The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, February 01, 1995, Page 2, Image 2
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. 0h Collegiate Beach Club _A Division of Holiday Express_ Cancun $499 vie supp'v *®hse" iWttfe' 8 days & 7 nights YousupP V SPRING FEVER 1-800-235-TRIP $100 10% Discount with UNL Student ID 15lndividuaUv air-conditioned tanningrooms Register for Spring Break Tanning Pkg. GIVEAWAY- Call for details!! \ Just 5 minutes from campus Westgate Shopping Center WHHKKH (Behind Runza) lOtl Hi 477-7444 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. IN LINCOLN: ( Downtown 16th 1637 "P" Street MUZE location Edgewood 5200 South 56th Street Downtown 14th 1339 "O" Street MUZE location East 6105 "O" Street MUZE location Van Dorn 2711 South 48th Street IN GRETNA: Nobraska Crossing 14333 South Highway 31 SIX LOCATIONS IN OMAHA ONE IN COUNCIL uvum,*owA Sale prices effective through 2/16/95 at all Homer's & Twisters locations 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 Editor Jeff Zeleny Night News Editors RondaVlasin 472-1766 Jamie Karl ManagingEditor Jeff Robb Damon Lee Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen Pat Hambrecht Doug Kouma Art Director Kai Wilken Opinion Page Editor Matt Woody General Manager Dan Shattil Wire Editor Jennifer Miratsky Production Manager Katherine Policky FAX NUMBER 472-1761 The Daily NebraskanfUSPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Ne braska Union 34, 1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also has access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Tim Hedegaard, 436-9258. Subscription price is $50 for one year. Postmaster. Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St.,Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN