The Michgan Daily - Monday, October 11, 1993 - 7 . Tanker explodes off Texas coast* GALVESTON,Texas(AP)-Sal- vagecrews scrambled yesterday aboard a gasoline tanker ripped open by an explosion that peeled back part of the deck "like a sardine can." Three people were believed killed. The Coast Guard strung contain- ment booms in case of a possible fuel spill from the damaged OMI Charger, Wwhich was carrying no cargo but held 365,000 gallons of fuel. "There is a potential for a major spill," said Capt. Paul Prokop, com- mander of the Coast Guard station at Galveston. The Houston Ship channel, one of the world's busiest waterways, was closed part of the day because officials feared ship wakes could endanger the *tanker. Officials laterallowedrestricted use of the channel, which serves the Houston petrochemical industry. CoastGuardofficials said they were convinced none of the fuel had spilled from the 660-foot ship. It was partially afloat in about 40 feet of water. Crews planned to remove the fuel. Witnesses said the ship was hit by twoexplosions Saturday. The firstblast around 8 p.m. was felt more than four Office humor or harassment, High Court to decide AP Photo The half-sunken OMI Charger floats near Galveston with a hole in its hull following an explosion Saturday. miles away, while a less intense explo- sion occurred about an hour later. The fire burnedoutof control for about 51/ 2 hours. Two sailors were confirmed killed and one other was missing and pre- sumed dead. Three of the 35 crew members remained hospitalized yes- terday, one in serious condition. About a dozen others were treated and re- leased. The blasts opened a gaping hole along the left side of the ship, exposing its interior. Pipelines on the deck were twisted like blackened spaghetti. Part of the main deck was "peeled back like a sardine can,' said Coast Guard Cmdr. Roger Peoples, who flew over the wreck yesterday. The ship's stern had sunk to the channel bottom and it listed to port, but Peoples said it was in no danger of sinking. Twenty-seven crew members were rescued from the burning ship minutes after the blast by the crew of a passing oil rig supply boat. Owners of the ship and the Coast Guard would not say what caused the blasts. Butauthoritiessaidthatacouple of workers were welding inside the ship at the time of the blast. Peoples said hydraulics systems also were sus- pected. Officials estimated the insured ship was worth about $10 million. In June 1990, theNorwegiantanker Mega Borg spilled 43 million gallons of crude oil about 60 miles off Galveston. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Teresa Harris said she listened to de- meaning and suggestive comments from her boss for two years. The last straw came when he asked if she planned to have sex with a customer to clinch a deal. She quit and filed sexual harass- ment charges. Charles Hardy said he was simply treating Harris as "one of the boys." Her complaints, he asserts, stem from a soured business deal with her husband. The case-Harris vs. ForkliftSys- tems - comes before the U.S. Su- preme Court on Wednesday. The question is whether suggestive remarks by a boss must go beyond mere offensiveness and deliver psy- chological damage to constitute sexual harassment. Three federal appeals courts have said suggestive comments mustbe psy- chologically damaging to be harass- ment. Three other appeals courts have held the comments need only be offen- sive in order to justify the payment of damages. Hardy, ownerandpresidentof Fork- liftSystems Inc., has conceded making comments to Harris, his rental man- ager for two years, that include: "You'rejustadumb-ass woman." "Let's go to the Holiday Inn and negotiate your raise." "You're a woman, what do you know?" "Don't you think it is about time we started screwing around?" He also said in court that he asked Harris and other female employees of the forklift sales and rental company to bend over and pick up items from the floorandtopullquartersfromhisfront pockets. Hardy, who declined to be inter- viewed, has said it was all harmless office banter. "They were all in-house jokes," saidHardy'sattoney, Stanley Chernau. "I don't think they're funny, but they were jokes in the office:" Harris told The Associated Press she wasn't laughing. "I felt almost like a prostitute," she said. "In my mind I was selling out fo money. That's how I felt. I didn't like it at all, but if I quit my family would suffer and I was the primary breadwin- ner." She said she tried to avoid Hardy and became anxious, cried frequently and drank heavily. A doctor said she should leave her job and prescribed sedatives to calm her. She confronted Hardy in August 1987. She said she planned to resign, but Hardy talked her into staying and promised he would refrain from mak- ing inappropriate comments. The next month, heaskedherif shehadagreedto sleep with a customer. She quit and filed a sexual harass- ment complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commis- sion. Harris now works as a nurse at a Nashville hospital. Peacekeepers to restore democracy in Haiti Prime Minister warns, Haitian refugees may continue to flee with the return to power of deposed leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide PORT-AU-PRINCE,Haiti(AP)- O f the United Nations mission fails to restore democracy in this Caribbean country, hordes of Haitians will flee toward the UnitedStates, PrimeMinis- ter Robert Malval warned yesterday. He spoke after a night of heavy gunfire in the capital, a stark reminder of the volatile political passions that many fear will force the U.N. peace- keepers into fighting, as has happened in Somalia. A U.S. warship carrying hundreds of GIs to take part in the U.N. mission istoarrive today. Asmallcontingentof U.S. and Canadian peacekeepers ar- rived last week. The U.N troops are partofaU.N.- brokered plan to restore democracy more than two years after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected leader, was deposed in a coup. After Aristide's ouster, countless Haitians began fleeing by boat for the United States. U.S. military ships began intercept- ing them and retuming them to Haiti, sparking outragedcriticismthatWash- ington was turning away refugees of political oppression. If the U.N. plan fails, "more and more people will leave the island. It will no longer be aproblem for Haiti. It will be a problem for Florida," Malval told reporters, speaking from the porch of his home. "Even the U.S. 6th Fleet will be unabletopreventHaitians from fleeing aless and less hospitable land," Malval said. Malval rejected comparisons with Somalia, asserting that 90 percent of Haitians wanted to restore democracy here. However, his transition govern- ment has received little cooperation from the Haitian army, and armed ci- vilians tied to the military have been blamed for a series of politically re- lated killings in the past two months. More than 200 people have died in almost-nightly shooting attacks on pro- Aristide neighborhoods. There was no casualty toll available for the shooting over the weekend. "Many friends and observers are very pessimistic," Malval acknowl- edged."Butwe are not. Haitians refuse to identify with those who maintain them in poverty and terror." He disclosed thiat Western Hemi- sphere foreign ministers were planning to fly here Oct. 30 for the scheduled return of Aristide. The U.S. amphibious warship Harlan County headed toward Haiti yesterday carrying military engineers, medics and civil affairs specialists, along with troop trucks, bulldozers, earth movers, tents and rations for a six-month mission. Also to be unloaded are M-16s, sidearms and ammunition, which U.S. officials said would only be used in self-defense. The force is to total 1,600 troops. Six hundred American troops have been committed to the mission, which has been the subject of a debate within the Pentagon. To protect the arriving American troops, a greater concern following the attacks in Somalia, the Pentagon said Friday that the Harlan, County will remain off Haiti's coast, Mexico hopes NAFTA can keep its people home, PUACUARO, Mexico (AP) - Celso Ascensio is unusual: He hasn't left town for the United States. Most men from this Purepecha In- dian village have headed north in search of the jobs and money Mexico cannot provide. Ascensioremainsbehindwith the village children, who play noisily in the dirt streets outside his home and furniture workshop. Towns like Puacuaro, in west-cen- tral Mexico, are thesource of a huanaw river that is transforming the United States. It has carried tens of millions of people across the border in the past 50 years, and demographers say Latinos soon may be the largest U.S. ethnic minority. Supporters of the North American Free Trade Agreement say it will help curb that flow by luring investment to Mexico, opening foreign markets and creating jobs at home. "We want to export goods and not people," President Carlos Salinas de Gortari told U.S. business people in San Francisco last month. Ascensio is a modest example of those hopes. "I have asource of work.... There's no need to go," said the 30-year-old carpenter, who employs six people in the shop at the back of his house. "All the furniture made here is for the United States," he said. Illegal immigration has so alarmed California that a liberal senator pro- poses posting U.S. troops on the bor- der. The state's governor has recom- mended abandoning a historic prin- ciple of U.S. law: that those born in America are Americans. "Denying citizenship to children of illegal aliens isn't going to solve your problem," said Douglas Massey of the University of Chicago, who has stud- ied Mexican migration for more than a decade. "Most Mexicans aren't moti- vatedbycitizenship.They'remotivated by employment." Froilan Bautista, saidhe had never held a job in Mexico. "There's no work here," he said, leaning against a post outside his mother's grocery a few blocks from Ascencio's house in the lakeside fish- ing and farming town. Massey estimated that 12.2 million Mexicans crossed the border from 1985 to 1989 but only about 1.5 million stayed. AP Photo Armed civilians demonstrate in the streets of the Haitian capital against the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the U.N. mission in Haiti. ready for possible rescue missions. Another warship, the USS Fairfax County, is to arrive Oct. 20 carrying hundreds more troops and tons more material. Worn down by a worldwide petro- leum embargo and other economic sanctions, Haiti's army agreed in July to a U.N. plan in which commander Raoul Cedras and police chief Joseph Michel Francois would leave their posts and Aristide would return by Oct. 30. Write for Daily Sports Report for Daily News Critique for Daily Arts Editorialize for Daily Opinion SET YOUR SIGHTS ON...I THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS PRESENTS AFILMANDPRESENTATIONBY DR.MARGARET GELLER SO MANYGALAXIES ...SO LITTLE TIME So Many Galaxies...So Little Time, made with Academy Award winning cinematographer Boyd Fstus, chronicles the remarkable work of Harvard-Smithsonian Senior Scientist MargaretJ. 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