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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 13, 1988)
Texas ASM m m m • The Battalion Wv. aidotj i', > |Vol. 87 No. 132 USPS 045360 12 Pages 2 released y hijackers or ‘goodwill’ College Station, Texas Wednesday, April 13, 1988 LARNACA, Cyprus (AP) — A hi- Ricked Kuwaiti jumbojet took off for ^Igeria early Wednesday after gun- nen freed 12 more passengers in [that they called a gesture ol good- The blue-and-white Boeing 747 eftLarnacaat 1:17 a.m. Wednesday 3:17 p.m. EDT Tuesday) with three Members of Kuwait’s royal family ■illamong the hostages. • The Shiite Moslem hijackers, who lave killed two passengers, had re vested charts from the control [jldd, jnver at Larnaca Airport for the nDg hree-hour (light to the Algerian abaapital. When asked whether the aircraft rould be accepted in Algiers, a ower official said a telex from Alge- ian authorities was “very definite, fes we will confirm that for you.” About 40 people, including the six o eight hijackers, remained aboard he Kuwait Airways jet. It was com- nandeered eight days ago on a Bight from Bangkok to Kuwait and pent three days at Mashhad, Iran. It was subsequently allowed to land |At Larnaca because it was running ut of fuel. One of those freed said three tembers of Kuwait’s ruling family. Grt; lien Cittfl WE tt tin A Fadel Khaled al-Sabah and his sisters Anware and Ebtesam, still were on the plane, said Dr. George Olympios at Larnaca General Hospital, where the freed hostages were taken. A nurse at the hospital said the freed hostages “seem to be OK. There weren’t any visible injuries.” She added that they were very tired. Earlier in the day, the gunmen said they had donned “death shrouds” and had renamed the jet liner “the plane of martyrdom.” The 12 passengers walked off the aircraft at 10:25 p.m. and got into three ambulances as the flashing lights from the plane and the emer gency vehicles illuminated the run way. After the released passengers left the plane, a hijacker told the tower they were two Palestinians with Jor danian passports and 10 others of unannounced nationality who were sick, poor or whose families had nu merous children. Calling the release a “goodwill” gesture, the hijackers said the Jorda nian nationals were freed as a “pre sent to the uprising in Palestine,” the 4-month-old Arab rebellion in Is raeli-occupied territories. . I ' . \ s !Sik. * * <>v s * * W. • ; . ' fgr| /. 1 Play ball Photo by Sam B. Myers Chuck Knoblauch, who plays shortstop for the Aggie baseball team, helps 6-year-old Shawn Benson of College Station and another youngster practice their fielding on Olsen Field while between games T uesday afternoon. / hief of police Dlans to resign amidst turmoil Proposal to extend visitation hours in dorms gets Vandiver’s approval is pn lie in roto etiio! ■ DALLAS (AP) — Police Chief Billy Prince, wearied by months of controversy, said Tuesday he is quit ting a department in turmoil over minority shootings, public accounta bility and officers slain in a city he claims breeds cop-haters. B Prince has come under fire from top city officials for criticizing City Council members and opposing re forms in a department that has un dergone congressional scrutiny for a Book errors inconvenient for students lid;. ■ pro; uni i oft ofol* 1 Before going to stand in long registration lines or sitting down lor a try at telephone registration, Icheck the schedule book and its nserts carefully — errors in pro duction of the bulletin have caused some inaccuracies in regis- ration information. Texas A&M Registrar Donald Carter said that the mistakes were noticed as soon as the books were delivered, and inserts with cor- ections were added to each bul letin on the first day of distribu- ns, f By Mary-Lynne Rice Staff Writer The omission of some fee op- jjjji uon codes, including The Aggie- land and the video yearbook, are attributable to oversight, he said. A printing error was responsible for incorrect registration dates i ■ffot the summer semester. 60 The correct registration dates are as follows: seniors may prere- ister by telephone on May 2; ju niors, May 3; sophomores. May 4, and freshmen, May 5, with regis tration lines open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Registration is open to all students on May 6 from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and again Monday through Friday, May 9-June 3 from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Despite the inserts, some stu dents still may not be aware of the inaccuracies and changes. “But I think we’ve gotten the informa tion out and made it available in a handy matter,” Carter said. With the number of bulletins trinted each year — 50,000 for or the spring and fall semesters nd 30,000 for summer sessions -mistakes are almost inevitable, ^ Carter said. “Something like this is bound to happen occasionally,” he said. '‘So many people have input into his that sometimes coordination ecomes difficult.” See related story, Page 3 record number of police shootings of citizens, most of them black and Hispanic. “I woke up Easter Sunday and just didn’t feel good about returning,” Prince said at a news conference. “I told my wife then, T think it’s time for me to go.’ ” Prince, 45, said he is stepping down immediately to pursue ajob in business, and City Manager Richard Knight appointed first assistant po lice chief Louie C. Caudell as interim chief in the nation’s seventh-largcest city. Prince, a 24-year Dallas police vet eran who has weathered increasing pressure for three slayings involving Dallas police officers, said he would serve in an advisory role through the summer, and that the decison to re sign was “totally my own.” “I don’t want to be a lame-duck leader or a lame-duck chief,” he said. The chief fanned fires of racial tension in January after a homeless black vagrant gunned down officer John Glenn Chase, who was white, in a downtown parking lot as two or three young black youths yelled “Shoot him!” He went on television to proclaim that city leaders’ criticism of his de partment had created a public so hostile that such a death was inevi table. He then refused to back down even after Mayor Annette Strauss demanded an apology. By Stephen Masters Staff Writer Texas A&M President Frank Van diver approved on Friday a proposal to extend residence hall visitation by five hours per week for Fall 1988, Residence Hall Association Pi'esi- dent David McDowell said Tuesday. Under the current rules, visitors of the opposite sex can visit halls from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on week- nights and 10 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. The proposal — which will be ap proved and implemented on a dorm-to-dorm basis — increases the visitation deadline to 11 p.m. on weeknights, McDowell, a junior ac counting major, said. Weekend visitation is not affected by the proposal, which also met the approval of Assistant Director of Student Affairs Tom Murray, Direc tor of Student Affairs Ron Sasse and Vice President for Student Services Dr. John J. Koldus before reaching Vandiver. Vandiver was not avail able for comment Tuesday. The extension will be imple mented (in halls that approve it) on a one-year trial basis. Any problems arising from the new hours will be dealt with by an oversight commission, headed by the RHA vice president, that will be made up of two residence hall presi dents, two RHA delegates, two resi dent directors, two resident advisers, two members of Student Affairs and one RHA executive board member. At the end of the year the com mission will recommend whether to make the temporary hours perma nent, McDowell said. But he noted the changes may not necessarily be campus-wide. “Each residence hall will vote whether to implement the extended hours during the first two weeks of the semester,” McDowell said. “We realize that each hall has a different atmosphere and these new hours may not be right for everybody. A 60 percent vote among each hall’s resi dents will be required before imple mentation.” A residence hall will adopt the ex tended hours if 60 percent of those students who vote in the election ap prove of the proposal. Although the change will mean that the resident adviser must make some adjustments, they will be mi nor, McDowell said. “They (R.A.s) are normally on duty from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. anyway,” he said. “There won’t be any extra duties for them; they will just have to lock the doors and make their rounds an hour later than usual.” McDowell said a recent RHA poll of students showed that 81 percent of those students surveyed approved of the extension of visiting hours. There was also a high approval rate among R.A.s, he said. Early-morning fire in Walton’s K Ramp adds to lengthy list of damages for hall By Mary-Lynne Rice Staff Writer Alarms and smoke from a first- floor carpet fire of unknown origin woke residents of Walton Hall’s K Ramp at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, several of the residents reported. The fire, which occurred less than a week after K Ramp residents were warned of possible eviction because of continued disruption, adds to a lengthy list of damage and vandal ism in the hall since last semester. Because of continued problems in the ramp, the Office of Student Af fairs notified residents last week that they will not be allowed to return to K Ramp in the 1988-89 school year. Although the flames were con fined to a small area and extin guished before causing extensive damage, residents said the fire on the synthetic-material carpet created substantial amounts of smoke. “The fire alarm woke me up, but I didn’t think much of it, since it had happened before,” K Ramp resident and sophomore aerospace major Ni- ranjan Chitale said. “But when I opened the door, the hall was full of smoke. There was smoke all the way up to the fourth floor.” Several residents reported head aches and stomachaches as a result of smoke inhalation, but no major injuries were sustained in the fire. Mo Sadani, a sophomore com puter science major and K Ramp resident, said he does not believe anyone in his ramp is responsible for the fire. Stephen Leach, K Ramp resident and junior electrical engineering major, said he suspects the fire was set by residents of another dormi tory. “I think someone did it because they were upset with us,” Leach said. “Maybe they thought it was a cool trick, or maybe they don’t like us. “To our knowledge, we’re just vic tims.” Sadani said he thinks residents of another hall just want to see the K Ramp residents evicted. “They know we’re on the verge of eviction, and they’re trying to get us out,” he said. Although the 32 residents of the ramp have not been contacted about disciplinary action to be taken in an swer to the fire, some said they ex pect charges for the fire’s damage to be included in a running group bill of more than $600, which they will have to pay at the end of the semes ter. Agrinaut discusses America’s future in space By Jeff Pollard Staff Writer On April 12, 1981 America’s hope for the fu ture lifted off the ground at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Millions of people from around the world watched the Space Shuttle Co lumbia take off on her maiden voyage and begin a new era in space travel. On Jan. 28, 1986, these same people saw these hopes dashed when the Shuttle Challenger made its final, tragic flight. On Tuesday, seven years after that first shuttle mission, “Agrinaut” Susan Forte reassured stu dents that hopes for America’s future in space were not dead and that many projects are under way to increase our presence among the stars. Forte, a vocational agriculture teacher from Pensacola, Fla., is a member of NASA’s Teacher In Space program and was a runner-up to Christa McAuliffe to become the first private citi zen in space. After McAuliffe’s death, Forte be gan working on a memorial program to further her mission. Forte proposed an Ambassador of Education Program that was unanimously passed by the Florida legislature. Forte was appointed Florida’s first Amassador of Education and is taking a leave of absense from teaching so she can pursue her Amassa- dor’s duties and her work as a potential teacher in space. She said the Challenger crash was a definite setback to the teacher program, but NASA wants to continue the mission that McAuliffe began, McAuliffe’s mission was to teach daily lessons from space. Forte said there were more than two million curriculum guides sent out to schools so children could get involved. NASA hoped to bridge the gap between the space program and the American people, she said. “People think that astronauts are not so easy to relate to because they seem to be unapproachab le,” Forte said.“Christa’s mission was to demystify space and to show' the astronauts as being real people.” Forte said she thinks her background in agri culture helped her to become a runner-up in the program. She said that this background gave her many space-related ideas. As a runner-up, Forte had to train the same as other astronauts do. Her basic training included time in the oxygen deprivation tank, several shuttle simulators and flights in the KC-135 zero-gravity airplane. The plane, affectionatly know as the “Vomit Comet”, is where astronauts get their first experi ence with space flight. One of the worst problems astronauts have had on early missions was with the toilet on the shuttle. Forte said that it was best not to w'ait until the last minute to use the restroom because of the difficulties involved. To begin the process, the as tronauts must float backwards into the room. Once in, they had to lock their feet into stirrups and pull themselves down onto the seat with the handles on either side. Once down, they locked themselves in with the seat belt and hit a switch to begin suction. Forte said the astronauts’ biggest problem was getting lined up with the four inch diameter hole in the seat. “They would sit down and start it up,” she said, “and if they w'ere not lined up right . . . well, it just didn’t work.” NASA’s engineers, she said, finally came up with a positional trainer, nicknamed the “Moon Room,” so astronauts could practice on the ground. “It comes complete with a color TV under the seat and a monitor in front,” Forte said, “so that they could watch themselves from underneath while they practice.” Photo by Steve Taber Susan Forte from NASA speaks about the Teacher in Space Pro gram to an A&M class Tuesday.