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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 19, 1989)
’friTexasASMW^ ^ ^ ^ line Battalion 268 -bestI Vol. 88 No. 173 USPS 045360 6 Pages College Station, Texas WEATHER TOMORROW’S FORECAST: Partly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of showers in the af ternoon. HIGH: 90s LOW: 70s Wednesday, July 19,1989 I'Caperton: Comp bill controversy almost over Politicians, supporters gather in honor of senator By Richard Tijerina STAFF WRITER State legislators are close to an agreement on workers’ compensation reform, but they’ll proba bly have to work until midnight tonight, the end of the special session, to reach an agreement, Sen. Kent Caperton said Tuesday. Caperton, D-Bryan, was the guest of honor at a “Senator Kent Caperton Appreciation Day” fundraiser at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park. Several prominent Democratic politicians at tended the event, including gubernatorial candi date and State Treasurer Ann Richards, Attor ney General Jim Mattox, who has not announced his candidacy b 't is expected to run against Rich ards, and Lt. C v. Bill Hobby. Caperton, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and co-chairman of the conference committee that is negotiating workers’ compen sation reform, said the Legislature might have to work until the midnight deadline tonight to come to an agreement on the bill. “That’s not the way I’d like it to be, that’s not the way I planned it,” Caperton said. “We will continue to try to reason together, to work to resolve those differences.” State lawmakers failed to pass the workers’ compensation bill during the 140-day regular session and Gov. Bill Clements called a special session in hopes of having the Legislature pass a reform bill overhauling the Texas workers’ com pensation system. We will continue to try to reason together, to work to resolve those differences.” — Kent Caperton state senator Clements, who gave even odds Tuesday that the Legislature would send him the bill, said he will call another 30-day special session in Novem ber if the bill is not passed. “I remain convinced that as long as men and women of good will work together toward the common goal (of settling the bill), our problems are capable of resolution,” Caperton told the crowd of about 300 supporters. Caperton said he originally planned to an nounce his political plans at the event, but de cided to wait until an agreement to the bill is reached. He has hinted he wants to run for re-election, instead of retiring from politics or running for a statewide office. He was appointed Senate Finance chairman last year and officially began his tenure in the po sition when the Legislature convened in January. “Seeing you here tempts me greatly (to an nounce my political plans), but I want to have an opportunity to think about it, talk to people I re gard as my advisers and speak with my family about it,” he said. Texas Monthly magazine in its July issue’s “Ten Best and Worst List” picked Caperton as the number one member of the Texas Legis lature. The list was based on interviews with House and Senate staff, lobbyists and lawmakers. Caperton said the workers’ compensation bill is important to the people of his 5th Senatorial District, a 15-county district which includes Bryan-College Station, and he will continue to fight for the bill until it’s passed. “We’re going to keep trying until midnight (Wednesday),” he said. “I hope we can get the bill done. I know it’s important to the people of this district, both the workers and employers. It’s just a tough, tough issue to resolve. “I think we’re close, but we’re not there — all we can do is keep trying.” S6.00 investigates microfilm theft rom A&M, 11 other libraries i I RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The FBI is investigating ■he disappearance of hundreds of microfilm reels of ^patents from a dozen university libraries, including :those at Texas A&M, University of Texas and Rice Uni versity a newspaper reported Tuesday. Since mid-June, at least 886 microfilm reels of U.S. batents have been reported missing, according to the Richmond News Leader. The stolen reels, which con- microfilm of patents issued between 1968 and 988, generally do not contain any of the same infor- ation. Thefts have been reported at the universities of Hdaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mex- ■cu, Utah and Texas, as well as Georgia Institute of ■Technology, Ohio State University, Virginia Common- Bvealth University, Rice and A&M, the newspaper said. Some librarians believe the thefts are part of a con- piracy to amass a 20-year collection of microfilmed in- brmation, even though such information is available at tany libraries and can be purchased from a Connecti- ut company. “Unfortunately, the extent of this problem is grow- ng daily and has now reached alarming proportions,” he U.S. Patent and Trademark Office warned in a re- ent memorandum. “It’s a puzzlement,” said William J. Judd, university library services director at VCU, where 163 reels van ished last month. “Why would this happen?” William J. Studer, director of Ohio State University Libraries, also said he was surprised. “I don’t know that I can ever recall in my profes sional lifetime of 25 years that government information openly available in many places is the target of whole sale thievery,” he said. “It is strange.” An official in the Patent and Trademark Office re fused to talk about the thefts Monday, saying she did not want to jeopardize the FBI probe. Libraries have suffered a collective loss of $200,000, according to a bulletin from the Association of Re search Libraries. Officials at one victimized library described possible suspects as two men in their late 20s or early 30s, dressed in “casual business attire” and Carrying large, brown attache cases. Officials are not sure how the reels were taken. “If we see someone come in with a suitcase, I think we would be suspicious,” said Robert Migneault, dean of library services at the University of New Mexico. The microfilm collections are held by 65 Patent De pository Libraries designated by the federal govern ment. The collections are used by lawyers, inventors and others needing information such as how patented devices work and are designed and when a patent was issued. Research Publications of Woodbridge, Conn., is au thorized by the government to sell the microfilm reels. A 3,126-reel set for patents issued between 1968 and 1988 costs $101,000. Stayin’ cool by the pool Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack Lifeguard Chuck DuPaul tries to stay cool under- heat and humidity made the pool a nice place to neath an umbrella at Wofford Cain Pool. The be Tuesday afternoon. Mexican consul dies in Austin after 20 foot fall AUSTIN (AP) — The Mexican consul to Austin was killed in an accidental, 20-foot fall after he stepped over a retaining wall at a rural home, authorities said Tuesday. The body of German Casta neda, 60, was found about 9 a.m. near the home of an Austin res taurant owner, Curtis Weeks, spokesman for the Travis County Sheriffs Office, said. ] An autopsy revealed Casta neda died late Monday night from injuries he suffered in the fall, the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office said. His death was determined to be an accident. Norm Carmack, of the medical examiner’s office, said. Weeks said Castaneda fell after parking his car and walking up to the home of Javier Corona, the owner of Las Palomas Restaurant & Bar in Westlake Hills, a small community near Austin. Before the house is a concrete and rock retaining wall and a lighted footbridge that crosses over a 20-foot drop. Weeks said. Castaneda probably saw the kitchen window and approached the house believing that was the front door, missing the foot bridge, he said. “We think he was trying to find these people’s house,” Weeks said. Weeks said apparently Casta neda was going to a party at the home. Weeks said Castaneda had been on the job for 15 days. Cas taneda’s wife, however, said he had been consul in Austin since May. Castaneda had left the County Line restaurant earlier Monday, where he dined with several Texas Department of Agriculture employees. Bush returns home after 10 days in Europe WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi dent Bush, home after a 10-day trip to Europe, said Tuesday he sensed the dawning of an age behind the Iron Curtain in which freedom and democracy will flourish. Returning to the White House, the president was cheered by thou sands, including members of his Cabinet and tourists pulled from lines waiting to see the Executive Mansion. Visibly tired by his whirlwind trip — four countries in 10 days — Bush said he had found “an enormous amount of excitement” in Poland and Hungary. He recounted some of the mem ories he will take from the trip: “The open arms of the people of Poland. American flags waving in the sqaure at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. The faces of the people who lined the streets greeting us with such joy. The thousands who endured a driving downpour in Bu dapest to welcome us to Hungary . “The warmth that Barbara and I felt as a reflection of the warmth the people of Poland and Hungary feel for America and for our ideals.” His trip behind the Iron Curtain, Bush said, left him sensing there is “a new world within our reach, a world where the yearning for free dom overcomes discord and con frontation, where freedom and de mocracy flourish for others as they have for this great country of ours.” Minutes later, meeting with Cab inet members in the Oval Office, Bush extolled the achievements of the weekend Paris economic sum mit, at which he helped to chart a campaign to preserve the global en vironment. Flying back from Europe, Bush said earlier in the day that the high point of his trip may have been the presentation to him by Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth of a plaque containing fragments of a barbed wire fence that had stood be tween the Communist nation and neutral Austria. “I love our country so much that when people express their love of America by their tears, which we saw among some of the older people in almost every place, that moved me a lot,” Bush said to reporters traveling with him on Air Force One. Or, he said, the high point may have been standing with Lech Wa lesa, the leader of the Polish trade union Solidarity, at a towering me morial to slain workers in Gdansk. “There were so many wonderful things,” Bush said. As for the future of moves toward democracy and Tree-market econ omies in Hungary and Poland, Bush said he felt there was “too much hope, too much optimism” for those movements to be squelched by Mos cow. In both countries, reform movements were crushed, in Hun gary in 1956 and in Poland in 1970. But Bush said he did not think fear of the Soviet Union or communism could reverse the trends underway now in Poland and Hungary. Uprisings in Soviet Union leave at least 16 dead, hundreds hurt MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of armed men roamed an ethnically troubled Black Sea region Tues day where at least 16 people have been killed and 239 injured in three days of gunfights, kidnappings and beatings, officials reported. A national Interior Ministry official said some of the 3,000 ministry soldiers patrolling the Abkhazia region in Soviet Georgia formed a human barrier between Georgians and Abkhazians who earlier fought two bat tles along the Galidze River. ‘T he situation is very serious because so many people have guns,” said Vladislav G. Ardzinba, a national legis lator from Sukhumi, capital of Abkhazia, where both Georgians and Abkhazians claim discrimination by the other. Many people in the region have shotguns or hunting rifles, and several reports said mobs looted firearms, in cluding automatic weapons, from police stations and J ai,s - A high official in Sukhumi said snipers fired at the local Communist Party and Interior Ministry buildings, and other armed men cut road and rail transport and some communications with the area 870 miles south of Moscow. “In effect, they are spreading terror,” he said by tele phone. Deputy Interior Minister Ivan F. Shilov said on the national television news show Vremya that 16 people had been killed and 239 injured, 188 of whom were hospitalized. Fie said the most volatile situation Tuesday was near Ochamchira, on the coast south of Sukhumi, where the soldiers were acting as a barrier between Georgians and Abkhazians. Zarya Vostoka, a Georgian newspaper, said 5,000 people were armed in the Sukhumi area on Sunday night and there were exchanges of gunfire. Violence was reported in Tkvarcheli, Gulripsh, Gali, and Gudauta in Abkhazia, and in Zugdide in western Georgia. The official news agency Tass said authorities had confiscated more than 300 weapons. Prisoners freed by a mob from a jail in Zugdide may be among the armed marauders. Tass said only 14 of the 180 prisoners had been recaptured. Ardzinba, the national legislator from Sukhumi, said the riots started Saturday with the beating of an Abkha zian. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said earlier the vi olence began when Abkhazians attacked Georgians. Texas coast residents buzz with excitement as drug washes ashore CRYSTAL BEACH (AP) — High tide has a whole new mean ing these days along the Texas Gulf Coast, keeping people in tiny fishing and resort towns buz zing about a subject usually dis cussed more by big-city dwellers. “Everybody’s talking about it and I think everybody’s looking for it,” said Herb Knowles, who works at the Dirty Pelican Pier, which juts into the Gulf of Mexico about 30 miles east of Galveston. What has captured the atten tion of folks along a more than 200-mile stretch of coast is the discovery in the past two weeks of 261 pounds of 98 percent pure uncut cocaine estimated by fed eral officials to have a street value of some $5 million. Some of the 61 packages have washed ashore and others have been found by fishermen in the open Gulf. “Guys on the weekend are out here at night on three-wheeled vehicles with big spotlights on the beach,” Knowles said. “You tell me what they’re looking for.” The cocaine first appeared on June 28 when five packages — about 14.5 pounds — were dis covered in the sand on Mat agorda Island, about 100 miles southwest of Houston. On July 1, another package was found even farther south near Port Aransas. Two days later, an identical package turned up in the same area. A week after that, two more discoveries were made: Five bun dles totaling about 78 pounds washed ashore on the Bolivar Peninsula, across from Galveston, and 19 bundles weighing about 81 pounds were discovered by the Matagorda County Sheriffs De partment. Finally, on July 13, six men fishing 12 miles off Galveston ra dioed the Coast Guard, saying they found 25 packages weighing 83 pounds floating in the Gulf. “It all has the same markings, which leads us to believe it’s from the same load,” said James E. Caldwell, supervisory special agent for the U.S. Customs Serv ice in Galveston. Marine biologists who exam ined the packages have estimated the cocaine was in the water from three weeks to a couple of months. It was bundled in packages of five bricks wrapped in duct tape and tied with yellow plastic rope.