Edited by Jennifer Mlreteky NewsDgest
Wednesday, February 1,1995 Page 2
Floods reach record levels
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands —
Floods that drenched much of north
ern Europe threatened to burst river
dikes Tuesday in the Netherlands.
Seventy thousand people were evacu
ated in the country’s worst flooding
since 1953.
The floods appeared to be reced
ing Tuesday in Belgium, Germany
and France after killing at least 26
people. The Dutch were gearing up
for a major battle with their eternal
enemy, the waters that threaten their
low-lying country.
One death from the Dutch floods
was reported Tuesday in the Waal
River village of Winssen, a crisis
worker said. Details were not imme
diately available.
' Mandatory evacuations of thou
sands of people began Tuesday morn
ing from land in eastern Netherlands
where authorities declared a state of
emergency.
Tens of thousands of farm animals
also had to be shipped out of the
“polders” — land reclaimed from
marsh and river basins — to keep
them from drowning.
Dutch floodwaters were expected
to crest Wednesday afternoon, and
the danger of dikes bursting made the
evacuations more urgent.
If the dikes ruptured, some vil
lages would be under up to 16 feet of
water, authorities said.
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One man said he had left every
thing behind to take refuge in a relief
center in Nijmegen. “What else could
I have done?” he asked.
A thousand soldiers were brought
in to assist the effort, and thousands
of acres of land were under water.
The dikes that keep the river water
out of the reclaimed areas were hold
ing, with flooding primarily near the
banks of the Maas and Waal rivers
The European flooding has been
caused by the early melting of Alpine
snows and heavy rain. The flooding
was the worst since 1953, when the
North Sea dikes in the southern
Zeeland province burst, killing more
than 1,800 people.
Jury hears
911 calls
LOS ANGELES—A key witness
for O.J. Simpson is “a known liar and
a Simpson case groupie,” a prosecu
tor told jurors today, and a detective
testified that Simpson’s ex-wife was
badly bruised and hysterical after he
responded to a 911 call in 1989.
In an unusual rebuttal to the de
fense opening statement just before
testimony began, Deputy District
Attorney Marcia Clark also said the
defense witness, Mary Anne Gerchas,
told a friend she wasn’t even in the
neighborhood the night of the mur
ders.
The prosecution then called its
first witnesses, the 911 operator who
took a call from the Simpson house
hold the morning of Jan. 1,1989, and
the officer who went to the home
afterward. On that day, Simpson and
his wife had a fight that sent Ms.
Simpson to the hospital; Simpson
later pleaded no contest to spousal
battery.
Darden played a tape of the 911
call to the jury, in which a woman can
be heard screaming. There are also
noises in the background that sound
either like slaps or the crackle of the
police radio.
She also toldjurors they would see
Simpson in an video made shortly
before the slayings showing him in
good physical condition, doing
pushups, throwing jabs and doing
other exercises. The defense had ar
gued that he had arthritis that would
have made it impossible for him to
kill two people.
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Clinton takes Mexico
crisis into own hands
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton, bowing to stiff opposition
in Congress, Tuesday abandoned
his $40 billion legislative package
for Mexico. But he immediately
announced an even larger package
not requiring congressional action
that draws, in part, on funds usu
ally used to defend the U.S. dollar.
“Rather than face further delay
... I will act under my executive
authority,” Clinton told the nation’s
governors in a dramatic end-run
around Congress.
The new plan includes a mix of
contributions from the Interna
tional Monetary Fund and other
international organizations. But
what promises to be its most con
troversial feature is Clinton’s de
cision to dip into the government’s
' Exchange Equalization Fund to as
much as $20 billion to help sup
port Mexico’s nosediving peso.
The fund, which only holds $25
billion, is normally used to help
stabilize the U.S. dollar against
: major currency fluctuations.
White House spokesman Mike
McCurry said the president be
lieved the situation was grave
enough to warrant dipping into the
fund. It is the first time the fund has
ever been used to support any cur
rency other than the dollar, he said.
Clinton also announced that the
International Monetary Fund
would put $17.5 billion in the pot
and that another lending organiza
tion, the Bank for International
, Settlement, would put up $10 bil
lion.
Those amounts represented in
creases from support the two
agenices had already announced.
A week ago, the IMF said it would
provide $7.5 billion in loans over
18 months, which at the time was
described as the largest IMF sup
port package in history. The $10
billion from the Bank for Interna
tional Settlement represented an
settlements, win consider
providing $10 billion.
• The Bank of Canada has made
available $1 billion.
• A group of Latin American
countries are arranging $1 billion.
Source: AP DN graphic
increase of $5 billion over the origi
nal amount put up by the Basel,
Switzerland, institution.
“We cannot risk further delay.
The situation in Mexico continues
to worsen,” Clinton said hours af
ter congressional leaders told him
that prospects for passage in Con
gress of his original plan for $40
billion in loan guarantees was slim.
Mexican rrtarkets rallied on the
news. The peso strengthened to
5.95 to the dollar by late morning,
better than its record low of 6.30 to
the dollar on Monday. The Mexi
can Stock Exchange’s key IPC in
dex was up 3.5 percent.
He described the steps he an
nounced today as “potentially even
more aggressive than one I origi
nally proposed.”
He said he had concluded that
Congress would not act on the
crisis in time.
“I have worked with other coun
tries to prepare a new package,” he
said.
News... _
in a Minute
AIDS vaccine looks promising
WASHINGTON — Scientists searching for a safe AIDS vaccine
said Tuesday they have created one with a built-in time bomb—a gene
that will cleanse it from the body on cue.
Researchers believe the most effective AIDS vaccine is likely to be
a live virus, which will prime the body to mount a spirited reaction to
HIV. Many, though, worry about giving healthy people even a weak
ened form of the AIDS virus, since it might cause cancer, immune
suppression or even AIDS.
So now a team from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases has come up with a novel strategy: a live but weakened AIDS
virus that can be killed off once it does its job.
Smith said the approach looks promising in the test tube. But much
more testing, including extensive use in monkeys, will be necessary
before it can be tried on people: He said human studies are at least three
years away.
Nebraskan
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Wire Editor Jennifer Miratsky Production Manager Katherine Policky
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