10A
Wednesday, February 14. 1996
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
4.6
It
Aussies skip cricket tourney
The Associated Press
CALCUTTA, India — The message to U.N. headquarters in New York was most extraordinary: Could some observers scoot down to war-scarred Sri Lanka, review security and decide whether it was safe to play cricket there?
International cricket administrators were facing what they considered a serious threat — a bitter dispute that was threatening the upcoming World Cup and the very gentlymanly demeanor of cricket itself.
Twelve national teams from four continents have assembled to compete for the World Cup, cricket's World Series. Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan are hosts of the tournament, which begins today.
But after a Jan. 31 bomb attack killed 83 people and wounded 1,400 in the worst terrorist attack of Sri Lanka's civil war, the Australian team refused to play in the country's capital of Colombo because it feared similar attacks. The West Indies followed suit.
Many Sri Lankans and Indians were dumbfounded at the promise of boycott from two teams widely considered the best in the sport.
"What a pity," wrote M.J. Akbar, editor of Asian Age, an Indian newspaper. "Australia was known for the quality of its courage, its determination to fight. It is now becoming more famous for the color of their liver."
Never before has the tournament, in its sixth year, been embroiled in disputes that have sparked such name-calling, dirty politics and mud-slinging.
"This has become a very sensitive issue, a very serious one," said David Richards, secretary of the International Cricket
Pakistan and Sri Lanka, children use makeshift equipment, hitting a leather ball with a wooden bat.
Like baseball in America, cricket is big business, with international corporations such as Coca-Cola spons
Council, the game's governing body. "One loose word can spoil everything."
Criet is a passion of people on the Indian subcontinent and in former British colonies elsewhere. In lanes and back alleys across India,
soring many tournaments.
When the Australian and West Indian teams arrived in Calcutta for the inauguration of the tournament last week, the issue hit the top of the agenda for the International Cricket Committee, cricket's governing body.
Australia is using the bombing in Colombo as an excuse to stay away
Many cricket fans and some officials believe
Sri Lanka's recent tour of Australia generated acrimony — including charges and counter-charges of cheating — and Australia would have faced a hostile crowd in
To reduce Australian anger, the Sri Lankan government offered to give the team security befitting heads of state.
Colombo.
The organizing committee also asked the United Nations to send observers to Sri Lanka.
But the committee never received a response from the U.N.
"We thought that if the U.N. certifies that it is safe to play in Colombo, the Australians would change their position," said Jagmohan Dalma, top administrator of the Sixth World Cup.
Unable to persuade the Australians to reconsider, the International Cricket Committee met in Calcutta on Saturday. But five hours of discussions that produced a couple of proposed concessions proved futile.
One pleasant side effect, though, has been a burst of solidarity between India and Pakistan, tense regional rivals.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, they put players on the same team so they could challenge Sri Lanka in a one-day exhibition match to show the world that it is safe to play in Colombo.
Dentists discover new facial muscle
BALTIMORE — Science has been studying human anatomy for hundreds of years, but two Baltimore dentists said they had found a previously undescribed muscle that runs from behind the eye socket to the inside of the jaw bone.
The Associated Press
Gary Hack and Gwendolyn Dunn of the dental school at the University of Maryland said that they had found the 1 1/2 inch muscle in 25 cadavers and that a survey of anatomical literature suggested it had not been described before.
Hack said that the muscle helped chewing and that it might be the source of some difficult-to-treat headaches.
The dentists presented their findings yesterday at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The human body was dissected, studied, sketched and analyzed by medical researchers,
artists and students through the ages, but the muscle Hack and Dunn called sphenomandibularis had not been described, they said.
Anatomists identify human tissue as a muscle if it meets five tests: origin and insertion, the two ends that attach to bone; innervation, the nerves that send signals to the muscle; blood supply, the veins and arteries that support it; and function.
These tests were met in the sphenomandibular, Hack said.
Experts in the field were skeptical about the dentists' claim but said it was possible that their discovery was real.
"Anatomical dissection has been done since Michelangelo, and it would be unusual that that muscle was missed," said Steven Ashman, a professor of oral and facial surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "We'll need to have verification from other centers. If it is confirmed,
Hack said the muscle was identified because he and his team conducted a dissection of a head from an angle usually not used.
then they have a discovery."
They found that the new muscle and a previously known muscle nearby actually were attached to different parts of the skull and had an independent blood supply.
"We've done 25 cadavers now, and it was present in all and absent in none," Hack said. It also has been found in living patients, he added.
"When we showed them that it was a separate muscle, they were amazed," Hack said.
Patients often experience pain behind the eye that is associated with chewing. Such headaches often are difficult to treat, he said.
"We now have a muscle that is behind the eye," he said. "If it has a relationship with the pain, then a new treatment may be developed."
GOP candidates push to primary
The Associated Press
"We are going to have to look at where we are," Gramm said. "I think people need to look at where they are; they owe that to their supporters."
CONCORD, N.H. — Bob Dole kicked off a do-or-die week in New Hampshire yesterday by offering himself as a candidate of tested values. With energized rivals Pat Buchanan and Lamar Alexander snapping at his heels, Dole left the return fire to nervous aides.
Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, after a dismal fifth-place showing in Iowa's caucuses Monday night, canceled his afternoon events in New Hampshire to consult with top advisers in Washington about his campaign's future.
In his own series of campaign stops, Alexander missed no opportunity to tell Dole that it was time to move on.
The former Tennessee governor, who finished a solid third in Iowa, held court on a hill overlooking the gold-domed state Capitol where Dole was speaking to the state Legislature.
"He's of one generation; I'm of another," said the 55-year-old Alexander, trying to drive home his contrast with the 72-year-old Dole.
Buchanan promised to give Bob Dole difficulty in New Hampshire, which holds the leadoff presidential primary Tuesday.
The conservative commentator, who finished just 3 percentage points behind Dole in Iowa, said Republicans were tired of the politics of yesterday and offered his candidacy as a vision of the future.
"Only men and women of character can make government work." Dole said.
Dole tried to stay above the fray, delivering a presidential-style address to state lawmakers in which he stressed his legislative experience and tested values.
Some raised the stakes in the New Hampshire contest at a later stop in Goffstown.
"Whoever wins next Tuesday in New Hampshire will probably be the Republican nominee to run against President Clinton," he said.
Dole all but ignored the narrow margin of his defeat of Buchanan in Iowa.
"We're going to win," he recited repeatedly, flashing a thumbs-up.
Createdly, flashing a thumbs-up. Dole spokesman Nelson Warfield was more pointed.
"You have to take Buchanan seriously because he has a certain following," he said.
But in the same breath, Warfield dismissed Buchanan as a hell-raiser and a bomb-thruser.
It was the first time the Dole camp directly took on Buchanan, increasingly seen as a threat after his upset victory in Louisiana and 23 percent showing in Iowa.
Steve Forbes, regrouping after a disappointing fourth-place Iowa finish, stuck to his message of economic opportunity in a round of morning TV appearances but canceled his only New Hampshire campaign appearance of the day.
Gramm told New Hampshire voters he was looking forward to a strong showing there, but he then headed for Washington to consult with aides.
His national chairman, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said Gramm would decide in the coming days whether to fold his languishing campaign.
President Clinton refused to handicap the Republican field.
"Ask me in a month or two.
Clinton said. "It's just step one."
Aides privately noted with caution that Alexander fared well. Many officials believe the former Tennessee governor would be the toughest GOP rival in a head-to-head matchup with Clinton.
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