Page 4-Wednesday, August 5, 1981-The Michigan Daily
Hunger striker
unera sparks
riots, debate
BELFAST, Northern Ireland
(AP)-Rioters in Roman Catholic
neighborhoods threw bricks, bottles,
and gasoline bombs at police and troops
yesterday after the funeral of IRA
hunger striker Kieran Doherty, police
said.
Security forces retaliated by firing
plastic bullets to disperse crowds, they
said. No casualties were reported in the
clashes.
DOHERTY, 25, was the eighth Irish
nationalist hunger striker to die in Nor-
thern Ireland's Maze prison since the
fast began March 1. He was given a
final salute by Irish Republican Army
riflemen, and buried yesterday
alongside two other guerrillas who
starved themselves to death.
Fifty miles west of here, meanwhile,
one of the IRA's latest victims was
buried. Two thousand Protestants at-
tended the funeral in Omagh of John
Smyth, one of two police officers killed
in an IRA landmine ambush Sunday,
the day Doherty died.
Presbyterian clergyman Dr. Ronald
Craig denounced the guerrillas as
"cowardly" and told the Omagh mour-
ners, "White these murders of law-
keeping officers continue, how can
anyone talk with hunger strikers or
others who are in our prisons guilty of
murders and other heinous crimes."
INDICATIONS HAVE grown that
some of the families of the hunger-
striking prisoners want the fast-to-the-
death called off. It is designed to
pressure the British government into
giving political-prisoner status to IRA
guerrillas.
Relatives of the hunger strikers and
of 400 other Maze prisoners are to meet
Friday to discuss the strike, which
some at least believe has become a
futile gesture since the British gover-
nment refuses to make any con-
cessions.
But Jimmy Drumm, a senior official
of the IRA's political front, Sinn Fein,
declared at Doherty's graveside the
strike would go on until the British
government recognizes special status
for convicted guerrillas.
"THERE IS NO basis for set-
tlement," said Drumm.
In New York, meanwhile, an
"emotionally wrought" man concerned
about hostilities in Northern Ireland
threatened yesterday to set off a bomb
in a British U.N. Mission and demanded
to see that nation's prime minister, of-
ficials said.
The device strapped to his chest was
not a bomb and the man was taken into
custody after talking to a police
negotiations team and his doctor,
authorities said.
However, the incident prompted
police to evacuate six floors of the Third
Avenue building containing the offices
of the British Mission to the United
Nations.
There were no injuries.
In Brief
Compiled from Associated Press and
United Press International reports
28 arrested by FBI in drug
'money laundry' operation
MIAMI-Three hundred federal lawmen arrested 28 people yesterday and
were seeking 33 others on charges resulting from a 2 -year FBI in-
vestigation into the laundering of narcotics money, authorities said.
Two of those arrested were ordered held in lieu of $30 million each. Bonds
for some others were $15 million.
Agents seized bank accounts worth a total $8 million, plus 16 automobiles,
five homes, a ranch, and about 13 pounds of cocaine worth $360,000, said
Joseph Corless, agent in charge of the Miami FBI.
During the probe, called "Operation Bancoshares," undercover agents
ran a "money laundry" here that provided drug traffickers with checks and
wire transfers which were used to send $200 billion in illicit profits out of the
country.
More executions in Iran as
new prime minister is named
BEIRUT, Lebanon-Iranian firing squads executed 27 more people
yesterday as newly elected President Mohammad Ali Rajai nominated a
fundamentalist leader and disciple of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for the
post of prime minister.
Those executed were described as terrorists and supporters of exiled for-
mer President Abolassan Bani-Sadr.
Rajai named Hojatoleslam Mohammad Bahonar to succeed him as prime
minister. The speaker of Parliament threatened more executions to deal
with what he called an unprecedented wave of "blind terrorism."
Parliament set today for the confidence vote on the appointment of
Bahonar as the secretary-general of the dominant Islamic Republican Par-
ty.
Food lines grow in Romania
BUCHAREST, Romania-Six months after Romania announced an
"agricultural revolution" to combat a faltering economy, lines are growing
at meat stores and the government is warning of harvest shortfalls.
Food lines are up to two hours long at butcher shops in Bucharest, and
there are spot shortages of cheese, butter, sugar, cooking oil and other
items.
"People are used to things running out here, but they're worried that it's
getting worse," said one university graduate who requested anonymity.
In June, the president and Communist Party chief Nicolae Ceausescu,
called for a "general mobilization" of farmers, but the government-con-
trolled press recently complained of careless work leading to large losses in
the current wheat harvest.
Western economists based here predict the country's agricultural output
this year will barely match 1979 levels, which they say were the worst in
recent years.
Rookie mistakes bystanders
for bandits, shoots 3
NASHVILLE, Tenn.-A rookie policewoman who shot three persons whom
she mistook for bandits had undergone special training to teach her to make
sound split-second decisions on whether to use her gun, officials said yester-
day.
A store manager was killed as a result of Joyce Faye Allen's marksman-
ship, and two bystanders were wounded.
"She received special training for split second reaction," said Maj. J.
Bowlin, director of the Metro Police Training Academy, "They go through
extensive training on shoot-don't shoot type of situations. If she had failed,
she wouldn't be out in the streets."
Conoco bid war escalates
NEW YORK-The bidding for Conoco zoomed to $120 a share yesterday as
Mobil Oil Corp. made an 11th hour attempt to keep rival Du Pont from snat-
ching a midnight victory in the biggest and most furious corporate takeover
battle in U.S. history.
Mobil raised the case portion of its $8.6 billion bid another $215 million,
boosting its offer $5 a share to $120 minutes after Du Pont upped its bid to
prevent Conoco stockholders from defecting to Mobil at the last minute.
If Du Pont should be able to holda majority of the shares, it would almost
guarantee the chemical giant's victory.
In last-minute legal maneuvers to thwart that possibility, Mobil also asked
the Securities and Exchange Commission to block Du Pont from proceeding
on schedule to give Conoco stockholders time to properly evaluate the
various offers.
Mobil asked a federal court in New York for a similar order, but the judge
yesterday afternoon denied the request.
Financing approved
for nuclear plant
LANSING (UPI) - Consumers
Power Co. was granted permission by
the Public Service Commission yester-
day to sell $363 million in stocks and
bonds to continue construction of the
long-delayed and costly Midland
nuclear power plant.
However, utility officials im-
mediately denied a statement by PSC
Chairman Daniel Demlow that Con-
sumers might go bankrupt without the
securities sale. Aides to Attorney
General Frank Kelley, meanwhile, said
they would seek a court order blocking
Consumers from selling any of the
stocks and bonds.
THE PSC'S decision came on a 2-1
vote following more than an hour of
heated debate with Democrat Edwyna
Anderson dissenting.
Consumers' request to sell the $363
million in securities was the last
segment of a 1979 application to sell
$564 million in stocks and- bonds. The
utility already has been given PSC
permission to sell $201 million in
securities.
Nearly all the money will go toward
construction of the Midland plant,
which will be the first nuclear facility in
the nation to produce both steam and
electricity.
WORK BEGAN on the plant in 1967
but was delayed several times by
lawsuits by the attorney general and
consumers groups charging it was too
expensive and unnecessary.
Consumers originally estimated the
plant would cost $370 million and take
five years to build. The first unit is now
set to be finished in December 1983,
with final costs expected to hit $3.5
billion.
Anderson called for a full in-
vestigation of the need for the plant
before allowing the utility to sell any
more securities to finance it.
SHE SAID the PSC allows Consumers
to "put millions or in this case billions
of dollars into facilities" that will not be
evaluated until the completion of the
power plant.
But Demlow and fellow Republican
commissioner Eric Schneidewind said
the utility would be in bad shape finan-
cially if it is not allowed to offer the
stocks and bonds.
"Are you effectively willing to
bankrupt Consumers by not approving
its securities?" Demlow asked.