0
By the.
Associated Press
Edited by Brandon Loomis
Negotiators drop demands, make arms control progress
MOSCOW - The United States
and the Soviet Union made headway
Thursday toward new arms control
agreements, officials on both sides
said.
A half-dozen senior U.S. officials,
speaking on condition of anonymity,
said Secretary of State James Baker
III and Soviet Foreign Minister Edu
ard Shevardnadze made progress
toward treaties to curb long-range
nuclear weapons, ground troops, tanks
and combat aircraft in Europe, and to
ban production of chemical weapons.
Both Shevardnadze and Deputy
Foreign Minister Alexander Bess
mertnykh echoed the positive U.S.
appraisal. “The discussion of the
disarmament problem is proceeding
very well,” Shevardnadze told Tass,
the Soviet news agency.
Bessmertnykh, who specializes in
U.S. relations, was quoted by Tass as
saying both sides had presented new
ideas, narrowing the gap between their
positions.
Gennady Gerasimov, Soviet For
eign Ministry spokesman, called the
discussion “very technical’’ and said
it would keep U.S. and Soviet experts
busy through the night sorting the
proposals out.
-4 4
The discussion of
the disarmament
problem is proceed
ing very well.
Shevardnadze
Soviet Foreign Minister
-f f -
Baker offered at least one conces
sion that would permit the Soviets to
exclude from a projected ceiling some
of the combat aircraft they contend
are defensive.
The Soviets, meanwhile, dropped
their demand for a provision that would
allow them to scrap a long-range
missile-reduction agreement if they
determined U.S. anti-missile defenses
in space were illegal.
But the U.S. official who reported
the concession acknowledged that the
treaty, which President Bush and Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev intend
to sign at their Washington summit
meeting in June, would include an
escape clause. Either side could aban
don the restrictions if it concluded the
treaty did not serve its national inter
est.
The separate briefings produced
evidence of discord, too.
Gerasimov said the United States
still flatly refuses to consider reduc
ing naval forces. And he said the
Soviets would not sign the treaty if a
dispute over sea-launched cruise
missiles was not resolved.
The Bush administration refuses
to accept limitations on the weapons
carried aboard nuclear submarines and
surface ships.
Soviet activists call for more reforms
MOSCOW - Communist mav
erick Boris N. Yeltsin and progres
* sive activists said Thursday the
party’s decision to renounce its legal
claim on power is not enough to
end Soviet political repression and
centralized control.
“It is necessary to eliminate
(Communist) party organizations
in the army, the police, the KGB,
the courts, in all the state institu
tions,’’ said Yuri Mityunov, a
spokesman for one would-be op
position party, the Democratic
Union.
Yeltsin was the sole member of
the party’s policy-making Central
Committee to oppose the political
reforms Wednesday. He said they
failed to go far enough.
“I had grounds to vote against
But I think, however, that the plat
form represents if not a step then a
nan-siep loiwaiu, anu uiai lessens
the tension before the (party) Con
gress,’ ’ he said in an interview in
his office near the Kremlin.
He recommended the formation
of a second party if the Communist
Party fails to excise conservatives
at the Congress to be held in early
summer.
Mityunov said pressure for re
form is now moving to the streets
and pointed to the growing number
of incidents of angry crowds across
the Soviet Union demanding the
ouster of hard-line local Commu
nist leaders.
Party secretaries in Volgograd,
Tyumen, Chernigov and Sverdlovsk
were removed in recent weeks, and
activists said 6,000 people gath
ered in front of the party headquar
ters in Donetsk on Wednesday with
a similar demand
•
,000 gallons of Alaskan crude oil was
spmed off the Orange County coastline about
35 miles from Los Angeles The oil slick cov
ered an area meaurmg 2 1/2 miles by 4 miles
Oil slick threatens estuaries
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Califr
A drifting oil slick threatened
miles of, beaches and estuaries
Thursday after a tanker apparently
was punctured by its own anchor
and spilled 295,000 gallons of
Alaskan crude oil.
But favorable offshore wind held
the slick stationary against an on
shore current about a mile out to
sea from this popular Southern
California recreational area. And
calm seas eased the effort to skim
the oil from the surface
The 811 -foot tanker American
Trader, which had been fully loaded
w.th 21 million gallons, lay off the
coast surrounded by a floating oil
containment boom and Coast Guard
vessels.
The purple shek covered an area
measuring 2 1/2 miles by 4 miles,
said Coast Guard Lt. Vincent
Campos. Throe skimmer boats were
at work and five more were en
route to the area, off the Orange
County coastline about 35 miles
southeast of Los Angeles.
Along the shore, booms were
laid to protect the environmentally
delicate estuaries at the Santa Ana
River mouth, Anaheim Bay, Bolsa
Chica Wetlands and upper New
port Bay — all teeming with wild
life.
Biologist Esther Burket said oil
coming ashore on a sandy beach
would be less harmful than in an
estuary such as Bolsa Chica, where
birds would ingest the petroleum
with the planus they eat.
Curt Tauchcr, a Fish and Game
spokesman, said there was some
initial concern about migrating gray
whales but that was not the biggest
worry. “The concern is for the
furbearing animals, harbor seals,
qmmals like that,” he said.
Mindful of the massive Exxon
Valdez spill in Alaska last year,
California politicians rushed to call
for tighter controls on oil shipping
and suffer penalties for spills.
“This is a wake-up call,” said
Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy.
The American Trader was char
tered by British Petroleum Oil
om^ing lu. uan, miu uiau*
erich, manager of the firm’s Los
Angeles field office.
The spill began Wednesday
afternoon while the tanker maneu
vered 1 1/2 miles off Huntington
Beach to moor at a nest of mooring
buoys at an offloading station for
an underwater pipeline leading to a
refinery on shore. Water in the area
is about 80 feet deep.
A swell may have lifted the ship
and swung one anchor against the
bottom, Schmidt said in a tele
phone interview after speaking with
the ship’s captain.
A diver found a 3-foot hole in
the single-hull bottom of the No. 1
forward compartment, a tank which
holds more than 1 million gallons
of crude. Industry critics say tank
ers should have double hulls for
safety.
NetSra&kan
Editor Amy Edwards Professional Adviser Don Walton
472-1766 473-7301
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1990 DAILY NEBRASKAN
AIDS records slowest increase
ATLANTA - The number of new
AIDS cases in the United States rose
just 9 percent in 1989 -- the slowest
increase ever — but the disease is
spreading faster among heterosexu
als, newborns, women and Southern
ers, federal AIDS specialists reported
Thursday.
A total of 35,238 AIDS cases were
reported in 1989 by the national Centers
for Disease Control, compared with
32,196 reported during 1988. That 9
percent increase is easily the slowest
since the spread of AIDS began in the
early 1980s. For example, AIDS was
up 34 percent in 1988 and 60 percent
in 1987.
* ‘This is somewhat of a continuing
trend,” said Dr. Ruth Berkelman, chief
of AIDS surveillance for the Atlanta
based CDC. ‘‘There has been a level
ing in reported cases.”
The CDC also attempts to tabulate
AIDS cases according to when they
were first diagnosed. In the latest 12
month period of that survey (October
1988 through September 1989) the
annual increase was similarly mod
est. a 14 percent rise over the preced
ing 12 months, the CDC said.
The two tabulations differ some
what in part because of case reporting
delays, revisions in the standards for
reporting of AIDS cases and other
factors.
Of the 35,238 new AIDS cases
reported in 1989,56 percent occurred
among homosexual and bisexual
males, as has been the case in previ
ous years, the CDC said. But those
cases among gay and bisexual men
were up only 8 percent over 1988
levels, while heterosexual-contact
cases — just 4 percent of the total --
were up 27 percent compared with
the previous year.
‘‘I think the leveling off reflects
both a reduction in the number of new
infections among homosexual and
bisexual men, and also the introduc
tion of some effective therapies (such
as the drug AZT) in 1987, delaying
the onset of AIDS itself among in
fected persons,” Bcrkelman said.
In 1989,547 cases of AIDS trans
mission from mothers to newborns
were reported, up 17 percent from
1988. And while females made up
just 3,931 of the 35,238 cases last
year, that was an increase of 11 per
cent over 1988; the number of male
AIDS cases last year was up 9 percent
from the preceding year.
Other larger proportional increases
occurred in the South, up 22 percent
over 1988; in population areas of less
than 100,000, up 35 percent; and in
areas of 100,000 to 500,000 people,
up 32 percent.
Among the regions, the South
accounted for the largest proportion
of AIDS cases reported in 1^89, 31
percent, compareu wiui jo percent in
the Northeast, 24 percent in the West
and 10 percent in the Midwest.
And the majority of cases - 70
percent -- occurred in cities of a mil
lion people or more.
The number of new AIDS cases
among hemophilia patients actually
dropped 5 percent in 1989, from 339
in 1988 to 321. And the cases associ
ated with blood transfusions dropped
14 percent, from 935 to 808. Im
proved screening of blood donations (
since the AIDS epidemic began has
reduced the danger from new transfu
sions and from the blood products i
used by hemophiliacs.
“But in IV (intravenous) drug users,
we have not seen such optimism,”
Bcrkclman said. Intravenous drug j
abusers still make up the second larg
est group of AIDS patients, and the I
7,970 such cases in 1989 marked a 5
percent increase over 1988.
Nationwide, the CDC has reported
117,781 cases since AIDS reporting
began in 1981. Sixty percent have
occurred in homosexual or bisexual J
men, and 21 percent have occurred
among IV drug abusers, with 7 per
cent among patients in both catego
ries.
AIDS has killed 70,313 of the
117,781 reported patients, or 60 per
cent.
Business fined tor transporting video
M-K Enterprises of Dcs Moines,
Iowa, and its president, Lynn Sparks,
have been fined and Sparks sentenced
to probation in U.S. District Court for
conspiracy and transportation of ob
scene material in interstate commerce.
Judge Warren Urbom fined M-K
Enterprises, parent company of the
Embassy Theater, $50,000 and or
dercd ihc Iowa company to pay spe
cial assessment costs of $400.
Urbom on Wednesday sentenced
Sparks, 32, to five years’ probation, a
$41,800 fine, 1,200 hours of commu
nity service and barred her from
ownership or management in compa
nies dealing with X-ralcd films.
Sparks and M-K were convicted in
Sepiembcrof transporting and selling
the videotape “Marilyn Chambers’
Pnvatc Fantasies No. 5,” which Urbom
ruled obscene.
The Embassy Theater ordered the
tape from M-K and Sparks, who sent
it to Lincoln via United Parcel Serv
ice. The tape was then sold to an
undercover police officer.
Omaha attorney files civil rights suit
alleging segregation in public housing
umaha - A civil rights lawsuit
was filed Thursday in U.S. District
Court in Omaha accusing Omaha’s
public housing program of discrimi
nation against racial minorities.
Attorney Mary Clarkson of Omaha
said she filed the class-action suit on
behalf of four black residents of the
Logan rontenelle low-income public
housing project. The four are Mary
Hawkins, Rodrequiz Hargett, Clau
dia Nelson and Ersalene Davis.
Clarkson is an attorney with the
law firm headed by Robert Broom,
the former Legal Aid Society lawyer
who filed the lawsuit that led to court
ordered integration of Omaha public
schools.
The public-housing lawsuit says
that the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development, the Omaha
Housing Authority and the City of
Omaha “have constructed and main
tained a segregated system of feder
ally assisted housing and that the
practices of all defendants in differ
ent ways have caused a separate seg
regated housing system.”
The suit asks the court to block
local and federal governments from
doing anything to perpetuate what the
suit says is a segregated housing sys
tem.
Steven Reikes, legal counsel for
OHA, said he was not aware of the
lawsuit.
Clarkson said her clients cite as an
example of discriminatory policy the
Omaha City Council’s Dec. 13 vote
defeating a proposal by OHA to tear
down Logan Fontenelle and replace it
with scattered-site housing across the
city.
She said the council’s decision to
retain Logan Fontenelle means low
income housing residents have to
remain in racially segregated com
munities. She said HUD and OHA
have “condoned” for years a policy
of allowing whites and blacks who
qualify for public housing to live in
racially separate projects.
“We want the court to certify that
this is a class action. We want a
declaration that the defendants have
implemented and continued a segre
gated system of housing. We want an
injunction against actions by defen
dants which would continue the sys
tem -- an injunction requiring the
defendants to prepare and implement
a plan completely eliminating the
effects of discriminatory actions.