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Show TheSaltLakeTribune PAGE 2 Compiled from Tribune news services by Melissa Galbraith Saaese sa AROUND@S-THE GLOBE IRAN Hard-liners shut down 3 newspapers that fueled public support for reform NO MORE HANDOUTSFOR YOU TEHRAN — Iranian hard-liners shut down three wedding reception new movie, “Where the Heart Is,” opens today. for reform. 's allies are being choked by the closures, which now total 16. Only one reformist paper remains able to publish as crucial cam; gets undet way for 66 seats in the 290-seat parliament, or ane Voters in Morristown, N.J.,ae | timber may want to considerfilmmaker Moore’ . Majlis. The Press Court, which is dominated by hard- liners, said Mohammad-Reza Khatami's newspaper and two others had violated press laws.It did not detail the violations, but the was warned Tuesday about printingtoo many daily editions. Mohammad-Reza tami has been closely allied with ns rotors clapaion i then seme cal and cultural restrictions. The only reformist paperstill allowed to publish is Bayan, which has not beenas outspoken as the U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., scolds a who have little or no competition. Hanoi, Vietnam, on Thursday. McCain-earlier Erin Brockovich's ex-boyfriend and ex-husband were arrested and charged with trying to extort $300,000 from the crusader played by Julia Roberts in ‘oneof the year’s biggest box-office movies. Shawn William Brown, 38, the ex-husband; Jorg Lawrence Hala- aun others, Parliamentis due back in session May 27. There are clear signs the hard-liners are trying to claw their way back into controlofthe Majlis, which they lost to the reformists in February forthefirst time since the 1979 Islamic revolution. They have consi ible power to their dominance over the judiciary,the state broadcasting media and the Council that supervises elections. gave the boy money but lost his temper and JAPAN Military dismisses, punishes officers David Guttenfelder/The Associated Press for cover-upofillegal range shooting TOKYO — Japan’s military dismissed a colonel and punished 23 otherofficers Thursday for covering upalleged illegal shooting on a military firing range. The Defense Agency fired Col. Yasunobu Hideshima, 53, who was charged last month withletting three civilian friends fire guns duringa drill in 1994, said Lt. Col. Yakayuki Hamada,a military spokes- man. Lt. Gen. Yoshiharu Amano,56, and Lt. Gen. Michihiko Suzuki,53, were suspended from duty for 20.days each, Hamada said. The two were the highest-ranking Japanese military officers ever to be suspended. According to a Defense Agencyreport, Hideshima, who was leaderofthe Ist Airborne Brigade at the time, invited three acquaintances to one of the force’s ranges south ofTokyo in November1994. Hideshima is accused offiring a hunting gun, which belonged to oneofthe civilians, without required police approval andofletting the three civilians illegally test-fire a military rifle and machine gun atthe range. RUSSIA Germany returns amber mosaic stolen from Peter the Great’s room by Nazis MOSCOW — Oneof twopieces known tostill exist from Peter the Great’s famed Amber Room was returned by Germany on Thursday, more than half a century after being stolen by retreating Nazi troops, the ITAR-Tass news agencyreported. The piece — an elaborate mosaicof amber — cathe'to Moscow aboard a special plane also carrying German Culture Minister Michael Naumann,the agency.reported. ‘Naumann is to turn over the mosaic and a chest ofdrawers from the room in a ceremony Saturdayat the Yekaterinsky Palace outside St. Petersburg, the royalresidence that once included the room. The chest of drawers wasto arrive in Russia separately, the report said. The 18th-century Amber Roomgotits name from the panels of golden-brown amberthatlined its walls. The furnishings were presented by Prussian King Frederick William to Czar Peter the Great. Nazi soldiers looted the palace in World War II and stripped the Amber Room bare as theyretreated from their failed campaign againstStalinist Russia. The room's contents were moved to castle in Koenigsberg, now the Russian city of Kaliningrad, and disappeared from there in 1945. The German woman whoboughtthe chest recognized itin a television report and turned it over to authorities in 1997. iene poms was foundin the possession of a man mn, Germany,in 1997, and the city purcoe it‘from him to avoid a lengthylegal battle. FRANCE Dockingferry crashes into pontoon, slightly injuring 38 passengers CALAIS — ferry crashed into a pontoon Thursday while dockingat this northern Frenchport city, oa injuring 38 passengers, the boat's operator said. The Aquitaine, which had departed Britain from Dover, was carrying 1,241 passengers and 123 crew at the timeofthe accident, according to a statementreleased by ferry owner P and O. The companysaid the accident occurred after an engine stalled, preventing the ferry from backing up. The vessel and the pontoon suffered minor damage. Passenger John Duncombe,41,said everyone was standing, readyto getoff the ferry, whenit hit the pontoon.“There was a big thump. Wehad obviously hit something. . . . [had been leaning against a wall and was pushed hard into this but I saw someone fy about3 meters [10 feet] across the corridor,”he said. Theferry, P and O’s largest, was evacuated for repairs, and P andO said it would undergo a thorough inspectionbefore sailing again. BAHAMAS Ship carrying Haitians runs aground; rescuers find 14 dead, 31 severely ill NASSAU — shipcarryingnearly 300 Haitian boat people ran agroundin the southern Bahamas, and14 victimsdied apparently of dehydration, Bahamianand U.S.officials said Thursday. The U.S. Coast Guard rushed searchers to the scene, immediately evacuating 31 people suffering from severe hypothermia, dehydration and kidney failure. Theboatwascarrying about275 Haitians — the largestsingle load of migrants to reach the in years.It ran aground Wednesdayafternoonoff Flamingo Cayin the Ragged Island chain, Bahamian immigration officials said. Three sailing vessels spotted the wreck and alerted officials, Soto said by telephone from Miami. Whenthe Coast Guard arrived thatnight, they found 14 ofthe Haitians already dead, Soto said. The trip through Atlantic Ocean waters to the Bahamas orto Florida’s coast is a risky journey, but one more and more impoverished Haitians have beenwilling to take. NEWS OF THE WEIRD Suicide Rash: In December,a 57-year-old Halifax, England, man,distraughtat his wife’s death, décapitated himselfwith his homemadeguillotine. The next month, a 90-year-old man attempting suicide in Rustenberg, South Africa, put a firecracker for hours, I'm Serious: A man in a wheelchair and wearing a beanie robbed a Wells Fargo Bank in PleasFink atal ry thetellers to fill the in his mouth and lit it; the explosion shook his house and mangled his face, but he survived. And Offensive Labels: The Ohioliquor control agency banned as offensive the Belgian ale Manneken Pis because its label shows a boy urinating. — Compiled by Chuck Shepherd told the boy to go away when he asked a second time for a handout. McCainisvisiting Vietnam this week as the nation p to mark the 25th anniversary ofthe end of the warApril 30. McCain was pulled out of Truc Bach lake by Vietnamese on the shore after his war plane was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967, and he consequently spent more thanfive years as a prisonerof war. by, 46, the ex-boyfriend; and their lawyer, John Jeffrey Reiner, 53, were nabbed in a police sting after Brockovich turned over checksto the trio in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Wednesday. “The threat was that they were going to go to the press and say Erin and | had a sexual relationship and that Erin was a bad mother,” said her lawyer and boss, Ed Masry. Brockovich called her exes “bitter,” noting that Brown was upset because he didn’t get a cut of the film deal and Halaby was angry at the waytheir relationship ended. NETHERLANDS Court rejects postponementoftrial for suspects in Lockerbie bombing a CAMP ZEIST — Scottishjudge — noting the defendants already have been held for 416 days — on Thursday rejected prosecutors’ requestfor an eightweekdelay in the trial oftwo Libyans accused in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Prosecutors had argued they need more time to Teview 119 new witnesses and additional evidence submitted by the defense last week. The judge, Lord Sutherland, who has granted two delays aaa bythe defense since last June,ruled thetrial will begin May 3 as scheduled. Hypnosis: Reducing Pain of Surgery a Scottish High Court judge, noted that the priate alleged Libyan Saal agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and ifa Fhimah, had already spent 416 daysin sort custody, an unprecedented period in Scottish law. The defendants are charged with the murders of 270 passengers, crew and residents ofLockerbie, Scotland, killed when the New York-bound Pan Am jumbo jet was blown outofthe sky Dec.21, 1988. Among the victims were 189 Americans. LITHUANIA 92-year-old to be retried for genocide nowthatlaw allowstrials in absentia VILNIUS — A judge reopened the war-crimes trial of 92-year-old AleksandrasLileikis on Thursday —the second prosecution renewed in Lithuatfia this week under a new-law allowing trials in absentia. The former head of the Vilnius security police was charged with genocide for handing over scores of Jewsto be executed during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation. Theothergenocidetrial, that of 92-year-old Kazys Gimzauskas, was reopened Tuesday. Gimzauskas wasa deputy to Lileikis. Defense lawyer Algirdas Matuiza said the proceedings were a farce andpolitically motivated. Both trials initially got under wayin 1998 but were repeatedly delayed andfinally halted last year after doctors said the defendants were too ill to appear in court. Jewish groups criticized the cancellation ofthe trials, saying the former Soviet republic wasn’t doing enough to deal with its past under Nazirule, when 240,000 Lithuanian Jews were massacred. Legislation passed in February allowed warcrimes trials to go ahead withoutthe accused present. Ailing defendants can follow proceedings via closed-circuit TV or simply be represented in court by lawyers. CATS WITH HANDS People who were hypnotized while undergoing surgery without a general anesthetic needed less pain medication,left the operating room sooner and had more stablevital signs than those who were not, ac- cording to a study in this week's issue of The Lancet medical journal. Trance states have been used for hundreds of years by witch doctors and modem surgeons to help sick people. But there had beenlittle scientific evidence that hypegs really works 2oe pain during,surgery. The study involved 241 people of simil and age who had operations to open clogged ai and veins, relieve blockages in the kidney drai system of block blood vessels feeding tumors. The patients were divided into three gt —one that experienced normalinteractions with doctors and nurses, anotherthat received extraattention from an additional personin the operating room who made sure nobody Said anything negative and a third who were helped to hypnotize themselves. The hypnosis group — guided throughvisualizations of scenarios they found pleasant — fared best, but the patients receiving extra attention also benefited. The hypnotized patients were the only ones who said the pain did not get worse asthe surgery progressed. Theyalso had fewerproblemswith their blood pressure andheart rate during the operation. AIEEEEEEESIIEIE NOTED Died: At the age of 82,the last pure-blooded member of the Kaw Nation,the tribe that gave the state of Kansas its name. William Mehojah died Sunday in Omaha, Neb. ¥ Killed: A wolf in Yakutat, Alaska,after attacking a 6year-old boy at a logging campand trying to drag the child into woods.It was chased awayby adults, and was shot after returning 10 minutes later. Convicted: Former top Wall Street executive James McDermott Jr., of giving inside information on busi- ness deals to his porn-stargirlfriend, Kathryn Gannon. McDermott was found guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud by a federaljury. He faces up to 10 yearsin prison. Today's Birthdays: Author HarperLee is 74. Iraqi President Saddam Husseinis 63. Actress-singer Ann-Margretis 59. |