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BATTIPS
Anyone with story suggestions
can call BATTIPS, The Battal
ion’s phone line designed to im
prove communication between
the newspaper and its readers.
BATTIPS’ number is 845-
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Ideas can include news stories,
feature ideas and personality pro
files of interesting people.
U.S. Customs seize Iraqi oil in Port Arthur
PORT ARTHUR (AP) — U.S. Customs of
ficials on Tuesday seized 20 million gallons of
Iraqi crude oil aboard a Norwegian vessel at a
refinery dock here.
Customs spokeswoman Sharon Goodson of
Houston said the oil was seized from the Tho-
raas, a vessel that had loaded the oil from an
offshore tanker, the Cartho Genova, a Span
ish-registered supertanker sitting in the Gulf
of Mexico.
“Presently the oil has been seized and the
boat is being detained,” Goodson said Tues
day. “All of this happened because the final
payment (for the crude) was made Monday
by Bay Oil Co.”
President George Bush ordered an em
bargo against Iraqi oil, effective at 5 a.m.
Thursday.
The Treasury Department said Friday that
oil loaded before President Bush announced
a trade embargo Thursday against Iraq and
Kuwait may be delivered.
Two vessels with Iraqi oil were detained in
Corpus Christi last weekend, but customs
agents released the cargo once it was deter
mined the oil had been paid for before the
embargo took effect.
Goodson said the Thoraas was docked at
Sun Oil Nederland holding area in Port Ar
thur Tuesday while officials decided what
would be done with the oil.
“It is being detained until such time as a de
termination can be made about whether a
penalty will be assessed or whether we are
going to store the oil here,” Goodson said.
She added there probably would not be a
penalty imposed against the Thoraas or Bay
Oil Co., but the cargo would be held in stor
age tanks on shore.
“The cargo was seized, not the ship,” said
Erik Leikvang, consul general of Norway in
Houston.
“The reason the Thoraas was seized was
because the oil wasn’t unloaded yet. The ship
itself will not be held back once the oil is re
moved.”
Customs officials said they would be watch
ing for more crude oil taken off the Cartho
Genova and bound for Texas ports. Goodson
said the Cartho Genova, carrying 1.6 million
barrels, or 67.2 million gallons, is anchored in
international waters of the Gulf of Mexico
and thus is not subject to Customs regula
tions.
“We’re not looking for it, but if its cargo
comes into port, we’re going to seize it,”
Goodson said.
The supertankers generally have too deep
a draft to come into Texas ports. The oil from
the larger tankers are transferred to smaller
vessels in a process called lightering.
The Norwegian supertanker, Mega Borg,
was transferring oil to lightering vessels in
June when it was rocked by a series of explo
sions that killed four crewmen and dumped
3.9 million gallons of Angolan crude into the
Gulf of Mexico some 57 miles offshore of
Galveston.
The Customs Service, along with the U.S.
Coast Guard, seized a load of oil at the Port of
Corpus Christi on Thursday afternoon, just a
few hours after the government implemented
the embargo.
The oil was being unloaded from the Hel
lespont Dignity, sailing under a Swedish flag,
at a Coastal Corp. refinery facility, said Pat
ricia McCauley, district Customs director in
Houston.
The cargo had been unloaded at sea from a
Norwegian mother ship, the Berge Banker,
which remained in the Gulf of Mexico outside
U.S. territorial waters.
Kuwaiti lawyer stranded in United States
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A lawyer from Ku
wait says he’s been stranded in the United States
since Iraq’s invasion of his home country, and
says he fears for the safety of his family back in
the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the parents of a San Antonio man
telephoned their son to say they made it safely
out of Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia.
Hasan Abdula, 36, an attorney from Dhia, Ku
wait, arrived Saturday in San Antonio on vaca
tion, but said Monday he now is stranded and
feels like a man without a country.
“My wife and two children, my mother and fa
ther and many brothers and sisters are still in Ku
wait,” Abdula said. “The borders are closed and I
cannot go home.”
Abdula, who joined about a dozen demonstra
tors Monday at San Antonio City Hall to plead
for a continued embargo of Arab oil imports,
calls Iraqi president Saddam Hussein “the
butcher of Baghdad.”
We are asking the citizens of the United
Stait s to tell their leaders not to buy oil from the
(Persian) Gulf because it is mixed with the blood
of innocent people,” Abdula said. “What Hitler
did to Europe, Saddam will do to the (Persian)
Gulf.”
He said thousands of others from his home
country also are stranded in the United States
and elsewhere.
Also in San Antonio, college student Kelly Cal
vin said Tuesday he received a phone call from
his parents, Jim and Phyllis Calvin, who said they
made it safely across the Kuwaiti border to Saudi
Arabia.
Jim Calvin, head coach of the Kuwaiti Olympic
basketball team, told his son the couple spent
three days living in the basement of their apart
ment building with no food after the Iraqi inva
sion.
They were able to find a telephone Monday
morning and called the American Embassy in
Saudi Arabia, which told the couple that the Ku
waiti border would be closed within a couple of
hours.
The couple and three other Americans
jumped into Jim Calvin’s car and sped to the bor
der as Iraqi troops and tanks tried to block them,
the younger Calvin said. No shots were fired at
the car, which made it across the border, he said.
U.S. officials said Texans accounted for were
Charles Amos, 59, a Santa Fe Drilling Co. em
ployee whose family resides in Gilmer; Rainard
L. Walterscheid of Dallas; Gary Carr of North
Richland Hills; Edward Hale, 52, an oil rig su
pervisor from Spring, and Bobby Gene Parker of
Vidor, near Beaumont.
Walterscheid had been reported as safe, but
his family still has not heard from him, and his
stepson. Tommy Ogle, said he was afraid his
stepfather was being held hostage.
The wife of another American, John Henry
Cole, 50, who like Hale and Carr works for OGE
Drilling Inc. of Houston, said Monday she still
hadn’t spoken with her husband.
The State Department said it had not been
able to contact Steve Betts, 35, of Houston. He
coaches the Kuwaiti national swimming team.
Hispanics
urge bill for
civil rights
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A His
panic rights organization Tuesday
urged citizens to back a civil rights
bill before Congress and chided
President Bush for opposing it.
“We’re asking the public to write
to Bush and urge him to sign a
strong, strong civil rights bill,” said
Guadalupe Luna, an attorney for
the Mexican American Legal De
fense and Educational Fund.
The Civil Rights Act of 1990 re
stores anti-discrimination laws that
existed for years before the U.S. Su
preme Court chipped away at them,
una said in a news conference.
“This bill restores fairness to our
employment laws and restores con
gressional intent,” she said. “It also
sends a message to this (Supreme)
Court that they should leave well-es
tablished civil rights laws alone.”
Provisions in the bill range from a
ban on racial harassment in the
workplace to reopening court-ap
proved fair-hiring agreements.
The House approved the bill Fri
day over objections from President
Bush, who has called it a quota bill
and has threatened to veto it.
MALDEF leaders said the admin
istration’s quota argument is an at
tempt to divide the public.
“It’s an effort to pit working peo
ple against each other,” said Judith
Sanders-Castro, another MALDEF
attorney. “It’s a divisive kind of tech
nique very thinly disguised.”
Bush supports a $100,000 ceiling
for punitive damages in discrimina
tion cases involving women, reli
gious minorities and the disabled.
The House bill limits punitive dam
ages to victims of intentional job dis
crimination to $150,000 or compen
satory damages, whichever is larger.
The House and Senate, which
passed a similar bill last month, are
working out differences in a confer
ence committee. A proposed amend
ment to the bill will further clarify
that it is not quota legislation, Luna
said.
Luna said her group would work
through state courts on employ
ment-related civil rights if the fed
eral legislation fails to pass. But she
conceded it would be an uphill bat
tle.
“It’s like spitting in the ocean —it’s
going to take years,” she said.
Driver files ‘illegal search’ lawsuit
accusing Louisiana officials of seam
Associated Press
JENNINGS, La. — A Georgia man’s class-action law
suit accuses southwest Louisiana authorities of indis
criminately stopping Interstate 10 traffic — especially
cars from Georgia, Texas and Florida — to illegally
search and seize vehicles and cash.
Former Jefferson Davis Parish District Attorney
Greg Arnette, who is representing the man, said the
practice amounts to a shakedown. However, current
District Attorney Wendell Miller, one of the de
fendants, said Monday the lawsuit is a “nuisance suit,
totally without merit.”
The suit, filed July 17 in U.S. District Court in Lake
Charles, also named as defendants Sheriff Dallas Cor
mier of Jefferson Davis Parish and Miller’s administra
tive assistant, Rod Steed.
It was filed on behalf of Donnie Adams, who lives
near Douglas, Ga.
Although it is a class action suit, Adams is named as
plaintiff because, the suit said, “it is suspected that the
number of persons who have had their civil rights vio
lated are such that the class is so numerous that joiner
of all members is impractical.”
Arnette, one of Adams’ two attorneys, said the
Georgian is seeking the return of his money, any cash
and property illegally taken from others and an injunc
tion forbidding future unwarranted stop-and-search
activities.
It said Adams was stopped on or around Dec. 30,
1989, by Steed and an unnamed Jefferson Davis dep
uty.
The suit said it was among at least 50 weekly “profile”
traffic stops made over a year by Jefferson Davis Parish
authorities.
The vehicle cited in the lawsuit belonged to Adams,
who was a passenger when the car was stopped for a mi
nor traffic violation, the suit said.
After the stop was made, the suit said, Adams’ vehicle
was searched “without warrant and without any autho
rization (from Adams).” It said about $70,000 in cash
was found.
Though no illegal substances or contraband were
found in it, the vehicle was seized along with the money.
Adams and his companion were given a receipt for
$67,170 and $120 cash to let them buy bus tickets back
to Georgia.
The suit maintains there was never any probable
cause to search the vehicle, nor was there probable
cause to seize the $70,000.
Now, months later, Adams “has not been formally
charged with any criminal activity and still is being de
prived of his personal property,” the suit stated.
Arnette said what happened to Adams and his un
identified companion amounted to a “shakedown.”
Coca-Cola settles
Company resolves last two lawsuits
for wrongful deaths in bus accident
EDINBURG (AP) — Valley Coca-
Cola Bottling Co. has settled the last
of the wrongful death lawsuits from
a school bus accident last year that
killed 21 children.
The latest settlements involved
the deaths of Carmen Michelle Cruz,
18, and 13-year-old Alberto Vas-
quez. Officials said each of the suits
settled Monday involved more than
$4 million.
Twenty-one junior and senior
high school students died when their
bus slammed into a water-filled pit
after it collided with a truck owned
by Valley Coca-Cola Bottling Co. It
was the state’s worst school bus acci
dent.
Another 60 students were hurt in
the accident in Alton.
The beverage company pre
viously settled 18 of the death cases
for $4.5 million each and another
for $1.5 million.
Still to be settled are numerous
lawsuits from families of the injured
and from rescue workers who
claimed they were physically or emo
tionally injured by the disaster.
Negotiations continue in most of
those cases, Coca-Cola attorney Mike
Mills said.
The National Transportation
Safety Board last month blamed the
accident on Ruben Perez, the 25-
year-old driver of the soft drink
truck that collided with the school
bus last Sept. 21.
The board said Perez failed to
brake properly.
Investigators said Perez told them
that the truck’s brakes were two-
thirds of normal and that Perez
should have been able to stop in time
if he had begun applying them 300
feet before the intersection.
Perez is scheduled to go on trial
later this year for 21 counts of invol
untary manslaughter. He has con
tended that the brakes on the truck
failed. A pre-trial hearing in that
case is set for September.
He is suing the company, claiming
he was “hung out to dry” by them.
He said the company knew some of
its trucks were unsafe but forced
drivers to use them anyway. The
company has reserved comment on
his suit.
AM/PM Clinics
• Minor Emergencies
• General Medical Care
• Weight Reduction Program
10% Student Discount with I.D. Card
(Except for Weight Program)
846-4756 693-0202 779-4756
3820 Texas 2305 Texas Ave S. 401 S. Texas
(next to Randy Sims) (next to U Rent M) College Station (29th & Texas)
DRUG TESTS FOR CONGRESS
Congress thinks it’s the thing for millions of us! What have we done to deserve this
outrageous infringement of our rights?
IF DRUG TESTS ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR US
AREN’T THEY GOOD ENOUGH FOR CONGRESS?
LET YOUR OPINION BE KNOWN
To receive the above bumper sticker send #3.00 to:
CONSTITUTIONAL CONCERN
PO BOX 350-447, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33335
SPECIAL: 2 for $5.00 f 5 for $12.00 / 10 for $20.00
Please make sure your address is correct and legible.
Police offer advice for auto protection
Do anti-theft devices really
work?
They’re not infallible, but some
are good enough to earn dis
counts on car theft insurance pre
miums.
Here are some samples of anti
theft devices that should foil the
amateur and hamper the profes
sional:
• Kill switch — This is like
having a second ignition switch.
The car won’t start unless a hid
den switch is activated.
• Alarm system — A loud
warning alarm sounds if the car is
tampered with or jostled.
• Fuel switch — This closes a
valve that cuts off the fuel supply.
• Armored collar — This is a
metal shield that locks around the
steering column and covers the
ignition.
• Crook lock — A bar locks
the steering wheel to the brake
pedal.
Anti-theft devices are available
for a variety of prices. Once one is
purchased, let an expert install it.
Do-it-yourself jobs usually are
easier to defeat.
The following incidents were
reported to the Texas A&M Uni
versity Police Department be
tween July 26 and July 31.
RECOVERED STOLEN
PROPERTY:
• The Bryan Police Depart
ment notified UPD it had in cus
tody five individuals who ad
mitted to stealing bicycles from
the A&M campus.
The suspects were detained by
several Bryan police officers in
vestigating the theft of merchan
dise from a store on Dellwood
Street in Bryan. The individuals
then led police where they had
stored the stolen bikes.
The bicycles were turned over
to University police until owners
could identify their bicycles.
FELONY THEFT:
• A black 1974 BMW motor
cycle was stolen from Parking
30
MISDEMEANOR THEFT:
• A College Station man re
ported someone removed a case
of paper towels and a blue 48-
quart ice chest from the bed of his
Chevrolet truck in Parking Area
29.
• A Bryan woman reported
someone stole her Human Sex
uality textbook and spiral note
book from a newsstand by public
telephones in the MSG.
• Unknown person(s) re
moved a Panasonic single-line
telephone from a room of the Bi
ological Sciences Building.
• Two bicycles were stolen
from areas around campus.
• A Bryan man reported he
left his wallet unattended in a
men’s restroom in the Heep Cen
ter. He returned later in the day
to find someone had taken his
wallet which contained his driv
er’s license, $100 and several
credit cards.
• A female A&M student re-
f iorted someone stole her purse
rom a room in the Halbouty
Building. The handbag con
tained $50 and other personal
property.
CRIMINAL MISCHIEF:
• A College Station woman re
ported someone broke the right
rear window of her Toyota Ter
cel while the car was parked on
W. Main Drive.
Wednesday
TEXAS ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION COALITION: will have a social get-to
gether in lieu of regular meeting at 7 p.m. at Hensel Park. There will be
volleyball and conversation. For more information, call Filo at 823-0960.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general meeting at noon. Call the
C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more information.
NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general meeting at 8:30 p.m. Call the
C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more information.
Thursday
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general meeting at noon. Call
the C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more information.
NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general meeting at 8:30 p.m.
Call the C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more information.
ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS: will have a general meeting at
6:00 p.m. Call the C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more information.
COMMUNITY OF SINGLE ADULTS: will have singles volleyball games at
7:00 p.m. Call 846-1850 or 779-2294 in the evenings for more informa
tion.
BIRTH PARENT SUPPORT GROUP: will have a meeting at 5:30 p.m. at
the Child Placement Center. Free to women facing unplanned pregnancy
and parents who have placed a child for adoption. For information
call 268-5577 or 776-2007.
Hems for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald,
no later than three business days before the desired run date. We publish the
name and phone number of the contact only if you ask us to do so. What’s Up is
a Battalion service that lists non-profit events and activities. Submissions are run
on a first-come, first-served basis. There is no guarantee an entry will run. If you
have questions, call the newsroom at 845-3315.
COPIES
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