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"Iht (Bamecod? Navy describes theories on sub’s last moments By Barry Renfrew Associated Press MOSCOW —With an honor guard in crisp blue uni forms standing at attention on the deck and its flags snapping in the breeze, the nuclear submarine Kursk glided silently out to sea, a symbol of Russian power and pride. It was the last time anyone on land would see the nuclear-powered warship that the Russian navy boasted was in vincible. As it headed into the Barents Sea for maneuvers, the Kursk’s crew ex pected to be home in a few days. The Kursk was named after the re gion in southern Russia where Soviet troops in 1943 turned the tide against Nazi Germany’s army in the biggest tank battle in history. Like the old land bat tle, the Kursk was intended to tum the tide at s. a if there was ever another world war. The submarine was a 500-foot-long underwater missile base. Its sides bris tled with 24 silos, each housing a cruise missile capable of slamming a nuclear warhead at supersonic speed into a tar get hundreds of miles away. The subma rine and a dozen like it were designed during the Cold War to destroy the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers. The Cold War ended a decade ago and the Kursk’s nuclear warheads were locked up ashore. The Soviet Union had disappeared and Russia was falling apart, sinking deeper into poverty and back wardness. With most of its warships too di lapidated to put to sea, the navy staked what little money it had on keeping up the nuclear submarine fleet — a potent threat that the navies of the United States and other Western nations could not ig nore. The Kursk was just five years old. The crew, nearly half of them officers with advanced technical skills, had been hailed as the navy’s elite, a chosen few who could handle any challenge. President Vladimir Putin had big plans for the navy and the Kursk. The navy ex ercises that the Kursk sailed to join on Aug. 10 were a prelude for a major step in putting Moscow back on the world stage: the return of a Russian fleet to the Mediterranean in 2001 for the first time in a decade. The exercises were big news. Russ ian television showed film of the North ern Fleet in action, the hulking cruisers and nimble destroyers cutting through the waves and warships firing missiles. Then on Aug. 14, a Monday, the navy announced that the Kursk had experi enced a malfunction. The situation was not critical — the submarine was in ra dio contact, air and power lines had been hooked up and arrangements were being made to bring the crew up, the navy said Mounting evidence suggests the crewmen were already dead and almost every utterance by top officials about saving the Kursk would turn out to be untrue. The Kursk was rising to the surface, possibly preparing to fire a torpedo on Aug. 12 when disaster struck. Nothing is known about what the crew was do ing in those last few moments. Norwegian monitors later reported detecting an explosion in the vicinity of the Kursk, followed within minutes by a much laiger blast that registered at 3.5 on seismic monitors, equivalent to a small earthquake. All the signs suggest a problem in the torpedo compartment at the front of the Kursk. The submarine was carrying a new type of torpedo with a liquid fuel system that some officers complained was un stable, according to some reports. Or the young, inexperienced conscript sailors may have fumbled one of the torpedoes, or the test firing might have gone wrong, the weapon jamming in a torpedo tube. The first blast must have convulsed the Kursk, knocking out control systems and pitching it into a sharp dive toward the bottom 350 feet below the waves. The first blast probably killed and in jured some of the sailors. Survivors would have been shouting for help, for first aid crews, frantically trying to reach injured comrades. Plunging down at mounting speed and with the decks slanting sharply for ward, sailors would have been fighting to stay on their feet or in their seats as the Kursk plunged into the depths. They never regained control. A second explosion ripped through the Kursk, probably as it slammed into the bottom. This blast was probably tor pedoes and anti-submarine missiles detonating. Russia’s navy says it was about two tons of explosives going up; some officers say it could have been more than 10 tons. The Kursk was built of immensely strong steel to withstand the enormous pressures of diving hundreds of feet. -The hull would have contained and intensi fied the explosion. Following the path of least resistance, the blast ripped back ward, breaking through the thinner walls of the crew compartments. Most of the crew were within yards of the blast. Navy officers say that many were probably vaporized by the detona tion; others were ripped to bits. There might never be an exact re construction of the last moments of the Kursk. It did not have black boxes like those which can tell what happened to a crashed airliner. Raising the Kursk may be impossible meaning that its secrets will be lost forever. 10-year-old accused of killing father by Amy Forliti Associated Press MARION, Ind.— A 10-year old boy accused of fatally shoot ing his father in the chest has been charged with voluntary manslaughter.. - Officials offered no motive and few details about the slaying in Fairmount, a town of 3,100 about 60 miles northeast of In dianapolis. The fifth-grader, charged Monday in juvenile court, was being held in a de tention center. “The charge speaks for it self,” said James Luttrull Jr., chief deputy prosecutor for Grant County. “It’s an appropriate charge based on all the circum stances.” He refused to elabo-. rate. Wayne Salyers Sr., 36, was found dead in the boy’s bedroom Friday night by officers re sponding to a 911 call, police said. The boy’s mother and stepsister were in another part of the house at the timp Police said they found the boy walking a few miles from the home about an hour later. He'told them he had taken his father’s .44-caliber revolver from a cabinet in his parents’ room, au thorities said. A petition filed in court al leges the child knowingly killed his father “while acting under sudden heat.” The boy’s attorney, Martin Lake, denied the charge at Mon day’s hearing. “He wants to go home with his mother,” said Lake, a public defender. A child must be at least 14 to _ be chaiged as an adult in Indiana. I Tf £nims4 /liTlmnnont tLn Laii aaiiI/I “ ----J-, be under the court’s jurisdiction until he reaches 21. The father, a mechanic, and son spent much time together fishing, hunting, shooting BB guns and working on the father’s truck, according to neighbor Gary Hurst, who lives across the street. “He was a good boy. He’d say, ‘Yes, sir,’ to you, ‘Yes, ma’am,”’ Hurst said. Town Marshall Brian Reneau said he knew of no police calls or other problems at the boy’s home. But neighbors in this small town best known as the birth place of actor James Dean told The Indianapolis Star they often overheard loud arguing at the house, and described the boy’s father as a stern disciplinarian. “He was just angry with the son. He’d get loud,” said neigh bor Margarita Thompson. The boy’s next court appear ance was scheduled for Oct. 16. Dole opens missing persons institute in Bosnia Alexandat S. Dragice VIC Associated Press ' SARAJEVO— To speed up the iden tification of Bosnia’s massacre vic tims, former Sen. Bob Dole on Mon day opened an institute for missing persons. Over 27,000 persons have been registered as missing from Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war. Many of them are being exhumed from numerous mass graves throughout the country. But their identification remains a major problem because conven tional methods are slow and the bod ies lay decomposing for years before they were found. Alone in the northern city of Tu zla, which Dole visited Monday in his capacity as head of the Interna tional Commission for Missing Per sons, about 4,000 bodies exhumed from mass graves around Srebrenica are unidentified. Srebrenica is me sue or me worst massacre of civilians in Europe since World War II. Up to 8,000 mainly Muslim men are believed to have been systematically killed and buried in mass graves when Serbs overran the town in 1995. The Missing Persons Institute with two DNA laboratories—in Sara jevo and Tuzla — will collect blood samples from victims’ relatives and try to match them with DNA profiles obtained from bones or teeth of the exhumed bodies. Using a traditional identification process, it would have taken experts between 50 to 100 years to identify all the bodies exhumed in Bosnia, Dole said at the opening ceremony in Sarajevo. “This meant that the living rel atives would have no hope of learn ing the fate of their loved ones in their lifetimes,” said the former Kansas senator, who ran for presi dent unsuccessfully in 1996. If adequately funded, the insti tute can “bring answers to the fam ilies within five to seven years,” he said. The project was supported by several U.S. companies, which do nated equipment worth more than $5 million. Other govemments*have made significant donations. Zuhra Omerovic, a Srebrenica survivor who has searched five years for her husband’s body, said she had hope again, after being disappointed in other organizations’ promises. “This really seems to be a step forward,” she said. * Gusty winds continue to hamper firefighters in West By Becky Bohrer Associated Press RED LODGE, Mont.—This is how bad it’s gotten in the West: A wild fire ripping through a region here dotted with summer homes bums un dated, despite being named the state’s No. 1 firefighting priority. Some 150 dwellings have been evacuated near the south-central re sort town of Red Lodge, while the 65-mile Beartooth Highway, which winds its way into Yellowstone Na tional Park, has been closed. With so many other blazes across the West demanding firefighters’ at tention, rescuers were just trying to keep the fire from consuming sum mer homes, some of them $1 million estates. “Erratic lire behavior, steep slopes and gusty winds currently prevent direct attack of the fire with ground personnel,” the U.S. Forest Service said late Monday. In neighboring South Dakota, flames have burned 101 square miles of the Black Hills National Forest — the largest in the modem history of Ate forest. • Idaho’s biggest blaze remained the 182,500-acre fire in the Salmon Challis National Forest. Fires in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness prompted more evacua tions at ranches Monday. In Red Lodge, fire information I officer Jeff Gildehaus has requested i 280 shovel-toting firefighters, a strike j team of 20 engines to spray water , and foam, and eight helicopters. < But even when the manpower and equipment arrives, it may not be j enough to snuff the flames. “That’s , a good start but just an initial order," he said. j The fire was estimated at 3,500-plus acres, relatively small in comparison to the giant fires in south western Montana’s Bitterroot Val ley, but it became the state’s top pri ority because of its potential for causing serious problems. It was among 31 active fires on >74,000 acres Monday in Montana. Nationally, there are 84 fires bum ng on 1.7 million acres. So far this rear, 6.2 million acres in the United Itates have burned. Fire lines were widened Monday n the Black Hills of South Dakota, vhere a blaze has consumed 64,900 cres. Gusts reached 40 mph at Rapid 2ity, about 25 miles northeast of the ire. With homes and two cities near he edges of the blaze, the fire is now he top priority in the nation, said Jill Waterbury, incident commander )f the firefighting effort Caesarean from page 6 Among the list: —A previous C-section is the biggest risk factor for having anoth er. If the surgical cut was in the low er abdomen — not the upper — ACOG says most healthy women can try vaginally delivering their next ba by as long as a surgeon is standing by if emergency surgery is needed. Most low-risk mothers who try can de liver vaginally, says ACOG, en couraging women to carefully discuss this option with their doctors. Yet the rate of vaginal births af ter C-section fell to 23.4 percent last year, down 17 percent since 1996. —Slow labor is a big reason for C-sections in first-time moms. ACOG cautioned against surgery too early, and Chicago’s Walker also stressed patience, saying here that nurses are key. “With younger nurses, I get more nhnnP mile eavincr ‘Wrvthincr’c han pening, she needs a C-section,’” while older nurses are “a little more at tentive, more patient” with slow la bor. —ACOG says demanding a painkilling epidural too early, before the cervix is dilated 4-5 centimeters, increases your C-section risk. But this is controversial — Walker urges women to ask for a less po tent “walking epidural” that she says doesn’t increase the risk. —For breech, or feet-first, ba bies, doctors should consider trying to turn the baby headfirst by “exter nal version,” pushing on the moth er’s abdomen before automatically operating, ACOG advised. While ACOG targets doctors, consumer advocates advise pregnant women to ask about C-section rates when choosing a physician and hos pital. Pick one with a lower rate, or who’s open to a second opinion for nonemergency surgery, and “it’s more likely you’re going to avoid an un necessary C-section,” says Public Cit izen’s Dr. Sidney Wolfe. Police question Ramseys about daughter’s murder for first time in two years Family's attorney says latest interview yields little progress by Erin McClam Associated Press ATLANTA — John and Patsy Ram sey’s attorney said he hoped their first interview with police in two years would regain momentum following a dispute over a prosecutor’s line of questioning in the death of their daughter. Attorney L. Lin Wood told re porters that investigators’ seven hours with Patsy Ramsey on Monday turned into one prosecutor’s “fishing expe dition” to pin 6-year-old JonBenet’s killing on the parents. Wood said prosecutor Michael Kane would not consider any sus pects other than the Ramseys. “I’m not real hopeful” about further • progress in the investigation, he said. Investigators were planning to re sume questioning of Patsy Ramsey at Wood’s downtown Atlanta office Tuesday. An interview with John Ramsey was scheduled to follow. Wood said Kane threatened to walk out of an interview witfi Patsy Ram sey when the two sides argued over questioning about fiber evidence and security precautions for JonBenet’s older brother, Burke. JonBenet Ramsey was found slain in December 1996 in her parents’ home, in Boulder, Colorado. The child’s death has been the subject of a “tell-all” book and a TV movie. Clinton: ‘Break the silence’ about AIDS in Africa by Anne Gearan Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria — Africans must “break the silence” about AIDS or risk losing hard-fought democratic and economic gains, President Clinton said Sunday as the White House announced more than $20 mil lion in U.S. aid to fight AIDS, malar ia and other diseases devastating Africa. “In every country, in any culture, it is difficult, painful, at the very least embarrassing, to talk about the issues involved with AIDS,” Clinton said after touring a health center in the le worldwide last year, and is now the leading cause of death in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, 13 million children have lost a parent to AIDS, and the disease is reducing life ex pectancies and dimming development hopes across the continent. “Is it harder to talk about these things than to watch a child die of AIDS?” Clinton asked. “We have to break the silence about how this dis ease spreads and how to prevent it.” AIDS, which in Africa is primar ily sexually transmitted, is entirely preventable, Clinton reminded his audience. About 2.6 million Nigerians, 5.4 percent of the population, are af flicted with AIDS. That puts the coun try on better footing than many of its neighbors with higher infection rates, but in danger of letting the disease gain ground, Clinton said. “AIDS can rob a country of its future,” Clinton said. “I know you are not going to let that happen to Nigeria.” Clinton’s two-day stay in Nigeria is intended to underscore U.S. ap proval of the 15-month-old democ ratic government. With 123 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most pop ulous nation. He promised continued U.S. help, but did not, as Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had hoped, agree to cancel or cut the nearly $ 1 billion U.S. portion of Nigeria’s $32 billion foreign debt, a move that would re : quire congressional approval. Speaking to business executives later Sunday, however, Clinton said he supports reducing the debt, but only if Nigeria spends the extra mon ey on improving lives and diversify ing the economy. “There must be a dividend to democracy for the people of Nige ria,” Clinton said. Clinton, accompanied by daugh ter Chelsea, began his day with ser vices at a Baptist church in Abuja, and then ventured outside the capi tal to get a firsthand look Sunday at both the pageantry and poverty of life in Ushafa, a pottery-making center. “I came to Nigeria to express the support of the people of the United States,” Clinton told villagers from a makeshift platform. “We support your democracy.” Khairat Abdulrazaq Gwadabe, who represents the village in the Nigerian Senate, said she explained Clinton’s visit to villagers ahead of time. “1 had to translate it as the king of the world himself is coming. The president of the world is coming to their chief,” Gwadabe said. Villagers said they hoped Clin ton’s visit would translate into a new school, a factory or some other in vestment, although they were unclear on how that might happen. Hajiya Haunwa Mohammad, 42, said if Clinton could help ease Nige ria’s debt, she might earn more mon ey selling sugar and other products. Her four daughters, ages 8 to 23, might also go to school, she said. “Now, my children don’t go to school because I have no money for their school fees,” she said. Clinton’s brief African tour will also take him to Tanzania on Mon day. Former South African President Nelson Mandela invited Clinton there to help preside over a planned peace ceremony to end seven years of civil war in neighboring Burundi. Hopes for a cease-fire agreement fad ed this week and negotiators began work Sunday on a less ambitious pact. Clinton still plans to go out of respect for Mandela’s efforts so far, the White House said. After a few hours in Tanzania, Clinton plans to meet Egyptian Pres ident Hosni Mubarak in Cairo to dis cuss the status of the Israeli-Pales tinian peace process. “In every country, in any culture, it is difficult, painful, at the very least embarrassing to talk about the issues involved with AIDS." President Bill Clinton