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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1998)
■ Several nations join in defiance of Dr. Seed’s vow to clone a human. PARIS (AP) - Less than a week after an American scientist announced he would clone a child, 19 European nations signed a treaty Monday that said cloning people violated human dignity and was a misuse of science. Britain and Germany, however, balked at signing the measure that - London considers too strict and Bonn too mild Although Monday’s signing was planned months ago, it clearly took on a greater significance with the announcement last week by Chicago physicist Richard Seed that he will clone a child within two years. “This is a horror story that the states present here... will use every effort to prevent,” said Jean Boucauris, Greece’s director for European affairs. The signing by 19 members of the Council of Europe - in a room filled with professors, philosophers and doctors as well as diplomats - came the same day French President Jacques Chirac called for an interna tional ban on human cloning, and two days after President Clinton urged Congress to do the same. The July 1997 presentation of Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal, set off an interna tional outcry over the implications for human biology. Many U.S. and international leaders renewed their condemnation after Seed said that he planned to begin working on human cloning using a newly developed technique. Some physicians questioned whether Seed, who is not a doctor, had the expertise to successfully complete such an experiment Seed, unaffiliated with any insti tution, said he would move his enter prise to Tijuana, Mexico, if Congress bans human cloning in the United States. The treaty says that cloning is “contrary to human dignity and thus constitutes a misuse of biology and medicine.” Signatory nations agreed to enact laws that outlaw human cloning, but the protocol itself makes no mention of sanctions against those that do not carry it out Medical ethicists praised the treaty for. drawing attention to an issue for which, they say, the vast sci entific complications are dwarfed by the moral questions. The countries that signed were Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden andlUrkey. Computer simulation provides key LONDON (AP) - The Mercedes in which Princess Diana was killed was traveling at 60 mph - twice as slow as reported earlier - when it crashed, a leading British accident investigator says. All four occupants of the car would have survived if Paris’ Pont de l’Alma traffic tunnel had been equipped with crash barriers, accord ing to Professor Murray Mackay, a professor of transport safety at the University of Birmingham. In a program to be broadcast Tuesday on Britain’s Channel 4, Mackay said his conclusions were drawn from the French police investi gation, as well as a visit to the tunnel. The program includes a computer simulation of the Aug. 31 accident that killed Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul, who was found to be legally drunk. Only bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. “Newspapers have talked ol speeds of 120 mph, but looking at the damage tells a very different story,” Mackay said. “It suggests an impacl with the pillar of about 60 mph.” “This was a severe but a surviv able accident, and what we now need to consider is why three people died. If the Mercedes had hit the post al 120 mph, die whole of the passengei compartment would have been destroyed,” he said. The 36-year-old princess had the best chance of survival because she was sitting in the rear right seat which would have suffered the least force when the car hit the pillar and spun, Mackay said. Health care spending stablizing WASHINGTON (AP) - Health care costs have topped $1 trillion in a single year for the first time, but the government says annual spending increases are slowing. American spending on health care averaged $3,759 per person in 1996, up 4.4 percent or $126 from 1995, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report released Monday. That’s the lowest growth rate since die annual tally ofhealth spend ing trends - tracking public and pri vate spending on everything from medical research to Band-Aids - was first compiled in 1960. And although the total hit a record $1,035 trillion, that is the same 13.6 percent share of the nation’s booming economy medical expenses have taken since 1993. “This report shows significant national progress in slowing the growth of health care spending,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. Low inflation, more people in managed care and new government spending curbs all have contributed to slower expansion of the nation’s health care bills, after an average yearly growth of 11 percent through out the ’80s, the report said. In 1996, almost 88 percent ol America’s health care dollars bought personal health care services and supplies. Court returns policeman’s job Omaha must pay disabled officer damages, back pay OMAHA (AP) - A policeman who is blind in one eye hailed a U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday that lets him keep his job. Withput comment, the Supreme Court let stand rulings that required the city to rehire Royce Doane with nearly $51,000 in back pay and pen sion benefits. Omaha also has been ordered to pay Doane $50,000 in damages for illegally discriminating 5 against him. “This could have been s ettled for zero money,” said Doane. “(City offi cials) continued to appeal and spent the public’s money. They basically threw the public’s money down the drain.” Doane worked as an Omaha policeman from 1.973 to 1904. In 1975, he lost vision in one. eye because of glaucoma, but with glass es his overall vision was corrected to 20-20. In 1984, Doane was given an eye examination and was told thereafter that his police career was over. He took a 911 communications job, but he sought to be rehired as a police officer several times. He sued in 1992, invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The law bars discrimination against qualified people on the basis of an impairment that substantially impacts a major life activity. City officials refused to make Doane a policeman because they thought his lack of vision from both eyes would constitute a danger to him, his fellow officers and the pub lic. They specifically noted his limit ed peripheral vision. A federal trial jury ruled that die city had Violated the law and awarded Doane $50,000 in damages. A judge awarded back pay and pension bene fits as well* and ordered him reinstat ed by telling the city to allow Doane to enter police-recruit training. The city appealed, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled for Doane, 53, who returned to work as a police officer in June. The appeals court noted that medical experts testified that Doane has learned to work with environ mental clues to develop his own sense of depth perception and has kept in good physical condition. The appeals court also rejected the city’s argument that Doane has adapted so well he should not be deemed to be disabled. “Doane’s vision impairment stems not merely from overall poor eyesight but from total blindness in one eye,” the appeals court said. He therefore is “a person with a disabili ty entitled to the ADA’s protection.” In the appeal acted on Monday, Omaha argued that the lower courts relied too much on Doane’s past ser vice as a policeman without requir ing him “to prove that he could per form safely in the future.” Doane urged the justices to reject the appeal, calling it a “frivolous composite of misrepresentations of fact and law.” “Hallelujah!” Doane said after hearing of the Supreme Court’s deci sion. Iraq reinstates block on U.S.-led inspections BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq will block U.N. weapons inspections led by an American Gulf War veteran jt says is a spy, the government vowed Monday, setting the stage for a new confrontation with the United Nations. In New York, U.N. chief weapons inspector Richard Butler said the monitoring teams - including the one led by ex-Marine Capt. Scott Ritter - would go ahead with their work as planned Tuesday, Iraq has criticized Ritter, claim ing he is an intelligence agent for the United States. Ritter denies the charge. An Iraqi government spokesman said the presence of too many Americans on the teams was pro longing the inspections program and delaying the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Iraq, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. The agency’s statement came after Ritter and a team of U.N. inspectors reportedly visited a hospi tal and a prison in Baghdad. It said the ban on Ritter would begin Jan. 13. Other U.N. inspection teams will be allowed to continue their work, said Iraq’s U.N. ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon. Butler, in a letter to the Security l Council, cited numerous U.N. decla rations affirming that Iraq has no right to dictate the composition of the inspection teams. “I propose to instruct the chief inspector (in Baghdad) to seek to proceed with his business tomorrow, 13 January, and if possible, until the planned program of inspections is completed,” Butler said. The inspectors are trying to veri fy that Iraq has destroyed its weapons of mass destruction, a con dition that must be met before the United Nations will lift trade sanc tions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In Washington, President Clinton said the United States has had “noth ing whatsoever” to do with choosing members of the U.N. teams. “Certainly Saddam Hussein shouldn’t be able to pick and choose who does this work,” Clinton said. “That’s for the United Nations to decide.” He said he expects the U.N. Security Council to take strong action if the inspectors “are denied their right to do their job.” The American ambassador to die United Nations, Bill Richardson, said the Iraqi move would be dis cussed at a Security Council meeting Thursday. State battles for control of child’s rights OMAHA (AP) - A comatose 2-year-old lies at the center of a bitter battle over whether the state can take away the parental rights of her mom and dad and remove her from life support. A A hearing is scheduled Feb. 2-3 in Douglas County Juvenile Court to determine “ whether Ronald Davis and Rhonda Renshaw should lose their parental rights to' Tabatha Renshaw, who is in • temporary custody of the state. The girl suffered severe brain injuries in January 1996 when she was 25 days old. Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Douglas . Johnson last month sided with the Nebraska Health and Human Services System and t\ declined a plan to reunite the baby with her parents. The parents have faced a criminal investigation over Tabatha’s injuries but have not been charged. They have said they did not hurt the girl and have opposed the state’s attempts to remove life sup . port from Tabatha. .. .. -.... --- m Editor: Paula Lavigue “ Managing Editor: nwiffflim fZmm tfAifmt- Erin SduflK^li Associate News Editor: Ted Taylor mm I ^Tg»iiii,nnM|igil>»r Erin Gibsci^m.' <? _ ^C^ptoisingi^|||iioshua Gillin yfe Questions? Comments? Ask for the appropriate section editor at ^UUUhR MImSb0 (402) 472-2588 or e-mail dn«tinimo.unl4pj|^ Copy Peto^Cfctef: BtyoeGlean^ Fax number. (402) 472-t761 ; V - ^ Ifetegn Co-Clfcfc Jwjem&K World Wide Web: www.unl.edu/DaiiyNeb Art Director- tfSrh^r The Daily Nebraskan (USPS144-080) is published by theUNL Publications Board, Nebraska Union 34, 1400 RsL, Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday duming the academic year weekly during I v Vk the summer sesaions.Thepubfc has access to terailtealons Board. 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