The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 25, 1992 - Page 3
M*+ S *I Shell strikes U.N.
food shipment
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -
A shell struck a U.N. chartered ship
laden with food for the starving as it
approached Mogadishu's port yes-
terday, sending the vessel back out
to sea with its precious cargo.
No casualties were reported
aboard the ship, but the incident was
the latest setback in an international
effort to save an estimated two mil-
lion famished Somalis.
Relief officials thought they had
successfully negotiated Monday
with two warlords controlling
Mogadishu for four ships waiting
offshore to unload desperately
needed supplies.
The Red Cross on Sunday cut
from two to one the number of meals
it was serving to a half-million peo-
ple in Mogadishu and reduced the
calories of each meal from 1,200 to
600. The arrival of the relief ships
would have changed that.
"We could have immediately
brought the rations up to 100 percent
and begun feeding them two meals a
day again," said Horst Hamborg, a
spokesperson for the Red Cross in
Mogadishu.
The U.N. estimates that 300,000
Somalis have already died of the
twin effects of war and famine. The
Seek the truth
Demonstrators shout slogans in Tokyo yesterday vowing they will get to the truth behind the scandal that disgraced politician Shin Kanemaru when he
received bribes from a trucking firm and distributed money and gifts to other politicians.
Lawyer: Assisted suicide is not a crime
DETROIT (AP) - An attorney
for Dr. Jack Kevorkian said
yesterday the so-called suicide
octor hopes to call an undertaker
instead of police after he assists in
his next suicide.
"The hospital doesn't call the po-
lice when somebody dies from a rou-
tine medical procedure," said
Kevorkian attorney Michael
Schwartz.
Chris DeWitt, a spokesperson for
Attorney General Frank Kelley, said
yesterday he didn't know whether
Michigan had a law against failing to
notify police of an assisted suicide.
Michigan has no law prohibiting
assisted suicide.. Kevorkian attorney
Michael Schwartz said he is re-
searching whether Kevorkian can
legally stop notifying police of sui-
'The hospital doesn't call the police when
somebody dies from a routine medical
procedure.' - Michael Schwartz
attormey
cides he assists.
Kevorkian watched Monday
while Catherine Andreyev
committed suicide in an Oakland
County home by inhaling carbon
monoxide through a face mask.
As in the previous five suicides
he has helped, the police were called
just after death. None of the seven
people who witnessed the Andreyev
death were detained.
Schwartz said Kevorkian wants
assisted suicide to become an ac-
cepted medical procedure.
"If we determine Dr. Kevorkian
doesn't have to call police, then he'll
just call the family undertaker,"
Schwartz said. "As it stands right
now, it's not a matter for the police.
There's no crime. It's not a criminal
act."
Oakland County Prosecutor
Richard Thompson tried unsuccess-
fully to prosecute Kevorkian, a re-
tired pathologist, for the first three
deaths in which he was involved.
Judges ruled that Kevorkian couldn't
be charged with murder because
Michigan doesn't prohibit assisted
suicide.
Thompson refused to comment
on whether it would be illegal to fail
to report an assisted suicide to po-
lice. But police must be called when
someone discovers a suicide com-
mitted alone, he said.
"What concerns me is that this
would be an even greater opportu-
nity for abuse," Thompson said
Tuesday. "This would be an easy
way to hide homicides and actions
that are fraught with abuse."
Andreyev, 45, suffered from can-
cer that had spread throughout her
body. She was driven to Michigan
from her home in Pennsylvania,
where assisted suicide is a felony
punishable by 10 years in prison and
a $25,000 fine.
Kevorkian
relief effort has been hampered for
months by clan warfare, disputes
among warlords and looting by their
militias and free-lance bandits.
Capt. Carsten Hall Weibrecht of
Denmark, port commander for the
World Food Program, said the Milos
L was "only 500 yards away when it
got hit."
The shell struck about a yard be-
low the bridge near the crew's cab-
ins, he said, "but there were no in-
juries, and the ship swung around
and took off. There was smoke, but I
saw no fire."
The Milos L was chartered by the
World Food Program, the Rome-
based U.N. agency that gathers and
distributes food from member na-
tions. It approached port with its.
cargo of 9,741 metric tons of grain
after U.N. officials thought they had
an agreement with two warlords, Ali
Mahdi Mohammed and Gen.
Mohammed Farrah Aidid.
Ali Mahdi and Aidid have agreed
to share equally a portion of all the
food unloaded from ships at the port,
but little food has reached Ali
Mahdi's half of the city in about a
month.
U.N. truck convoys carrying food
to Ali Mahdi in northern Mogadishu
have been routinely hijacked or
looted.
Students
give 'gifts'
to kids at
Safehouse
by Liz Vogel
Two U-M students have an early
start on the holiday season.
LSA senior Simon Goldberg and
Kinesiology senior Glenn Hill have
worked all semester to give the gift
of new opportunities to children at
Safehouse, a shelter for battered
women and children.
"You might as well do something
good for people to make yourself
feel good," Goldberg said.
Goldberg is taking his own
advice, and along with Hill, targeted
Safehouse children for a community
actionhproject as a part of their
English 329 class.
"(We) both wanted to work with
kids," Hill said.
After the students became
familiar with Safehouse, they found
a lack of educational and
entertainment activities for the
children.
"They need someone to do this,
and if nobody does it, the kids are
going to be miserable," Goldberg
said.
The students began their project
by asking local businesses for
money, but Goldberg called the
initial results "discouraging."
"Most places pretended to help us
out, but they didn't make "a
commitment," he said.
However, Benita Kaimowit,
publicity coordinator for Borders
Bookstore, said she was interested in
helping.
With her assistance, Borders
donated "two huge boxes full bf
beautiful children's books,'
Goldberg said. Some of the books
were given to the children as gift$
and the others were used to begin a
children's library at Safehouse.
"Simon is really helpful," said
Vickie Frederick, children's program
coordinator at Safehouse. "(His
effort) reinforces that reading is
important and this may be the first
time that someone has stressed to the
children that education is
important."
Goldberg and Hill also worked to
find entertainment activities for the
children.
Hill convinced the U-M Athletic
Department to donate eight football
tickets to the children for the
Michigan-Iowa football game.
"I really think they enjoyed it,"
Hill said. "These kids probably
would never have seen a football
game. It's kind of neat that we couldl
get them together and bring them to
a game."
Both students plan to Lontinue
Storms cause extensive
damage throughout U.S.
Associated Press
A powerful snow storm blew out of the
Rockies and pummeled the Southern Plains
yesterday, closing hundreds of miles of high-
ways, while Southern tornado victims working
in heavy rain faced a grim Thanksgiving.
In Amarillo, Texas, 200 vehicles were in-
volved in an early-morning pileup on snow-
covered Interstate 40, with no reports of
deaths, police said.
Two motorists were killed in weather-re-
lated traffic accidents yesterday elsewhere in
the Texas Panhandle. The storm also was
blamed for the death of an 11-year-old girl in a
Colorado sledding accident. Since Saturday,
violent weather accounted for the deaths of 25
people in the South and Midwest.
Interstate 40 was closed for 175 miles in
fexas from the Oklahoma to the New Mexico
lines. The Postal Service suspended residential
deliveries; flights were delayed at Amarillo
Inernational Airport.
At midmorning, at least 9 inches of snow
was reported at Hereford; and a 50-mile stretch
;of U.S. 60 from Hereford to Clovis, N.M., was
losed because of zero visibility.
In the Oklahoma Panhandle, the National
Weather Service warned motorists of the "life-
threatening situation if your car or truck be-
comes stranded" because of the combination of
drifting snow and sub-zero wind chill readings.
"It's kind of hard to tell just how much
snow we have had, the wind is blowing so
hard," said Sheriff Arnold Peoples of Texas
County, Okla. "I would venture to say we've
had 5 to 6 inches. We have lots of vehicles off
in ditches. We're working the highways, trying
to get everybody up and into town."
Colorado was busy digging out of the storm
that left up to a foot of snow Monday; many
schools remained closed. At Denver's
Stapleton International Airport, the average
flight delay improved to a half-hour to 1 1/2
hours, compared with 1 1/2 to two hours
Monday.
The northern edge of the storm brought
heavy snow and freezing drizzle that closed
schools in western Nebraska.
In Cheyenne, Wyo., state employees re-
turned to work, but all schools were closed for
the second straight day.
In the South, state and federal damage as-
sessment teams fanned out through the region
to help determine whether federal assistance
will be available.
Is anybody home?ERIK AGERMEIEDai
U-M employees Earl McTaggart and Larry Nevarre check a sewer yesterday after a flood.
.. ;........ ..:.:..:.: Comics prepare to jab
at Clinton presidency
student groups
U Social Group for Lesbians, Gay
Men, and Bisexuals, meeting,
East Quad, check room at front
desk, 9 p.m.
U Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Club,
practice, CCRB, Martial Arts
Room, 9:15-10:15 p.m.
Students Concerned About
Animal Rights, meeting,
Dominick's, 7:30 p.m.
Q TaeKwonDoClub, regularwork-
meeting, East Quad, room 122,
7 p.m.
Q U-MNinjitsu Club,practice,I.M.
Building, Wrestling Room G21,
7:30-9 p.m.
Events
Q "Focus on Michigan," photog-
raphy contest, City of Ann Ar-
bor Parks and Recreation
Department, accepting entries
until December 1, contact Irene
Student services
Q Northwalk Safety Walking Ser-
vice, Bursley Hall, lobby, 763-
WALK, 8 p.m. - 1:30 a.m.
Q Psychology Undergraduate
Peer Advising, Department of
Psychology, West Quad, room
K210,10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Q Safewalk Safety Walking Ser-
. NEW YORK (AP) - Lame duck
George Bush can look forward to
getting the last laugh.
"There's a whole new cast of
characters," Jay Leno said. "When
Republicans are in office, it's all
greed. With Democrats, the vices are
sex and alcohol. It'll be fun."
Whether the Clinton administra-
tion will prove to be such a comedic
windfall as the Perot-Stockdale
Friday's "Tonight Show," Leno an-
nounced that the 25 cents Clinton
had given to a homeless man during
a walking tour of Washington
"doesn't seem like much, but then
you realize it's more than double the
aid the homeless got. during the
Reagan-Bush years."
None of the shows could resist
Clinton's visit with Bush last week.
In a "Saturday Night Live"