Thursday, November 13, 1986/The Battalion/Page 9
World and Nation
■Wo hostages return; price
ion remaining five may rise
I PARIS (AP) — Joy over the re
lease of two French hostages held in
■.ebanon was tempered Wednesday
^■y speculation that the kidnappers,
Hran or Syria may raise the price of
Hreedom for those who remain.
| The return home Tuesday of
■lamille Sontag, 85, and Marcel Cou-
Hari, 54, brought to five the number
mpi I teiich captives Shiite Moslem
Bundamentalists have freed this
Bear.
I At least five still are held, and
Tamdari corroborated previous re
ports that a sixth French kidnap vic
tim may be dead.
I In each release, the hostages
Ipassed through Damascus, capital of
Ivria. Premier Jacques Chirac has
■ailed Syria the obligatory passage-
pay to any solution to the Lebanese
Jrisis. Iran is an equally important
factor, commentators said Wednes
day.
Le Matin, a Socialist-leaning daily.
compared the freeing of hostages
to a banking transaction in which
two signatures are necessary: Syria
and Iran.
The pro-government daily Le Fig
aro commented: “It is clear that, to
obtain freedom for the other hos
tages, one must again pay the pound
of flesh: At what level? We do not
know. Blackmail? No doubt.”
Chirac’s government denies nego
tiating to free the Frenchmen and
insists that its Middle East policy is
not being determined by the hostage
situation.
Iran and Syria praised France’s
Middle East policy after the kidnap
pers released Sontag and Coudari.
France is normalizing relations
with Iran. It recently agreed to pay
$330 million to settle a dispute over
a $1 billion loan made to France by
the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pah-
lavi, who was ousted in 1979 by Aya
tollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s funda
mentalist Shiite revolution.
Sontag and Coudari were freed in
Beirut on Monday, the day Euro
pean Common Market foreign min
isters met in London to take mea
sures against Syria for its alleged
support of terrorism.
Those adopted included an em
bargo on arms sales to Syria, which
gets nearly all its weapons from the
Soviet Union, and an end to high-
level official visits.
France would not accept stronger
sanctions. Those originally proposed
by Britain, which broke relation with
Syria last month, were diluted.
p;
itions
/alt
the
xtfi
nd
)e-
)li-
ms
r
e
Two planes
nearly collide
with 175 aboard
Bishops reaffirm
loyalty to pope,
pull out of dispute
A I LAN FA (AP) —- Two jets
I carrying 175 people nearly col-
I lided with each other at 35,000
I feet Wednesday after a controller
B was unable to warn the pilots to
B change course because of a stuck
B microphone, federal officials
I saul.
No evasive action was nec-
I essary and there were no injuries
I [resulting from the close encoun-
I [ter about ISO miles north of At-
B lanta. the Federal Aviation Ad-
B ministration reported.
♦b FAA spokesman Roger Myers
B termed the incident a “near-mid-
B air collision." It involved United
B Airlines Flight 743 and Braniff
B Airways Flight 515 and occurred
B at 10:33 a.m. EST, FAA officials
B said.
■ It was not immediately clear
B how dose the jets actually came,
m though a United official said the
■ distance was less than a half-mile.
■ ^ Myers said an air traffic gon-
■ Holler at the FAA’s Atlanta Air
B Route 1 raffle (/.enter at Ha'mp-
I ton was aware of the situation but
B was unable to contact the pilots
fl because of an apparent technical
I difficulty.
“The controller attempted to
B take corrective action but was un-
I able to communicate with either
B (pilot) because of a stuck micro-
B phone,” Myers said.
He said FAA investigators
B were looking further into the
B matter and that the pilots of both
B planes would be interviewed.
The United flight was en route
I from Fort Myers, Fla., to Chicago
I and was carrying 99 passengers
I and seven crew members, said
I Chuck Novak, a spokesman at
1 United’s Chicago headquarters.
“We’re showing it 100 miles
■ south of Louisville, flying under
I air traf f ic control at 35,000 feet,”
I Novak said. “The crew saw the
■ other airplane, which was travel-
I ing west, and it passed behind our
I aircraft.”
Irma Jensen, a spokeswoman
I for Braniff, said the flight, en
I route from New York’s LaGuar-
I dia Airport to Dallas-Fort Worth,
I carried 62 passengers and seven
I crew,members.
Brail iff President Ron
I Ridgeway said Braniff was con-
I ducting its own investigation into
I the matter.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ameri
ca’s Roman Catholic bishops, after
daring to debate the Vatican’s pun
ishment of a fellow U.S. prelate,
stepped back from confrontation
with Rome on Wednesday by saying
the Vatican’s verdict “deserves our
respect and confidence.”
Their decision, after five hours of
intense secret talks over two days,
said that while the bishops sympa
thize with the pain of an embattled
colleague, the pope in Rome still
must come First.
The bishops, all appointed by
Pope John Paul II or his predeces
sors and all subject to church disci
pline themselves, did not add to the
Vatican’s criticism of Seattle Arch
bishop Raymond Hunthausen. But
neither did they defend him, as
some of his supporters among the
group had hoped they might.
“On this occasion the bishops of
the United States wish to affirm un
reservedly their loyalty to and unity
with the Holy Father,” Bishop James
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Su
preme Court, renewing its study of
affirmative action in the American
workplace, was urged Wednesday to
strictly control preferential treat
ment for women and minorities in
job promotions.
The Reagan administration led
the assault on affirmative action
plans in cases from Alabama and
California as the justices for the first
time directly examined job prefer
ences for women.
Solicitor General Charles Fried,
the administration’s chief courtroom
lawyer, said a court-ordered plan for
promoting equal numbers of black
and white state troopers in Alabama
was illegal even though only a few
jobs were at stake.
He argued that the court order
aimed at correcting past employ
ment discrimination by the state po
lice was excessive in punishing inno-
Malone, president of the National
Conf erence of Catholic Bishops, said
in a statement approved by most of
the group’s nearly 300 bishops.
“The conference of bishops has
no authority to intervene” in the dis
pute between the Vatican and Hunt
hausen, he said.
Hunthausen was ordered by the
Vatican earlier this year to give up
much of his authority to a Rome-ap
pointed auxiliary bishop after Vati
can officials judged him too liberal
on such matters as ministry to homo
sexuals and divorced Catholics and
dispensation of general absolution
for sin to large groups.
He was allowed to make his case to
his fellow bishops at the secret ses
sions — sessions like none other in
recent years — and he used the op
portunity to complain that “a shroud
of secrecy” around the Vaticart’s in
vestigative process had kept 'hifn
from even seeing the formal, charges
against him.
cent white troopers seeking
promotion.
But J. Richard Cohen of Mont
gomery, Ala., representing the black
troopers, said the federal judge who
ordered the one-for-one promotion
plan sought to overcome a history of
discrimination by the state police de
partment.
In the second case, the Santa
Clara County Transportation
Agency promoted a woman to dis
patcher over a man deemed more
qualified. A federal appeals court
upheld the move as a means of over
coming the absence of women in
higher-ranking agency jobs, al
though there was no court finding
that the agency discriminated
against women.
The Supreme Court is expected
to announce rulings by July in both
cases, answering lingering questions
over the future of af firmative action.
Court urged to control
affirmative action
Drug aids memories of 16 of 17 senile people
BOSTON (AP) — An experimen-
WHtal drug for Alzheimer’s disease sig-
■ niflcantly improved the memories of
H16 of 17 senile people treated in a
I study, and may be the first effective
■therapy for this devastating illness of
Hold age, a researcher says.
Elderly people who did not know
H their sons and daughters or even
p their own names were able to recog-
■ nize their families again after taking
■ the pills. One man who was less se-
Bj verely affected went back to work
H part-time. A retiree who before
■ could barely speak took up daily golf
■ again, while another victim resumed
■ driving, cooking and cleaning her
■ house.
“If this is validated, 1 think we will
■ have our first viable treatment for
■ Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. William K.
■ Summers, who directed the study.
■ The drug is not available for rou-
J ■ tine use. It cannot be prescribed by
■ physicians. Until researchers learn
■ more about it, the medicine will be
■ given only to small numbers of peo-
■ pie enrolled in carefully controlled
■ studies.
Summers, an assistant professor
I at the University of California, Los
I Angeles, based his conclusions on
B the treatment, of people with model -
B ate to severe Alzheimer’s senility.
“If this is validated, I
think we will have our first
viable treatment for Alz
heimer’s. ”
— Dr. William K. Sum
mers
“Of these 17,” Summers said,
“four of them got dramatically bet
ter, seven got clearly better, and five
of them got better to anybody’s eye.”
Summers said that his findings
are encouraging but still prelimi
nary, and he stressed that the drug
does not cure Alzheimer’s disease.
Instead, it eases the symptoms of the
disease, much as insulin controls dia
betes or L-dopa relieves Parkinson’s
disease.
In an interview, Davis was cau
tious about the drug’s potential.
“It’s not a ‘golden bullet,’ ” he
said. “I do think this drug will help
some people, and there is a market
for it. I see it as a short, rational
step” toward controlling Alzheimer’s
disease.
He noted that similar drugs have
failed to produce dramatic results,
and he suggested that Summers’
findings might result from fortunate
selection of study subjects and care
ful monitoring of the patients’ drug
levels.
The experimental drug, called te-
trahydroaminoacrine, or THA, was
discovered in 1909 and first given to
Alzheimer’s victims in a pilot study
by Summers eight years ago.
Summers said he is trying to ob
tain a patent on the medicine’s use so
that a drug company will take over
the expensive job of testing it and
obtaining approval from the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration. He
said he approached four drug
houses, and none was willing to take
on the medicine, since without a pat
ent they would not have exclusive
rights to sell it.
Summers said he fears his encour
aging results will touch off “mass
hysteria” for the drug, particularly
since no one knows when, or even if,
it will be approved.
Alzheimer’s disease is the primary
cause of senility among the elderly.
An estimated 1.5 million to 3 million
Americans have the illness, and it
causes more than 100,000 deaths
each year.
Problem Pregnancy?
we listen, we care, we help
Free pregnancy tests
concerned counselors
Brazos Valley
Crisis Pregnancy Service
We’re local!
1301 Memorial Dr.
24 hr. Hotline
823-CARE
I cut here*
Defensive Driving Course
November 14,15 and November 18,19
College Station Hilton
Pre-register by phone: 693-8178
Ticket deferral and 10% insurance discount
(cut here|
Does biotechnology improve or interfere with the normal course of
nature? The E.L. Miller Lecture Series presents two days of active
debate about the impact of biotechnology. Make plans to participate
in daily symposia and evening panel discussions regarding the ethics
of genetic engineering and the effects of government regulation on
genetics, agriculture, medicine and religion.
4 Panel discussions will be held in Rudder Theatre 8 p.m. Nov. 19 and
20. For information on daily symposia, call 845-1515. Admission is FREE
for all events.
Novemben19SL 20,1986
s^MSC Political Forum • Texas A&M University • B45-1515
Sponsored by Cooper Industi 'ies Foi u h j, it.u u ■
GRIMESCOUNTY
CHRYSLER PLYMOUTH DODGE
TAKES PLEASURE IN INTRODUCING
KELVIN CALLAGHAN
AS OUR CAMPUS REPRESENTATIVE
★ SPECIAL DISCOUNTS ON AUTO
REPAIRS FOR BOTH STUDENTS
and faculty withana&m id
★ GRIMES COUNTY can repair all
makes and models
COMING SOON!
1987 PLYMOUTH SUNDANCE
be SURE TO see KELVIN FOR ALL
YO UR TRANSPORTATION NEEDS.
KELVIN 822-2406
BRYAN# 822-3038
Grimes County
Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge
1014 Hwy. 6 South Loop
Navasota, Tx. 822-3038
YjS
Chrysler
Plymouth