Texas A&M
Flying Club
Presents
Mr. Fred Zimring
“Pilots Rights and Aviation Law”
March 20 7:30 P.M. Rudder 302
Everyone Welcome!
For more information call Mary Walters 847-0042
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Academy Award Winner
DAS
BOOT
Tuesday , March 20
7:30 PM
Rudder Theatre
Admission $2.50
Tickets are available at the
MSC Box Office.
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'Institute' fan, ^ittenKiitiouitt /4c(A<vieKe44..
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MSC
Political
Forum
JAPAN:
Trade war
or
Fair Competition?
Featuring:
Dr. Lawrence C. Wolken
Texas A&M Finance Department
Wednesday, March 21, 1990
7:00p.m., 158 Blocker
Free Admission
Reception to Follow
Professional Computing
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The Battalion
WORLD & NATION 7
Tuesday, March 20,1990
FBI searches
for art stolen
from museum
BOSTON (AP) — The FBI
searched around the world Mon
day for a dozen priceless artworks
stolen from the Gardner Mu
seum. Authorities said it was the
biggest theft of modern times — a
$100 million-plus caper exceeded
only by the looting of Germany’s
national bank at the end of World
War II.
The museum, meanwhile, dis
closed that the missing works
were insured for damage as well
as restoration and conservation,
but that it had no theft insurance.
“Insurance coverage for a col
lection as valuable as the Gard
ner’s would be prohibitive,” mu
seum spokesman Corey Cronin
said. “The (museum) board de
cided a number of years ago not
to insure the collection since,
even if an insurance policy paid
off, the museum could not use
the money to replace the items
lost.”
FBI Agent Dennis O’Callaghan
said he could not discuss any
leads the F'BI might have uncov
ered. He added, “There are
sources around the world we
would reach out.for” in the effort
to recover the works, which in
cluded well-known paintings by
Rembrandt, Degas, Vermeer and
Manet.
He said no ransom demands
had been received, but if any
come, it would be treated like a
kidnapping. He would not elab
orate.
Report examines oceans
Sea sewage poses health risk
to seafood lovers, swimmers
LONDON (AP) — Sewage dumped at sea poses a sig
nificant health risk to seafood lovers and swimmers who
can pick up bacteria and viruses, an international re
port on the world’s oceans released Monday said.
The contaminated sewage can cause hepatitis, chol
era, polio, gastrointestinal illnesses and possibly AIDS,
it said.
Contrary to public fears, however, radioactive con
tamination of the oceans remains “extremely low” and
the oceans are not threatened by oil pollution except at
the sites of major spills, the report said.
( The United Nations-sponsored report said coastal
waters are the most vulnerable and abused. They are
threatened by contaminated sewage, runaway coastal
development and excess nutrients such as phosphates
and nitrates which are killing fish and altering plant
life.
Professor Alasdair McIntyre of the University of
Aberdeen in Scotland, chairman of the 20-member
panel that prepared the report, rejected the theory that
sunlight and waves quickly destroy dangerous orga
nisms in sewage.
“It used to be thought that a very short time in the
sea killed off these organisms, but we are having to rec
ognize this is not the case,” he told a news conference.
The report said eating contaminated seafood is
firmly linked with serious illness, including viral hepati
tis and cholera and that bathing in contaminated water
could also cause Illness.
“There are records of people contracting polio from
swimming in contaminated water,” McIntyre said. He
said a U.S. study showed the polio virus could survive
for 17 months in sewage-polluted marine waters.
Epidemiological studies in the United States and the
Mediterranean have also provided “unequivocal evi
dence” that swimmers in sea water polluted with micro
organisms from feces have a higher incidence of gastric
disorders, the report said.
“The fact that viruses are known to survive for sur
prisingly long periods is a significant development,” he
said.
Asked about the AIDS virus, McIntyre said: “Al
though the chance of an AIDS virus surviving would be
very slight, nevertheless it could survive.”
Last week, Patrick Cowen, a British marine biologist
formerly at the University of East Anglia, told a parlia
mentary committee that new research showed the AIDS
Although difficult to quantify,
destruction of beaches, coral reefs and
wetlands, including mangrove forests, as
well as increasing erosion of the shore,
are evident all over the world.”
United Nations sponsored
report
virus could live for more than 24 hours in sea water. He
warned that swimmers could catch it through cuts, sun
burn sores and shingle scuffs.
The World Health Organization dismissed the claim
as “total nonsense.”
The report by the Croup of Experts on the Scientific
Aspects of Marine Pollution said human pollution was
evident in the oceans “from the poles to the tropics and
from beaches to abyssal depths.”
The scientists said “the open sea is still relatively
clean” but marine habitats and resources along the
oceans’ coasts were being damaged irretrievably by har
bor developments, industrial installations, tourist facili
ties and saltwater fish farming.
“Although difficult to quantify, destruction of
beaches, coral reefs and wetlands, including mangrove
forests, as well as increasing erosion of the shore, are
evident all over the world,” the report said.
Sandinistas continue to maintain power
over Nicaraguan people despite defeat
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Even in de
feat, the Sandinistas dominate the stage in Nica
ragua.
Three weeks after the United National Oppo
sition ousted the Sandinistas with a resounding
55 percent of the vote, UNO supporters still have
not held a p«blic celebration.
UNO of ficials have steered cleared of the gov
ernment agencies they must start running on
April 25. They have yet to get a look at the books
of the state-run enterprises they hope to priva
tize.
“A couple of guys wanted to go down to the
ministries, but I told them, ‘No, you could get
killed,”’ said labor leader Alvin Guthrie, a UNO
deputy-elect to the National Assembly. “I told
them just be prudent. Take it easy.”
President Daniel Ortega has been sending
mixed signals in speech after speech, saying the
Sandinistas will defend the gains of the revolu
tion while giving up power.
President-elect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
has been virtually invisible. The shape of her
Cabinet and her policies are still unclear, as is the
balance of power in her 14-party coalition. Cha
morro, 60, has had only one short news confer
ence since the Feb. 25 general election.
Ortega has been at the forefront, issuing warn
ings of insurrection and civil war one day, then
calmly assuring Vice President Dan Quayle that
the Sandinistas will give up power.
A climate of Lincertainty and impatience pre
vails, despite the lifting last week of the U.S. eco
nomic embargo that had severed Nicaragua from
its traditional markets and strangled its sources
of credit.
By the end of the week, a U.S. dollar fetched
120,000 cordobas, the Nicaraguan currency, on
the black market. That’s nearly double the black
market rate in the weeks just before the election
and more than double the 54,000 official rate.
The business community, although buoyed by
the end of the five-year embargo and a $300 mil-
We’re going to remain at arms to
guarantee that the people get
everything people vote for — a
change in the government and a
change in their lives.”
Denis Galeano Conejo
Contra field commander
lion aid package President Bush is requesting
from Congress, is cautious.
“After the 25th” has become a kind of refrain
in business circles.
In their waning days of exclusive power, the
Sandinistas have been at turns threatening, de
fensive, contrite and conciliatory.
All eyes are upon them as they prepare to
“govern from below,” simultaneously maneuver
ing for position in transition talks with UNO,
shoring up their power base and taking steps to
block any conservative counterreforms.
They have handed out thousands of guns, ral
lied their rank and file, passed an amnesty cover
ing a decade of revolutionary rule and drafted a
law legalizing the confiscations of thousands of
homes, farms and vehicles.
Nothing of substance has emerged publicly
from the transition talks, where dismantling
U.S.-supported Contra rebels and control of the
army, police and state security apparatus are crit
ical issues.
But the Sandinistas have made it clear that
while they may give up the government, they
won’t give up their guns.
In his most troubling speech to date, Ortega
said that if the Contras haven’t demobilized by
April 25, the day UNO is scheduled to take over,
the country would rise up in arms.
“It is like the calm before the storm,” he said.
“We have to avoid being crushed by the tempest
of civil war, popular insurrection, violence.”
The Contras, for their part, continue to insist
they won’t put down their weapons until Cha
morro is in office and they feel it’s safe to return
from their base camps in Honduras.
“We’re going to remain at arms to guarantee
that the people get everything people vote for —
a change in the government and a change in
their lives,” Contra field commander Denis Ga
leano Conejo said.
Despite defeat, the Sandinistas are well-posi
tioned to block the complete dismantling of their
leftist revolution.
Although UNO won a 52-seat majority in the
92-seat National Assembly, it is three seats short
of the number it needs to amend the Constitu
tion.
The Sandinistas also will maintain control of
the Supreme Court, which would hear any chal
lenges to the Constitution, until 1993, halfway
through Chamorro’s term.
Judge denies mistrial motion
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday
denied a mistrial motion by John Poindexter that was
triggered by a reference in open court to testimony
Poindexter had given Congress under a grant of immu
nity.
The information in the reference was “not new at
all,” said the judge in Poindexter’s Iran-Contra trial.
With Rep. Lee Hamilton on the witness stand, pros
ecutor Dan Webb asked about a document, signed by
then-President Reagan, indicating missiles had been
sent to Iran in 1985 to try to win the release of Ameri
cans held in Lebanon.
Had Poindexter ever reported destroying the docu
ment? Webb asked.
“He did,” Hamilton said in front of the jury.
The congressman, co-chairman of a special congres
sional committee that investigated the Iran-Contra af
fair, was referring to Poindexter’s July 1987 testimony
to the committee, during which he said he tore up the
document.
No part of the case against Reagan’s national security
adviser may be derived from his testimony to Congress,
given under a grant of immunity from prosecution.
As soon as Hamilton answered the question on Mon
day, another prosecutor, Howard Pearl, stood up and
Webb quickly said “1 see the problem.”
Webb rephrased the question, but Poindexter lawyer
Richard Beckler later asked for a mistrial, saying that
Hamilton had specifically been instructed not to refer
to Poindexter’s immunized testimony.
U.S. District Court Judge Harold Greene denied the
motion, saying that Oliver North testified last week that
he watched Poindexter tear up the finding.
Greene said Hanlilton’s testimony was “cumulative
rather than harmful.”
Beckler suggested the jury might not find North’s
testimony credible. But Greene also noted that “both
the government and the defense referred to tearing up
of the finding” in their opening statements to thejury.
“And you have great credibility,” Greene told Beck
ler.
The information about tearing up the finding “is not
new at all,” Greene concluded.
In November 1986, Hamilton had been chairman of
the House Intelligence Committee that met with Poin
dexter to discuss U.S. arms sales to Iran.
The congressman said the national security adviser
made no mention of a U.S. role in the November 1985
Admiral Poindexter said ... President
Reagan wanted to tell the full story”
Lee Hamilton
representative
shipment of Hawk missiles to Iran. The CIA-assisted
delivery was authorized by the Reagan “finding” that
Poindexter destroyed hours after testifying before the
committees.
Webb asked Hamilton, “Do you recall whether Ad
miral Poindexter said he could reveal all the facts?”
“Admiral Poindexter said ... President Reagan
wanted to tell the full story,” replied Hamilton.
The finding that Poindexter destroyed depicted the
U.S. role in Iran arms sales as a straight arms-for-hos-
tages deal, the kind of arrangement the Reagan admin
istration declared it would never allow.
Poindexter told the Intelligence Committee mem
bers that the U.S. government didn’t learn until Jan
uary 1986 of the missile shipment, according to notes
taken at the meeting by a congressional staffer.
Bush’s bailout
falls billions
short of need
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi
dent Bush’s savings and loan bail
out will fall at least $30 billion and
possibly as much as $162 billion
short of the amount needed to
clean up the industry, a congres
sional report said Monday.
Legislation enacted in August
provided $50 billion to dose or
sell failed thrift associations
through 1992. However, $48 htl-
Ikm of that will be needed to
cover losses at the 383 institutions
seized by the government
through March 5, concluded a re
port submitted by Rep, Bruce
Vento, D-Minn.
Vento is chairman of an 18-
meraber House Banking Com
mittee task force tracking the per
formance of the new bailout
agency, the Resolution Trust
Corp.
Regulators expect the failure
of an additional 225 to 295 S&Ls
with losses of at least $32 billion
to $40 billion, according to the re
port. In addition, 295 to 325
S&Ls are weak and may not re
cover on their own, the report
said.
Depending on the severity of
the losses, the shortfall could rise
as high as $162 billion, Vento
warned.