News Digest Edited by Brandon Loomis
Panama City tense after American’s death
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PANAMA CITY, Panama - Sol
diers in battle gear surrounded U.S.
military bases near the tense capital
Sunday following the fata) shooting
of an American officer in the worst
confrontation between Panama and
the United States in 25 years.
Panamanian soldiers used trucks
and buses to block streets leading to
Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega’s
headquarters.
The Panamanian Defense Forces
accused U.S, officers of a provoca
tion without mentioning the Ameri
can’s death Saturday night.
According to a U.S. Southern
Command statement, the officer was
“off duty, unarmed and in civilian
clothes when he and three others were
stopped by Panamanian soldiers near
the Defense Headquarters in the old
section of Panama City.”
The Panamanians tried to drag the
Americans out of their car and the
Panamanians fired at them as they
drove off, killing one officer, the
statement said. His identity was with
held, pending notification of rela
tives.
The U.S. officers were in the area
because they made a wrong turn and
were lost, said Col. Ronald Sconycrs,
a Southern Command spokesman.
The Panamanian statement said
the U.S. officers had ‘‘broken
through checkpoints and fired at the
headquarters building, wounding a
soldier and two civilians, including a
1-year-old girl.”
President Bush was inlormed ot
the situation by National Security
Adviser Brent Scowcrofl, White
House deputy press secretary Roman
Popadiuk said in Washington.
“We deplore this act of violence.
We are presently looking into the
circumstances of this incident,
Popadiuk said. ‘ ‘The Noriega regime
is isolated both domestically and
internationally and has been using
force and intimidation to thwart the
will of the Panamanian people. Acts
such as those of last evening arc the
consequence of such a regime.”
Maj. Shelley Rogers, a Pentagon
spokeswoman, said Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney had attended a
Pentagon briefing on the confronta
lion.
Word of ihc death and rumors of
U.S. retaliation spread quickly. Sun
day morning people at a gas station
discussed what the United States
might do and spoke of the imminent
“arrival of the Americans.”
U.S. soldiers mobilized along the
perimeters of U.S. installations a few
miles northwest of Panama City.
Lines of armored personnel carriers
and trucks stood at the ready inside
the boundary of Fort Clayton.
Combat units were not seen at
U.S. bases closer to Panama City,
including U.S. Southern Command
headquarters at Quarry Heights,
which borders the capital to the west.
The 12,000 U.S. troops stationed
in the Panama Canal area were re
stnctcd to base and only authorized
movement was permitted.
A golf course at Fort Amador a
base shared by U.S. and Panamanian
military units, was deserted Sunday
A causeway where Panamanians pic
nic near the fort was empty except for
a salsa group rehearsing.
The nearby Bridge of the Ameri
cas across the Panama Canal was
open.
Panama’s opposition leaders re
fused to comment directly about the
shooting, saying the information they
had received was “confusing.’’
But Christian Democrat leader
Ricardo Arias Calderon said the con
frontation was the result of other
clashes between Panama and the
Uhited States in recen? months.
• <
Brian Shallito/Daily Nabraakan
Oregon, Montana compete
for Guinness-record river
GREAT FALLS, Mont. - Fifth
grade teacher Susan Nardinger is
rallying the faithful in this river
city to defend its short reputation,
which has been assaulted once
again by river rats in Lincoln City,
Ore.
Students in Nardingcr’s class
touched off the battle two years
ago, when they petitioned the
Guinness Book of World Records
to declare the 201-foot-long Roc
River northeast of Great Falls the
world’s shortest river.
Guinness editors agreed, and
the Roc displaced Lincoln City’s D
River in the 1988 edition of the
record book.
But Lincoln City was not about
to be sold short.
They remeasured the D River
iind announced that it was 120 feel,
mysteriously smaller than the last
measuring. And, Guinness editors
notified the Lincoln City Chamber
of Commerce recently that the D
River would be back in the books
by the 1991 edition - unless a
shorter river is found.
Well, that’s just what students
in Great Falls intend to do. and
they’ll look no farther than the
Roc.
Nardingcr said the Roe could
claim a length of only 30 feel be
cause it has two forks, and the
students submitted the longer of
the two for consideration of the
record. .
‘‘I stand behind the kids 100
percent,” she said Friday.
Pilots attempt to rescue family
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Rescuers
on Sunday were trying to reach a
family trapped at a lodge in the
shadow of Redoubt Volcano as it
continued to belch ash and steam
over much of south-central Alaska.
Pilots of Alaska Helicopters Inc.
for two days have tried to reach Mike
and Sandy Coulter and their 2-year
old child at the lodge on Big River
Lake, about 20 miles northwest of
Redoubt. The efforts were hampered
by clouds of ash and poor weather.
The family has radio contact with
rescuers and apparently is not in
immediate danger.
The 10,197-foot volcano, located
about 115 miles southwest of An
chorage and quiet since the 1960s,
started erupting Thursday. Ash
drifted as far south as Oregon, and
was expected to reach California and
Arizona by Sunday.
The U.S. Geological Survey de
scribed the amount of ash sent up this
weekend as “low to moderate,” sig
nificantly less than Friday, when
Redoubt had its largest eruption since
emerging from a 23-ycar dormancy.
Haze from the volcano on Saturday
drifted across Anchorage, Alaska’s
largest city, with more than 173,000
people, triggering power outages,
health alerts and disrupting air traffic.
At midday Sunday, snow was falling
with no ash apparent in the city.
Poland considers new economic plan
to curb inflation and privatize industry
WARSAW, Poland - The Solidar
ity-led government Sunday intro
duced perhaps the most radical eco
nomic reform legislation ever at
tempted in the East bloc: a shock
treatment to break monopolies, cut
subsidies, privatize industry and curb
900 percent inflation.
Deputy Prime Minister Lcszek
Balcerowicz told Parliament the new
course would “open new perspec
tives of proper living, free develop
ment and fruitful and satisfying
work.”
The government, in the biggest
test of its public support to date, intro
duced a dozen bills to radically trans
form the ailing economy and asked
the Sejm, the lower house of Parlia
ment, to approve them in time for the
program to be implemented Jan. 1.
It is expected that the plan will
provoke some opposition in the com- ,
ing days from some Communist
deputies and some in the Solidarity ,
bloc, whose industrial worker con
sutucncy will be among the hardest
hit, but that it will ultimately pass as
a package.
With Prime Minister Tadcusz
Mazowiecki, the East bloc’s first
non-Communist head of govern
ment, somberly looking on, Bal
ccrowicz outlined a virtual disman
tling of 45 years of Marxist-Lenmisl
economic policy.
i nc pian includes
• Instantly balancing the deficit
ridden state budget through strict
austerity.
• Cutting off most stale subsidies
to businesses and institutions, includ
ing the Communist Party.
• Freeing prices.
• Limiting wage increases.
• Turning the zloty into a convert
ible currency, probably in January or
February.
• Attacking monopolies and be
ginning an orderly scllol f of state in
dustries to the private sector, proba
bly in phases next year.
• Reforming the banking and tax
systems.
• Establishing a social safety net
for the poor and jobless, whose ranks
arc expected to swell as a result of the
new measures. #
Referring to the drop in output and
inflation of 900 percent that have
rocked the Polish economy this year,
Balccrowicz conceded Poland is
launching its reform in “extremely
unfavorable conditions.”
The overall program, which Ma
zowiecki’s government has been
working on since taking office in
September, already has met require
ments laid down by the International
Monetary Fund, which demanded
fundamental reforms before it would
authorize any loans to Poland.
IMF head Michel Camdessus has
said a letter of intent for a $700 mil
lion standby loan agreement with
Poland will be signed in the near
future.
That, in turn, will open the way to
$3.2 billion to $3.5 billion in addi
tional loans and liberal rescheduling
of Poland’s $40 billion foreign debt
by Western nations, which have lined
up in recent months to back Poland in
its turn toward democracy.
Public support of the Solidarity
led government has allowed Mazow
iccki to propose de<jper budget cuts
and greater public sacrifices than
previous Communist governments
dared.
Subsidies for goods and services,
which last year ate up 31 percent of
public spending, will be reduced to
14 percent. Subsidies will remain, at
lower levels, in only a few areas: for
housing, public transport,coal, bread
and low-fat milk and cheese.
Price hikes in the range of 25 per
cent to 50 percenf a month arc ex
pected in the first stage of the pro
gram, as enterprises lose their subsi
des and raise prices to survive.
Coal and energy prices alone arc
expected to rise five to seven times
and enough companies will be forced
lo cease operating that the economy
may face an army of 400,000 unem
ployed, officials have said.
The price increases and the limits
on government spending and wage
increases will cut real incomes by 20
percent next year, with a projected 5
percent decrease in industrial output
and a 2 percent to 3 percent dropoff in
the gross national product.
But the government-induced re
cession should squeeze inflation
down to a few percent a month by
mid-1990, planners say.
Communist Deputy Stanislaw
Gabriclski demanded that Bal
cerowicz explain “the scope of soci
ety's impoverishment.’’ Other depu
ties expressed concern about the need
for unemployment, or that the econ
omy might not survive a wholesale
sclloff of zlotys when the Polish cur
rency is made convertible with hard
currencies.
Company recalls 1.7 million
packages of contraceptive pills
MORRIS PLAINS, N.J. - Warner
Lambert Co. said Sunday it is recall
ing about 1.7 million packagcsof oral
contraceptives made by its Parkc
Davis Division because tablets were
misplaced in some boxes.
The company is recalling its Loc
strin and Norlcstrin contraceptive
tablets because brown iron tablets
were placed in the first row rather
than the fourth row of the 28-pill
dispensers.
Warner-Lambert said in a news
release that the pills were misplaced
in less than 100 dispensers but it
decided to recall all of the product as
a precaution. If a woman took the
seven iron tablets before taking the
21 white, yellow, pink or green tab
lets, an unwanted pregnancy could
r" ---
occur, ihc company said.
The iron tablets arc placed in the
packages to help women get used to
111
4Anybody who’s
been on the prod
uct would know
something is
wrong. ’
Cohen
taking the pills, said Warner-Lam
bert spokesman Barry Cohen.
“Anybody who’s been on the
product would know something is
wrong,’’ Cohen said.
Nebraskan
Editor Amy Edwards Graphics Editor John Bruca
AssdfSs^diffs LlMncS**V*8 Night News*Editors JanJ {Sdenlen
assoc News Editors Lisa Donovan Dtana Brayton
Editorial Pane Friirrv ij..nn*r „ Art Director Brian Shalllto
W?re Fd n Q General Manager Dan Shattll
*"tBsf£ SSttr «i£ss; asssr*
*"* eSSSE ; *r rJSSJSK K“'y
n editor Mlchiil D<hk13 Chairman pim u§in
Diversions Editor Mick Dyer na.rman PafnMftin
Sower Editor Lea Rood Professional Adviser Don Walton
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