News Digest
PAGE2f Vr’ ,• „WEDNESDAYDECL~ER4,1996
Bomb explodes on Paris commuter train
PARIS (AP) — A bomb exploded
chi a commuter train in a station in the
heart of Paris during the evening rush
hour Tuesday, killing at least twc
people and seriously injuring 35.
Police said there was no immedi
ate claim of responsibility for the blast
on the edge of the city’s famed Latin
Quarter. French television said the
bomb was made from a gas canister
similar to those used in the 1995 wave
of bombings claimed by Algerian mili
tants.
Officials said the explosion oc
curred at 6:05 pjn. at the Port-Royal
station, on the RER regional line used
by thousands of commuters in and out
of the French capital.
It detonated just as the train was
pulling into the station, where the plat
form is partially above-ground. French
radio said two people were killed in
stantly, but that more might have died
had the entire station been under
Two die, 35 injured in unclaimed terrorist attack
ground, concentrating the force of the
blast.
Besides those who were seriously
hurt, police at the scene told The As
sociated Press that 50 others suffered
minor injuries.
A witness told France Info radio she
heard a large boom when the blast went
off and smelled something like gun
smoke right away.
“There was a sort of detonation and
a strong odor like on a firing range,”
she said.
A few minutes later, the wail of
ambulances filled the area around the
station between the Boulevard St.
Michel and the Boulevard
Montparnasse.
“There was an explosive device that
was put in a subway car,” Prime Min
ister Alain Juppe tSld reporters.
He said officials put back into ef
fect an emergency vigilance plan acti
vated after France was hit last year by
eight deadly subway bombings. Alge
rian Islamic extremists claimed respon
sibility for most of the bombings,
which involved gas canisters packed
with nails, nuts and bolts.
Interior Minister Jean-Louis Debre
said France was tightening its borders
as a precaution, and train stations and
airports across France were on alert.
Tuesday’s blast was close—about
a half-mile — from the worst of the
bombings, a July 25, 1995, explosion
at the St. Michel station that killed eight
people and wounded 84. Seventy-six
were wounded in the other bombings.
Witnesses said Tuesday’s scene
was one of panic, thick black smoke,
the chilling sound of ambulances, and
paramedics frantically carrying away
the thrashing wounded on stretchers.
“People were crying and in a state
of shock,” said a man who gave his
name only as Jean-Francois.
Police sealed off the neighborhood.
The first ambulances were on die
scene within two minutes, a witness
said. The wounded were rushed to a
nearby military hospital specializing in
trauma victims.
Smoke could be smelled blocks
away from the station. Dozens of am
bulances, fire trucks and at least 30
buses carrying silver-helmeted riot
police surrounded the station. An anti
terrorist squad was on the scene.
An emergency medical station was
set up in the lobby where passengers
purchase their tickets.
Officials said the bomb exploded
on the second car of a long commuter
train that was en route to the southern
Paris suburb of St. Remy les
Chevreuse. The subway car was a
bumed-out hulk of wreckage, its doors
blown off by the force of the blast.
President Jacques Chirac con
demned what he called “these unac
ceptable acts, these barbaric acts that
always attack innocent people.”
“The government and I are deter
mined to fight against terrorism in all
its forms. Nothing will be neglected,”
Chirac said outside the presidential
Elysee Palace.
Chirac had been meeting with Ger
man Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the
time of the blast, and the pair abruptly
canceled a joint appearance.
Serbian protests continue against president
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) —
Twenty thousand students marched
Tuesday in Belgrade, drawing sympa
thy from some police and backed by
U.S. warnings that Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic might face new
sanctions for any crackdown.
At one point in Tuesday’s protest,
the 10th straight day students have
demonstrated over the annulment of
Nov. 17 local elections won by the
opposition, a column of marchers came
across a busload of police.
The students flashed a traditional
Serb three-finger salute at the police.
Policemen responded with the same
salute, a sign of sympathy for the dem
onstrators.
Later the students marched through
Belgrade, putting gas masks on in front
of Serbia’s parliament. They then
i
sprayed the building with detergent and
wrote on its walls such messages as:
“Red Bandits, Thieves, We Are the
Winners.”
A few police and parliamentary se
curity officers tried to stop the crowd,
but soon withdrew.
Several Supreme Court judges lent
support to the protests.
The court last week upheld the an
nulment because of alleged irregulari
ties, but several judges Tuesday dis
tanced themselves from those deci
sions.
“I won’t accept the slave role of the
court, dependent judiciary, loyal and
incompetent judges, and I won’t keep
quiet about their shameful role,” Judge
Zoran Ivosevic said in a letter to the
independent Nasa Borba daily.
The education minister late Mon
day in effect banned student demon
strations by ordering university depart
ments to make sure classes were held.
Dragonslav Mladenovic said measures
would be taken against the youthful
protesters, but he didn’t specify.
1116 Clinton administration warned
Milosevic on Monday that it would act,
perhaps by reimposing economic sanc
tions, if Serbian authorities tried to
stifle the protests.
“Our government has made it per
fectly clear ... to the Serbian anrimri.
ties at every level ... that the United
States would be outraged if any attempt
was made to use force against the dem
onstrators,” State Department spokes
man Nicholas Bums said.
When war broke out in the former
Yugoslavia in 1989, most young people
felt trapped between warriors they did
«
If we don’t win this battle, we will lose the
war for our future. ”
Djordje Sasic
20, biology student
not support and stuck in a nation con
demned by the outside world as an ag
gressor.
They were sent into the army, where
many died as soldiers or deserted. Tens
of thousands fled Yugoslavia, and es
caped the draft. Now, students say they
want a normal life in Serbia and a fu
ture that holds the promise of democ
racy.
Now, they are a force for change,
challenging the government’s annul
ment of opposition victories in munici
pal elections in dozens of towns and
cities.
Lott to be majority leader
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen
ate Republicans re-elected Sen.
Trent Lott on Tuesday as their ma
jority leader for the next Congress.
The Mississippian immediately
promised cooperation with Presi
dent Clinton—plus tough investi
gations of alleged campaign finance
violations by Democrats.
Shortly after being chosen with
out opposition as majority leader,
Lott told reporters that the GOP and
Cl intern could work together on bal
ancing the budget, cutting taxes and
other issues.
“We look forward to working
with the president to get legislative
achievements signed into law,” Lott
said.
He also said the Senate Govern
mental Affairs Committee would
hold hearings on allegations of ille
I —
gal fund-raising by Democrats dur
ing the recent campaign. Attorney
General Janet Reno’s decision to
not appoint a special prosecutor to
investigate the charges makes a Sen
ate investigation “even a greater
necessity,” he said.
“It’s looking more and more like
we have got to get into it and find
out what happened,” Lott said. “So
we have a responsibility to do that.”
Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle, D-S.D., also re-elected
Tuesday as leader by his colleagues
without opposition, said Democrats
would make campaign finance leg
islation their top priority next year.
He said Democrats would support
hearings into alleged fund-raising
abuses if they are “broad-based”
and included GOP infractions,
which he refused fo describe.
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♦
Scientists find ice pond on moon
Human exploration, life could be easier with available water supply
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
moon, long thought to be bone dry, has
a pond of ice hidden deep inside a cra
ter, scientists disclosed Monday, in
creasing chances that humans may
someday live on its surface.
The discovery came from the
Clementine spacecraft, which used ra
dar signals to examine the depths of
the moon’s deep craters.
Officials at the Pentagon, who co
sponsored the project with NASA, an
nounced the findings at a news confer
ence Tuesday.
“If you could wish for any one thing
there to make it easier to explore with,
it would be water,” said Anthony Cook,
astronomical observer at the Griffith
Observatory in Los Angeles.
The ice was found in a huge crater
deep in the south pole of the moon, said
Rick Lehner, spokesman for the
Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization. He said that a panel oi
scientists has concluded that the ice is
frozen water.
“It is an extremely significant dis
covery,” said Cook, adding that water
would make exploration easier.
“With water there you could have
enclosed areas to grow plants, grow
your own food, make your own fuel,
make your own air,” he said. “You
don’t have to launch all that stuff from
big rockets on the Earth.”
Lehner said the crater is twice the
size of Puerto Rico and 13 kilometers
deep, or higher than Mount Everest, the
tallest peak on earth. He said the ice
formation is the size of a small lake
and is between 10 and 100 feet deep.
“People have theorized that there
may be water chi the moon but the (six)
Apollo missions didn’t find any evi
dence,” he said.
Scientists think that about 3.6 bil
lion years ago, a comet crashed into
the moon, and water droplets on its tail
were left in the bottom of the crater,
the deepest hole in the solar system,
he said.
Because the south side of the moon
is always dark, the temperatures in this
crater are about minus 382 degrees
Fahrenheit, or nearly as cold as any
environment can ever get. The water
couldn’t escape from the crater’s “cold
traps,” he said.
Lehner said the water can be used
for drinking, turned into breathable
oxygen and transformed into fuel, al
lowing humans to explore the moon,
colonize it or use it as a launch pad to
explore other planets.
Justices question Brady gun-control law
WASHINGTON (AP) — Several
Supreme Court justices voiced doubts
Tuesday about a central part of the
Brady gun-control law—the require
ment that local police check the back
grounds of prospective gun buyers.
“Can the states require the federal
government to do something?” Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy asked acting
Solicitor General Walter Dellinger,
who argued in defense of the 1993 law.
When Dellinger answered “No,”
Kennedy responded, “Why does it
work in reverse?... Isn’t the point not
to have one government interfere with
another?”
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor q'oes
tioned “the notion that the federal gov
ernment can just commandeer” state
officials to carry out a federal program.
TWo sheriffs from Montana and
Arizona are challenging the back
ground-check requirement, saying the
federal government cannot make them
help enforce the Brady law.
There is a “prohibition on requir
ing states to administer a federaf regu
lator policy,” said attorney Stephen P.
Halbrook, representing Sheriff Jay
Printz of Ravalli County, Mont., and
Sheriff Richard Mack of Graham
County, Ariz.
But Dellinger argued that the re
quirement is a lawful effort to curb the
*
nation’s 13,000 handgun murders each
year.
Under questioning from O’Connor,
Dellinger said the government prob
ably could not require states to admin
ister a federal welfare program with
out offering federal money and the
chance to opt out.
The Brady Bill requires a five-day
waiting period before the sale of a
handgun. During that time, local au
thorities must try to find out if the buyer
has a felony record, a history of men
tal illness or drug use, cm- some other
problem that would make the sale ille
gal.