Thursday, October 10, 1985
Page 2
Daily Nebraskan
Hv The Associated Press
"FT"
lenrey calls second! se
LINCOLN Gov. Bob Kerrey ended
weeks of speculation by announcing
Wednesday that he will convene a spe
cial legislative session to deal with the
state's massive revenue shortfall.
"It's 100 percent certain we'll have a
special session," Kerrey said at a news
conference called at the State Office
Building to announce a new division in
the state Department of Economic
Development. "It's not 100 percent
certain when."
Kerrey said he plans to continue
talking through Thursday with key
aides about the timing of the session.
He said he doesn't know when he will
announce the date of the session. He
said he expects the session to last at
least two weeks and possibly continue
for three to four weeks.
Kerrey said he's opposed to a retro
active one percentage point income
tax increase to wipe out a projected
revenue shorfall of more than $30 mil
lion for fiscal 1985-86.
"That's a business-as-usual mental
ity," the governor said. "We don't face a
business-as-usual problem."
Kerrey said he would propose "sub
stantial budget action" to combat
sluggish tax collections caused prim
arily by the state's weak farm economy.
In a nneclmlctlp fnivr.TSt. thfi tfOVPf-
nor said he expects the state's econ
omy to continue to sputter through
1987-88.
"Government needs to respond to
reality," he said. "Reality is that this is
a real downturn In the economy" that
requires lawmakers to slash state
spending.
Kerrey refused to say how much he
would request in spending reduction.
He already has asked state agencies
and governmental subdivisions to
voluntarily cut 1.5 percent of their
state-supported budgets, which would
amount to a total savings of $1 2 million.
U.S. outraged over slaying;
vows 'maximum punishment'
WASHINGTON - The White House
expressed sadness and outrage Wed
nesday at the "brutal killing" of an
American tourist aboard a hijacked
Italian cruise ship and demanded that
the Egyptian government turn over the
pirates for the maximum "appropriate
punishment."
"From the outset, the United States
government made clear to the govern
ment of Egypt and the government of
Italy our opposition to negotiations
with the terrorists and our expectation
that the terrorists would be appre
hended, prosecuted and punished,"
White House spokesman Larry Speakes
said after confirming that passenger
Leon Klinghoffer had been murdered.
President Reagan, confronted with
conflicting reports about the welfare of
Americans aboard the ship held for two
days by Palestinian terrorists, dis
patched his Egyptian ambassador to
inspect the vessel to determine whether
one or more of the U.S. citizens aboard
had been killed.
U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Nicholas
Veliotes confirmed from aboard ship
that a 69-year-old New Yorker had been
killed.
Speakes said the Cairo regime, which
arranged to take the hijackers off the
cruise liner earlier in the day, now
bears the responsibility "for handling
the resolution of the affair."
But he added, "The United States
remains determined to see that those
responsible for this heinous act be
brought to justice and punished to the
maximum extent. There must be no
asylum for terrorists or terrorism."
In an unusual nighttime briefing at
the White House, Speakes said the Uni
ted States believes the four hijackers
"remain in Egyptian custody" but it
does not know what the government
intends to do with them. The Egyptian
foreign ministry had announced earlier
they would be leaving Egypt, appar
ently with safe passage to freedom.
. The four Palestinian hyackers of the
Italian cruise ship surrendered Wed
nesday, ending two days of terror for
more than 500 hostages and in the
death of one American passenger.
The body of Leon Klinghoffer, 69, of
New York City, was thrown overboard
by one of the hyackers. Klinghoffer,
who was wheelchair-bound, was travel
ing with his wife, Marilyn, 58.
Capt. Gerardo De Rosa said in a
radio conversation with state-run Ital
ian television Wednesday night that a
terrorist who had blood on his clothing
admitted to the murder.
The Foreign Ministry said the terror
ists surrendered to representatives of
the PLO. They were taken to the Port
Said Naval Base and were still there
seven hours later, at midnight local
time or 5 p.m. CDT.
"The hyackers, who number four,
will leave Egypt," Foreign Minister
Esmat Abdel-Meguid said. "There were
no demands." He did not say where the
hijackers would go.
The Palestine Liberation Organiza
tion denied involvement in the hijack
ing and chairman Yasser Arafat said in
an interview Wednesday with French
television from Tunis, Tunisia, that the
pirates were not PLO members.
The hyackers demanded the release
of 50 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel
after they seized control of the ship,
heavily armed with guns and explo
sives. They threatened at various times ,
during the two-day voyage to the Syrian
coast and back to kill the people
aboard and blow up the liner.
They claimed to be from the Pales
tine Liberation Front, one of eight
guerrilla groups in the PLO that split
into three factions during a 1983 revolt
against Arafat.
In Israel, the Jerusalem Post report
ed Wednesday that the guerrillas who
hijacked the ship may have intended to
commandeer a Norwegian ship carry
ing President Reagan's daughter
Maureen.
The English-language newspaper,
quoting an unidentified maritime
source, said the hyackers may have
been scared off by tight security sur
rounding the Norwegian Royal Viking
Sky, which carried Reagan, and then
decided instead to seize the Achille
Lauro.
In Washington, White House spo
kesman Speakes refused to discuss the
Post report or the whereabouts of Rea
gan, who travels with U.S. Secret Ser
vice bodyguards.
Congress OK'd aid to rebels, sources say
WASHINGTON Congress has
secretly approved about $250 million in
further covert military aid to rebels
fighting the Soviet-backed regime in
Afghanistan, Senate sources said
Wednesday.
One source, who with the others
asked not to be identified by name,
said the money will be spent to buy
large quantities of ammunition, small
arms, grenade launchers, and anti
helicopter air defense weapons.
"It will enable them to replenish
their stocks," he said. "It's a one-time
replenishment. There is nothing being
introduced that is brand new or espe
cially esoteric. It's the kind of thing
easily available anywhere in the world."
The issues of the long Soviet occupa
tion of Afghanistan, and covert aid by
several nations to the Afghan resistance,
are virtually certain to be raised in the
summit meeting in Geneva next month
between President Reagan and Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
There was some annoyance in Con
gress about the latest aid request,
because the Reagan administation asked
for the funds late last month, imme
diately before the end of the 1985 fiscal
year, the source said.
And he said there was some concern
over the size of the request.
"We're reaching a position where a
lot of us think there should be more
debate on this program," the source
said. "There is a lot of money involved."
The funds will be funneled to the
Afghan rebels through the Central
Intelligence Agency, the source said. He
said the House and Senate intelligence
committees approved the transfer of
the money last month from secret CIA
accounts appropriated for the 1985 fis
cal year.
By reprogramming CIA money that
had been appropriated for a previous
fiscal year, the Reagan administration
made the funds available for the 1986
Newsmakers
and 1987 fiscal years. The committee
actions did not require votes by the full
House and Senate because the money
had already been approved by Congress.
One source said the CIA had asked
Sens. David Durenberger, R-Minn., and
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman and
ranking minority member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee to approve the
reprogramming on their own authority
without consulting other members of
the panel.
"They refused," the source said,
adding that the decision was made by
the full committee.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanis
tan in December 1979, saying it was
responding to a request for aid from the
Marxist Afghan government in Kabul.
It has been engaged ever since in a
bitter guerrilla war with anti-Marxist
rebels using bombing raids and heli
copter attacks in an attempt to solidify
control of the country.
A roundup of the day's happenings
Betty Friedan, the first president of the National
Organization for Women says the women's movement is
almost paralyzed because it is "out of spc with the
problems of the younger generation." Friedan told about
100 women at Yale University that the women's movement
has lost its momentum in the same way it did after women
won the right to vote in 1920. There is a lack of concern
over the "gutting" of law guaranteeing women affirmative
action, equal rights and the right to have an abortion, she
said.
Hundreds of works by Mexican artist Diego Rivera
escaped harm in the recent earthquakes that devastated
Mexico City and will be displayed next year at the Detroit
Institute of Arts as planned. The exhibit, scheduled for
Feb. 12, 1986, to April 1, 1986, will include 115 paintings,
120 photographs and 130 other works by Rivera, a radical
painter who chronicled Mexico's struggles for inde
pendence. Peggy Lee, 65, the Grammy-Award-winning singer
songwriter, was described as being in stable condition
after undergoing four hours of double-bypass heart surgery.
A former bank teller has pleaded guilty to embez
zlement and larceny charges, saying she stole more than
$200,000 in Brookline parking meter receipts because she
had a low opinion of herself. "I need money to satisfy my
low self-esteem, said Carol E. Young, 34, of Brockton, Mass.
She was sentenced to two years in prison.
Senate votes for balanced budget;
U.S. takes $5 billion emergency loan
WASHINGTON The Seaat voted 75-21 Wednesday to force the
F-vernrnt to balance its annua! buJ-r.t to i yc; a tut the vote failed
to end an impasse ever legislation to extend the revetment's exhausted
borrowing power. .
The balanced budget amendment, v c! tv$ bipartisan sup
port, came as the Senate worked cnaracretD nl: I the current debt
ceiling to more than 12 trillion
However, the Senate did not finish its wcis ca las mml bill and
efforts to approve a short-term extension cfihs debt limit collapsed late
Wednesday.
TheTreasury Deportment held an emergency auction, however, at which '
it borrowed an additional 13 billion, a sum c;cial3 isl J would keep the
government afloat for another week.
Senators were to try again today to ccmplctewerk m the debt limit bill.
The House already has voted to increase the debt limit but without a
balanced budget amendment. The differences will ultimately have to be
negotiated in a House-Senate conference committee.
2 killed on S. African prayer day
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa Tena cf thousands cf South Africans
of all races attended prayer services Wednesday to "repent for the
national sin of apartheid," while blacks around the country stayed home
from work in droves.
Police headquarters in Pretoria said mobs killed two blacks early
Wednesday in black townships outside Pert Klamath to eastern Cape
Province, Both were victims cf bcnssSc black neb vielence against
people who may be seen 3 collaborators with th3v;h:te p;cmmer.t Tires
were placed wound their necks, they wens teed, v.'Uh gasoline and
burned to dei-h.
After telephoned bcrab threats, ?x:Mzza li:7 Ecsscsi Tutu and
about 103 other worshipers abashed their p:r ;::3 If.Sj to a downtown
Johannesburg cathedral, crse cf hundreds cfchu:t-h series conducted
it up to 14 r. r.:!,: cftlccJy rioting that
across trie country.
Tcwnshirs that have b een cc
left mere than 759 people dead appeared restively calm during the
nationwide display cf support for peaceful charts to the national system
cf Institutionalized racial separation. .
:. The "prayaway" was arranged last month by about 403 church leaders
for Reconciliation.
Merger of deaf, blind schools studied
LINCOLN A panel studying the peslt'e merger of Nebraska's
schools for the deaf and the blind faces a dlGcuIt trk fraught with
- emotion and politics, the group's leader said Wednesday.
The 22-member committee opened its first meeting vowing to keep an
cpen mind and emphasize the welfare of pupils at the School for the Deaf
in Omaha and the School for Visually Handicapped in Nebraska City.
State Education Commissioner Joe Lutjcharms, who was unable to
attend the meeting, has said declining enrollment and ever-tightening
budget constraints could force consideration cf desire merging or rede
fining the schools' roles.
In opening remarks, a couple of panel members said consolidation
could weaken the educational quality of the schools.
A state Education Department official said the committee should
amass piles of information about the schools to enable lawmakers to make
an informed decision if they deal with the sensitive issue.
Acquisition could expand air service
LINCOLN The possible acquisition of Frontier Airlines by People
Express Inc. undoubtedly will affect Lincoln travelers, people close to
commercial aviation in Lincoln said Wednesday.
People Express has announced an agreement with Frontier Holdings
Inc. to pay $24 a share for 12.5 million shares cf Frontier stock. Hours
earlier, Texas Air Corp. submitted a bid for $22 a share. Frontier
employees had bid $17 a share.
While some are optimistic the acquisition cf Frontier by the no-frills
airline could offer Lincoln residents expanded service into wider areas, -:
others wonder if a medium-size city like Lincoln will benefit from People
Express, which has served mostly larger metropolitan areas en the East
em Seaboard.
The financially strapped Frontier is one of the elder carriers serving
Lincoln. It has four arrivals and four departures a day at the Lincoln
Municipal Airport with flights to Omaha cr.d Denver.
San Diego mayor convicted in scheme
SAN DIEGO Mayor Roger Hedgecock, S3, was convicted Wednesday
of 13 charges including conspiracy and perjury in a scheme to illegally
finance his 1883 mayoral campaign. The verdict means he must forfeit his
job as head of the nation's eighth-largest city.
The Superior Court jury returned the verdict midway through the :
seventh day of its deliberations in the mayor's retrial No date was
immediately set for sentencing, which could iecluda a prison term.
Hedgecock was found guilty of 13 cf the 16 charges against him,
including the conspiracy count accusing him cf plotting with political
backers to funnel corporate money into his campaiin. City laws prohibit
individual campaign donations in excess cf 1250 and prohibit campaign
contributions from corporations. '
Victims mourned at mass funeral
PONCE, Puerto Eico Gov. F:f,, 1 : C !
or mourners in the city coiheiKi We ! -f ran
the 68 known victims cf this v. . : k's T. !: ir: i'. "
as many m 500 more ere f; ,:W I
ooDDinganawaihrnl.::- li
the 25 bodies pulled Lcn 1" n :l r i
shantytewn, where a II:r.d v r r !
deluge destroyed 4C0 hemes.
Hernandez Colon said, '"i: i j r -'in
its history. It fills me " 1 - -
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