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Edited by Michelle Gamer NewsDgest Friday, April 19,1996 Page 2 Israeli attack kills •' * - 'r- . y *■ 75 in south Lebanon QANA, Lebanon — Israeli shells killed at least 75 Lebanese refugees Thursday, filling a U.N. camp with blood, horror and survivors’ cries for revenge. Israel admitted an “unfortu nate mistake” in the attack, which seemed certain to deepen further the hatreds of the Middle East. The carnage, which left bodies torn apart, was the worst since Israel began its onslaught against Hezbollah guer rillas in south Lebanon eight days ago. While expressing regret for the civil ians’ deaths, Israel fiercely defended its Lebanon campaign and said the shells that hit the civilians had been aimed at Hezbollah rocket launchers. President Clinton called for a cease fire by all parties to the fighting and ordered Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the region to mediate. Israel said it would accept a cease-fire if others agreed to it, a move that would leave Israel short of its goal of shutting down the Hezbollah war ma chine. The Israeli attack left the U.N. base littered with butchered and headless bodies, shredded clothing and scraps of building materials. Badly wounded people were rushed to a hospital, where angry civilians attacked three Hezbol lah members, beating them with sticks and chairs and accusing them of being the source of Lebanon’s misery. Timur Goksel, spokesman for the 4,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, confirmed that 75 people perished in the Qana attack. Lebanese leaders called the Israeli shelling “the mother of all atrocities” and a new page in “the annals of ter ror.” Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said, “I’m pained by every person, every woman, every child, who is be ing killed,” But he said Israel had “no choice but to defend its citizens,” and he accused the Iranian-backed guerril las of Hezbollah of hiding behind ci vilians. The United Nations said that shortly before the Israeli shells landed, Hezbollah guerrillas about 300 yards from the U.N. compound had fired two Katyusha rockets and eight mortar roundsat the Israelis. The Israeli shells apparently were in retaliation for that fire, but missed their target. Unlike the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who fled north when Is rael warned it would attack their vil lages, the 6,000 refugees at U.N. base? had elected to stay in the south, believ ing they were safe among the peace keepers. About 500 refugees were al the U.N. base in Qana. Refugccchildren wereplayingout side, watched by their parents from i grass hut—a traditional bouri that the 70 Fijian soldiers at the base had buil to remind themselves of their Pacific Island home — when the first of five 155-mm howitzer shells slammed inlc the U.N. base at 3 p.m. It was just aftci lunch. More than a hundred people were wounded, including four soldiers fron the Fijian force at Qana, 8 miles south east of the port city of Tyre, Gokscl reported. At Jebel Amcl hospital in Tyre Kamel Nayef, 16, a high school stu dent, moaned from the pain of hi? bloodstained, plastered right leg. “I knocked on the door of dooms day,” he said. “I felt I was facing a firing squad.” An exact death toll was difficult to determine because casualties were spread around several hospitals and many of those killed in Qana had been blown apart. APPLY NO Will Student Summer Employment in Housing May 4 - August 23 Custodial.$5.70/hour Building Maintenance.$6.10/hour Building Painter.....$6.10/hour Weekend schedules and occasional overtime available! Apply in person between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to: •LaVern Priest at Selleck Maintenance •Lyle Harris at Abel-Sandoz Maintenance •Jerry Lokie at Burr-Fedde Maintenance •Mike Leupold at Cather-Pound-Neihardt Maintenance •Mike Kansier at Harper-Schramm-Smith Maintenance For further information, call Central Housing Maintenance, 472-3753. i" ---— Martial Arts gather B°"dugt presents El'e'^ ^ • ' C/,'1°S^oh, Tabitha Tigerus April 22th thru April 27th Drug companies offer to settle AIDS suits NEW YORK—Four drugcom panies accused of selling AIDS tainted blood products to thousands of U.S. hemophiliacs will offer a $600 million settlement Friday in an attempt to end a decade of litiga tion. The offer was revealed Thurs day night by Bayer AG, one of the defendants. It will be made in let ters to be mailed Friday to lawyers for AIDS patients and their fami lies around the country. It comes after five months of negotiations between groups repre senting HIV-positive hemophiliacs and the companies, said Corey Dubin of Goleta, Calif., a national leader of HIV-positive hemophili acs. II accepted, it would provide compensation to every American hemophiliac who contracted the A IDS virus by taking tainted blood - clolting products manufactured by the companies in the early 1980s. Also covered would be the fami lies of deceased patients and spouses or children who acquired AIDS from an infected hemophiliac. In addition to Bayer, the compa nies offering the settlement arc Baxter International Inc., Rhone Poulenc Rorer Inc. and Alpha Therapeutics Inc. In making the offer, the compa nies are not admitting legal respon sibility or wrongdoing, said Tho mas Kerr, assistant general counsel for Bayer. Hemophiliacs have accused the companies of putting their profits over safety during the early years of the AIDS epidemic by selling HIV infected blood clotting products. Roughly 800 AIDS patients and their families have sued, saying the companies should have treated the clotting factors with heat to kill the AIDS virus. The companies have steadfastly denied that they intentionally put people at risk and insist that they declined to use the heating process back then because they weren’t sure at first that it was medically sound. The process was later proved effective, but not before thousands were infected. So far the companies have not lost a lawsuit brought by the hemo philiacs, but Dubin said new evi dence has recently been gathered showing companies once knowingly took blood from people at high risk of acquiring the AIDS virus, in cluding prisoners and intravenous drug users. Bayer estimates the number of people covered by the settlement in the United States at 6,000. In addi tion to the $600 mil lion, the compa nies are offering to set up a $40 million fund that would pay the plaintiffs’ lawyers fees and ex penses. - v Congress approves new anti-terrorism bill WASHINGTON — Congress passed long-awaited legislation Thurs day that would give federal law offic ers new powers to use against terror ism, sending the bill to President Clinton on the eve ofthe first anniver sary of the Oklahoma City bombing. The bill —which also would limit federal appeals by prisoners, includ ing death-row inmates — was passed by the House 293-133. It had been approved by the Senate a day earlier, 91-8. Clinton was expected to sign the measure next week, after he returns from overseas, even though it lacks numerous other law enforcement pow ers he had sought. “Today, Congress took an impor tant step in making our country more safe and secure from the violent cow ards who would tear at the fabric of civilized order,” House Judicial^ Com mittee Chairman Henry Hyde said af ter the vote. Attorney General Janet Reno said the legislation — a compromise be tween separate Senate and House bills —contains “some very effective tools that we can use in our efforts to combat terrorism. Specifically, she cited provisions that would allow deportation of alien terrorists without disclosing classji fied evidence against them and require taggants, or chemical labels, in plastic - explosives so they can be traced. To Republican supporters, the bill ’k key provision is its.limit on so-called habeas corpus appeals by prisoners, primarily because it is expected to end delays in executions. The change would tell those con sidering a terrorist act that they can no longer “come into our country and kill our citizens, and destroy our govern ment institutions and know that they will be able to spend the next 25 years laughing at us, thumbing their nose at the families of victims,” he said. On the other side, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., noted that the only people eligible for such appeals are already incarcerated. “We’re not talking about anybody walking around,” Frank said. “We’re talking about people who are locked up and who are a danger, presumably, only to other prisoners, but certainly not to general society.” Neljraskan Editor J. Christopher Hain Night News Editors Rebecca Oltmans 472-1766 Meianie Branden Managing Editor Doug Kouma Anne Hjersman Assoc. News Editors Matt Waite Beth Narans Sarah Scalet Art Director Aaron Steckelberg Opinion Page Editor Doug Peters General Manager Dan Shattil Wire Editor Michelle Garner Advertising Manager Amy Struthers Copy Desk Editor Tim Pearson Asst. Advertising Manager Laura Wilson Sports Editor Mitch Sherman Classified Ad Manager Tiffiny Clifton Arts & Entertainment Publications Board Chairman Tim Hedegaard Editor Jeff Randall 436-9253 Photo Directors Scott Bruhn Professional Adviser Don Walton Travis Heying 473-7301 nnp://www.um.eau/uaiiyNeb/ 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. 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