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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 7, 1989)
News Digest Four more dead from Tibet riots BEIJING - Police opened fire on Tibetan protesters who marched through Lhasa and burned Chinese businesses Monday in a second straight day of violence. Four Tibet ans were reported killed. Security forces moved into the city’s Tibetan section and pulled people from their homes, taking some away in jeeps, American tour ists said. Chinese troops also beat Tibetans, said the travelers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of police reprisal. “One boy’s face was completely bloodied,’’ said a man from New Orleans. “He was no older than 10. Blood was coming from his ears, his eyes.’’ The Americans and other tourists were contacted by telephone in the Tibetan capital from Beijing. As they spoke, automatic weapons fire and exploding tear gas canisters crackled in the background. Bonfires burned in the streets, they said. The official Xinhua News Agency reported one Tibetan was killed and eight others, including two police men, injured in the violence Monday. Xinhua had said 10 Tibetans and rvnn Phinpcp wnw tillpH in anti-Chinese demonstrations Sun day. Western travelers quoted Tibet ans as saying that many more had died on Sunday and that at least four Tibetans had been slain Monday. The U.S. State Department on Monday deplored the use of weapons on pro-independence protesters in Tibet and called for a restoration of order. Police in Lhasa fired from rooftops near the city’s main square late Monday afternoon, killing at least two Tibetans, an American tour ist quoted Tibetans as saying. Several hours later, security forces fired on a group of 40 independence activists as they threw rocks at a building near the Jokhang Temple, another tourist said. He quoted Tibet ans as saying at least two protesters were killed in that incident. On Monday morning, thousands of Tibetans Hooded the old city, breaking into the small Chinese- and Moslem-run stores that fill the area, pulling out their contents and burning them in bonfires along the main thor oughfare in the city. The protests began Sunday when 13 Buddhist monks and nuns started marching near the Jokhang, shouting “Independence for Tibet.” Police opened fire. A crowd of Tibetans then began ransacking Chinese buildings. The bloodshed occurred days be fore the 30th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese on March 10. It marks the fourth violent outburst in 18 months against Chinese rule. i Complaints up onrats in London] I LONDON - Wintertime, and the living is eaSfy in the kingdom of Rattus norvegicus, the common brown rat which has become un commonly numerous around Brit ain. Complaints about rats are up as much as 70 percent in parts of London, which has had just a touch of slush during a very mild winter. Similar increases have been re ported in Bristol, Manchester and other large cities. “I’ve never, never known such a year,” said Stuart Slater, chief environmental services officer of Babergh District Council north east of London. ‘‘I haven’t had a Saturday off since the end of No vember.” Norman Foster, health officer for the Mid-Suffolk Council, said he received 1,323 rat complaints last winter. This year, he had matched that total by late Decem ber - before winter had officially begun. Rcntokil, one of Britain’s larg est exterminators, has doubled its sales of poisons this winter, said Peter Bateman, the company’s director of public relations. With the increase in rats, there has been a growing concern about Weil’s disease, which is spread by rat urine in water. The ailment used to be seen mostly in miners and sewer workers, but cases have cropped up among water skiers and canoeists. The reasons for the rat’s pros perity are various. “We’ve had mild winters be fore, without having more rats,” said Graham Twigg, retired senior lecturer in Zoology at Royal Hol loway College at the University of London and author of scholarly books on vermin. ‘ ‘Certainly in towns, one aspect of it is the lack of good hygiene,” said Twigg, who has done research on rats in coal mines and Carib bean canefields. “It’s one of those things, a general lack of attention. This country is pretty scruffy,” he said. Hilary King, spokeswoman for the Institution of Environmental Officers, said decaying Victorian sewage systems in big cities have contributed to the problem. She also blamed the illegal dumping of garbage, and the spread of fast food restaurants. Efforts to poison rats have been frustrated by the rich menu of trash and de bris, especially from fast-food restaurants, said Angela ; Moon, envi ronmental health officer for the borough of Lambeth in south London. “They would rather cat that than our poi son,” she said. The sewers, at least, have their defenders. “There have been a lot of sto ries around recently, a story which comes up year after year after year, that rat populations are increasing and sewers are decaying. I just say: prove it,” said Brigette Daniels, spokeswoman for Thames Water, which is responsible for a thousand miles of sewers in and around London. If there are more rats about, she said, “we believe they are above ground rats.” In Bristol, an industrial city in western England, the sewers are taking the blame without dispute. “The sewers are crumbling because of lack of upkeep, and the rats are finding it increasingly easy to get out,” said Peter Archer, Bristol’s assistant chief environ mental health officer. “Also, there is a great deal of redevelopment going on, and if the drains arc not property sealed when the old buildings arc knocked down the rats can find their way up them and appear, to everyone’s horror, on the nice piece of landscaped garden outside the gleaming new office blocks.” 1 “We can control rats in two ways - by blocking up the holes in the sewers so that they cannot get out, and by poisoning them. We want to do both, but the govern ment’s spending limits mean that V we cannot do either properly,” he said. Muscovites flock for rock from western world I MOSCOW - Hundreds of enthu siastic young Soviets lined up in a snowstorm outside record stores Monday to buy a new album by two dozen of the West’s biggest rock stars, and authorities erected steel barricades and dispatched police to control the crowd. The hoopla was especially great on Kalinin Prospckt outside the Melodiya store, where British rocker Peter Gabriel and Annie Lennox of Eurythmics autographed copies of “Breakthrough.” A police guard was posted at the door, and a steel barricade was set up on the sidewalk as Soviets wearing traditional Russian fur hats and West ern-style ski caps massed. Melodiya, the name of the state’s record company as well as record stores, is notorious for small press ings of popular albums, especially rock, and the initial pressing of 500,000 copies of “Breakthrough” was likely to last just a couple of days - if not hours. Melodiya plans to re lease 3 million copies, as well as 500,000 cassettes, in this country of 285 million people. A black market for Western rock recordings thrives in the Soviet Un ion, and even Melodiya Director Valery Sukharado admitted to report ers, "I don’t know how many (cop ies) will be released on the black market.” The two-record album, a compila tion of songs previously issued in the West by individuals and groups, was produced by Greenpeace, the interna tional environmental group. Interna tional release is scheduled April 25. Some of the rock stars told a news conference they were surprised at how well rock is known in the Soviet Union, where the music was once condemned as ‘‘decadent” and kept underground. Now, the sounds of Dire Straits or Soviet pop stars like Black Coffee arc heard on oncc-staid official Radio Moscow. Jerry Harrison, keyboard player for the Talking Heads, said he and several other Western musicians vis ited a rock music center Sunday night in Gorky Park and saw Soviet musi cians who had made their own instru ments. ‘ That shows how much the kids in the Soviet Union want to play rock music and are interested in it,” Harri son said. Gabriel said he liked several So vict rock groups and quipped, This is the best way to conquer the West. He said he learned during his visit that an album of his had been released in the Soviet Union and “found the fans here very warm, friendly and generous.” Gabriel said he would like to perform in the Soviet Union next year if his band is ready. bukharado said Meiodiya win donate about $16 million from record sales to a Moscow-based charily lhal is working with Greenpeace on envi ronmental problems in the Soviet Union. Peter Bahoulh, the executive director of the Greenpeace branch in the United States, said his organiza tion plans to open an office in Moscow. East - West talk arms issues I VlfcNNA, Austria - roreign min isters from 35 countries met Monday for East-West conventional arms control talks that may bring sweeping reductions in troops and military hardware from the Atlantic to the Urals. During a three-day conference at Vienna’s former Hofburg imperial palace, the ministers also will review prospects for a conference to build confidence and security between East and West bloc nations of Eu rope. The ministers were in Vienna in January to wrap up the Helsinki fol low-up Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which agreed on the new arms control talks and landmark human rights provisions for the Soviet bloc. A new man on the scene this time is Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who will meet Tuesday with his Soviet counterpart, Eduard A. Shevardnadze. r— — —-1 $.50 OFF i Any pizza 475-6363 i NAME_I ADDRESS_' I DATE___ EXPIRES 3-31-89 $1.00 OFF ^ I Any Pizza Ordered . | 11 &.m.-4 p.m. 475-6363! Name_ ADDRESS_| DATE__I EXPIRES 3-31-89 Nebraskan Editor Curl Wagner 472- 1766 Managing Editor Jane Hlrt Assoc News Editors Lee Rood Bob Nelson Editorial Page Editor Amy Edwards Wire Editor Diana Johnson Copy Desk Editor Chuck Green Sports Editor Jell Apel Arts & Entertain ment Editor Mlckl Haller Diversions Editor Joeth Zucco Graphics Editor Tim Hartmann Photo Chief Connie Sheehan Night News Editors Victoria Ayotte Chris Carroll Art Directors John Bruce Andy Manhart Sower Editor Klrsfln Swanson Supplements Editor Deanne Nelson General Manager Dan Shattll Production Manager Katherine Pollcky Advertising Manager Robert Bates Sales Manager David Thiemann Circulation Manager Eric Shanks Publications Board Chairman Tom Macy 475-9868 Professional Adviser Don Walton 473- 7301 The Daily NebraskanfUSPS 144-080]i is Dubiished by ihe UNL Publications Board, Ne braska Union 34, ,400 R St.. 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