Wednesday, >
3 Libyans, 2 German sisters
go to trial for 1986 bombing
BERLIN (AP) - Three employ
ees of Libya’s former embassy in
East Germany and two German sis
ters went on trial today in the bomb
ing of a disco that killed two
American servicemen 11 years ago.
The blast occurred at 1:50 a.m.
on April 5, 1986, just as the popular
West Berlin hangout for American
servicemen was filling up, and
prompted retaliatory U.S. air strikes
on Libya. Prosecutors say they have
evidence of what the United States
alleged from the start: Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi ordered his
agents to bomb the disco.
Presiding Judge Peter Marhofer,
who opened the trial under tight secu
rity. said the difficult legal question -
proving Gadhafi’s alleged involve
ment - at the heart of the proceedings
made it “the most meaningful trial in
recent Berlin judicial history.”
Marhofer warned both sides
against dragging out the trial, which
has taken more than a decade of
investigations, arrests and extradi
tion requests to come to court.
Kazakstan seeks to enhance
economy-related relations
WASHINGTON (AP) - Kazakstan
President Nursultan Nazarbayev said
today his Central Asian nation wanted
to develop closer ties with the United
States, build a strong market economy
and play a role in international affairs.
As part of that strategy, he said that
during his stay in Washington he would
sign 14 agreements with President
Clinton and other U.S. officials cover
ing security, defense, trade and oil and
gas exploration. " -
Kazakstan is looking for U.S assis
tance in building a highly efficient mil
itary force after dismantling of its for
mer Soviet nuclear missiles.
Nazarbayev will see Clinton later
today. He met Monday with Vice
President A1 Gore, Defense Secretary
William Cohen and Energy Secretary
Federico Pena.
Kazakstan, one-third the size of the
United States, may have half of central
Asia’s estimated 100 billion barrels of
oil. The United States is anxious to pro
mote development of these resources to
lessen dependence on the Middle East.
Nazarbayev said Kazakstan, which
became independent in 1991, has
developed a 30-year strategic plan “to
integrate itself into the world economy
and take its place in the geopolitical
arena.”
Correction
A story in Friday’s Daily
Nebraskan Incorrectly stated that the
Environmental Resource Center
would use some money from a fund
raiser to raise awareness about a pro
posed development on Wilderness
Park. The center does not take sides
on political issues.
The story also incorrectly stated
the date of the event. The fund-raiser
happened Sunday.
Clarification
The proposed development is
being considered for a location near
the official, legal boundaries for
Wilderness Park. Some believe that
movement of Salt Creek, which lies
in Wilderness Park, also has altered
the park’s boundary.
f I
Militants responsible for attack
LUXOR, Egypt (AP) - Militants
blamed for most of the violence in
Egypt’s five-year Islamic rebellion
claimed responsibility Tuesday for the
revolt’s deadliest attack: the massacre
of 62 people at an ancient temple
crowded with tourists.
The al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, or the
Islamic Group, said in a faxed state
ment that Monday’s attack was a failed
attempt to take hostages to trade for the
freedom of their spiritual leader, a blind
Egyptian cleric jailed in the United
States for plotting to bomb New York
landmarks.
The sandstone terraces of the
Temple of Hatshepsut were blood
stained Tuesday, but dozens of tourists
warily returned. Many others were flee
ing the country, however, and agencies
were scrapping tours - spelling trouble
for Egypt’s important tourism industry.
President Hosni Mubarak visited
the temple on the Nile River’s West
Bank across from Luxur to reassure
tourists, and replaced his interior minis
ter, blaming him for lax security.
Thirty-one of the dead were Swiss,
police said. The others included eight
Japanese, five Germans, four Britons -
including a child - a Bulgarian, a
Colombian and a French citizen. Seven
of the dead were still unidentified.
There were 24 people wounded.
Police shot the six attackers as they
tried to escape. Authorities said one
was a member of al-Gamaa, the group
that claimed responsibility for the
attack.
Al-Gamaa has been a main target of
police battling a violent campaign
aimed at overthrowing Mubarak’s secu
lar government and turning Egypt into
a strict Islamic state.
The government has arrested and
jailed thousands of suspected radicals,
put hundreds on trial and executed 63
people in the past five years. But al
Gamaa and similar radical groups are
difficult to fight because of their small,
loosely connected cells.
Last year, al-Gamaa took responsi
bility for killing 16 Greek tourists at a
hotel near the pyramids on the edge of
Cairo. The group also claimed an assas
sination attempt on Mubarak while he
was visiting Ethiopia in June 1995; he
was unharmed.
In its statement Tuesday, the group
said the gunmen’s “brave” hostage
attempt went awry because police
opened fire too quickly, forcing mili
tants to return fire.
Witnesses, however, said the six
gunmen opened fire as soon as they
entered the temple grounds, spraying
wildly with automatic weapons and
killing 58 foreign tourists and four
Egyptians.
A coroner’s report said some vic
tims were stabbed after being shot. One
Swiss survivor said the “very young”
gunmen calmly shot victims who had
dived to the ground or run for cover
behind temple pillars.
Rosemarie Dousse, the Swiss
tourist shot in the arm and the leg, hid
under the bodies of other tourists for at
least an hour.
“They made us get down on our
knees. And then they started shooting.
A man who was very heavy fell on top
of me and the lady behind me also cov
ered me,” she said. “Then they started
again - shooting those who were still
alive, in the head.”
Police gunned down one attacker at
the site and the five others after they
hijacked a bus. Authorities counted
only six gunmen, but the al-Gamaa
statement said nine others escaped.
It said it had hoped to trade
hostages for the release of Sheik Omar
Abdel Rahman, imprisoned for plotting
to blow up the United Nations building
and other New York landmarks.
That plot was uncovered before the
attacks could be carried out, but Abdel
Rahman also was said to have advised
the six men convicted in the 1993
bombing of New York’s World Trade
Center, which killed six people and
injured more than 1,000.
Clinton orders increase
in Gulf military power
WASHINGTON (AP)
Strengthening his hand in the standoff
with Iraq, President Clinton ordered a
fresh buildup of U.S. firepower in the
Persian Gulf on Tuesday even as signs
emerged of an accelerated push for a
diplomatic solution.
Clinton told the Air Force to dis
patch six of its F-l 17 stealth fighters,
six B-52 long-range bombers and four
refueling planes. Pentagon officials
said the decision was based in part on a
heightened state of alert by Iraq’s air
defenses.
A U-2 surveillance plane flew over
Iraq without incident - despite Iraqi
threats - and the Pentagon said at least
one more mission would be flown this
week.
The fresh warplanes are to arrive in
the region by the end of the week, offi
cials said.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth
Bacon said the president also autho
rized Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander
oi u.s. rorces in tne Middle Hast, to
send up to 30 other warplanes - includ
ing F-15 and F-16 fighters and B-l
bombers - if he deemed it necessary.
The president’s national security
adviser, Sandy Berger, said the addi
tion of U.S. aircraft, pushing the total
to more than 300 in the Gulf region,
was a precautionary step - not a signal
that Clinton had concluded a military
clash was inevitable.
“This is part of our effort to be pre
pared in a prudent way for any contin
gency that may arise in the region,”
Berger said at the White House.
The United States had about 1,700
combat aircraft in the Gulf during the
1991 war against Iraq. ,
Berger said the buildup was not
related to a U-2 surveillance flight over
Iraq on Tuesday morning. The spy
plane, operating in support of U.N.
efforts to monitor Iraq’s weapons pro
gram, completed its mission without
incident, he said. Iraq had threatened to
shoot down the U-2, but U.S. officials
said it did not try.
Bacon said the U-2 flew for about
one hour just west of Baghdad, and he
added that at least one more surveil
lance mission would be flown by the
end of the week.
Berger confirmed that the Clinton
administration was prepared to consid
er altering a U.N. “oil-for-food” pro
gram under which Iraq currently is
66
Saddam Hussein
must reverse course
and allow the
inspectors back in.”
Sandy Berger
national security adviser
allowed to buy $4 billion a year in food
and medicine from U.N.-supervised
Iraqi oil export revenue. One possibili
ty is that Iraq would be allowed to buy
more goods.
Berger said Iraq would first have to
comply with a U.N. demand that it per
mit U.N. weapons inspectors back,
including the American team members
it kicked out last week. “Saddam
Hussein must reverse course and allow
the inspectors back in,” he said.
in i\cw iuik un ivjunuay, iraq s
U.N. ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon,
called the proposal a “no-starter.”
Although a senior administration
official traveling with Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright in Pakistan
had characterized the “oil-for-food”
suggestion on Monday as a “little car
rot” for Iraq, Berger insisted the
administration was not negotiating. He
said changes in the oil sales arrange
ment had been under consideration
before the current crisis arose more
than two weeks ago.
“The president has mentioned this
to me and raised this with me on a
number of occasions over the past few
months as there have been reports out
of Iraq of hunger or malnutrition. So
this has been a longstanding position
of the United States,” Berger said.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign
Minister Yevgeny Primakov told
reporters that President Boris Yeltsin,
in a meeting Tuesday with Iraqi
Deputy Prime MinisterTariq Aziz, had
come to an understanding on an
unspecified diplomatic solution.
“In the course of the talks a certain
program has been worked out that
allows us, we think, to avoid a con
frontation, to avoid the use of force and
achieve a settlement,” Primakov said.
Research shows Einstein
had relativity idea first
WASHINGTON (AP) — For
years there were whispers that Albert
Einstein took a key part of the gener
al theory of relativity from another
scientist who wrote a similar paper at
about the same time in 1915.
A prominent mathematician
named David Hilbert produced a
paper that was dated five days
before Einstein submitted his
conclusive paper on general rela
tivity on Nov. 25, 1915.
After the Hilbert paper was
published the next year, Einstein
claimed that some of his work had
been stolen. But the original date
on Hilbert’s paper suggested to
some experts that it was Einstein
who had cribbed the results.
A group of researchers from
the Max Planck Institute for the
History of Science in Berlin, Tel
Aviv University in Israel and
Boston University reported new
evidence that it was Hilbert who
took key parts of the theory from
Einstein’s work.
Einstein’s general theory of
relativity deals with the effect of
gravity on time, space and even
light. An earlier work, published
in 1905, was called the special
theory. That included Einstein’s
famous equation for the relation
ship between mass and energy: E
= me2.In a study published last
week in the journal Science, the '
researchers say that page proofs
of the Hilbert paper, dated Dec.
6, 1915, showed that Hilbert’s
work was only an incomplete ver
sion of the general theory. The
early page proofs lacked key
equations that were included in
the Einstein work made public on
Nov. 25.
When the Hilbert paper was
published in March 1916, the
equations were included.
The historians concluded that
Hilbert must have seen the Einstein
paper after the Dec. 6 date on the
page proofs and inserted the equa
tions into his own paper before it
was published in March.
The analysis “excludes the i;
possibility that Einstein plagia
rized from Hilbert the last crucial
step in completing general rela
tivity,” the researchers say.
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