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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 1992)
News digest Deadly rain continues fall on Serb-besieged Sarajevo SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — In a blaze of mortar, grenade and machine-gun fire, government troops Sunday launched a new offensive to break the Serb siege of Sarajevo. Casualties were heavy in shelling down town and on the west side of the city, where government forces were trying to reach Sara jevo’s airport, now under U.N. control for an international aid airlift. U.N. peacekeepers closed the airport to aid flights after shells hit the runway. Dr. Arif Smajkic, head of the Bosnian Ministry of Health, said 46 people were killed and 303 wounded in the previous 24 hours of fighting in Bosnia, including 22 dead and 100 wounded in Sarajevo. Smajkic said the city’s main hospital had no water or electricity. Many wounded, mostly soldiers with serious wounds, were being brought in. “It is very critical at this moment,” he said. “We need water for operations, and we don’t have any.” The offensive appeared to be a last-ditch attempt by Bosnian defenders to gain a military advantage before a peace conference on Yugo slavia begins Wednesday in London. The republic’s Muslim president, Alija Izctbc govic, told reporters that his forces had made headway on the west side, but government military officials gave mixed signals. Izctbcgovic said that even if the new offen sive failed, his forces would fight on. “Sarajevo shall survive," he said. “We shall fight many, many months more.” Izctbcgovic planned to attend the peace conference, organized by the European Com munity,and the United Nations. At previous negotiations, his government has refused to talk with representatives of Bosnia’s Serbs. Throughout Saturday night and Sunday, explosions and heavy machine-gun fire could be heard throughout Sarajevo. Shells landed near the main Kosevo hospital in the city center, around government offices and on the west side. A mortar crashed into the second floor of a student hostel in the old city, killing at least two people and wounding several others. One victim remained alive for several min utes after both legs were cut off by a falling walk His screams faded into deathly quiet, perspiration covered his face, and he was dead by the time he was taken to a hospital. . S • __" f Bush takes aim at rival from Illinois State Fair Floridians flee from path of hammering hurricane SPRINGFIELD, III. — Prcsi dent Bush, opening his campaigr in the Midwest, told a cheering Illinois State Fairaudicnce Sunday that Bill Clinton would be a “rub ber stamp president that will rub ber stamp this spendthrift Congress.’ “We’re not going to let thai nightmare happen,” Bush shouted winning thunderous applause from thousands of people at the fair grounds coliseum. He told report ers that Clinton had started to “whine and complain” in the face of Re publican criticism. The Midwest is a key battle ground in the presidential race, and Bush — behind in the polls — wasted no time getting here after a two-day swing through the South to tighten his grip on a traditional GOP region. The president is ex pected to spend a lot of time in the Midwest, and his campaign is considering a whistle-slop train top. “1 am going to do what Harry Truman did,” Bush pledged. “In this campaign, no, it’s not ‘Give ‘cm hell,’ but they’re going to think it’s hell when I gel through with them.” On a sweltering summer day, the president inspected a display of tractors and farm equipment, sat down with farm families to cat a pork-chop sandwich and walked down the fairgrounds’ midway, pumping hands as he passed by stalls selling french fries, milkshakes, com dogs and pop corn. He passed a lent of the Illinois Democratic Parly and one of its officials, state central committcc woman Shirley McCombs, ac knowlcdgcd, “It’s exciting to have the president here.” But she said she wouldn’t vote for Bush — “no, no, never.” White House Chief of Staff Sam Skinner, on his last day on the job, lagged along with the president. Back in Washington, Secretary of State James A. Baker was giving up his title as secretary of state to take over Skinner’s job. Despite a lot ol anticipation, Bush was silent on a burning issue for Midwest farmers: whether he would grant a waiver for the sale of corn-made ethanol as fuel for cars and trucks. The Environmental Protection Agency proposes to ban its use in polluted cities on grounds that it depletes the ozone. Admini stration officials said the decision is not ready yet. The coliseum was hot and dusty. “If you’ll excuse me one political comment,” Bush said, “1 have a message for Gov. Clinton. Ameri cas aren’t afraid of nulling spend ing and lowering taxes. They feaf most of all a rubber stamp presi dent that will rubber stamp this spendthrift Congress.” He lashed out at Clinton for saying Bush was distorting his record and was a fcarmongcr. “Nine monthsof hammering me — he takes a little, gentle broad side and he starts to whine and complain all the lime,” the presi dent told reporters. “People don’t want that. Compare the ideas: lax and spend versus less taxes and less spending.” As for Clinton’s record. Bush said: “It’s a joke.” MIAMI — Hurricane Andrew surged relentlessly Sunday toward southern Florida and forecasters warned it would be the United States’ most powerful storm in decades. More than 1 million coastal residents were told to flee. The hurricane ripped into the Bahamas Sunday afternoon with 150 mph winds, heavy rain and surging tide. The outlying eastern islands of Abaco and Elculhcra were hit first. “It’s on a dead course for South Florida. I hoped I would never expe rience this,” said Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center in suburban Coral Gables. “We’ve not seen anything like this in the past few decades.” v-. Gov. Lawton Lmlcs issued a stale of emergency. On Sunday afternoon, Andrew was a Category 4 storm, the same as Hur ricane Hugo, with wind*of 150 njph. Forecasters expected ilio roach Cate gory 5—the worst—as it crossed the Gulf Stream to Florida. It was expected to hit Florida be tween 6a.m. and 8a.m. Monday, said Dan Donahue, a spokesman for the National Guard. Forecasters predicted 156 mph winds would sweep down town Miami. At 2 p.m. EST Sunday, Andrew’s center was near 25.4 north latitude and 75.8 west longitude, just off Eleulh cra in the northeastern Bahamas and about 280 miles cast of Miami. Hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph extended out 30 miles from the center, and storm-force winds of at least 39 mph spread out 85 miles. In the Bahamas, Jimmy Curry, director of production for the Baha mas News Bureau, said he had uncon firmed reports of four deaths on either Abaco or Elcuthcra. Newly swom-in Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham urged calm and pleaded with Bahamians to go to shelters. The Tribune in Nassau re ported that all tourists were evacu ated before the hurricane hit. Hurricane specialist Max Mayfield said two hurricane forecasters had been sent to a backup station in Washington to take over in ease the National Hurricane Center — which is in the evacuation /one — Jk)scs power. There arc records of only two Category 5 hurricanes hitting the United Stales: Hurricane Camille, wlticlf dcvasiatcd the Mississippi coast in 1969, killing 256 people, and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and killed 405 people. Category 5 hurricanes, with winds greater than 155 mph, can cause cata strophic damage. The governor’s emergency decla ration allowed the mandatory evacu ation of more than a million people and pul the National Guard and other emergency state agencies on alert. Warnings that Andrew could be stronger than Hurricane Hugo— which left 85 people dead and S5.9 billion in damage as it swept through the Carib bean and into the Carolinas in 1989 Hurricane Andrew i f i l *P — electrified an already lenscaimos- M ptierc in the densely populated strip from Miami to Palm Beach County. Residents rushed to secure their homes, hammering up makeshift plywood shutters if they did not have hurricane awnings and moving boats to sale anchorages up the Miami Riser or pulling them out of the water. Panic buying hit grocery and home supply stores, money machines were emptied and motorists lined up for gas and headed inland. “I want to go somewhere way west, said 73-ycar-old Irving Goldberg as he wailed to be picked up at a Miami Beach evacuation point. “I want to be out of the area completely.” Clinton slips in polls, calls Republican charge offensive I CHAUTAUQUA. N.Y. — Bill Clinton said Sunday that President Bush invoked a “deeply offensive” political ploy in questioning Demo crats’ commitment to God and said Republicans should be ashamed of their “off the wall” attack linking his values to Woody Allen’s. Clinton, counter-attacking as he and running mate Al Gore wrapped up their Rust Bell bus lour, said Re publicans were floundering because Democrats had a superior economic plan to pul Americans back to work and help raise their children. After arriving in Eric, Pa., early Sunday, Clinton defended his wife Hillary in the wake of a number of attacks on her by speakers at the Republican National Convention. If President Bush “wants to run against my wife, it’s OK with me if he wants to be first lady, but I don’t want to live with him,” Clinton told a crowd. . On Sunday, Housing Secretary Jack Kemp said he believed that some GOP convention speakers had gone “too far” in criticising Mrs. Clinton. “If she says something that bashes the president or Barbara Bush, she should be taken on,” he said on N BC’s “Meet The Press.” “But so far as I can tell, she ha> not,” Kemp said. “I don’t want to sec bashing of anybody’s wife. I want u; to bash ideas, bash policies, and that’* legitimate,” he said. In another development, a CNN USA Today-Gallup poll releasee Sunday found Clinton ahead of Bus! by 10 points — 52 percent to 42 percent — in a survey of 750 regis tered voters Friday and Saturday. The week before the convention, the poll had Clinton ahead by 19 points — 5t percent to 37 percent. The margins ol error were 4 points for the latest poll and 3 points for the earlier one. And a post-GOP convention poll by The Orange County Register said Bush regained the lead over Clinton in that traditionally Republican area of Southern California. Bush was chosen by 48 percent of I those surveyed while Clinton had 38 i percent in a poll taken Thursday and Friday, the newspaper said Sunday. The president, talking to evangeli cal leaders in Dallas, charged that Democrats have all but abandoned God and said he was “struck by the fact that the other parly took words to put together their platform but left out three simple letters: G-O-D.” Clinion hil back Sunday alter he, Gore and iheir wives, Hillary and Tipper, attended Methodist church services in Erie, Pa. The four had landed there around 1 a.m. EDT and had found 5,000 people wailing for their bus caravan. Clinion, a lifelong Baptist, seldom misses church. His wife is a Methodist. “The implication that he has made, that Democrats arc somehow God less, is deeply offensive to me, to Sen Gore and to all of us who cherish our. religious convictions but also respect America’s tradition of religious di versity," Clinion said. Fighting intensifies in Afghan capital KABUL, Afghanistan — Intensi fied fighting drove the United Na tions to evacuate its foreign workers from war-tom Kabul on Sunday. The Islamic government asked the world body to turn over former President Najibullah, who remained in hiding in U.N. offices. Najibullah took refuge in the United Nations compound in the capital in April, after his Soviet-installed gov ernment was driven from power by Islamic rebels after a 14-year civil war. Subsequent fighting between rebel groups has turned the city into a bumed oul battlefield. The only U.N. personnel remain ing in the U.N. compound on Sunday were Afghans, who did not immedi ately respond to the government’s request that Najibullah be turned over to stand trial on war crimes charges. A spokesman at U.N. headquarters in New York refused comment. Meanwhile, a senior U.N. official in Pakistan announced a $10 million emergency aid package to get medi cal supplies to Kabul’s hospitals and food to nearly 100,000 refugees who have fled the city. The fundamentalist Hczb-c-Islami group has been raining rockets on Kabul this month in its power struggle with the government. Fighting inten sified Sunday when rockets hit resi dential areas, killing four people and wounding 100, doctors at Kabul’s four main hospitals said. Missiles also hit the Pakistani Embassy and the presidential palace. More than a dozen homes near the U.N. Children’s Fund office caught fire during shelling. Nebraskan I Editor Chris Hoplensperger 472*1766 Managing Editor Kris Ksrnopp Assoc News Editor Adesna Lsitln Assoc News Editor/ Wendy Navratll Writing coach Sports Editor John Adklsson Arts & Entertain ment Editor Shannon Uehllng Diversions Editor Mark Baldridge Photo Chief William Lauer Night News Editors Kathy Stelnauer Mike Lewie Kim Spurlock Kara Morrtson Art Director Scott Maurer General Manager Dan Shaft II Publications Board . Chairman Tom Massey Professional Adviser 406-4761 Don Walton 473-7301 braska Union anno c.SF!S 1 , °®d) 18 PbbUsSd bj’the UNL Publications Board. Ne g weekly SuTg^ummT, issiorT*"' NE' Monday ,hrou0h Ft** the academic year, | « 8ubmi1 s,or* ldea8 a"d comments to the Daily Nebraskan by I access9to the Punii^f^?n£a .mcand 5 P m Monday through Friday. The public also has # sS£S!£ p^S$loBto!,Sni%i,0fma,ion’con,ac'Tom Ma88ey-488 8761 • I Si L?ncoln*NE fa5M^M«2!?'2a! 10 ,he Dai,V Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34, 1400 R * bt.,Lincoln, NE ®J588J)448_Second-class oostage paid at Lincoln, NE." S -_ ALL MATERIAL copyright 1992 DAILY NEBRASKAN_I