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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1994)
By The Associated Press Edited by Deb McAdams News Digest Thursday, September 29,1994 Page 2 Mexico’s ruling party suffers second assassination this year MEXICO CITY — A young man assassinated a key official of Mexico's ruling party Wednesday, rocking a country already buffeted by a turbu lent year of violence and rebellion. Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, sec retary-general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was shot in the neck after getting into his car following a breakfast at a downtown hotel. Shattered glass from the pas senger side window was strewn on the busy Paseo de la Reforma boule vard. A bank guard tackled the gunman and turned him over to police. Offi cials did not immediately identify the dark-haired man or give a motive for what President Carlos Salinas de Gortari described as “a hideous crime.” “This is a day of mourning for PRIistas. This is a day of mourning for all Mexicans,” said President elect Ernesto Zedillo. The killing shocked officials still recovering from the March 23 assas sination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, shot at a Tijuana campaign rally. Zedillo won the Aug. 21 presidential election and takes power Dec. I. Both Zedillo and Salinas were at the Hospital Espanol where Ruiz Massieu, his shirt ripped open and soaked with blood, was rushed after AP the shooting. Doctors said Ruiz Massieu had no pulse on arrival and was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m., an hour after the shooting. Deputy Attorney General Mario Ruiz Massieu, the slain man’s brother, announced the death. He is in charge of prosecuting drug traffick ers for the federal attorney general’s office, which has the suspected gun man in custody. Drug traffickers are accused of murdering Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo in a case of mistaken identity at the Guadalajara airport in May 1993. The assassination of Ruiz Massieu, No. 2 in the ruling party, jolted Mexico just as the country ap peared to be settling down after months of violence and political tur bulence. Despite the Mayan Indian move ment uprising in southern Mexico that began New Year’s Day, the PRI, which has governed Mexico since 1929, was able to gain 50 percent of the vote in the national election. Widely feared post-electoral violence failed to materialize. Ruiz Massieu, a 48-year-old law yer, was a rising figure in Mexican politics. He was elected to congress in August and was selected to lead the PRI delegation that would domi nate the lower house. He was governor of the western state of Guerrero from 1987 to 1993 and was named PRI secretary-general in May as the party reorganized it self in the wake of Colosio’s murder. Ruiz Massieu also represented the PRI before the Federal Electoral In stitute. Mexico’s stock market plunged more than 3 percent after the shoot ing before bouncing back slightly in the afternoon. The value of the Mexi can peso dipped slightly after the shooting. Mexico City Mayor Manuel Aguilera described the weapon used as a sub-machine gun. Witnesses told local media it was an Uzi. Ambassador James Jones said the U.S. government “deplores the act of senseless violence which has cost the life of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.” Empty life rafts found near ferry TURKU, Finland — Frigid wa ters and raging winds turned the Baltic into a sea of death for more than 800 people when a ferry sud denly listed and sank in a storm early Wednesday. Authorities said 141 others survived. Helicopters and ships searched for survivors and bodies off Finland's southwestern coast. Officials said it was too early to say what caused the ferry to sink shortly after midnight about 25 miles from Uto island. A surviving crew member said water started pouring through the Estonia’s front cargo door and the ship rolled over and sank quickly. Swedish safety inspectors had criticized the seals on the door be fore the ferry left Tallinn, Estonia, on Tuesday evening on its way to Stockholm, Sweden. “We saw nothing thafgave us a hint that something would go wrong,” one of the inspectors, Ake Sjoblom, told Swedish television. “If we had, we would have sounded the alarm immediately.” Raimo Tiilikainen, the Finnish coast guard commodore coordinat ing the search, said four ships would remain in the area through out Wednesday night but he held out no hope more survivors would be found. Finnish police counted 141 sur vivors of the 964 people aboard. Tiilikainen said the Estonia car ried 776 passengers and 188 crew members. More than half the pas sengers came from Sweden. The first word of the ferry’s trouble came shortly after mid night, when it radioed Estonian authorities: “We are sinking! ... The engines have stopped!” Survivors described scenes of panic as the ferry listed and started sinking in pitch darkness amid 35 foot waves. The water was 54 de grees and winds were blowing around 55 mph. 7 p,m. Ferry hmm Wan km pm (approx,) - Farry runs ento heavy and 20-foot wave#, ' ' « 12 »m. (approx.) - Via notions water comteQ in trom the front bow door 1 , Crow think if£ ram water and turn on pomps. Soon, paeoongoi* Um stood sound. Craw puts out fest mayday 12n 5 *m. Pumps Are ouiipheimod.ffe*. 00 trucks ten hums and km v oral care in C.U li ULAO, ’ W9\J UUW33 ® H * thohoW 2 am inundated. Tt»terry fete to the front from the wwph! of the water Tracking rubber duckies An accidental spiH of thousands of bathtub toys into the North Pacific has led scientists to calculate their most likely path as they were carried by winds and _Qhnivn i« thft toys' Droiected Dath into the Bering Sea and Arctic Oc«an Rubber ducks reveal ocean and wind flow SAN FRANCISCO — In this age of computers, lasers and orbiting sat ellites, scientists are learning a lot from rubber duckies. Some 29,000 rubber ducks, turtles and other bathtub toys spilled over board on Jan. 10, 1992, in the North Pacific when a freighter carrying the cargo on its deck was hit by a storm. So far, 400 of the bobbing toys have been found along 500 miles cf Alaskan shoreline, and that is help ing researchers trace wind and ocean currents. “This is serious science," said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer r at Evans-Hamilton Inc., a consulting company in Seattle. “We are learn ing a great deal.” A preliminary study of the duckie migration was published this month in EOS, official journal of the Ameri can Geophysical Union, by Ebbesmeyer and computer modeler W. James Ingraham Jr. of the Na tional Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. They also analyzed an earlier ex ample of inadvertent oceanographic science when 61,000 Nike shoes fell off a ship in 1990 and floated toward the West Coast. Haiti developments ■ Pa/lament, shuttered fa months, reopened with plans to discuss amnesty for the army officers who overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Ansbde. ■ U.S. troops wi provide security at parliament and ndrvidualy for certain deputies and senators who are emerging from hiding in Haii or sel-imposed exile in the United States and Canada. ■ The 1,000-member U.S. military police force that is in Haiti to help maintar pubic order during the military ocapation began sending troops and equipment into police stations in Port-au-Prince. Fay caught inhaling butane KETTERING, Ohio — Michael Fay, the teen-ager flogged in Singapore for vandalizing cars, has gone into drug rehab for treatment of a butane-sniffing habit, his step mother said Wednesday. Jan Fay said her 19-year-old step son was admitted to the Hazelden clinic in Minnesota several weeks ago after she and his father, George Fay, learned he had been inhaling the gas from pressurized cans to get high. Butane is used in cigarette light ers. Michael Fay told her he was in haling butane because it made him forget what happened in Singapore. “But you can’t blame Singapore for everything,” she said. “Michael knows that now. He knows that he has to take responsibility for his ac tions.” Michael Fay received four lashes with a rattan cane and spent 83 days I-— in a Singapore prison after being ac cused of spray-painting cars. He de nied the allegation and said police coerced a false confession from him. Michael Fay was released from Krison and returned to his father’s ome June 22. On Sept. 2, he was treated at a hospital after his hands and face were burned. Jan Fay said he told her that he and some friends had been work ing on a car when someone struck a match and caused a flash. A few days later she found about a dozen cans of butane in his room, she said. She and her husband con fronted him. “Finally, it all came out,” Jan Fay said. She said Michael Fay admitted that he had inhaled butane in Singapore, and was sniffing butane when he was burned Sept. 2. He agreed to get treatment. --—i Nebraskan FAX NUMBER 472-1761 h,»Lkf 144 0®°1 » puWwhad by the UNI Publication* Board. SSSSnySl.8?:.1^0 ■ ? ’ L,nco,n- 68588 0446 Monday through Friday during academic year, weekly during summer sessions Dhonfnn a™*?« 8ubmrt K,#“ «*""•"» to the Daily Nebraska! ™4I ' d u between 9 a m and 5 p.m Monday through Friday. The public also con“a T“ *“9258 s,plSTw ^ ,4°°B *U MATERIAL CORYRljMTiRfD/ULY wShMKAN it ?!