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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 12, 1994)
ly •July 11,1994 the Crisis Preg- for testing is the r-old age group, - to 19-year-olds. Pregnancy Cen- f 20- to 24-year- ibout 45 percent ■ound to be preg- there are three •egnant women: md keep it, put for adoption or on. Beutel does not women, but rec- n to local obste- s in the patients there are more dents at A&M >le realize, ot see pregnant said, “but they a semester off and then return e said. “Many • pregnancies.” , pitiful, ain’t it?” Suggs, as she ater covering her iainbridge. her neighbors’ iter was already iugh first-floor had been emptied :ome trucked to i towns or stored ings, such as an tel, in the town one of the city’s and his fiancee, son, trudged deep water Sun- o to salvage what his home — two as decorations, said Ms. Harri- os coming.” was finished re- issessions, but rn to watch the t on the home ed for 10 years, j here when my Vard said. Weather Wednesday and Thursday, partly cloudy with chance of showers, storms later in the day. Lows in the 70s, highs near 100. — National Weather Service Opinion THE Chris S. Cobb: "Most people who can read have no idea of the immensity of the literacy problem and how it really affects us." Page 5 DNA identification Methods allow investigators to pinpoint suspects from samples of hair and blood Page 2 TUESDAY luly 12, 1994 Vol. 93, No. 171 (6 pages) ‘Serving Texas A&M since 1893” Haitian army halts human rights intervention PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s army-installed government abruptly ordered the expulsion of inter- jational human rights observers Mon- ’, declaring them undesirable aliens and accusing them of disrupting state security. U.N. officials said in New York that no decision had been made about with drawing the personnel and whether to apitulate to the expulsion demand. The Security Council was to meet for mally Tuesday to issue a statement con demning Haiti’s action. The decree outraged U.N. diplomats and officials and widened the void be tween Haiti’s coup leaders and other nations. “By its irregular presence on nation al soil, the mission is troubling internal public order and threatens state securi- "The mission is troubling internal public order and threat ens state security." —Decree released Monday by Haitian government "They kill, they murder and rape people and they do not want any witnesses." -Dante Caputo, U.N. envoy for Haiti ty,” read the decree, signed by de facto foreign minister Charles David. The 104 U.N. and Organization of American States human rights ob servers and administrative workers were given 48 hours to leave. Law en forcement officials were notified to en force the order, the government said. At sunset Monday, U.N. officials were shredding documents and moving files from an office in suburban Petionville, attempting to protect Hait ian sources of information on rights abuses before their expected departure. “They kill, they murder and rape people and they do not want any wit nesses,” the U.N. envoy for Haiti, Dante Caputo, said from U.N. headquarters in New York. Caputo called it a “very, very delicate situation as far as security is con cerned” for the monitors. Secretary of State Warren Christo pher said, “It’s really part of the pattern of increasing repression by the Haitian regime.” Shocked U.N. observers said they ex pected Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to comply. Confidential documents were transferred to the team’s main office, they said. Other U.N. operations in Haiti will not be affected. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambas sador Madeleine K. Albright read a statement outside Security Council chambers on behalf of the United States, Argentina, Canada, France and Venezuela, known as “the five friends” of Haiti. “We strongly condemn the decision by the illegal, de facto regime to expel the ... mission. During months of turbu lence and ever increasing human rights abuses, ... (it) has been the internation al community’s eyes in Haiti.” Albright declined to say if the United States was pushed closer to invasion, but repeated that it hasn’t excluded any option. The incident comes as the United States is positioning new warships and 2,000 Marines off Haiti. Eight war ships and 15 Coast Guard cutters are already near Haiti to enforce a world trade embargo against the Caribbean nation and to deal with a surge of Please see Haiti, Page 6 rdinale A.&M ranks sixth among students High school Who’s Who places 4&M nationally above UT, Yale By Tracy Smith Ihe Battalion -to , . coh-t'^ By JL Texas A&M is ranked sixth in iis year’s list of institutions of liigher education. This ranking is decided by students recog- lized as Who’s Who Among High School Students. These itudents, honored for their acad- mic and extracurricular excel- tace, indicate their preferred i or university. Their pref- trences are then compiled to km this nationwide ranking. Paul Krouse, publisher of the iimual book that recognizes Sese outstanding students, said lie ranking lists the top 10 icliools of 1,800 four-year col- [es and universities. “The list was decided by over [00,000 students who use our leferral system,” Krouse said. 'So being ranked high on the list iquite an honor.” Harvard University, Duke Jniversity, Stanford University, |lie University of California at Angeles and the University (North Carolina took the top ive spots. Texas A&M, the Uni- wsity of Michigan, the Univer- iity of Texas, Yale University aid Florida State University illed the remaining five posi- ions respectively. Dr. Ray Bowen, A&M presi dent, only recently learned of the current ranking and said he was excited by the results. “It is a very prestigious honor to be linked with such well- known universities,” he said. “I feel it is an accurate reflection on the Texas A&M student body and the University as a whole.” Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice president for student af fairs, said the high school stu dents in the Who’s Who program are the ‘cream of the crop’, mak ing them ideal students for Texas A&M. “A&M targets specific stu dents with academic honors who have excelled in high school,” he said. “We feel students success ful in high school will continue to succeed at the college level.” While many Texas A&M offi cials agree the Who’s Who rank ing shows that A&M has ex celled, many believe it is just one of the many achievements accredited to Texas A&M. “The general environment at A&M leaves visiting students with a good impression,” he said. “It is this good impression that keeps A&M at the top of enroll ment lists.” Please see Rank, Page 6 ■ S SKiSiSiffiiS s - . T. :'W > feiw V. . ■ ■: - I; ; ■ - - ,■ 'V . - <r ; Stew Milne/Tur Battai ion Falling through the cracks Colby Sebesta, a senior Environmental Design major from Dan- grating that is located between Langford Building A and Langford berry, takes a photograph of a lighter that has fallen through the Building C Monday. The picture is for his ENDS 311 class. <££P IT Douh, I TUimk Yci/gt IcAtung HW--- r J (AP) — Groups hoping to pass anti-homosex- ' initiatives in 10 states this year have fallen short of their goals, gathering enough signatures to get measures on ballots in only two states. Several days of reckoning came last week in what has become a battle between gays and the conservatives who are backing initiatives to deny "'hat they call “special rights” for homosexuals. Supporters of such measures failed to file signed petitions in Missouri and Washington state on Friday, but did submit enough signa tures to qualify for the ballots in Idaho and Ore gon. More than 250,000 petition signatures were Hue Monday in Michigan, the last of the 10 states where ballot language has been filed. But George Matousek of the Michigan Family Values Committee, which started the petition drive, said Monday the effort had been put on hold because the wording was identical to a Colorado law that was declared unconstitutional by that state’s Supreme Court. “There’s no point in our circulating an identi cal petition and then have it ruled unconstitu- roups fail to meet goals Russian leader lacks support Nationalist's promises of mighty empire 'going out of style' Georgia residents return home as receding waters reveal damage »r “0” + area will become ary 3, 1995. ;in using the n on July 1,” urage people ion period to of using this caHs C wilf not [ BAINBRIDGE, Ga. (AP) - The cur- ■ains were drawn in empty homes Mon day, and residents abandoned the streets ^ police patrols as the Flint River flowed “Ut of its banks, edging ominously into is southwest Georgia town. More than a third of Bainbridge’s '0,000 residents fled the advancing flood Raters, which claimed at least 28 lives in Georgia. The flooding wasn’t expected to ?eak at Bainbridge until Thursday, when torecasters predict the river will crest at a tocord 20 feet above flood stage. tional,” said Matousek, who added that the group will suspend its efforts until a ruling is is sued on an appeal in the Colorado case. David Smith of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force expressed relief that few of the mea sures had garnered enough support. Arthur Kropp, president of People for the American Way, a liberal group, noted that simi lar measures are showing up in state legisla tures and before town councils and library boards. Tom Minnery, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group that as sisted initiative supporters in Washington state, said he thought the ballot measures had shown a successful grass-roots movement. Organizers in Missouri failed to submit the required 121,000 signatures Friday. The Oregon Citizens Alliance, led by Lon Mabon, submitted 120,000 signatures Friday, about 30,000 more than needed to get its mea sure on the ballot. Please see Anti-gay, Page 6 MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s star soared in De cember on the imaginations of millions of Russian voters. Seven months later, it has crashed to earth. The pugna cious national ist has not found the go ing as easy in office as at the polls, where his Liberal De mocratic Party achieved a stun ning success that alarmed re formers and the West. “A lot of people saw a nation al catastrophe coming, but it Zhirinovsky hasn’t happened that way,” said Mikhail Berger, a columnist for the newspaper Izvestia. Zhirinovsky remains popular with a significant portion of the angriest have-nots — disgrun tled workers and pensioners en thralled by his calls for Russia to become a mighty empire again. His election to the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, helped push President Boris Yeltsin’s reform-minded govern ment to the center and several “young Turk” reformers out of the Cabinet. But there is no sign he will ever have the support, or clout, to turn his more radical propos als into law. “Zhirinovsky’s influence has fallen, and his image has faded during recent months when peo ple saw he was unable to fulfill his promises or achieve results in the Duma,” historian Roy Medvedev said. A survey of 50 political ex perts published by the newspa per Nezavisimaya Gazeta this month rated Zhirinovsky only 19th in influence among Russian politicians. It is too early to count him out, of course. Economic col lapse, a continued rise in crime, military unrest or heightened tension with other former Soviet republics could refill his well of support. Even in his own electoral Please see Leader, Page 6 ray. :riod can also peed dialing, other equip- ig this to in- ody,” Erwin woi- T id make ie* later on 34 codes go Upriver in the Albany area, 50 miles northeast of Bainbridge, the Flint finally began to recede early Monday and some of the 30,000 people in the area who fled last week returned to their waterlogged homes. And just off the Florida Panhandle, oyster harvests were suspended Monday in one of the nation’s major beds because of floodwater-borne bacteria pouring into Apalachicola Bay. In Bainbridge, state troopers patrolled neighborhoods and military police set up barricades near the river, hoping to pre vent more deaths from the flooding spawned by Tropical Storm Alberto a week ago. “No one passes. If you do, you’re liable to get a knot in your head. They’re not playing around,” Assistant Fire Chief Dennis Mock said. South of town. National Guard troops helped build a 10-foot earthen dike to shield a fertilizer plant with 9 million pounds of ammonia, which reacts violent ly with water and can be poisonous if in haled. Assistant Fire Chief Doyle Welch said the chemical was a concern, but company officials believed the precautions were enough to prevent a catastrophe at the 200-foot-tall ammonia tank. When the river crests, water at the plant is expect ed to be 5 feet deep, he said. “We can’t be 100 percent certain be cause nobody has ever encountered this before,” said David Prichard, a spokesman for Vigoro Industries, which owns the plant. Classified 4 Comics 6 Health & Science 2 Opinion 5 Sports 3 State & Local 2 What's Up 6 s ,r sm - v s$ mm ms v rmm