Page
2
By The
Associated Press
Edited by Kristine Long
NEWS DIGEST
Nebraskan
Wednesday, March 16,1994
Israel army on alert
as protests increase
TEL AVIV, Israel — Tens of
thousands of right-wing demon
strators, including many Jewish
settlers from the occupied lands,
defied threatened Muslim funda
mentalist attacks Tuesday to pro
test the government’s peace poli
cies.
The army was on high alert
against the Muslims who threat
ened suicide attacks if settlers in
five areas didn’t evacuate by Tues
day. Troops set up roadblocks and
clashed with Palestinians in Jerus
alem and the Gaza Strip.
One Arab gunman was killed
after ambushing a jeep.
The government also broadened
its crackdown against anti-Arab
Jewish extremists, hauling the
founding father of the settlement
movement. Rabbi Moshc Lcvingcr,
into court on a relatively minor
two-year-old charge.
In Tel Aviv, thousands of right
w mg supporters gathered to protest
the government actions. They waved
posters claiming Prime Minister
Y itzhak Rabin lacks the mandate to
make concessions to the Palestin
ians.
The protesters marched from the
city’s main square to the nearby
defense ministry, pushing baby car
riages, waving torches and Israeli
flags and shouting slogans against
Rabin.
They booed opposition leader
Benjamin Netanyahu when he
called the Hebron massacre a crime
but cheered when he said: “If we
don’t have the right to live in
Hebron, we don’t have the right to
live anywhere in this country.”
Several demonstrators were re
portedly arrested when the crowd
spilled over from the Kings of Isra
el square and blocked one of the
city’s main thoroughfares. Later,
police blocked off area streets as
protesters marched to the defense
ministry.
Four people carrying anti-Arab
Kach group posters were also ar
rested, reported Israel television.
Some demonstrators burned Pales
tinian flags, the television said.
The government officially c losed
the offices of the extremist Kach
and Kahane Lives groups after ban
ning the two and detaining or dis
arming several of their leaders this
week. Jewish settler Baruch
Goldstein, a Kach member, killed
30 Muslims Feb. 25 in a Hebron
mosque.
The PLO has demanded better
protection for Palestinians, reject
ing U .S. attempts Monday to restart
peace negotiations. It seeks the re
moval of settlements in Arab towns
like Hebron and international pro
tection.
Four Gaza members of PLO
leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah fac
tion attended an unprecedented
meeting with Israeli Labor Party
members at the Parliament to dis
cuss ways of getting the peace talks
restarted.
The Islamic Resistance Move
ment. or Hamas, threatened suicidc
attacks if Jewish settlers in five
settlement areas didn’t evacuate by
Tuesday.
Mortgage investor to finance
homes for 10 million families
WASHINGTON — The nation's
largest home mortgage investor plans
to help finance homes for 10 million
families in “communities in need.”
reaching out first to minorities and
people who arc now renting.
The Federal National Mortgage
Association, also known as Fannie
Mae, said Tuesday it expected to put
SI trillion into the effort by the close
of the decade. Since its inception in
1938, Fannie Mac has provided about
$1.35 trillion to finance more than 20
million homes.
The plan also will serve families
with incomes at or below the median
for their communities, new immi
grants, residents of central cities and
other under served areas, and people
who have special housing needs.
Cooler
than
ohoeo.
(X<>/ <1,1h<>! either)
wc believe tncrc arc minions oi
Americans who are economically qual
ificd lo own a home,” James A.
Johnson, Fannie Mac’s chairman and
CEO. said. “People don’t have enough
information, and they don’t feel con
fident about what they need lo know to
obtain a mortgage.”
Fannie Mac is a congrcssionally
chartered, shareholder-owned com
pany that purchases mortgages from
lenders. It keeps some of the mortgag
es for i ts port fol 10 and pac kages others
in securities to be sold to investors.
The company has S217 billion in
assets and an additional $495 billion
in outstanding, mortgage-backed se
curities.
Correction
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Six survive gunship crash
« ■
AC-130
Wing span:
Length:
Max cruising
speed:
Max tangs:
Armament:
132 ft. 7 in.
97 ft. 9 in.
374 mph.
4,894 miles
105mm recoilless
gun, 40mm cannon
and two 20mm
Vulcan _
»uns
NAIROBI, Kenya — Seven crew
men who died when a U.S. gunship
crashed off Kenya may have tried to
parachute too late. Rescue teams
searched the waters offshore Tuesday
for a missing crewman who reportedly
jumped clear of the aircraft.
Lt. Col. Mike Gannon, speaking
from the scene, said six crew survived,
including three who stayed in the Spec
tre gunship when it ditched in the
Indian Ocean late Monday 75 miles
north of Mombassa and just 200 yards
offshore.
Army Col. Mcvc Kauscn, a u.a.
. spokesman in Mogadishu, said the
AC-130H gunship had taken off min
utes earlier from Mombasa’s Moi In
ternational Airport for an “Eyes Over
Mogadishu” surveillance mission.
The parachutes of some of the dead
were deployed and floating in the sea.
“One parachute hung on the tail of
the aircraft,” said Gannon, who added
investigators believe it floated onto the
aircraft afterwards and did not snag
during a jump.
Other parachutes were deployed,
indicating the dead crewmen might
have attempted to jump when the air
l craft was too low over the water, he
| said.
At the Pentagon, spokeswoman
p Kathleen dcLaski said President
Uinton and Detense secretary Will
iam Perry “are aggrieved to find that
this has happened at such a late date in
the general deployment of a large
scale of soldiers.”
Ms. deLaski said there are no plans *
to order the other three AC-13 Os in the
region to halt operations to undergo a
safety check.
The names of all 14 crewmembers
were withheld pending notification of
their families. The plane and its crew
were from the Air Force’s 16th Spe
cial Operations Squadron, based at
Hurlburt Field in Florida.
The survivors were in good condi
tion, Gannon said. Three were flown
to a hospital on a U.S. Navy ship off
Mogadishu, and three were taken to
Mombasa.
Rausch said preliminary indica
tions pointed to engine failure as the
cause of the crash. He said no distress
call was heard from the stricken plane
in either Mombasa or Mogadishu.
The pilot attempted to ditch the
aircraft in the sea, said Gannon, who
added that the plane floated for a short
time after it hit the water.
Three crewmen who stayed with
the aircraft made their way to shore,
walked a short distance to a restaurant
and called for help. Gannon said.
Families question police s efforts
CHARLOTTE, N.C.—As the ini
tial shock subsided Tuesday, a trou
bling question emerged: Why were
the serial stranglings of 14 young
black women over a period of two
years all but unknown to the people of
this city?
“These were common, everyday,
hard-working individuals,” said Dee
Sumpter, whose daughter Shawna
Hawk was among the victims. “They
weren’t prominent people with so
cial-economic status. They weren’t
special.
“And." she added, “they were
black.”
To many who live and work in the
east Charlotte neighborhood where
police say Henry Louis Wallace be
friended many of his victims, the for
mula for oversight was a simple one:
They don’t really count. As the bodies
of young women turned up one by one,
there were no banner headlines or
news trucks. There were no public
crusades or outpourings of support.
The mourning of family and friends
went unnoticed. Suddenly motherless
children were absorbed intoother fam
ilies without a sound. The list of sis
ters lost quietly grew longer. And all
the while, a killer was Iree.
“When Shawna was murdered, I
begged and pleaded with the police to
go talk to her friends and former co
workers at Taco Bell,” said Mrs.
Sumpter, who found her 20-year-old
daughter, an aspiring paralegal, stran
gled in a full bathtub a year ago.
The result: more silence, Mrs.
Sumpter said.
“Are you going to tell me that if
they had done a little digging Henry’s
name would not have come up? Are
you going to tell me that this doesn’t
reek of blatant incompctcncyand rac
ism?”
runcv; lUYuafAmjgi/Aaj iui nuispui
ting a link between the murders soon
er, but say the cases varied enough to
throw them ofT Wallace’s trail. In
deed. until the strangler's pace picked
up last week, the deaths were sporadic
and not entirely similar. Officials
would not comment Tuesday except to
say the investigation is under review.
A few monthsaftcrWallacemoved
into town, the first body turned up. As
the months wore on, the ranks of
victims quietly swelled.
Many had worked at fast-food res
taurants clustered around Sharon
Amity ana Atoemarie roaas, iikc
Wallace had. Many lived in nearby
apartment complexes, as Wallace did
until things began to disintegrate.
In recent weeks, friends reported,
the smooth-talking, former radio disc
jockey had been going without sleep
and wearing the same clothes day
after day.
Some wonder how Wallace, who
investigators say is addicted to crack
cocaine, was out on the streets at all.
On Feb. 4, he was arrested for shop
lifting at a mall within walking dis
tance of most of the murder sites. A
computer check might have revealed
his lengthy police record, which in
cluded sexual assault charges and
burglary convictions in two states.
Instead, he was released. A few
weeks later, four more women were
dead.
“Let’s face it,"said BarbaraClarkc,
a young mother who recently moved
to Charlotte from New York City.
“They weren’t doing their job. They
might have missed the first connec
tion, or the second, or even the third.
But 10? There’s something wrong
here.”
small towns struggle to meet water rules
WASHINGTON — Meeting fed
eral drinking water standards is a
financial problem for 50,000 small
communities that account for 90 per
cent of the nation’s drinking water
violat ions, a congressional report said.
An environmental group said in a
separate study that the nation’s larg
est cities were using outdated filtra
tion technology to remove contami
nants from drinking water.
“Americans in the 1990s should
not be relying on turn-of-thc-ccntury
(drinking water) technology to pro
tect them from disease,” said Linda
Greer, a scientist for the Natural Re
sources Defense Council.
Several Nebraska communities
have complained about the costs of
meeting the federal requirements.
The NRDC study and a report by
the federal General Accounting Of
fice were recently presented to a House
hearing on legislation aimed at im
proving federal drinking walcr re
quirements.
The GAO report said thousands of
small communities were financially
unable to meet federal drinking water
requirements.
“We need to find cost-efTecti vc ways
to provide these areas with safe drink
ing water without sacrificing public
health.” said Rep. Mike Synar, D
Okla., chairman of the Government
Operations subcommittee on energy
and natural resources.
The Environmental Protection
Agency estimated that it would cost
small communities nearly S3 billion
to comply with current federal drink
ing water regulations and another S20
billion to repair, replace and expand
their current drinking water infra
structure to meet future needs.
The GAO report urged the EPA to
step up its effort to help small commu
nitics use more cost-clTective technol
ogies to protect drinking water.
In a report entitled "Victorian
Walcr Treatment Enters the 21 st Cen
tury.” the NRDC accused large-city
water utilities of doing "little or noth
ing" to protect watersheds and ground
water from pollution and of using
aging methods to filter drinking wa
ter.
“ Less than 10 percent of large com
munity water systems arc using mod
em water treatment technologies like
granular activated carbon or ozone to
reduce the risks of chemical contam
ination,” the environmental group
said.
Some municipal water systems rely
on technologies invented before the
Civil War to remove pathogens and
other microbiological contaminants
from water that often is distributed
through 100-year-old pipes.
Neb°raskan
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1994 DAILY NEBRASKAN