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FT MpW5 Ku.edpress NelSa&kan Z J IV %>y Edited by Jennifer O'Cilka Monday, April 22,1991 lack medical care t_am a f fAA/1 fAm Ainc« unAirAn «< >i«U tL. ... UZUMLU, Turkey - Three weeks after the Kurdish exodus from Iraq, an international relief effort has succeeded in feeding most of the refugees camping in the Turkish moun tains, say relief officials and refugees. But water shortages and medical care re main serious problems for the 800,000 Kurds along the bolder. “They have basic food. In that sense, there was a turning point reached last week,” said Constantin Sokoloff, a field officer for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. “Psychologically, people are getting better, they’re settling down,” he said. Still, scores refugees are dying each day on the border from preventable diseases, relief workers and government officials say. Dehy dration and the resulting severe diarrhea have killed many infants. “Sanitation really is the main thing,” said Dr. Sandra Allaire of Canada, who is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross at Uzumlu, a camp of about 50,000 people in a mountain basin on the border. Meanwhile, the situation for an estimated 1 million Kurdish refugees in Iran remains “criti cal,” the U.N. refugee office said. Omar Bakhet, head of the office’s field operations in Iran, said some supplies are get ting through, but only slowly — and not enough. Iran, rather than the international commu nity, continues to bear the main burden of the relief effort, estimated to cost $10 million a day, Bakhet said. Four Belgian transport planes left Brussels on Sunday for Ourumieh in western Iran with tents and blankets for 3,000 refugees, and a medical team aboard, officials said. Allaire said disease would continue to spread rapidly in the Turkish camp at Uzumlu unless it had clean water and toilets. The stench of excrement wafts through the air. The camp is the worst-supplied of the three main refugee settlements on the Turkish bor der. U.S. soldiers and Turkish workers have begun digging latrines at some camps. But Uzumlu -«--— They have basic food. In that sense, there was a turning point reached last week. Sokotoff field officer for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees - 99 - still lacks any facilities. Women at the camp roll out pita bread on wooden boards and cook beans and noodles over campfires. The rubbery brown wrappers from U.S. military Meals-Ready-to-Eat carpet the ground. “The Americans and the British send us very good things,” said a 23-year-old medical student who identified herself only as Kurdis tan. But there is little sign of water. And distri UU11VI1 VI IV/VU IVIMHUIU M*'V » VII, TV IUI UIV OUUMg est refugees often able to grab the most pack ages parachuted onto the hillsides by U.S. and British aircraft. Special Forces troops and Red Cross work ers on Sunday were investigating ways to pipe stream water to the refugees at Uzumlu. The U.S. troops also will provide desperately needed medical care to the camp. Refugees continue to storm trucks carrying bread and milk to the camp. One refugee was killed and five were injured Sunday when Turkish troops fired into a crowd to stop a riot at a food distribution point near Cukurca, an other major camp. “The food is OK, but there’s no milk,” complained Khayria Ramadan, cradling her sunburned, 1 1/2-month-old baby next to her campfire. Gautier Lambot, a logistics director of the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said the dirt road to the Uzumla, which frequently became a nearly impassable sea of mud, had prevented supplies from getting through. Gorbachev has another tough week ahead MOSCOW - President Mikhail Gorbachev, just back from a difficult and disappointing Asian trip, faces an even tougher week at home. A strike by coal miners demand ing his resignation enters its eighth week and more walkouts are threat ened by workers blaming their eco nomic woes on the policies of Gor bachev’s government. Hard-line legislators are increas ing their pressure on Gorbachev, seeking to convene a special session of the national parliament to examine his performance. And the Communist Party Central Committee meets to discuss the na tion’s deepening economic and po litical crisis. It is expected to have a spirited discussion of Gorbachev’s six-year tenure as party chief. Gorbachev returned Saturday from an Asian trip on which he managed only mixed success. South Korea promised to participate in a multibil lion-dollar natural gas project in the Soviet Far East, but Gorbachev failed to win a commitment from Japan for substantial financial aid. Before he landed in Moscow, grim economic statistics published in So viet newspapers indicated the gross national product fell 8 percent in the first quarter and labor productivity dropped by 9 percent. “Can we go on living and working this way and call ourselves citizens of a great country if with our own hands we are pushing the nation into an abyss?” asked a commentary in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda. Members of the hard-line Soyuz group of Communist lawmakers, mean wmic, said at a weekend conlcr ence that Gorbachev should resign. They considered ways to convene a special session of the Soviet parlia ment to try to recall him as president. On Monday, Gorbachev is due to give an accounting of his Asian trip before Supreme Soviet legislators. His prime minister, Valentin Pavlov, is expected to outline an “anti-crisis program” for rescuing the Soviet economy. In the evening, Gorbachev will take time out to celebrate the 121 st anniversary' of the birth of Vla dimir Lenin. I Baker waits for Israeli word JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Secre tary of State James Baker said Sunday he’s not putting pressure on Israel to compromise its stand on peace talks with the Arabs, but made it clear there should be “an international characteristic” to any negotiations. While Baker waited to hear from Jerusalem, he flew here to discuss a sharply limited role for the oil rich kingdom in resolving the Arab Israeli dispute. “1 do not anticipate that they would be there in the context of the political discussions between Is rael and her Arab neighbors and the political discussions between Israel and Palestinians,” he said at a news conference in Cairo. In Jiddah, Baker was to hold talks with Saudi King Fahd and Prince Saud, the foreign minister. Baker met Saturday with Jordan’s King Hussein and Sunday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In the meantime, Baker’s strat egy seemed geared to placing the onus on Israel to keep his peace mission from disintegrating. “We have not heard responses to the suggestions that we made in my Iasi visit,” Baker said. He has refused to spell out the proposals he left Friday with Is raeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Sha mir and Foreign Minister David Levy. But Baker has said the Soviets should co-sponsor the peace talks with the United States and he’s leaning publicly in the “direction of Arab and European demands for an international conference.” “There is an international char acteristic to any meetings that would involve five, or six, or even seven countries from different parts of the world,” Baker said in Cairo. Baker said he called Shamir on Saturday, not to get answers but to “give him my own personal de briefing of my visit to Jordan.” “We do not intend to press or obviously to pressure for an an swer,” Baker told reporters. Israel agreed nearly two weeks ago to negotiate with the Arab states and representatives of the 1.7 mil lion Palestinians who live on the West Bank in Gaza. But Israel wants to restrict the Soviets to a limited role, bar members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and keep all outside powers except the United States on the sidelines. The Israeli cabinet took up those issues Sunday, but delayed any decisions until later in the week. Baker’s aides told reporters Saturday that he would not return to Jerusalem after he ends his lour of Arab countries in Syria on Tucs day. But Levy was quoted in Jerusa lem as saying Baker would return Tuesday night and hold meetings there Wednesday. Meanwhile, Israeli newspapers reported Baker had asked Shamir and Levy if they would allow the United Nations and the European Community to participate in peace talks. Baker, the newspapers said, also asked the Israeli leaders if they would try to exclude Pales tinians with links to East Jerusa lem. Shamir and Levy want to deal directly with the Arabs. They don’t want even a symbolic suggestion that East Jerusalem, which became part of Israel’s capital after the 1967 Midcast War, should be handed over to the Arabs. Palm Beachers upset over public attention PALM BEACH, Fla. - There’s a For Sale sign just a few doors down from the Kennedy estate. But, no, an international scandal in the neighbor hood isn’t driving away the always preened, sometimes prim and usually private residents of this island of wealth. Indeed, while many longtime Palm Beachers express disapproval — even suggesting it’s the Kennedys who should move out — feelings among the Rolls-Royce set are mixed about the Kennedy case and all the attention it’s brought their town of 12,000 resi dents. “Except for the ones who are titil lated, the rest are embarrassed,” said Kathryn Robinette, editor of Palm Beach Today, a newspaper that chron icles charity parties and gallery open ings and appears twice weekly during the Thanksgiving-to-Easter social season, weekly the rest of the year. Easter social season, weekly the rest of the year. “It’s a terrible thing for Palm Beach,” said Esther Elson, who like other longtime residents, worries that publicity surrounding a woman’s al legation that she was raped at the Kennedy estate will further change the town. “It’s going to ruin our beautiful town,” she said. “We’ll be getting a lot of trash here.” On the surface, Palm Beach — with its marble mansions surrounded by tall walls and hedges pruned to perfect straightness — seems safely shielded from any change that it doesn’t want, and some locals say the latest of many society scandals shouldn't concern their neighbors. “That’s just apprehension on their part,” said George Lewis Jr., a past president of the town’s Board of Realtors. “Henry Flagler used to do a lot worse things than that,” he said, re ferring to the developer who helped found Palm Beach 80 years ago by extending a railroad to fill his hotels about 70 miles north of Miami. Many older Palm Beachcrs remem ber a world even more cloistered and set apart and say they’re adjusting reluctantly to many changes — some subtle, some less so — that have come to their town. Medicare proposal urges cost analysis WASHINGTON - A proposed rule calling for cost-benefit analysis of new types of medical care for the elderly could pul additional burdens on Medicare recipients, critics said Sunday. “I find it a little paradoxical that a program designed to protect senior citizens against cost now may be step ping back from its public obligations to protect them just because some thing may be too expensive," Gordon Schatz, a lawyer who specializes in health care issues, said Sunday. The rule, which is awaiting adop tion, would require the federal gov ernment for the first lime to compare costs and benefits of specific types of care in deciding whether to pay foi them. Schatz, who is familiar with the proposal, said the regulation is evi dently a response to budgetary re straints brought on by the federal deficit. Horace Dcets, a top official of the American Association of Retired Persons, said he wasn’t familiar with the rule but worried that it, like othci proposals to deal with health costs, would merely “shift the cost perhaps from the government to individuals.’ The New York Times said in its Sunday editions that Gail Wilensky, head of the Health Care Financing Administration, sent the proposal tc Health and Human Services Secre tary Louis Sullivan. Wilensky was at a conference Sunday and could not immediately be reached for comment. Previous rules have called for considering safety and effectiveness in determining whether Medicare would pay for new services and pro cedures such as liver transplants and magnetic resonance imaging. The new rule also provides for considering whether those procedures would be more or less cost effective than alter natives already approved. About 34 million elderly and dis abled people are enrolled in Medi care. The overall cost of the program tripled in the last decade, and is ex pected to reach $104 billion this year. Netfraskan Ednor Eric Planner Night News Editors Pat Dlnalage 472-1766 Kara Walla AssomSMXI '(letortaAyotte Cindy Woatrel assoc News Editors Jana Pedaraan Art Director Brian Shelllto Editorial Pane Felt™ |["'l¥1R1OB*nbaum General Manager Dan Shattll Ld.tor al Page Ed o Bob Raison Production Manager Katharine Pollcky ^2 r s»«r *“215 war rrr sassK*" j*j$*?on braskaUniwSbl400R(StS,|?nIlJ.n'0i22) 18 Publ,8hod by the UNL Publications Board Ne I weekly dur?ng summer sessions ’ NE‘ Monday through Friday during the academic year. ^ phomng 763 o°a#mbmit,?tery ldoas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by I 3,50 * union *■1400 R I -- — — L MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1991 DAILY NEBRASKAN__!■