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News Digest One million Burmese demonstrate for democracy RANGOON, Burma — About 1 million people, including Catholic nuns, intelligence officers and the blind, took to the streets Thursday to demand democracy, and vigilantes beheaded three people who tried to poison protesters. The state radio said security forces fired on a crowd of 500 looters in the suburbs of the capital, wounding 17. The radio also said seven corpses w i th stab wounds were found floating in Rangoon’s Inya Lake. A sea of people surged through the city. The demonstrators want to bring down the government of President Maung Maung and end 26 years of one-party authoritarian rule. More demonstrations were planned Friday, with some opposition groups hoping the general strike could be sustained until the govern ment gives into demands for a multi party democracy. A newly formed union of bank employes said all Rangoon banks would be shut down Friday. Evacuations of foreign nationals were delayed because the strike at Rangoon Airport forced cancellation of all flights to Bangkok, Thailand. The American Embassy planned to start evacuating its 100 dependants, and sources said a special flight may be arranged. Thursday’s march was largely peaceful, but sources said a mob killed two men and a woman who gave poisoned ice water to several demonstrators, including schoolchil dren. The sources said that after the trio confessed to having been paid $42 each to poison protesters, a mob dragged them outside a monastery, beat them to death and beheaded them, hanging their heads on posts at a major intersection. It was not clear whether any protesters were poi soned. A Western analyst in Bangkok said that despite the great show of anti-government force, the top lead ers appeared to be “going ahead with their own timetable ot holding a special congress Monday to pave the way for a referendum on Burma s future. He said the powerful military also appeared to be basically intact despite some defections and waver ing.” “The opposition has been effective in getting people out on the streets but ineffective in moving the govern ment. It just can’t topple it over,” the diplomat said. The diplomat cited reliable reports that in Rangoon and elsewhere, the army has been trying to seize all lood, fuel, and other essential items todig in for the long-term “and let the people starve. Maung Maung took power Aug. 19 as the country’s firstctvilian leader in 26 years. But protesters have rejected the party meeting and demanded immediate formation of an interim government to oversee a transition to democracy. Some analysts believe authorities arc orchestrating the chaos to justify a military takeover or a reassertion of the parly’s once unquestioned con trol. Witnesses have said unidenti fied, uniformed personnel were open ing up warehouses to looters, some thing which the stale radio has several times denied. Ozone in air damaging to condoms CHICAGO—Young men who §o out at night with romance in leir hearts and condoms in their wallets should find another storage place, medical researchers say. Ozone, a major component of smog and a product of lightning storms, damages the latex in con doms, and any practice threatening to tear condoms’ packaging and expose them to air should be avoided, the researchers said. “It’s not something you should subject to putting in your back pocket, or sitting on, or in any way damaging,” said Russell P. Sher win, a researcher at the University of Southern California School of Medicine in Los Angeles. Ozone is a lung irritant pro duced when industrial pollutants and nitrogen oxide react in the presence of sunlight. It reaches high levels in U.S. cities inhabited by a total of 75 million people, the federal Environmental Protection Agency estimated earlier this year. U.S. sales of condoms - fueled in part by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop’s endorsement as protection against AIDS - totaled $290 million last year and should jump 20 percent more this year, market analysts have said. Sherwin and fellow researchers tested 20 unrolled, unpackagcd latex condoms, exposing them to air containing 0.3 parts per million of ozone for 72 hours, a level comparable to a “Stage 1” smog alert in Southern Califbrrtia. Afterward, all but two condoms had obvious holes in them and * 1 burst at pressures far below those that condoms unexposed to ozone containing air were able to with stand, the researchers said. Examination of the ozone-ex posed condoms with an electron microscope also revealed deterio ration, the researchers reported in a letter in Friday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. Shcrwin said in a telephone interview Wednesday, “The pack age seemed to provide protection as long at it was intact, as long as it wasn’t perforated or crinkled.” “The general advice that we offer on condoms holds,” said Dr. Robert Staab, vice president of scientific affairs for Schmid Labo ratories Inc., the nation’s No. 2 condom-maker behind Carter Wallace Inc. of New York. “That is that they arc going to remain safe and effective for a normal life of a product, which is in years, as long as you keep them away from heat, light and o/.onc,” Staab said Thursday from the company’s Little Falls, N.J., head quarters. “Our general advice is if upon opening a condom and it doesn’t look right, don ’t use it,” Staab said. High-level talks set to survey improving U.S.-Soviet relations WASHINGTON — The United States and the Soviet Union have scheduled high-level talks to survey prospects for improving superpower relations and promoting arms control measures during President Reagan’s twilight months in office, sources said Thursday. The talks will be held Sept. 22-23 in Washington between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevard nadze and focus on arms control negotiations and the Red Army’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press. Negotiators in Geneva arc meeting on proposals to sharply reduce long range nuclear weapons and to limit weapons tests. They arc also try ing to set up East-West talks on cutbacks in conventional forces in Europe. After their session, U .S. and Sov ict experts will meet in Washington in a joint effort to slow the proliferation of ballistic missiles in the Middle East and other areas of the world. On Afghanistan, the United States has expressed satisfaction with the pace of the withdrawal of Soviet troops but is concerned about the continuing conflict between the Af ghan government and U.S.-backed rcbclsand its spillover in neighboring Pakistan. Surveying other regional prob lems, Shultz intends to question Shevardnadze about prospects for the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and to review U.S. led diplomatic efforts to work out a settlement in Angola and to promote independence for Namibia. Shultz and Shevardnadze last met in May in Geneva to iron out implem entation of the U.S.-Soviet treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear weapons and then assisted President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the Moscow summit at the end of the month. Their sessions over the years on arms control paved the way for the historic wcapons-ban treaty and an overall improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations. Still, the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no indication Reagan would hold a fifth and final summit with Gor bachev before leaving office next January. Also, differences over moni toring several types of strategic nu clear weapons apparently still stand in the way of a new treaty. Shull/ and Shevardnadze may continue their talks in New York the week of Sept. 26, when both plan to attend the special session of the U.N. General Assembly. First Pershing missiles destroyed under INF treaty KARNACK, Texas — Like mammoth Roman candles, rocket motors from two Persh ing nuclear missiles were burned today, be coming the first of 867 U.S. missiles to be destroyed under the U.S.-Soviet intermediate range arms treaty. Hundreds of people, including Vice Presi dent George Bush and a team of Soviet inspec tors, watched the static firing, in which the motors were bolted into a concrete and steel structure, ignited and allowed to bum up their fuel. Bush used binoculars to watch the first 50 sccond firing at the 8,500-acrc Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant. The first Pershing 2 motor burned at 10 a.m., followed 15 minutes later by a 40-second burning of a lighter Pershing 1 A. “This is the first elimination of such U.S. missiles under the INF treaty anywhere, world wide,” said Susan Franklin, Washington spokeswoman for the On-site Inspection Agency, established to help carry out the arms treaty. “It’s interesting,” said a member of the 12 person Soviet team, Andirc V. Krulskikh of Moscow. “We have a lot to do, though.” A small group of M ichael Dukakis presiden ■■ ■ 1 ». tial supporters and other protesters, one of whom carried a sign saying Texans for a Sane Demilitarization, lined the drive to the arsenal’s front gale. “ I he Soviets watch the motors’ static firing tocliminatc the rocket propellant in the motor,” said Dave Harris ol Kamack, a civilian em ployee with the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal. “We must then physically disable the rocket motor so the motor casing could not be reloaded and reused again,” he said. “We’re going to do that in a car crusher, squash them in a car crusher.” The Soviets arrived here Wednesday. The treaty allows up to 20 such observers. Ms. Franklin said that about nine more rocket motors were scheduled to be eliminated in the following week at Longhorn, which is 170 miles east of Dallas. Officials also will destroy Pershings and their launchers at Pueblo Depot Activity near Pueblo, Colo, and Pershing launchers will be eliminated in West Germany. The treaty became effective this summer and requires the superpowers to dismantle and destroy their intermediate- and shorter-rangc nuclear missiles. Nebraskan Editor Curl Wagner Photo Chief Eric Gregory 472-1766 Asst Photo Chief David Fahleson Managing Editor Diana Johnson Night News Editor Amy Edwards Assoc News Editors Jane Hlrt Asst Night News Lee Rood Editor/Librarian Anne Mohrl Editorial Art Directors John Bruce Page Editor Mike Rellley Andy Manhart Wire Editor Bob Nelson General Manager Dan ShaftII Copy Desk Editor Chuck Green Production Manager Katherine Pollcky Sports Editor Steve Sipple Advertising Manager Robert Bates Arts & Entertain- Sales Manager David Thiemann ment Editor Mlckl Haller Circulation Manager Eric Shanks Diversions Editor Joeth Zucco Publications Board Graphics Editor Darryl Mattox Chairman Tom Macy The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144 080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St., Lincoln, NE. Monday through Friday in the fall and spring semesters and weekly in the summer sessions, except during vacations Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a m and 5pm Monday through Friday The public also has access to the Publications Board For information, contact Tom Macy, 4759868 Subscription price is $45 for one year Postmaster Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St Lincoln, NE 68588 0448 Second class postage paid at Lincoln, NE ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1988 DAILY NEBRASKAN ---,---■■ ' - Death sentence for drug slayings OK’d WASHINGTON — The House voted 299-111 Thursday to amend an anti-drug bill to permit federal death sentences for t*ose con victed of murder committed during narcotics-reiated felonies. The vote was a major defeat for death penalty foes, who sought a mandatory life sentence for drug killers as an alternative. The life sentence provision also passed, 410-1, but the pro-death penalty forces wouldn *t slop there. They rammed through the capital punishment amendment to give federal judges an additional op tion. Only Rep. George W. Crockett Jr., D-Mich., opposed the manda tory sentence amendment. The capital punishment issue was the first major controversy addressed as the House considered legislation that would add some $2 billion to the $3.9 billion the nation is now spending to combat illegal drugs. Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., au thor of the capital punishment amendment, said it would provide a ‘ swift and certain” deterrent. A Democratic supporter, Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. of Ohio, said, ‘‘Drug dealers don’t have to read anyone their rights. The drug dealers who kill nave no con science." Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D N.Y., a death penalty opponent who proposed the mandatory life alternative, said the sentiment for capital punishment was linked to the upcoming election. "We’re now reaching the point, because it’s on the eve of an elec tion, that we may find ourselves thrown into a position where we have to explain to voters ... jusl who was the toughest on crime. who was the toughest on drug traf fickers," Rangel argued. “Sometimes it’s those who say ‘Let’s kill the rascals’ who pre vail."_ „