Monday, January 19, 1987
Page 2
Daily Nebraskan
Ne
By The Associated Press
Terrorists kidnap W. German businessman, newspapers say
BONN, West Germany A West
German businessman was kidnapped
in Beirut, the Foreign Ministry said
Sunday. Two newspapers said the
kidnappers apparently hope to trade
him for a Lebanese jailed as a terrorist
in West Germany and wanted in the
United States.
West German authorities said it was
too early to say if Saturday's abduction
of Rudolf Cordes, 53, was linked to the
arrest Tuesday at Frankfurt airport of
Mohammad Ali Hamadi.
Hamadi, 22, who was carrying a fluid
used to make explosives, was later
I identified as a suspect in the 1985
hyacking of a TWA airliner and held 39
other Americans hostage for 17 days.
Police in Beirut said Sunday they
could not confirm that a West German
had been kidnapped. The West German
Embassy in the Lebanese capital was
unstaffed.
The Foreign Ministry in Bonn said an
anonymous telephone caller told its
embassy in Beirut that Cordes had
been taken hostage.
Cordes is Beirut manager for Hoechst
Ag, a major West Germany chemical
company. A company official, com
menting on condition of anonymity,
said Cordes docs not live in Beirut, but
travels there frequently from his
Frankfurt base.
West German newspapers said Cordes
arrived in Beirut from Frankfurt Sat
urday evening, went through passport
control and has not been heard from
since.
The Foreign Ministry said in a
statement that the telephone caller
told the embassy Cordes and three
Lebanese accompanying him were
kidnapped. The three Lebanese were
later released, the caller said.
ThP raller did not identify himself or
make demands, the ministry said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Reinhard
Bettzuege told The Associated Press:
"We cannot assume the two (Hamadi
and Cordes) are linked because the
(kidnappers) have not identified
themselves or placed any demands on
us. It could be a criminal act, or
someone looking for ransom."
But Bild and Die Welt newspapers, of
Hamburg and Bonn respectively, said
senior government officials fear the
kidnapping is aimed at blackmailing
West Germany into releasing Hamadi.
In Brief
Arson suspect commits suicide
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico A bartender at the Dupont Plaza hotel has
killed himself by leaping from a building, police said Sunday, and a
newspaper reported he faced questioning about the fire there that killed
96 people.
Julio Verges Gaetan, 45, jumped from the ninth floor of a building in the
Rio Piedras suburb Saturday, police said.
El Mundo newspaper quoted his wife, Juanita, as saying he had been
despondent since learning Friday that investigators planned to question
him this Tuesday. Two men, including a bar busboy, have been charged
with arson in the New Year's Eve inferno, and investigators have said there
may be additional arrests.
"Almost every time he heard the latest news about the fire, he began to
cry," Mrs. Verges Gaetan was quoted as saying.
Whooping crane populations on the rise
AUSTWELL, Texas About 1 10 whooping cranes, the highest number
since conservation efforts began for the endangered species in the 1930s,
are wintering along the Texas coast, Wildlife officials say. .
The flock of 110 birds at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge "is
basically surviving by itself," said Tom Stehn, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service biologist at the refuge.
The flock, which migrates to Texas each winter from its breeding
grounds at Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada, has recovered from a
low of 14 birds, with the most dramatic increases coming in recent few
years.
Railroad shuts down;
contract negotiations fail
NEW YORK The nation's busiest
commuter railway shut down Sunday
when contract negotiations failed be
tween the Long Island Rail Road and 1 1
unions, idling 6,600 workers.
"Operations on the railroad are now
shut down," Long Island Rail Road
spokesman Jim Burns said shortly after
the strike began at 6:01 a.m.
The effects of the strike were min
imal Sunday, a light ridership day, and
were not expected to be fully felt Mon
day, the federal holiday honoring the
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
But if the strike lasts until Tuesday,
it will force nearly 150,000 passengers
between the Long Island suburbs and
New York City to seek alternate trans
portation. The railroad averages 272,000
rips per weekday.
Officials urged commuters to use car
pools, set up an information hot line
and planned special express buses.
"There is a very good possibility it's
going to be a long strike," said John
Caggiano, business manager of local
589 of the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers.
Walter C. Wallace, the federal media
tor for the talks, said he could not say
when negotiations would resume. "We
will get some sleep, recharge, and I'm
not going to set a date when we will get
back together," he said.
Sunday's walkout climaxed two years
of federally sponsored negotiations,
including two cooling-off periods. It
occurred after five unions suddenly
withdrew from the talks and two others
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi
neers and the Police Benevolent Asso
ciation failed to reach agreement
with management.
The LIRR strike is the first since
April, 1 980, when the railroad was shut
down for one day. In December 1979, a
week-long strike ended only when Pres
ident Carter invoked federal legisla
tion requiring a cooling-off period.
Under the Federal Railway Labor
Act, which governs LIRR labor rela
tions, employees are allowed to strike
after all federal procedures have been
exhausted.
Aquino offers
peace talks
to Moslem group
COTABATO CITY, Philippines
President Corazon Aquino,
touring violence-ridden Mindanao
island Sunday, offered peace talks
to a Moslem rebel faction whose
attack last week killed 46 people.
In Manila, troops went on
alert to keep Moselm violence
from spreading to the capital.
The Moro Islamic Liberation
Front gave no immediate reply to
the offer.
The group on Saturday ended
five days of attacks on the island
which left at least 46 people
dead and 89 injured. It said it
launched the attacks because it
had been shut out of talks be
tween the government and a rival
Moslem faction, the Moro Nation
al Liberation Front.
Both groups seek Moselm self
rule on Mindanao, but disagree
on the terms.
Two Manila newspapers re
ported that the military fears
Moslem rebels might join forces
with dissident officers and sup
porters of deposed President
Ferdinand E. Marcos in a plot
against the government before
the ratification plebiscite for the
draft constitution Feb. 2.
About 800 Marcos loyalists
burned Mrs. Aquino in effigy
Sunday at a Manila rally as part
of their campaign against the
constitution, which guarantees
her a six-year term.
Mrs. Aquino met for 10 minutes
with Haji Murad, deputy leader
of the Moslem stronghold on
Mindanao. It was her fourth stop
on a five-city, weekend tour of
the island to muster support for
the constitution.
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Researcher: Pregnant cocaine users
risk long-term brain defects in infants
NEW YORK Animal experiments suggest
that cocaine use during pregnancy can produce
infants with long-term abnormalities in the
brain systems that control sensation, movement
and emotions, a researcher said Sunday.
This occurs despite the frequent absence of
physical defects in the offspring, said Diana
Dow-Edwards, a researcher at the State University
of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn.
Dow-Edwards found, in studies with about 30
rats, that rats exposed to cocaine during early
development mature into adults with marked
hypersensitivity in the brain's motor system, its
sensory system and in the limpic system, which
governs em'otions and such functions as eating
and sleeping.
The evidence suggests, she said, "that cocaine
exposure during pregnancy produces long-term
and perhaps permanent alterations in brain
function activity."
Ira Chasnoff, a pediatrician at Northwestern
University Medical School in Evanston, 111., and
one of the nation's leading authorities on the
effects of cocaine use in pregnancy, reported
that infants of cocaine-using mothers have a
significantly smaller head size than normal
infants, suggesting a retardation in brain growth
and possible future brain defects.
Chasnoff said cocaine-affected infants are
excessively jittery, experience rapid changes of
mood, and are extremely sensitive to noise and
other external stimuli.
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40 percent of crime victims
know attackers, study says
WASHINGTON In nearly four out of 10 violent crimes,
the attacker is a relative, friend or acquaintance of the
victim, according to a federal study released Sunday.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics report says that less than
half the 20 million violent crimes committed from 1982
through 1 984 were perpetrated by people who were strangers
to the victims.
The survey of 58,000 households conducted twice a year
by the Census Bureau found that 46 percent of robberies,
rapes and assaults were committed by strangers.
"It is often said that the fear of crime is largely a fear of
strangers," bureau director Steven R. Schlesinger said in a
statement.
But he said 10 percent of the offenders were known to the
victims by sight and 39 percent of the violent crimes
involved friends, relatives or acquaintances of the victim.
Friends accounted for 17 percent, or 3.3 million , of the
violent crimes, while casual acquaintances accounted for
14 percent, and relatives accounted for 8 percent.
In the rest of the cases, the relationship of the attackers
to the victim was not known.
"Individuals victimized by relatives may be reluctant to
discuss the event ... for fear of reprisal or out of shame or
embarrassment," the report said. "Further, some victims of
domestic violence may not perceive these acts as criminal."
In the 1.5 million violent crimes in which a relative was
the offender, 77 percent of the victims were women.
More than half of the crimes by relatives against women
were reported by women who were divorced or separated.
The bureau cited FBI statistics for 1984 which found that
20 percent of the 19,000 homicides were committed by
relatives and nearly 40 percent by acquaintances.
