prosecutors said a key witness — one of the alleged victims — had been abducted.
The Associated Press
Winnie pleads not guilty of assault and kidnapping
"I cannot expect my witnesses to come in here if their lives are in danger," State Prosecutor Jan Swanepoet told the stunned court yesterday morning and three co-defendants entered plea of innocent.
The case was adjourned until today so that police could investigate the disappearance.
Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the release from prison of Winnie Mandela's husband, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, after he served 27 years in prison for subrogation and was convicted by the white led government. He accompanied his wife to the courthouse but did not enter the courtroom.
Mandela looked composed as she listened to the reading of the four kidnap and four assault
"I'm not guilty," Mandela told Justice M.S. Stegmann.
The co-defendants pleaded not guilty to the same charges, which alliance that they participated in the kidnapping and assault of four young men in the city. Three of them were the youths, Stompei Seipei, later was found dead.
Prosecutors say the defendants were motivated by accusations that the victims engaged in homosexual activities with a white Methodist Church minister and that Stompei was a police spy. They say the youths were taken to Mandela's home and beaten.
In her most comprehensive statement on the sensational case, Mandela acknowledged the youths were brought to her home in December 1988 but said it was to protect them from the minister's sexual advances. The church has cleared the minister. Paul Verryn of wrongdoing.
The written statement, read by a lawyer, said that Mandela was out of town at the time and that a police officer shot her.
"I did not take part in any assault on any person, nor was any assault committed in my presence," Mandela said.
youths' care.
Swanopeol then stunned the court by saying Gabriel Pelo Mekgwe, a key witness and one of the alleged victims, was missing.
"My Lord, I have a very serious situation," he said. "I have just now been informed that one witness was kidnapped last night." He said the incident was with his brother was caring for Mekgwu, told him of the incident.
Mekgwe's disappearance could damage the prosecution's case by frightening the other youths from testifying.
The church refused to comment last night.
All three have alleged Mandela beat them with whips at her home. The statements came during the trial of Jerry Richardson, leader of Mandela's now-disbanded bodyguard unit. He was convicted of murder in Stompei's death.
Asked outside the court who might be responsible for Mekgwe's disappearance, Swanepoel said, "Why would one suddenly last night kidnap the man? The answer is obvious."
Mekgwe's disappearance was not the first set-back in the trial. Four other defendants also scheduled for trial skipped bail and still are being sought.
If convicted on all charges, Winnie Mandela's punishment could range from a suspended sentence to death.
Mandela arrived at the Rand Supreme Court in downtown Johannesburg with her husband. Pushing and showing broke out between police and ANC members, she was arrested. The arrival, but no injuries or arrests were reported.
Swanepoel, in outlining the case, said that the defendants were facing criminal charges and that there was no question of political persecution under ANC, the leading Black opposition movement.
Whatever the outcome, the trial is likely to strain relations between the government and the ANC.
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, February 12, 1991
Suit charges Harvard Law with discriminatory hiring
The Associated Press
BOSTON — Several civil-rights groups said yesterday that they would support a lawsuit by Harvard Law School students who claimed that the university was against women and minorities when hiring female
The students are planning for a showdown later this week in Middlesex Superior Court when they will be charged with murder.
Harvard says the students are not in a legal position to raise charges of employer discrimination and also that they are painting an inaccurate picture of the law school's recent hiring history.
"Harvard is not moving in the direction it should toward diversity," said Ozell Hudson Jr., executive director of the Boston affiliate of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
tions signed a back backing the lawsuit filed last year by the Harvard students.
The students, who formed a group called the Harvard Coalition for Civil Rights, said in their lawsuit that Harvard Law School had failed to hire any minority women, Asian-Americans, American Indians, Latinos or openly homosexual men or women to tenured or tenure-track faculty posi-
The brief filed by the civil-rights advocates is designed to help students clear a legal hurdle after completing their degree.
Allan Ryan Jr., an attorney in Harvard's office of general counsel, said that under state law, the people who could be employees and the department or company employees, reject employees or would-be employees who were deterred.
Hudson's group, as well as the state chapters of the National Lawyers Guild and several other organization
"The plaintiffs are none of these," he said. But Hudson said the students had legal standing because they claimed their education had been hurt by the discrimination.
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