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News Digest By the Associated Press Edited by Victoria Ayotte Gunmen assassinate former Medellin mayor BOGOTA, Colombia - Gunmen on Mon day assassinated a former mayor of Medellin who crusaded to oust drug cartels from the city, which is the cocaine center of Colombia and the focus of violence in the country’s drug war. Five or six attackers firing 9mm automatic pistols from two cars killed Pablo Pclaez Gonzalez as he was being driven to the local metal products factory he operated, police said. Pelaez’s driver also was killed and a body guard was wounded, said a police spokes woman who refused to be identified. The killers fled, police said. Radio reports said they were dressed in black. Colombian television showed bullet holes in the front and rear windshields of Pelaez’s while BMW sedan. His personal papers were scattered across the back seat. Near Medellin, invaders Monday set fire to a farm owned by the head of the government oil company. A similar attack Sunday targeted the ranch of a government official who supports turning over drug traffickers’ property to the poor. In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Richard Boucher called Pelaez’s killing “deplorable and reprehensible.” Pelaez, 45, a former police inspector, was elected mayor of Medellin, Colombia’s sec ond-largest city, in 1984 on the Liberal Party ticket, the party of President Virgilio Barco. He left office in 1986. Pelaez founded a local group called “Love for Medellin,” aimed at eliminating drugs and crime. Last week, the 4th Army Brigade in Medellin announced the arrests of four sus pected leaders of a cocaine-cartel' ‘hit squad” that sarcastically called itself ‘‘Love for Medellin.” Barcoand Colombia's drug lords have been at war since Aug. 18, when narcotics gangs assassinated the police chief of Medellin and Sen. Luis Carlos Gaian, the leading presiden tial candidate and a cartel foe. The government retaliated by decreeing emergency powers, under which it has summa rily confiscated bank accounts, ranches, air planes, boats and cars believed to belong to fugitive drug bosses. It extradited one reputed cartel member, Eduardo Martinez Romero, to face trial in the United States. Martinez Romero was flown to Atlanta to face charges he was involved in the laundering of millions of dollars of cocaine cash for the Medellin cartel, believed responsible for 80 percent of the cocaine reaching the United States. He pleaded innocent Monday and was ordered jailed without bond. Drug gangs have responded to the govern ment crackdown with daily bombings, arsor and shootings, mostly in Medellin. The arson attack Monday was on a rand near Medellin belonging to Andres Restrcpt Londono, the head of the government oi company ECOPETROL. The oil company saic no one was injured. Justice Minister Monica de Greiff, whose office handles extraditions, returned to Colom bia on Sunday night and met Monday with President Barco, her office said. East Germans reach freedom I'M Twelve ~15uT J[ Look. f© OR || I PASSAU, West Germany — Crammed into sputtering sedans and cheering their new freedom, thou sands of East Germans reached Bav aria on Monday in a historic exodus permitted by the reform-minded Communist government in Hungary. More than 2,000 refugees had made the journey from Hungary to Austria and then West Germany by midmoming, with hundreds more streaming in later in the day. News reports said the total could top 10,000. “I decided on escaping 27 years ago, and today it worked. It’s a feel ing that’s just tops, just wild,” said a 40-year-old Leipzig man after cross ing into West Germany at Passau. Single people, couples and fami lies with children and babies made the journey from Hungary to West Germany - by bus, rickety sedans or motorcycle. Many refugees were cheering and shouting as they reached Bavaria under the blaze of television lights, while their children played with teddy bears handed out by relief workers. Some tumbled out of compact cars packed with people and jubilantly flashed victory signs after crossing into West Germany. It was the greatest flood of East German refugees since 1961, the year the Berlin Wall halted the flow to the East Hungary's action marks the first time a Warsaw Pact country has aided an exodus of refugees from an allied communist nation. East Ger man leaders expressed outrage at the Hungarian government, and state news media accused it of4 ‘organized smuggling of humans.” SAT, ACT scores decline NEW YORK - After almost a decade of steady gains, average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores among women and several minority groups slipped last year. The College Board reported Monday. Overall, scores among the 1,088,223 high school students w ho took the SAT in 1989 showed little change for the fourth consecutive year. Average verbal scores dropped a point to 427 compared with 1988; math scores were unchanged at 476. Average composite scores on the ACT Assessment, the college en trance test that predominates in 28 states mostly in the Midwest and West, dipped 0.2 points in 1989 to 18.6. Averages on the four-part exam, assessing English, math, social studies and natural science skills, are scored on a scale of 1 to 35. Critics for years have accused both tests, especially the SAT, of being biased against women and minorities, and the latest averages again displayed a wide race and gen der gap. White students gained two points on their combined SAT scores to 937 - averaging fully 200 points higher than blacks, whose math-verbal scores were unchanged from the pre vious year at 737. Women’s combined scores dipped two points to 875; male test -- lakers averaged 934, one point higher than a year earlier. The SAT, sponsored by The Col lege Board and administered by the Educational Testing Service in Prin ceton, N.J., is the predominant col lege entrance exam in 22 states. The two-part, multiple-choice test is scored on a scale of 200 to 800, with a combined 1600 being a perfect score. The ACT, taken by 855,171 high school students last year, is admini stered by American College Testing, headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa. The organization announced that, beginning in October, students will receive 12 scores instead of the cur rent five, including seven new sub scores in specific content areas of English, math and reading. College Board President Donald M. Stewart attributed the continued lag in SAT averages among women and minority students to inequities in educational opportunities. He nonetheless noted that scores among most minority groups have been gaining more rapidly than among whites during the 1980s, at least until this year. Average scores among blacks, for example, have gained 28 points on the math portion of the SAT and 21 points on the verbal since 1979. John Bruce/Dally Nebraskan Search is on for ‘Tomorrow’s’ Annie NEW YORK — She must be be tween 3-foot-10 and 4-foot-4, sing loudly and clearly, be able to act and tap dance, look 10 or 11 years old and, of course, not be afraid of dogs. The search for Broadway’s new Annie began Monday morning when 29 little girls walked on stage at the Golden Theater to face Martin Chamin, director of “An nie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge,’’ the new musical about the world’s most famous orphan. “Why are we doing this mad thing?” sighed composer Charles Strouse as he prepared to listen to endless renditions of a little mel ody he wrote called ‘ ‘Tomorrow.” ‘ ‘ We shou Id be playing poker. ’ * The girls on hand Monday morning were the first batch of youngsters to audition forChamin, Strouse, casting director Pat McCorkle, choreographer Danny Daniels and others connected with the $7 million musical that is to open March 1 on Broadway. Some girls waited for more than four hours before they were let into the theater. The audition was open to anyone with enough courage to be there. Nine-year-old Brandie Gray of Louisville, Ky., and her mother, Teresa, arrived at the theater at 5:30 a.m. to stake out their place in line. Right behind them was 9-year old Jill McEachem of Jackson, Miss., who with her mother, Carolyn, showed up at 6:30 a.m. Jill confided she never had ap peared in “Annie,” but “I watched the movie a lot.” Bush accused of avoiding arms control MOSCOW -- Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze accused President George Bush on Monday of depriving the world of major arms control agreements by not taking advantage of opportunities created by the Reagan administration. Shevardnadze made the harsh criticism in an interview with the government daily Izvestia in advance of his Sept. 22-23 meeting with Sec retary of State James A. Baker III. The criticism was remarkable because it dealt not only with arms control but the U.S. attitude toward perestroika, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform program. Itcon strasted with generally upbeat com ments by Soviet officials lately about U.S.-Soviet relations. “I think that because of the re strained, indecisive position of the American administration, both the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., as well as the entire world community, have lost a lot,” Shevardnadze said in the interview. He contrasted the “constraint and timidity” of the Bush administration on arms control with progress made during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, which ended in January. “After recent stormy years, a peculiar lull has set in. The tempo of movement toward new agreements, in any case on the key directions of real nuclear disarmament, don’t sat isfy us,” Shevardnadze said. The Soviet envoy contrasted the 1987 superpower agreement to elimi nate medium-range nuclear weapons with a lack of progress under Bush on pacts to reduce strategic nuclear weapons and ban nuclear weapons tests. In June, he said, Soviet negotiators entered resumed talks on strategic arms with fresh proposals, but despite “promised ‘new ideas,’ our Ameri can partners frequently preferred to cite a lack of principle decisions in Washington,” he said. The result, Shevardnadze said, has been that the Geneva talks are frozen, further from an agreement now than during the previous U.S. administra tion.’ He told Izvestia the negotia tions should have resumed by build ing on the foundation laid last fall but instead are ‘ ‘going around it without an apparent goal. ’ A major dispute in the talks has been over U.S. plans for space-based missile defenses. The Soviets want to limit the so-called Star Wars, or Stra tegic Defense Inititauve. Disagreement also persists or long-range nuclear-tipped cruise missiles based at sea. Moscow want' to include them in a treaty but Wash ington refuses, saying compliance could not be reliably verified. On domestic policy, Shevard nadze said some people in the Unitec States want to stop perestroika be cause they think that would strengthen the U.S. position in the world. Among them, he said, are people who hope for the * ‘restoratior of capitalism here and the undermin ing of the Soviet federation.’ ’ He die not identify the critics. The foreign minister also la mented4 ‘an unrealized series of pos sibilities” for U.S.-Soviet economic ties and accused Washington of bein$ “one of the participants in the sense less bloodletting” in Afghanistan. The United States supplies rebels fighting Afghanistan’s Marxist gov emment, which in turn is supplied b> the Soviet Union. Nebraskan Editor Amy Edwards Photo Chiet Eric Orsgory 472-1766 Night Newt Editors Eric Planner Managing Editor Jane Hln Darcle Wlegeri Assoc. News Editors Brandon Loomis Librarian Victoria Ayotte Ryan Steevea Art Director Andy Manhart Editorial Page Editor Lee Rood General Manager Den Shattll Wire Editor Victoria Ayotte Production Manager Katherine Pollcky Copy Desk Editor Deanne Nelson Advertising Manager Jon Daehnke Sports Editor Jett Apel Sales Manager Kerry Jeffries Arts & Entertainment Publications Board Editor Lisa Donovan Chairman Pam Hein Diversions Editor Joeth Zucco 472-2588 Sower Editor Lee Rood Professional Adviser Don Walton Suoolement* Editor Chris Carmlt 472*7301 Ths Dally NebraskanfUSPS 144-080)1* published by the UNL Publication* Bo?'d, Ne braska Union 34,'1 '00 R St., Lincoln, NE. Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 0 a.m. and 5 pm. Monday througn Friday the public also . has access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Pam Mein, 472-2588. 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