Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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the ©amccock Ailing nuclear workers present cases in hearing by Katherine Rizzo Associated Press WASHINGTON — Nuclear plant work ers brought a message Thursday to lawmak ers considering help for people exposed to health-robbing levels of radiation: Hurry up, and don’t be stingy. “Many of us do not have time left on this Earth. We need your action now,” Ann Orick of Knoxville, Tenn., said in remarks prepared for delivery at a House committee hearing Thursday. While she and other sick workers wait ed to tell their stories to a House subcom mittee, negotiations continued over whether to create a government compensation pro gram, and how to pay workers employed at facilities that did work for the government. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee panel with ju risdiction over the issue, has previously in dicated that he wanted more time to devel op a compensation program rather than rush something through Congress that has to be fixed later. He said, “No one disputes the need to provide appropriate compensation to these individuals.” Kep. raui nanjorsKi, u-ra., wnuse uis trict includes beryllium plant workers, urged Smith not to let the opportunity for imme diate acyon slip away. “We’ve studied this issue to death,” he said. “We don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to continue on this path.” The Energy Department recently re versed 50 years of federal policy by declar ing that workers injured or killed by weapons plant exposure be compensated. The agency had proposed minimum lump sum payments of $100,000. The Senate earlier this year approved a minimum payment of $200,000, plus med ical care, for workers suffering from beryl lium disease, silicosis or radiation-caused cancer. A revised estimate from the Congres sional Budget Office said such a program could cost about $1 billion over five years. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, said House and Senate negotiators were discussing a pro gram that would provide no more than $100,000 per ailing worker, plus medical care. “This is certainly not ideal,” he said, adding that one thing under consideration is that workers would not be allowed to re cover lost wages. Lawmakers are deciding whether to add a compensation program to legislation au thorizing spending for the Pentagon. Dr. David Michaels, the Energy De partment’s top health official, said he thought Thursday’s hearing could persuade confer ees to enact a compensation program quick ly “We spend $6 billion a year cleaning up the dirt around the nuclear weapons com plex. We should be willing to spend a por tion of that to take care of the workers we made sick,” he said. In his prepared testimony, Sam Ray of Lucasville, Ohio, a 40-year uranium en richment plant employee, described work ing without protective clothing or radia tion monitoring. Enriching uranium for nuclear weapons was done in strict secrecy, and “workeis were kept in the daik about the hazards they faced,” said Ray, who suffers from a rare bone can cer and had his larynx removed. “Even to this day, we don’t know what we confronted,” he said. “I hope your com mittee will see to it that we are not left out in the cold.” The sick workers said federal compen sation is deserved because work on the fed eral government’s bombs caused their dis eases, and because state worker compensation programs haven’t taken care of them. In some cases, the diseases had a long la tency period and by the time the workers were diagnosed, too many years had elapsed since exposure and they didn’t meet the state qualifications. In other cases, government contractors actively fought the workers’ benefit claims, or record-keeping was lax, or secre cy concerns were cited to prevent the gov ernment from accurately documenting the substances workers were exposed to, and the amount of the exposures. Israel reduces charges against spies BY AFSHIN VALINEJAD Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran — An appeals court has re duced the sentences against 10 Iranian Jews found guilty of spying for Israel, the judiciary announced Thursday, casting aside two of the three charges on which they were convicted in a trial that gained international condemnation. Israeli and Jewish leaders, who maintain the convicted men are innocent, immediately criti cized the court for not going far enough. “Israel calls upon the international commu nity and every civilized person to severely con demn these harsh sentences and to continue work ing with Israel to achieve the immediate release of the prisoners,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Branch 9 of the appeals court in Fars province, where the Jews were tried, reduced their prison terms from a range of four to 13 years to terms of two to nine years, provincial judiciary chief Hossein Ah Amiri said. He said the time already served would be included in the sentences. The case, seen as a show of increasing pow er by the hard-line clergy in this Muslim coun try, attracted international attention, with coun tries such as the United States and France as well as human rights organizations and Jewish groups urging Iran to ensure the trial was fair. Ju rists have questioned whether the trial could be fair when there was no jury and the judge also act ed as prosecutor. “It remains now for those same nations to protest the wrongful upholding of the.conviction of those people who are incarcerated,” said Phil Baum, executive director of the New York-based American Jewish Congress told The Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt. The Conference of Presidents of Major Amer ican Jewish Organizations called the sentence a' “positive step.” “We remain outraged that after more than one and a half years of harsh impris onment ... defendants remain in jail for crimes that the court itself acknowledges they did not commit,” chairman Ronald Lauder and executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein said in a joint statement. The appeals court upheld the conviction of cooperating with Israel but found the 10 men innocent of membership in an illegal spy ring and recruitment of new agents, Amiri said. “These sentences are the lowest possible sen tences and we have used the ultimate of Islamic kindness and generosity. According to the law, these charges could have brought execution,” Amiri told The AP from the southern city of Shi raz, where the trial took place. Esmail Naseri, lawyer for the Jews, maintained that none of his clients is guilty of any of the charges. “The court has admitted our argument that all the chaiges against the 10 Jews were only one chaige, but we still believe that they are all in nocent,” Naseri told the AP from Shiraz. Dani Tefihn, a shoe salesman, and Asher Zad mehr, a university professor, who both received the highest prison terms of 13 years in July, had their sentences reduced to nine and seven years respectively, Amiri said. Of the eight others, the sentence for civil ser vant Nasser Levihaim was reduced from 11 to seven years; Ramin Farzam, a store clerk, 10 to eight years; shopkeeper Javid Bent-Yacoub, nine to six years; shopkeeper Farhad Seleh, eight to six years; religion teacher Shahrokh Paknahad, eight to five years; religion teacher Farzad Kashi, eight to six years; Faramarz Kashi, five to three years; , and shoe clerk Ramin Nematizadeh, four to two years. Three other Jews were acquitted when the verdicts were handed down July 1. “We were expecting more cuts in the sen tences approved by the appeals court,” said Jalal Soleimani, the head of Shiraz Jewish Communi ty. “Still, we are hoping for greater Islamic mer cy from the authorities. We also expect the Supreme Court to restudy the sentences approved by the appeals court in order to reduce the latest sentences.” Amiri said the court’s decision could not be appealed. Flooding from page 4 rises daily and is likely to. worsen when waters subside, risking the spread of infectious diseases. “The water level here is drop ping now,” said Loy Sophat, gov ernor of Kratie, 100 miles north east of Phnom Penh. “People should be pleased with this news but in stead they face another problem. People and animals are getting sick. ” The death toll is highest in Cam bodia, where 136 people have been killed. Authorities contacted in four southern Vietnamese provinces re ported a sharp increase Thursday in deaths, raising the national toll to - 60, including 51 children, since Ju ly. Another 30 people have died in Thailand and at least nine in neigh boring Laos. In southern Vietnam, relief workers are struggling to reach corn munities marooned on dikes and roadsides, even as the flood spreads to new provinces in lower regions of the Mekong basin. Waters have exceeded the levels reached in 19% when 217 died in floods, said Bui Dat Tram, director of An Giang weather forecast station. Officials said that key rice-pro ducing provinces in central Thai Hostages from page 4 holding 16 other hostages, although a Cabinet official admitted Thursday that the military has lost track of three Malaysian hostages.. Two French journalists escaped from the rebels Tuesday night, leav ing Schilling, the three Malaysians and 13 Filipinos still in captivity. Rebel spokesman Abu Sabaya, speaking in the same interview as Schilling, acknowledged that four of his men had been killed and said the rebels were open to negotiations with the Philippine and U.S. governments. Using their satellite phone, the rebels have sought Libya’s help in restarting negotiations, a Cabinet of ficial said. But the military is not like ly to be interested, he said. The military announced Thursday that 18 rebels were confirmed dead and 42 others were reported dead but had not been confirmed. Six govern ment troops were injured in the six days of fighting, it said. Four civilians who were earlier re ported dead were actually only injured, military spokesman Gen. Generoso Senga said. However, wounded civil ians interviewed at Job’s hopital said they personally witnessed the deaths of at least three other villagers shot by the military. I \ |fust beyond your wildest dreams, between the peak of your courage, and the pit of your fears... awaits ourney where past and future collide. The Journey, an evening of music and storytelling featuring Eric Saperston with special guest Edwin McCain. Get turned on. Thursday, September 28th • Koger Center • 8 pm Advance Tickets: Student - $5 • General Public - $10 Day of Show Tickets: Student - $7 • General Public - $12 Tickets available NOW at all Capital Ticket outlets. Individuals needing special accommodations please call 777-7130.