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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 1998)
News Digest CNN announces major changes to schedule 1NEW YORK — CNN an nounced a major overhaul of its schedule on Wednesday, changing many of its anchors dur ing the day, adding more news programs on the weekend and starting a documentary series on Sunday nights. It will be the most dramatic on air evidence of changes at the struggling news network since for mer ABC executive Rick Kaplan took over as CNN president last summer. “Our overall strategy is to em phasize CNN’s commitment to hard news reporting, depth and content,” said Sid Bedingfield, vice president of CNN/USA. Christiane Amanpour will nar rate the first edition of “CNN Per spectives,” the documentary se ries airing Sunday nights from 8 to 9 p.m. on Jan. 18. The first show, "Virus Hunters,” will be about sci entists who track deadly diseases. CNN will add 4 1/2 hours of news broadcasts on the weekend, canceling feature programs such as “Future Watch” and “Comput er Connections.” Senior White House correspondent Wolf Blitzer will be the new host of the Sunday program, “Late Edition.” On weekdays, CNN will expand its 8 p.m. EST news broadcast to an hour and move “Inside Poli tics” from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. An chors Donna Kelley and Leon Har ris will be reunited on CNN’s early morning news segment. CNN Senior Vice President Frank Sesno will co-anchor the noon newscast with Jeanne Meserve. Jim Moret will be the new an chor of “Newsnight,” airing at midnight weekdays. The broad cast will originate from Los Ange les and contain an increased em phasis on Asia and the Pacific. Kaplan has created a new unit to generate more special reports. Many of them have aired at 10 p.m. weeknights, where CNN is planning more changes that Bed ingfield wouldn’t talk about. CNN, which recently hired longtime ABC correspondent Jeff Greenfield and Judd Rose, contin ues to look for a big-name anchor. The schedule changes take ef fect Monday. Human-body exhibit sparks controversy 2 MANNHEIM, Germany — The museum exhibit starts with pa per-thin slices of an organ. Then, visitors move on to a room filled with skinless corpses propped up or hanging from wires. “A Glimpse into the Human Body” is drawing big crowds as well as some criticism. Waits of up to three hours are common for the show at the State Museum for Technology and La bor in Mannheim. More than 200,000 people have seen the pre Ski and Snowboard Rentals DOWMlII.*10 £vr Cross Country... *710 gf snowboard.*20 8% PERSONS 199 W. 8th Eugene • 484-7344 served bodies and body parts since the exhibit opened in Octo ber. It mns through January. Church leaders say the exhibit is degrading to human dignity. But organizers say real-life dis plays such as the lung of a heavy smoker can teach lessons about health and disease better than any textbook. “The authenticity fascinates,” said Gunther von Hagens, an anatomy professor at the Univer sity of Heidelberg who developed the “plastination” technique used to preserve the bodies. Plastination involves dunking the bodies in chilled acetone and draining them of water, which is then replaced with molten plastic that later hardens. Glistening from the plastic, each body highlights a different aspect of the human anatomy, such as musculature, the nervous system or the circulatory system. During a recent visit, some viewers expressed disgust; others made jokes. “He must have jumped out of his skin,” one visi tor quipped about a male figure holding his skin draped over his arm like an overcoat. Canada gives natives long-sought apology 3 TORONTO — Canada made an unprecedented apology today to the nation’s native peoples, ex pressing particular regret for the “tragedy” of past decades of abuse at federally funded boarding schools. The statement of reconciliation was read aloud by Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart, then pre sented to five senior native lead ers at a ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The apology — sought for years by native leaders — was part of a sweepinggovemment initiative to improve its strained relations with Indian and Inuit communities. More explicitly than ever before, the government expressed regret at past oppression of aboriginals and pledged to support native self government. The so-called residential schools were a key element of the assimilation policies implement ed by past governments. More than 80 of the church-run, govern ment-funded schools operated across Canada for nearly a century starting in the 1880s. Hundreds of former pupils have told investigators of rapes, beat ings, suicides, suspicious deaths and humiliating punishments at the schools. The government pledged $245 million to fund counseling and treatment programs for victims of abuse at the schools. Stewart also promised unspeci fied funds to improve life on reser vations, including programs for health care, youth employment and career development. The government initiative was hailed by the head of the national assembly of Indian chiefs as a “historic opportunity.” GM can now change, end health benefits 4 CINCINNATI — A federal ap peals court ruled Wednesday that General Motors Corp. had the right to change or end lifetime health benefits that 84,000 work ers claim the company promised them before they retired. If the ruling stands, it will dam age the trust employees place in their benefits packages — and in their employers, one analyst said. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the retirees’ claims that the automaker broke its promise to provide them with free lifetime health care benefits. The company said the ruling supports what it has been doing all along. “GM provides a benefits pack age that is competitive with the premier companies in American industry. From time to time, GM has adjusted this benefits package to meet business and employee needs in a changing, competitive environment,” company spokesman Chuck Licari said. “34 years of Quality Service” Mercedes • BMW • Volkswagen • Audi German Auto Service • MERCEDES • BMW • VOLKSWAGEN • 342-2912 • 2025 Franklin Blvd. Eugene, Oregon, 97402 “Such adjustments are common at GM and all other major employ ers.” Raymond Fay, lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he is considering asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision. Fay said the ruling would give companies a free hand to change benefits they promised to employees. Petition would end affirmative action 5 OLYMPIA, Wash. — An initia tive petition to roll back many affirmative action programs in Washington moved a step closer Wednesday to qualifying for leg islative consideration. Secretary of State Ralph Munro’s office said the number of signatures gathered in support of Initiative 200 came to 280,511, about 4,000 fewer than the num ber claimed by backers who turned in the petition last week, but about 100,000 more than are required. Munro’s staff next week will be gin a random sample check to de termine how many of the signa tures are those of registered voters and therefore valid. To be certi fied, the measure must contain at least 179,248 signatures of regis tered voters. The measure would ban state and local governments from con sidering race or gender in hiring, contracting or college admissions. Mexican governor resigns after deaths B MEXICO CITY — The gover nor of the southern state of Chi apas submitted his resignation to day following allegations he ignored warnings about the mas sacre of 45 Indians by supporters of his government. Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro offered his resignation at noon, and the Chiapas state legislature was meeting to consider it. The probable replacement was federal congressman Roberto Al bores Guillen. A joint committee of the national Senate and House was meeting to consider Albores’ request to step down from Con gress. Ruiz Ferro's private secretary, Alejandrino Bastar Cordero, would not say why the governor wanted to resign. But the resignation appeared prompted by the Dec. 22 massacre of 45 unarmed Indians — most of them women and children — by gunmen allegedly linked to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, of which Ruiz Ferro is a member. The gunmen burst into the ham let of Acteal as villagers prayed in their wooden church, hunted down fleeing villagers and shot them—almost all in the back. Officials of the diocese in San Cristobal de las Casas called Ruiz Ferro's office as the massacre be gan to report gunfire in the area. Ruiz Ferro's government secretary said he called local police, who told him the village was quiet.*’ The state government also was accused of hurriedly collecting the bodies and rushing them to the state capital in what critics said was an attempt to cover up the scope of the massacre. Man’s diary fails to prove ties to Nazis 7 SAO PAULO, Brazil —The di ary a German immigrant stashed in safe deposit boxes be fore he died in 1083 does not back up charges that he was a Nazi agent or that the fortune he left be hind was plundered from Jews, investigators said Wednesday. Albert Blume, who arrived in Brazil in 1938, both praised and criticized the Nazis in the diary. But mostly it describes his family, including a Jewish great-grandfa ther whom he describes as “the tragedy of my life,” historian Di eter Strauss said. Strauss prepared a summary of the 1,084-page diary, which end ed in 1939, for a government com mission investigating fugitive Nazis in Brazil and whether they brought looted Jewish wealth here. The diary and a fortune estimat ed to be worth ,$4 million were locked up for more than 14 years in two safe deposit boxes in a branch of the government-owned Bancode Brasil in SaoPaulo. Opened Nov. 28, the boxes con tained 230 items, including ru bies, sapphires, emeralds, gold fillings and dental crowns and cash. But it was the diary that most in terested the commission. Henry Sobel, a senior rabbi at Sao Paulo’s Jewish Congregation and member of the commission, said at the time that the diary would shed light on the Nazi net work in Brazil. But Strauss said Wednesday it was “basically a chronicle of the Blume family.” — Compiled from AP wire reports COMB ON BOARD! 2 The Campus Tour Guide Program is ; looking for qualified students who are ; interested in becoming | “CONDUCKTOURS” for the University of Oregon. 2 Applications are available in 372 Oregon Rail and are dne on January 20 by 5:00 p.m. 2 For more information please call 346*1274
