1VT /XTA7C T"\ 1 dir Ob C? 4“ Associated Press
X x c W I J l Edited by Jana Pedersen
I Baghdad may have expelled
I anti-Iranian political group
i WASHINGTON - Iraq, responding to a request from Iran, appears
| to have expelled members of a major Iranian opposition group, U.S.
officials say.
► Members of the People’s Mujahcdecn of Iran, the largest group
! trying to overthrow the clerical government in Tehran, have apparently
started leaving Iraq for Paris and other European sites, said the officials
who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
The move is in keeping with Iraqi attempts to end its economic and
diplomatic isolation by courting Iran, a one-time enemy with which it
fought a disastrous eight-year war until 1988.
In recent weeks Iraq has ceded many of its war gains, sending back
thousands of war prisoners, withdrawing troops from areas it captured
in the war, and agreeing to share sovereignty over the strategically
important Shatt-al-Arab waterway.
In return, Iraq asked for permission to hook into a major Iranian oil
pipeline and circumvent the international naval blockade that’s pre
venting the export of its oil. The Iraqis also asked Iran for food and
medicine.
Iran has sent some truckloads of food, but has not responded to the
pipeline request, U.S. officials say.
“We’re very watchful of what kind of relations Saddam Hussein is
able to establish with Iran,” said CIA Director William Webster in an
3 interview this week with The Associated Press. “So far, Iran is in a kind
of win-win situation.”
Iran and Iraq have restored diplomatic relations and restaffed their
embassies in each others’ capitals.
“The sense is that with this new understanding between Iran and
Iraq, an organization like that (the PMOI) is not welcome there any
more,” said another administration official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported several limes last month
that Massoud Rajavi, lift PMOI’s Baghdad-based leader, had asked his
people to leave Iraq and Was himself leaving for Germany.
But PMOI representatives in the United Slates, who used to bombard
reporters with phone calls, interview oilers and news conferences, have
all but disappeared in recent weeks. Repeated calls to their officials
have not been returned.
The group did hold a news conference at U. N. headquarters Wednes
da> to complain about Iran’s human rights record, but the officials
refused to discuss their relations with Baghdad despite repeated ques
tioning.
Administration officials walk out of negotiations
Party squabbles plague talks
WASHINGTON - Bush admini
stration officials stalked out of defi
cit-reduction negotiations Sunday,
complaining that Democrats were
divided over a Republican offer to
raise taxes on the wealthy.
The setback in efforts to work out
a compromise $250-billion package
of tax increases and spending cuts
came late on a weekend in which the
two sides seemed to be moving to
ward each other on ways to boost
taxes on the richest Americans.
“We’re not going to negotiate with
Democrats who can’t come to an
agreement among themselves,” said
White House Chief of Staff John
Sununu, as he left the Capitol with
White House budget chief Richard
Darman and Treasury Secretary Nicho
las Brady. “This was a great offer,”
Bush administration officials
pushed a plan, first floated late Satur
day, to boost the income-tax rate on
the richest taxpayers from 28 percent
to 31 percent. Sununu said the pack
age also limited deductions available
to the highcst-incomc people.
Democrats rejected the proposal
and responded with a counteroffer of
their own. Throughout Sunday, the
two sides offered refinements on their
plans at private meetings and in tele
phone conversations.
But in the late afternoon, Sununu
and the others returned to the White
House.
“They got caught with their hands
in the pockets of the working men and
women of this country, and they are
still trying to make their way out of
it,” Sununu said.
He was apparently referring to a
dciicii-reuucuon piau passed ny the
House — and written by Democrats
— that would have delayed inflation
adjustments to income-tax brackets
and the personal exemption. The
proposal, in effect, raised income taxes
slightly on everyone who pays the
income lax.
Asked if the negotiations were
breaking up, Sununu said, “We’re
always available,”
Afterward, Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell, D-Maine, said
Democrats would continue working
on their offer and expected to meet
with GOP congressional leaders into
the evening.
Republicans have been fearful of
late that Democrats have made the
tax-the-rich battle cry their own barely
two weeks from Election Day.
Young Arabian murders Israelis
JERUSALEM - A knife-wielding
Arab teen-ager shouting “God is
Great!” stalked a quiet Jewish neigh
borhood Sunday, stabbing three Is
raelis to death, police said. They said
he was seeking revenge for the Temple
Mount killings.
One victim managed to shoot and
wound the attacker, who was then
seized by furious residents, ending
the rampage in the Baka area in south
ern Jerusalem, police said.
Police said they would bar Arabs
from traveling into Jerusalem today
and would patrol sensitive districts of
the city to head off clashes, spokes
man Aharon Elchayani said.
The early morning incident in
flamed tensions in the city, running
high since the killings of at least 19
Palestinians on Oct. 8 at Jerusalem’s
Temple Mount, when Israeli police
fired into a stone-throwing mob.
Two Palestinian factions claimed
responsibility for Sunday’s attack, but
police said they believed the assailant
acted alone. The suspect was identi
fied as Omar Abu Sirhan, a 19-year
old Arab laborer from the village of
Ubbadiych in the occupied West Bank.
Avi Cohen, the officer leading the
interrogation, said the attacker appar
ently chose his victims at random
after the idea of revenge attacks “took
shape in his mind in the past week.”
He said Abu Sirhan had no known
criminal background.
The slain Israelis were an 18-ycar
old woman soldier, a 43-ycar-old
garden nursery owner and a 28-ycar
old member of an elite police anti
terrorism unit, police said. The off
duty police officer managed to shoot
the assailant as he was being attacked.
Angry Israeli youths stoned Arab
owned cars on a Jerusalem highway.
Shouts of “Death to the Arabs!” re
sounded in the streets of Baka.
Defense Minister Moshc Arens
voiced fears that Arab-Jewish com
munal violence was reducing pros
pects of a Mideast peace settlement.
He told Israel television’s Arabic
language service he feared “a chasm
is opening” that will make any recon
ciliation difficult.
Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek
appealed for calm, saying the atlaek
was “a tough test of people’s patience
and tolerance.”
Some Israeli politicians demanded
broader powers for troops and police
to fire on attackers. They also said the
off-duty policeman should have
immediately shot the assailant dead.
Instead, the officer fired his pistol in
the air, then shot the attacker in the
legs.
“If someone attacks with intent to
kill, he should be killed on the spot,”
Agriculture Minister Raphael Eitan
mid.
Daylong depression program may catch on
QUINCY, Mass. - June recently
lost a relative, and her sorrow would
not abate. Then she read an article
about a hospital’s daylong program
on depression, and found herself among
150 neighbors in need of help.
Douglas G. Jacobs of Quincy Psy
chiatric Associates said his unusual
session, which he hopes will be a
model for programs nationwide, pro
vided potent evidence of the wide
reach of depression.
In fact, three of the people who
came to the free session held earlier
this month at Quincy City Hospital
were immediately hospitalized be
cause “they were in the midst of a
suicidal crisis.”
Jacobs was concerned but not sur
prised. He said statistics show fewer
than 30 percent of depressed people
ever get help. Although most people
who do seek counseling can recover
in six to nine months, the recovery
Nebraskan
Editor Eric Planner
472- 1766
Managing Editor Victoria Ayotta
Assoc News Editors Darcle Wlegert
Diane Brayton
Editorial Page Editor Lisa Donovan
Wire Editor Jana Pedersen
Copy Desk Editor Emily Rosenbaum
Sports Editor Darran Fowler
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
The Daily NebraskanfUSPS 144 080) Is
published by the UNL Publications Board. Ne
braska Union 34. 1400 R St , Lincoln, NE.
Monday through F nday 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 9am and 5
p m Monday through Friday The public also
has access to the Publications Board For
information, contact Bill Vobejda, 436-9993
Subscription price is $45 for one year
Postmaster Send address changes to the
Daily Nebraskan Nebraska Union 34,1400 R
St.,Lincoln, NE 66566 0446 Second class
postage paid at Lincoln, NE
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
1960 DAILY NEBRASKAN
period involves severe bouts of stress
and disruption at home and work.
Fifteen percentdon’l recover; they
commit suicide, Jacobs said.
“At any time, 7 1/2 (million) to 10
million people suffer from depres
sion,” Jacobs said. “Many depres
sions go unrecognized, and the ulti
mate loss is suicide. We re trying to
encourage people to identify depres
sion in themselves.”
Jacobs, a psychologist who spe
cializes in suicide research, has been
on the Harvard Medical School fac
ulty for 12 years. He developed the
idea of the one-day program at the
hospital as a way to familiarize people
with the symptoms of depression and
10 encourage treatment.
“This is not a substitute for a psy
chiatric evaluation. This is to learn
about depression, to learn about the
signs and symptoms,” Jacobs said.
“I’m going to propose this to be con
ducted statewide and perhaps nation
ally. That will take a lot of planning.”
About 15 participants in the session
contacted him or another mental healrh
professional for follow-up treatment,
and in all, “at least 50 percent could
have benefited from treatment,” Jacobs
said.
Menial health professionals say
doctors need to be more familiar with
the symptoms of depression, which
often manifests itself physically.
Many have depressed patients and
don’t know it, said Melvin Sabshm,
medical director for the American
Psychiatric Association in Washing
ton.
“A lot of people who have depres
sion start with physical symptoms,”
said Sabshin. “Loss of sleep, physical
problems of other kinds — fatigue,
general lack of energy, headaches,
gastric problems. They suffer from
sexual problems, too.”
Jacobs called the APA for some
guidance on the program, and the
national organization couldn’t name
a similar endeavor.
“The program that (Jacobs) had in
Quincy was excellent,” Sabshin said
last week. “It could be a prototype
that we could consider for a program
on a national basis.”
The one-day session in this city
just south of Boston consisted of three,
two-hour sessions including a half
hour lecture by Jacobs, a videotape of
depressed people discussing their
condition, informational literature, and
a questionnaire. Each participant also
got a brief session with a counselor.
Spreading AIDS virus may be illegal
WASHINGTON - An increasing
number of slates now have laws that
make It a crime to knowingly expose
another person to the AIDS virus.
Since 1986, 22 states have passed
laws making it illegal to engage in
conduct that could transmit the hu
man immunodeficiency virus, or HIV,
believed to cause acquired immune
deficiency syndrome, according to
the AIDS Policy Center at George
Washington University.
“The idea of trying to prosecute
somebody for attempted transmission
of HIV is increasingly, almost alarm
ingly, common,” said Lawrence O.
Gostin, director of the AIDS Litiga
tion Project of the U.S. Public Health
Service and a professor at the Har
vard University School of Public
Health.
But, he said, “when somebody is
actually having sex with somebody, I
think the risk is significant enough
that prosecutors arc well within their
rights to prosecute.”
While the number of AIDS-related
prosecutions nationw ide is not known,
the military seems to be having the
best success with such cases, the experts
say.
Last week the Supreme Court re
jected without comment an appeal by
Nathaniel Johnson Jr., an Air Force
sergeant who was convicted in a mili
tary court of aggravated assault be
cause he had homosexual relations at
McChord Air Force Base, Wash., while
knowingly infected with the virus.
The Air Force Court of Military
Review said at least six previous courts
martial had been convened based on
AIDS-related assaults. Such conduct,
it said, ‘‘can be analogized to attempt
ing to put poison in the drink of a
victim.
Johnson was dishonorably dis
charged and sentenced to six years in
prison. But the outcomes in civilian
courts so far have tended to be differ
ent, Goslin said.
“It is enormously problematical to
try to reach into the bedroom and
create a criminal prosecution around
it, and the only ones who have been
successful in doing that arc the mili
tary,” Gostin said.
Part ol the reason is because most
civilian cases involve biting, spitting
or splashing blood rather than inter
course.
“Most of the eases of (infected)
men sleeping with people arc mili
tary cases," said Gostin, who is also
executive director of the American
Society of Law and Medicine.
Aoun supporter
killed by gunmen
in Beirut suburb
BAABDA, Lebanon - Gun
men burst into the home of a
top supporter of Christian Gen.
Michel Aoun on Sunday and
shot the supporter, his wife and
two sons to death, police said.
Only an 11 -month-old girl sur
vived.
The daybreak massacre of
Dany Chamoun and his family
in their suburban Beirut apart
ment came a week after a Syr
ian and Lebanese government
troops crushed Aoun’s mutiny
in Lebanon’s Christian enclave.
No group immediately
claimed responsibility for the
slayings, which were branded
by Christian and Moslem lead
ers alike as an attempt to block
a plan to end the 15-ycar-old
civil war.
Chamoun, a Maronitc Catho
lic and the son of late President
Camille Chamoun, was one of
the most outspoken critics of
President Elias Hrawi and
Syria’s military presence in
Lebanon.
He also was at odds with
Christian warlord Samir Gca
gca, whose Lebanese Forces
militia (ought a four-month war
with Aoun’s troops early this
year for mastery of the Chris
tian hinterland.
Aoun himself look refuge a
week ago in the French Em
bassy. France has granted him
asylum, but the Lebanese gov
ernment insists he stay and stand
trial for alleged crimes includ
ing the theft of $75 million
from the state treasury.