The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, August 30, 2000, Page 7, Image 7
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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