Nation & world briefing
Oil tanker breaks apart, sinks off Spain
Seth Borenstein and Daniel Rubin
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA,
Spain — As a crippled tanker full of
about 20 million gallons of gooey fuel
oil split in two and sank two miles be
neath the seething Atlantic’s surface
Tuesday, experts feared the worst: Oil
bubbling back to the surface to befoul
Spanish and Portuguese shorelines,
their fish and wildlife, and maybe ever
Mediterranean beaches.
Stormy conditions — which broke
up the crippled tanker Prestige 150
miles off Spain’s northwestern coast—
along with the unusual thickness of the
oil and extreme pressure on the ocean
floor, threaten the worst oil spill in
more than a decade, said the U S. gov -
ernment’s top oil spill response official.
About 1 million gallons of oil spilled
instantly when the ship broke in two,
spawning an oil slick of about 2,200
square miles—about twice the size of
Rhode Island. Some Spanish beaches
already are mired in oil from a spill last
week, their sea birds covered in sludge.
Fishing, a key industry, has shut down
in vicinity of the port of La Coruna,
about370 miles northwest of Madrid.
The aging single-hulled tanker carried
more than twice the oil that the Exxon
Valdez Spilled in Alaska in 1989, but
nowhere near 88 million gallons that de
spoiled Trinidad and Tobago in 1979.
So far, most of the oil remains in
Prestige’s tanks in more than 11,000
feet of water and under about 5,000
pounds of pressure per square inch.
The best possible scenario is that
the tanks are so full they can’t buckle
and their oil remains buried on the sea
bottom or dribbles out slowly for years
through tiny cracks. Experts fear the
tanks will implode and send millions
of gallons of fuel oil, which is slighdy
lighter than water, back to the surface.
Once the oil gets to the surface, “you
can’t do any type of clean-up,” said
David Kennedy, director of the U.S.
National Ocean Service’s Office of Re
sponse and Restoration. That’s be
cause the usual oil spill-fighting meth
ods —burning the oil slick or dispers
ing it with soapy detergent — won’t
work against thick fuel oil in heavy
seas and 45 mph winds.
Kennedy predicted the slick would
hit the Portuguese coast harder than
the Spanish coast, then flow through
the Strait of Gibraltar and into the
Mediterranean Sea.
€> 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Senate approves homeland security department
James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
WASHINGTON—The Senate overwhelmingly
approved the biggest reorganization of the federal
government in 55 years Tuesday, sending I Yesident
Bush legislation to ereate a homeland security de
partment that combines an array of disparate fed
eral agencies in the name of combating terrorism.
The 90-9 vote came after the White House and
Republican congressional leaders thwarted a last
ditch effort by Democrats to remove what they
said were corporate special interest provisions in
the bill. The House of Representatives had al
ready passed the legislation and any changes
could have doomed passage this year.
The new department will bring under one roof
22 agencies and 170,000 employees, ranging from
the Coast Guard to the Secret Service, from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency to the bu
reau Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It will provide
a centralized clearinghouse for intelligence data
and it will be the new home to the government’s
stressed immigration and border patrol agencies.
Bush congratulated Senate Republican
Leader Trent Lott on Tuesday in a phone call
from Air Force One en route to Prague for a
NATO meeting. “We’re making great progress in
the war on terror ; part of that progress will be the
ability for us to protect the American people at
home,” Bush told Lott and other senators listen
ing on speakerphone in Lott’s office.
Congress has yet to provide financing for the new
department, however. Several senators said that is
an obstacle the new Republican-controlled House
and Senate will have to confront early next year.
Devising the new department gives Bush a
chance to change workplace rules and pay scales
under the new measure without having to abide
by civil service procedures. Workers could seek
federal mediation, but the administration could
ignore the mediator’s recommendations.
The legislation creating the department gives
airports up to an additional year to meet strict in
spection standards for checked baggage. The bill
also permits pilots to carry weapons in the cockpit
of commercial airplanes. In addition, it expands
criminal penalties for computer cyber-attacks,
particularly if they cause death or widespread eco
nomic disruption, and it contains broad exemp
tions to the Freedom of Information Act.
©2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.
Haita Mayor Mitzna wins Labor Party s nomination
Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
JERUSALEM — Hoping to wrest
power from the ruling Likud bloc, Is
rael’s left-wing Labor Party on Tuesday
chose a reserve general who favors
compromise with the Palestinians as
its candidate for prime minister in the
January national elections.
“The majority of Israel is seekingadif
terent way. There’s no security. There’s
no economy. There’s nothing,” said Am
ram Mitzna, 57, declaring victory close
to midnight as votes were still being
counted in the Labor Party primary.
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The mayor of Haifa, who was mak
ing his first bid in national politics, was
headed to Tel Aviv to a victory celebra
tion at his party’s headquarters.
Early results and exit polls reported
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by both major Israeli television sta
tions showed Haifa Mayor Mitzna, a
dovish former West Bank command
er, resoundingly defeating the more
hawkish Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the
present party leader, in a primary.
A Channel 2 exit poll by the polling
group Dahaf Institute reported that
57 percent of party members voted
for Mitzna, compared with 35 percent
for Ben-Eliezer and 8 percent for the
third candidate, parliament member
Haim Ramon.
Ben-Eliezer congratulated Mitzna in
a phone call, and called for party unity.
Mitzna vowed this week to pull Israeli
troops and setders out of the Gaza Strip,
and has said he would negotiate with the
Palestinians even if violence persists.
Likud Party members will choose
between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
74, and Foreign Minister Benjamin Ne
tanyahu, 53, on Nov. 28. Then the real
campaigns will begin.
Under Israel’s electoral revision, vot
ers no longer elect the prime minister.
Instead, the party that receives the
most seats in the 120-member parlia
ment, the Knesset, and is seen as most
likely to build a ruling coalition gets the
opportunity to lead Israel.
Labor, for years Israel’s dominant
party, has been lagging behind Likud
since the 1993 Oslo peace accords
with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
broke down in violence. And there is
no harmony in the party on Mitzna’s
proposals to return to negotiations
with Arafat, even in the face of sui
cide bombings, and to unilaterally
withdraw from the West Bank and
Gaza if the Palestinian talks fail.
© 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
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