Laboratory nears completion H Local 48 is ensuring that the results are efficient, effective, ami aesthetically pleasing. r Othello ’ T? i J Ï- >1 iT fi Tygres Heart Shakespeare Co rnpany presents Othello. It continues through Sunday, Nov. 10. 1996. See Housing, page A 7. e c h o e n -N e w sP ' Mr»» U n iv e rs ity „ E unene. 97403 ><?r f o f O re a© n * - '^ r - nypaPn u rru New Line Cinema kisses traditional action films goodbye in The Long Kiss Goodnight. See Metro, page BI. See Arts & Entertainment, page B3. | (© teenier^ ithe w e e k i Republicans violating campaign laws? in S ean C hi / REVIEW Mexican and US Electronics firms link up Elektra, S.A.. Mexico’s largest retailer of home electronics and appliances has I joined forces with Circuit City, one of the U.S.’ largest retailers of name-brand con sumer electronics and appliance products. The new service, called “Bien Entregado", or “Well Delivered", will enable U.S. cus tomers to purchase goods at Circuit City stores and ship them to family and friends in Mexico via the Elektra stores. Thousands march in D.C. Thousands of Hispanics marched on the Capitol October 12 to demand justice, an end to anti-immigrant paranoia and a $7 hourly minimum wage. Organizers plan to make this march an annual event to help Hispanics coalesce and gain political power. n apparent violation of campaign finance laws, the Republican National Com m ittee is pouring money into Oregon to influence the out come of the contest between Democrat Tom Brugerre and Republican candidate Gordon Smith. I I he money is being used to run television and radio ads attacking Mr. Bruggere, some of which contain misstatements or mislead ing information. “What's especially corrupt about this co ordination between Gordon Smith and the national Republicans is their willingness to try to steal this election and then pay whatev er tine they receive later. They truly don’, care about breaking the law if it w ins them die election, said Lauren Moughan, Communi cations Director for the Tom Bruggere for U.S. Senate organization. 1 he national Republican organization spent its entire legal $289,000 budget in support ot Mr. Smith during the primary race, and is now tunneling additional money through a quasi-independent group called the There is new hope today for the estimat ed 40 million Americans who suffer from arthritis Medical researchers say a drug has been developed that tights arthritis effectively and protects patients from the , potentially life-threatening side effects of current treatments. The researchers say the new treatment combines the most widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, and a drug used for treating and preventing I gastric ulcers. A three-judge appeals court panel in St. Louis has put on hold key provisions of a landmark federal rule designed to break open the nation’s local telephone monop olies to competition. The court today sus pended the vital pricing components of the Eederal Communications Commission’s rule aimed at opening the local phone market to long-distance carriers, cable- television operators and others. No US Peacekeepers in W est Bank t he Clinton administration is rejecting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s sugges tion that the United States prov:de peace- 1 keepers to help patrol the tense West Bank city of Hebron. Arafat made the proposal as he hosted Jordan’s King Hussein in the West Bank town of Jericho. Arafat notes that U.S. peacekeepers have been stationed in the Egyptian Sinai and elsewhere, so J there’s a preceden, for his suggestion. California closer to gas chambers A challenge to the state of California’s use of the gas chamber to execute death- row inmates has suffered a setback. By a 7- 2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court today set aside a lower-court ruling that had deemed the method cruel and unusual punishment. A federal appeals court had held Califor nia's method of execution by lethal gas violates the Constitution because inmates may not become immediately unconscious and may experience pain Study: TV violence drops A new study indicates violence on bro ad cast television is declining. The study by the UCLA Center forCommunication Pol icy monitored every network prime time and Saturday morning entertainment pro gram aired during the 1995-96 television season. I he study found the total number ofseries that posed frequent concerns about violence dropped to five in the latest sea son from nine the year before. EDITORIAL A2 FAMILY A3 « * z Tom Bruggere, Democratic candidate for U.S Senate. Photo by Timothy Collins Oregon food products to Russia New hope for arthritis sufferers Telephone rules on hold 11 National Republican Senatorial Committei (NRSC) to attack Mr. Bruggere. Campaign finance rules allow such expen ditures only if there is absolutely no contac between the national and the local organiza tions. I be Portland Observer has learned, how ever, that the advertising purchases which the NRSC and the Smith campaign have been making, appear to be coordinated. The orga nizations have managed to buy a great deal of advertising time without duplicating their efforts. The NRSC has purchased time on stations KBBT, KWJJ, KKCW, KUPL, KKRZ and KGON. The Smith campaign, however, has ignored all of these stations and bought tune on KKJZ and KXYO. The Oregon Senate race is seen to be crucial to Republican strategies for several important reasons. Perhaps the most critical reason to readers ofthe Observer is that a Republican winner will most likely cancel Ron Wyden’s votes on social, educational and environmental is sues. everal impressions of the Rus to this process." sian Far East were left with Phil The facts bear Ward out. The Russian Far Ward, assistant director of the Fast has seven million consumers but also Oregon Department of Agriculture, supplies as the Siberian regions of Russia and he returned home from a recent trip to its 55 million people. The Russian Far East the other side of the Pacific Ocean. imports $400 million worth of goods each S One was the friendliness and generosity of the Russian people. The other was the gigan tic opportunities that U.S. agricultural ex ports have in that region of the world-partic- ularly many of the things grown and pro cessed in Oregon. “There is a fair amount o f trade between the Russian Far East and our West- Coast states right now," says Ward, who attended a meeting ot an ad hoc working group formed to further trade between the two regions. “But frankly from what I saw, there are significant opportunities for more U.S prod ucts to be marketed in the Russian Far East if we can get rid ot some of the major barriers year. About 85% of those imports are food. Because of the region’s inability to grow or process its own food, nearly half of the food consumed in the Russian Far East is imported. “Since the dissolution ofthe Soviet Union, the subsidization that enabled the manufac turing sector in the Russian Far East to be competitive is gone,” says Ward. “That sec tor is not providing processed foods. It’s not providing some of the things that the Russian people would like access to. It appears to me there is a tremendous opportunity available for Oregon companies to move some of these products into the Russian Far East, particu larly some of our processed food products.” Ward attended a meeting of what is known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin working group- named after the U.S Vice-President and Russian Prime Minister respectively-which is trying to tear down some of the trade barriers existing between the two nations. Ward was an official delegate from Oregon at the high level meeting. Delegates from Wash ington and California were also in atten dance. 'The working group identified a number of significant issues such as financing, the Rus sian taxing structure, high interest rates, and various other laws in both countries that restrict trade,' says Ward. "Another need is the devel opment of more infrastructure in Eastern Rus sia so that its people can access the kinds of western goods they would like to have.” " I he Russian Far East is opened for busi- n ess--th at’s the m essage,” says John Kratochvil, international trade specialist Unthank Park diverters may go bi L ee P erlman C me. Do you want them taken out?’" Hopson told the Boise Neighborhood Association at a meeting last week “I said yeah, I do personally, but you’d better check with the neighborhood association first.” Lolita Allen of the Office o f Transporta tion told Boise, “My understanding is that these diverters have always been a prob lem.” Charles Ford, former Boise president, said the diverters were installed with federal funds in conjunction with the development ofthe park. “The park was intended for small children, so we wanted to keep traffic away,” ommissioner Charlie Hales and his Office of Transportation are thinking of removing four traffic diverters near Unthank Park. The diverters, installed in 1967, are locat ed at North Kerby Avenue and Shaver Street, North Gantenbein Avenue and Mason Street, North Borthwick Avenue and Beach Street, and North Haight Avenue and Failing Street. Hales first approached Tony Hopson of Self-Enhancement, Inc., which is building a new community center on a portion o fth e park, about the proposed removal. “He asked he said. In practice, however, they have proven to be “nothing but a hinderance. We’ve been trying to gel rid of them for at least ten years.” Current president Sonja Tucker said, “I’m all for it. Emergency vehicles seem to get lost going in or out of there.” A police officer present said that the diverters allow drug dealers to flee success fully on foot from patrol cars. “Ifyou want them taken out of there, the police will help," he said. “ I personally hate them. A stop sign would do just as well there. Just don’t put in any of those stupid speed bumps." Road improvements improve traffic safety R o.nri imnrnvpmontc cnz»h as n*. up oad improvements such i . to truly assess what can be done to reduce grading two-lane roads to four traffic fatalities, which kill more than 40,000 lanes, adding a median, widen Americans every year ing highways and widening and paving “One o f the most overlooked aspects of shoulders can play a significant role in traffic safety is the roie that road improve reducing traffic accidents and fatalities, ments can play,” Wilkins said. “Statistics reports a nonprofit transportation research show that the number of traffic fatalities and group based in Washington, D.C. accidents have been reduced when certain "Our nation needs to increase its focus on traffic safety issues this Car Care Month because traffic facilities increased for the past three years after declining from 1988- 1992. says William M Wilkins, executive director of the Road Information Program (I RIP). “This reversal in highway fatality trends comes about even though we now have safer cars and trucks that are replacing older vehicles and states are enforcing tougher driving laws.” Wilkins said the nation needs to examine all factors, including road and bridge condi tions, that play a role in traffic safety in order EDUCATION A4 road improvements are made." TRIP’S analysis, based on data by the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis- ¡i.ition, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the U.S. Department of Trans portation, also found that: ♦ The fatality rate on roads with four- lanes or more is less than h a lf than it is for two-lane roads The fatal accident rate per hundred million mites traveled on two-lane roads was 2.03, while the fata! accident rate on roads with four or more lanes averaged 0.95 ♦ In 1994, 77 percent o f fa ta l accidents HOUSING A7 occurred on two-lane roads, which carried 5 1 percent o f total travel ♦ The Federal Highway Administration has found that when medians were added to roads, traffic fatalities decreased by 7 / per cent. ♦ Widening or modifying a bridge can reduce fatalities by 49 percent Wideninga lane has been found to reduce fatalities by 21 percent," Wilkins said. He said the nationally recommended width f o r a lane to be considered safe is 12 feet. Exclud ing interstate highways (which have a, least four lanes), TRIP estimates that about three- quarter of the nation’s 159,00 miles of major roads are two-lane, and 15 percent of those have lanes less than 12 feet in width “It simply stands to reason that if drivers have more room to operate and additional space to return a vehicle to the road, then traffic accidents can be reduced,” Wilkins said HEALTH ARTS & ENT. B2 B3 Oregon kidnapping suspect arrested n a case th a t involves juris dictions in three states, a woman who abducted four children from Hillsboro, Oregon in Feb ruary of this year was arrested in Ogden, Utah recently I The woman fled the state to avoid a summons involving a domestic case in Vancouver, Washington Gina Frischknecht Nielson, a former resident of Hillsboro, Oregon and Battle Ground, Washington, was indicted by a Washington County grand jury in July for felony custodial interference after she took the children out of school and disappeared in February Mrs. Neilson hid the children in a motel on the Oregon coast and in various loca lions in Washington and Idaho as she (led the state to avoid having to bring them to court. Process servers were searching for Mrs. Nei Ison when she dropped from sight The children have stated that they were forced to sign false statements regarding the abduction and about their father. These statements, wh ich were subm itted to a Clark County court as sworn affidavits, were written by Kory Wright, of Eden, Utah, and by unnamed attorneys hired by Mrs. Neilson, according to the children. The statements were submitted to the court in order to undermine the children's father’s credibility, and to attack his joint custodial rights, as well as to hinder his efforts to bring the children to appear personally in the civil case Other members of Mrs. Neilson's fam ily and acquaintances of hers also submit ted false statements The Clark County court has been slow to investigate allegations of perjury and coercion Mrs. Neilson was taken into custody on the criminal charge and released on bail. Trial has been set for December 12 in Washington County Court. Utah authorities have not been fully cooperative with the Washington County District Attorney’s efforts to prosecute this case, which may have religious over tones. Mrs. Neilson and her accomplices are all members of the Mormon church, and some may have acted in official capac ities to aid and abet in the abduction T his case was the subject of an editorial appearing in the Oregonian on August 25, titled “Say yes for kids." BUSINESS CLASSIFIEDS OBSERVADOR B5 B6 B8