Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Justice Department investigating tire recall by Michael J'. Sniffen Associated Press WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is studying whether any criminal or civil laws apply to the case of defective Bridgestone/Firestone tires, Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday. At her weekly news conference, Reno said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt„ had requested the de partment review the tire problem that has been blamed for dozens of fatal accidents. “We are looking to what, if any, Justice De partment action is warranted,” Reno said. Justice lawyers are discussing the case with highway safe ty officials to see if any federal criminal or civil statutes apply. A senior Justice official said later that crimi nal action was considered unlikely and that a civ il case would be pursued only if the National High way Traffic Safety Administration referred a case to the department. It has not done so. This official, who requested anonymity, said l an early review indicated only two possible civil statutes under which the traffic safety adminis tration could refer a case. One would allow the government to go to court to enforce a mandato ry order to recall tires if the companies resisted such an order, but that has not happened, this of ficial said. Another civil statute provides penalties for companies that fail to report some data to the gov ernment, but it was not clear that there had been any reporting failure covered by existing law, this official said. Even if there were one, the traffic safety administration normally penalizes these by levying administrative fines and no civil court ac tion is required, the official added. In an Aug. 28 letter, Leahy asked Reno to keep him informed of any investigative efforts by the department in the case. Leahy said he had become concerned “that the American public has been subjected to unnecessary risks and that criminal laws may be implicated.” “It is important to know whether Bridge stone/Firestone knew of the dangers and the threat to the civil rights of Americans before Aug. 9, 2000,” Leahy added. On Wednesday, Ford blamed Firestone. Fire stone hinted at a problem with Ford vehicles. The new National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis tration chief blamed them both. And lawmakers rebuked all three for the fatal accidents that may be linked to defective Bridgestone/Firestone tires on Ford vehicles. More than 13 straight hours of congression al hearings Wednesday didn’t determine what is happening with Bridgestone/Firestone tires and Ford trucks, primarily the Explorer sport utility vehicle, that has caused them to be linked to 88 deaths and at least 250 injuries. “Countless Americans are on the road today picking up their kids, driving to work, and the last thing that should worry them is the quality and the soundness of their tires,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. “It is unconscionable that so many have been placed in this kind of situation. ” Tire Deaths SEE PAGE 5 ‘It is important to know whether Bridgestone/Firestone knew of the dangers and the threat to the civil rights of Americans before Aug. 9, 2000.' Sen. Patrick Leahy New study finds no direct cause for Gulf War veterans’ syndrome by Randolph E. Schmid Associated Press WASHINGTON —A comprehensive new re port on the chronic illnesses suffered by some Gulf Whr veterans was unable to link their prob lems to a specific cause. The Institute of Medicine studied the re search done on several possible causes for the veterans’ syndrome: the toxic nerve agent sarin; a drug used to pretreat against exposure to nerve gas; depleted uranium; and vaccines to prevent anthrax and botulism. The scientists said Thursday they could not find enough evidence to link the illnesses to any single cause. “We’d like to give veterans and their fam ilies definitive answers, but the evidence sim ply is not strong enough,” said Harold C. Sox Jr., chairman of the committee that did the research. Sox heads the department of medi cine at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Cen ter in Lebanon, N.H. The Defense Department says an estimat ed 90,000 troops who served in the Gulf War complain of illnesses such as fatigue, skin rash es, headaches and muscle and joint pain. The Pentagon requested the study by the institute, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent agency chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to the gov ernment. A study published in May in the British Medical Journal suggested a link between mul tiple vaccines given to soldiers deployed in the Persian Gulf \Vhr and the unexplained illness es. That report was based on 923 British Gulf War veterans. < The study by the Institute of Medicine not ed that British research has provided “limited evidence of an association” with multiple vac cinations. It noted that 99 workers at Fort Detrick, Md., who received multiple vaccinations had been studied for 25 years with no clinical symp toms. The institute said the available evidence is insufficient to show whether the multiple vac cinations have an effect on long-term health. Other findings in the study: •Sarin: Low-level exposure to this nerve gas may have occurred among troops when U.S. soldiers destroyed Iraqi munitions stockpiles. A survey of 20,000 troops within 50 miles of the stockpiles showed 99 percent reported no serious nerve illnesses, the report noted. It said that while high doses of the chemical are known to be dangerous, there is not enough in formation available on low doses to reach any conclusion. _ •Pyridostigmine bromide is a drug used as a pretreatment for exposure to nerve agents. It was provided to about 250,000 soldiers, but records don’t indicate if they all took the pills. There were some cases of poisoning from taking high doses of the pills, but the commit tee was unable to find evidence of long-term effects from the amount normally used. •Depleted uranium, which has less ra dioactivity than naturally occurring uranium, is used in tank armor and some ammunition. The committee said there were indications that the levels of uranium involved in the war do not lead to lung cancer or kidney damage. There was not enough evidence to determine if the uranium could be linked to other diseases. •Anthrax vaccine was given to thousands of service members during the Gulf War be cause of the fear that Iraq would launch a bio logical attack. A later decision to give the vac cine to all U.S. military personnel has provoked controversy, with some resisting the vaccina tions. The typical vaccination reactions of red ness, swelling and occasional fever were found, but the committee said there have not been enough scientific studies done to determine if there is any long-term adverse effect from the vaccine. Kmart to card buyers of violent video games i .. . ■ Wal-Mart also to start checking identification by Jeffrey McMurray Associated Press WASHINGTON — Young people itching to wreak havoc with an Uzi on their Playstation will have to bring along a parent if they want to buy a violent video game from some major re tailers. Kmart announced Thursday it will refuse sale of mature-rated games to anyone under 17, using a barcode scanner that will prompt cashiers to ask for identification from young peo ple. After Kmart’s news conference in Washing ton, Whl-Mart announced it would enact the same policy. In a letter last month to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the president of Toy s R Us said the prac tice is already in place at his company’s stores. Sessions applauded the move. However, he said he would prefer that re tailers stop selling mature-rated games, as Mont gomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck and Co. al ready have done. Sessions said he believes “intense involve ment” with violent video games can cause a young person to become violent. “Common sense should tell us that positively reinforcing sadistic behavior, as these games do, cannot be good for our children," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. “We cannot expect that the hours spent in school will mold and instruct a child’s mind, but that hours spent playing violent games will not.” Kmart executives said they believe their pol icy lets parents make decisions about video games. “A step of responsibility that gets the par ents involved is a smart step, rather than just walking away from the issue and letting some one else deal with it,” said Shawn Kahle, Kmart’s vice president of corporate affairs. In May, Sessions, Brownback and seven oth er senators sent a letter to executives of Kmart and several other major retailers. In the letter, the senators encouraged the re tailers to pull violent games off their shelves or prevent their sale to anyone younger than 17. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the De mocratic nominee for vice president, was among those who signed. Most video games sold at major retailers include a rating from the Entertainment Soft ware Review Board advising consumers about which games are suitable for certain age groups. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jessica Moser said her company has invested more than $3 million on store signs and advertising to educate cus tomers about the rating system. Moser said she was not sure when Mhl-Mart would implement the new policy. Kmart plans to enact the policy Oct. 15, in time for the holiday shopping season. Brownback said the Senate Commerce Com mittee next week will examine the results of a Federal Trade Commission report on whether violent, adult-rated games are target-marketed to kids. “If this is true—and there is plenty of anec dotal evidence to suggest that it is — this is a scandal and an outrage,” said Brownback, who authored an amendment that passed the Senate requesting the FTC to conduct the study. Africa appeals to U.N. Millenium Summit by Nicole Winfield Associated Press UNITED NATIONS — Burdened by debt, war, poverty and AIDS, Africa is getting special atten tion at the U.N. Millennium Summit with world leaders calling for a new commitment to bring the continent out of its misery and give its people hope. “One more day of delayed action is a day too late for our people,” pleaded Botswana’s Presi • dent Festus Mogae, whose country is among those hardest hit by AIDS. “Our people are crying out for help. Let us respond while there is time.” Mogae appealed Thursday for “tangible and adequate resources” to educate his people about the virus, test and counsel them and provide them with the expensive drugs that are combatting it. A third of Botswana’s adults are infected with HIV. Mali’s President Alpha Oumar Konare called for world leaders to “assume the duty of our generation,” and combat ignorance about AIDS, the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa. Education of Africa’s young and women, he said, “must enlighten the new millennium.” About 150 world leaders listened as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Clinton, Cu ba’s Fidel Gistro and a long line of others addressed the unprecedented sestjion Wednesday. Qatar’s emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa A1 Thani, opened the summit’s second day by urging the United Nations to get more involved in Mideast peace efforts — a call that came as leaders, in cluding German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, planned meetings with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to try to persuade him to make decisions needed to conclude a peace agreement. Blair, in an address focused entirely on Africa and U.N. peacekeeping, had called for world governments to enter into a new partnership with the continent to help it settle its conflicts and en courage its economies to develop. “There is a dismal record of failure in Africa on the part of the developed world that shocks and shames our civilization,” Blair said. “We should use this unique summit for a concrete purpose: to start the process of agreeing a way forward for Africa.” On Thursday, the heads of state of the 15 Se curity Council members scheduled a special open council meeting on peace and security in the next century. The wars in Sierra Leone, Congo, and Er itrea-Ethiopia are among the biggest challenges to day to the United Nations. The U.N. peacekeeping department has tak en on enormous duties in recent months in Africa, but has found itself at a loss to carry them out cf fectively because of poorly trained and equipped troops spread over laige areas. In Sierra Leone, 500 U.N. peacekeepers were taken hostage last May by rebels of the Revolu tionary United Front. A recent U.N. report, commissioned by the secretary-general for the summit, recommended a complete overhaul of the peacekeeping depart ment. It called for the equivalent of a ministry of defense to modernize and professionalize the peace keepers, so troops can deploy rapidly and take ac tion in clear cases of aggression. The report by a panel of international experts has been widely applauded by world leaders at the summit, who say the U.N. failures that led to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica must never be repeated. “The darkest pages were written in Rwanda where, under the indifferent eye of all of us, ageno cide was committed,” said Belgian Prime Minis ter Guy Verhofstadt, whose country lost 10 U.N. soldiers in the opening days of the massacres in central Africa. He called for a new concept of operations for peacekeeping that would include rapid-reac tion regional peacekeeping capabilities. Blair called for a Similar radical change. Beyond peacekeeping, several African speak ers called for the United Nations and its mem bers to address the root economic causes. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the chairman of the Organization of African Unity, de cried how the world’s wealthy countries contin ued to get richer while Africa’s poor suffered un der crushing debt. “Can we one day free ourselves of this crush ing yoke and at last devote our resources to our development and the well-being of our popula tions?” he asked. Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano com plained that Africans weren’t reaping the benefits of globalization and were in fact suffering even greater economic inequalities while also trying to deal with the AIDS epidemic. “This in turn constitutes a source of frustra tion and conflicts that pose serious threat to in ternational security, stability, democracy and peace,” he said. While echoing those views, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi turned the criticism toward his fellow Africans for having allowed wars to fester for generations on a continent that can little afford to fight them or care for their refugees. * y News Briefs ■ Police discover sub capable of drug smuggling FACATATIVA, Colombia (AP) - Po lice raiding a warehouse in this rural town stumbled upon a most unusual drug traf ficking tool: They found a 100-foot-long, half-built submarine they say would have been able to ship up to 200 tons of co caine below the ocean’s surface. The sophisticated sub was discovered late Wednesday along with documents in Russian in this town just outside Bo gota, Colombian National Police direc tor Gen. Ernesto Gilibert told reporters. “It was between 30 and 40 percent completed and had its engine room ready,” Gilibert said. “The technology is advanced and the workmanship of high quality.” ■ Pakistan reports India shelling across border JAMMU, India (AP) - A three-hour gun battle along the frontier in the dis puted Himalayan territory of Kashmir killed two Indian soldiers and four Pak istani militants, the Indian army said Thursday. Also Thursday, Indian troops fired artillery shells across the border north of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, killiqg at least diree people and wounding 14, Pakistani police said. ■ Testimony of overweight girl not open to press SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)- New Mex ico’s Supreme Court upheld a courtroom ban on reporters from custody hearings for a severely overweight 3-year-old girl who was taken from her parents. The high court Wednesday turned down an appeal by media organizations challenging Children’s Court Judge Tom my Jewell’s decision. The state and the girl’s family also have agreed to keep silent. “Essentially, the Supreme Court has allowed a blackout on one of the most compelling abuse and neglect cases in this country,” said Martin Esquivel, lawyer for The Associated Press, the Albuquerque Journal, The Albuquerque Tribune, KOAT-TV and KRQE-TV in the appeal. ■ Power outage leaves Puerto Rico capital in the dark SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)- A broken cable left the Puerto Rican cap ital without power Thursday morning, trapping dozens of people in elevators and forcing many businesses to close. Rush-hour traffic slowed as traffic lights failed across San Juan. Offices sent workers home after their air condition ers stopped and computers shut down. Firefighters worked to free people from elevators in at least 10 buildings, including the Department of Labor, a hospital and a Marshall’s department store. ■ Sewage spilled, released into river in Oklahoma OKMULGEE, Okla. (AP) - A black and-brown stream of sewage released in to the Canadian River has killed thou sands of fish and could threaten human health, an environmental official said Thursday. “We would certainly encourage peo ple ... not to fish or swim in the water or allow their cattle to drink the water,” said Michael Dean, spokesman for Ok lahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality. ) »