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Wednesday, August 26,1998 Page 2
Bonnie gains strength
HEAD,N.C. (AP) - About200,000
residents and visitors were ordered to
leave North Carolina’s low-lying,
exposed Outer Banks on Tuesday as
Hurricane Bonnie accelerated on a path
feat could carry its fury into fee banter
island chain
The National Weather Service said
Bonnieh center wife its 115 mph wind
could be near the Outer Banks by today.
Hurricane warnings were posted
from Murrells Inlet, S.C., to the North
Carolina-Virginia state line. The warn
ings mean dangerous wind and heavy
rain could hit fee area within 24 hours.
Hurricane watches extended south to
Savannah, Ga., and north to Cape
Henlopen, Del.
While the storm was still hundreds
of miles away, the Atlantic was showing
its effects wife 10-foot waves reported
on fee North Carolina beach. Gray,
white-cappedwaves hit the New Jersey
shore in breakers 4 feet to 6 feet high,
pounding onto the sand wife a (hill roar.
Margaret Boone, of Thurmont,
Md., wasn’t surprised feat her vacation
to the Outer Banks with six friends was
ending Tuesday rather than Saturday.
The state of Virginia and some
coastal communities elsewhere already
had banned swimming because of rip
tides- strong currents near fee beaches
- that are blamed for three drownings
over the weekend in South Carolina,
North Carolina and Delaware.
“People were getting sucked out
left and right,” said Margate Beach,
NJ., lifeguard Mike Palmer. One man
was missing Monday in the surf off
Point Pleasant Beach.
By midmorning Tuesday, the
storm’s eye was centered about 450
miles south of Cape Hatteras, which
sits on the Chita Banks 50 miles south
of Nags Head.
Its outer ring of clouds was not even
reaching the mainland yet as thehurri
cane wobbled toward die northwest at
about 11 mph.
Evacuation orders, which were
called mandatory although they don’t
have the force of law and can’t be
enforced, were issued for the Outer
Banks by Dare County and Ocracoke,
an island accessible only by ferry.
Farther south, Carteret County planned
to decide whether to order an evacua
tion after a late morning meeting.
Although the hurricane warning
covered part of South Carolina, Gov.
David Beasley said Ibesday there was
no reason yet to evacuate any of that
stated coast
Nearly 2,000 South Carolina
National Guard troops and law enforce
ment officers were available to conduct
an evacuation if one becomes neces
sary, said Gary Karr, a spokesman for
Beasley.
People on the Outer Banks were
urged to head for the mainland immedi
ately.
But as dawn broke with a blue sky,
runners took their morning jog on the
beach road and golfers kept their tee
times.
Paul Peck, a retiree from
Charlottesville, Va., said he’d never
experienced a hurricane and wanted to
watch the ocean change.
“We’d like to hang around for one
more day, but I’m worried about the
traffic if we do,” said Peck, who turned
to the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn
Nags Head for advice.
“You’ve got 12 to 15 hours, plenty
of time,” said desk cleric Sheri Ward.
Residents of the North Carolina
shore haven’t forgotten about
Hurricane Fran, which struck the
region in 1996.
“1th really starting to concern peo
ple around here,” said Ronna Lewis,
whose home on North Carolina’s
Topsail Beach, perched four feet off the
ground on concrete supports, escaped
flooding during Fran by inches. “It’s
just hurry up, wait and see.”
s ^/vr) — vvnue a
Sudanese pharmaceuticals plant hit by
U.S. missiles publicly provided medi
cine to Iraq undo* a U.N.-approved pro
gram, plant scientists secretly worked
with Iraqi counterparts on chemical
weapons projects, according to U.S.
intelligence.
U.S. intelligence intercepts of
phone conversations between scientists
at the plant in Khartoum, Sudan, and
some of the top officials in Iraq’s chem
ical weapons program influenced
; President Clinton’s decision:to order a.
: cruise missile strike on the plant, an
| action that drew loud protests.*
■** A key factor in the strike was a soil
sample from the plant site that showed
traces of a man-made chemical that is a
key ingredient in the deadly nerve agent
VX, a U.S. intelligence official said
Monday.
The Shifa Pharmaceuticals plant
was destroyed last Thursday in a U.S.
cruise missile attack at the same time
Navy-launched cruise missiles struck at
a suspected terrorist base in eastern
Afghanistan. In an echo of the contro
versy over the bombing of what Iraq
ciaunea was a Daoy mine iactory during
the Persian Gulf War, Sudanese offi
cials have protested to the United
Nations that the plant made medicine,
not weapons.
Underpressure to back up its claim,
the Clinton administration on Monday
let U.S. intelligence officials discuss
some of the evidence that led to the
decision to strike.
A U.S. intelligence official who
spoke on condition of anonymity said
the physical evidence being cited
repeatedly by Clinton administration
officials is a soil sample “obtained by
clandestine means” from the Sudan
plant property. The sample showed
traces of a man-made chemical called
EMPTA, or O-ethylmethylphospho
nothioic acid - a material with no com
mercial uses that is a key ingredient of
VX.
“Once you have it, you’re a long
way toward the production of VX,” the
intelligence official said. The material
apparently got into the soil immediately
outside die plant, but on the plant prop
erty, “either through airborne emissions
or spillage from die manufacturing
process, me omcial did not describe
how the soil sample was obtained.
“This is something we went out of our
way to get”
While defending its actions, the
administration nevertheless conceded
that the facility probably also manufac
tured medicines.
“That facility very well may have
been producing pharmaceuticals,”
State Department spokesman James
Foley said. Among other things, the
plant had been approved to produce
medicine for shipment to Iraq under the
humanitarian exception to the U.N.
imposed trade sanctions on that coun
try.
“But that in no way alters the fact
that the factory also was producing pre
cursor elements” of nerve gas, Foley
said.
Last week, senior U.S. officials who
briefed reporters following the attack
said they knew of no commercial prod
ucts made at the Shifa plant.
Eyewitness accounts by Western jour
nalists who toured the wreckage, how
ever, included descriptions of pills and
medicine bottles strewn all over die site.
Blast rocks Planet Hollywood
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -
one woman was killed. Her nationality
and those of the injured were not imme
diately known.
A witness who had been at the
ground-floor bar in the two-story
Hollywood-theme restaurant described
a horrific scene.
‘1 saw people without limbs,” Bertie
Liebenberg, who was visiting from
Johannesburg, told the South African
Press Association. “Decor on the ceiling
came crashing down, and crashed onto
people, tables and chairs.”
Reger Sedres, a local photographer,
said he heard the explosion as he drove
past the restaurant, then saw the wound
S
%
4
Building administrator refuses to authorize vigil
OMAHA (AP) - A building administrator said he will not authorize
another vigil to commemorate a 1919 incident in which a Mack man was
lynched by a mob at the Douglas County Courthouse.
Building Administrator Erie Pherson said later; however, he would let the
Omaha-Douglas Public Building Commission decide whether to authorize a
second vigil to remember die case of William Brown.
A group of Creighton University students held a candlelight vigil on the
anniversary of Brown’s hanging last year. The students and professor David
Lopez want to do so again Sept 27.
Pherson, in a letter to Lopez last week, said he would not authorize the
vigil. He cited a city ordinance prohibiting activities that incite race riots.
Douglas County Clerk Tom Cavanaugh said die stance of Pherson’s letter
disturbed him and Pherson should resign
Cuban-Americans indicted for Castro murder conspiracy
WASHINGTON (AP) - Seven Cuban-Americans were indicted Tuesday
by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to murder Cuban President '
Fidel Castro.
The indictment, returned in San Jnan, Puerto Rico, and announced by the
Justice Department here, alleged the defendants plotted for four years to kill
Castro outside the United States and particularly during his trip to a summit
meeting on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, inNoveniber 1997.
If convicted, they could face up to life in prison, the department said.
At least one of the defendants, Jose Antonio Llama, is a member of the
Cuban American National Foundation, but the foundation’s president,
Francisco ‘Tepe” Hernandez, was not charged in the indictment Lawyers for
both men had predicted in Miami last week that they would be charged with
such a plot this week.
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Northern Israeli town bombed, injuring at least 19 people
KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel (AP) - Katyusha rockets slammed into
northern Israeli towns Tuesday night, injuring at least 19 people, after a top )
Lebanese guerrilla leader was killed by an Israeli helicopter that ambushed
his car in south Lebanon.
Along the northern border, Israeli residents dashed for shelters after
the rockets took them by surprise.
“People are in panic, in panic and fear. There are the wails of women
and children,” resident Samir Sulidan told Israel radio. i
The barrage fell only hours after an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a
rocket of its own, killing guerrilla commander Hossam al-Amin, reported
ly the second-in-command of the military faction of Shiite Muslim guer
rilla group, Arnal, as he was driving along a south Lebanese coastal road
not far from the Israeli border.
Blair to recall Parliament to approve anti-terrorist bills
OMAGH, Northern Ireland (AP) — Prime Minister Tony Blair promised
Tuesday that the United Kingdom will toughen its anti-terrorist powers, abol
ishing toe right to. silence for suspected members of violent splinter groups,
so that “the future contains no more Omaghs.”
Standing amid toe boarded-up, gutted downtown where Irish Republican '
Army dissidents slaughtered 28 people and wounded 330 others 10 days ago,
Blair announced Parliament would be recalled Sept. 2 to approve what he
called “Draconian and fundamental” hills
The proposals were announced after Blair shook hands and said “I’m so
sorry” to hundreds of appreciative residents in the drizzling rain.
The legislation would end the right to silence for those accused of orga- \
nizing bomb or gun attacks in opposition to April’s multi-party peace agree
ment
The British proposals closely mirror bills that the Irish government
intends to enact at its own emergency parliamentary session before President
Clinton arrives Sept 3 to tour Northern Ireland and toe Irish Republic.
“ —-1 i
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