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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 10, 1997)
SEPT. 10, 1997 37lfe Jlortlanh Page A2 News from around the world Mobutu Sese Seko dead at age 66 President Clinton comments on : M other Teresa & Princess Diana Death President Clinton said Friday that the deaths o f two o f the world’s most famous women, a stylish princess and a selfless nun, offer the world “a time o f great reflection.” Just hours before his wife flew to London for the funeral of Princess Diana, Clinton stepped off the bright, sun-splashed greens o f a M artha’s Vineyard golf course to call Mother Teresa o f Calcutta a woman o f pas sion and compassion, “one o f the giants o f our times.” “She led by serving and showed us the simple power o f stunning hu mility,” he said.“She gave comfort to the poor, the suffering and the dying, and served as an inspiration and a challenge to all o f us.” Asked to compare the two women. Clinton said he believes the world has been profoundly moved by the outpouring of grief in Britain for the princess but will also ponder the life long work o f Mother Teresa for the poor O f Mother Teresa he said, “Obvi ously hundreds o f millions ofpeople around the world looked up to Mother Teresa and admired her.” Weaving his words around both deaths, he added: “1 think it will be a time of great reflection and I hope o f rededication. “I think all of us were greatly moved by the pictures from London today o f Princess Diana’s sons and Prince Charles and the royal family greeting the mourners and beginning the sort o f public grieving process along with the private one,” Clinton said. And referring to D iana’s funeral he said: “1 think tomorrow will be a sad but a very important, positive thing.” The president said it was too early to say if the first lady would also attend Mother Teresa’s funeral. The Clintons are to end their three- week summer vacation, the longest they have taken in the White House, and return to W ashington Sunday. Separately, House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a statement praising Mother Teresa’s work. “No orphan child, no helpless beggar, no impoverished family will every walk alone again,” he said. “They will walk with Mother Teresa at their side.” E. coli related bacteria Genetically Mapped type o f E. coli related to the people.” Experts said the new genetic map •acteria that prompted the good news for public health and nation ’ s largest hamburger recal is 1 has will be o f great benefit in laboratories been genetically mapped, a major step where scientists have used E. coli as toward finding new drugs or vac a workhorse o f experimentation and cines against certain food poison biological discovery. ings, researchers say. The U niversity o f W isconsin In a report published today in the group beat a Japanese science team journal Science, a team led by by just a few days in a years-long race Frederick Blattner o f the University o f Wisconsin, Madison, announced to sequence all the E. coli DNA. B lattn er said the next step is to the sequencing and mapping of the find w hy 0157 and som e o ther 4,288 genes contained in the 4.6 mil form s o f E. coli cause disease lion base pairs o f DNA in a common w hile m ost strains o f the m icrobe laboratory strain o f E. coli. are harm less and even b en eficial ‘ ’The E. coli genome we have se quenced,” said Blattner, ‘'is closely to dig estio n . Hamburger contaminated by 0157 related to 0157, the E. coli that kills A sickened people in Colorado and led Hudson Foods Inc. to recall 25 m il lion pounds o f meat, the largest such recall ever. Hudson had to shut down some meatpacking plants and the firm an nounced Thursday that it was being bought by Tyson Foods Inc. Forms o f E. coli contamination in applejuice, lettuce and fruit also have been blamed in recent years for out breaks o f infection. Now that his team has completed the E. coli gene map, Blattner said, ' 'one o f the first things we will do is a comparison with 0157 so we can pick out the g enes th at are r e sp o n sib le for ca u sin g illn e s s .” At the military hospital in this capi tal early today, soldiers posted in front waved away journalists. The hospital workers said M obutu’s body was in the hospital morgue. Mobutu spent most o f his time at a luxury hotel in Tangier, across the Strait o f Gibraltar from Spain But in late June, he went to Rabat to be treated for heavy internal bleeding. Mobutu had an entourage o f about 40 people with him in Morocco, but it was not known if his family was with him at his death. Zaire was in ruins when Mobutu was deposed, and while his fortune was estimated in the billions, he died with neither a title nor a country. Mobutu arrived in Morocco on May 23, after searching for a country that would take him. King Hassan II agreed to host him for a " few days, but the deposed leader ended up staying over three months. He had wanted to return to his French Riviera villa, but like many other countries, France refused him entry. F rench Foreign M inistry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt said today his government extended its "m o st sincere condolences” to M obutu’s family. The Moroccan ministries o f com munication and the interior said the Moroccan government had no offi cial reaction to M obutu’s death. During his rule, Mobutu became a symbol o f excess and when he was ousted after an eight-month rebellion in May, his resource-rich country o f 45 million was in economic and politi Mobutu Sese Seko, the Zairian strongman who was overthrown af ter nearly 32 years o f despotic rule that left his mineral-rich country in shambles, is dead at age 66. Mobutu died Sunday o f prostate cancer at the M ohamed V military hospital in Rabat, said two hospital workers who spoke on condition o f anonymity, 'Hie Maghreb Arab Press agency said only that Mobutu died at 9:30p.m . "a fte r a long illness.” He had been living in exile in M o rocco since May, following his ouster by the rebel forces o f Laurent Kabila, who restored the country’s old name o f Congo. In his homeland, state radio an nounced his death at 6 a.m. today, commenting only that: ‘ ’In the A fri can tradition, you don’t say anything bad about someone who has died and you don’t rejoice in his leaving, even if he has caused you harm or he had been your enem y.” There was little reaction this morn ing in Kinshasa, where work went on as usual, a sign o f how indifferent m ost Congolese had becom e to M obutu. Even before losing power, he spent so little time in Zaire that he had become little more than a picture on everyone’s walls. If M obutu’s family wished, the radio reported, they could bury him in his jungle home in Gbadolite. A familymemberinKinshasa.capi- tal o f Congo, said Mobutu had in formed his family that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scat tered over his old country. cal shambles. Mobutu was out o f Zaire during most o f the rebel advance, recover ing from cancer surgery in his palatial homes in Switzerland and the south ofFrance. Mobutu was the last o f A frica’s Cold War relics, an autocrat in a leop ard-skin hat who lived like a king while leading his potentially magnifi cent country down a ruinous path. The former Joseph-Desire Mobutu seized power in a military coup on November 24,1965, five years after the mineral-blessed colossus once known as the Congo o f the continent gained independence from Belgium. Then a colonel and the army chief o f staff, Mobutu had earned his sol diers’ loyalty by building up the mili tary forces and crushing post-inde pendence secessionist revolts. His coup was welcomed by the West, which was vying with the So viets for influence on the continent, and by Zairians weary o f the bicker ing civilian government that couldn’t decide how best to share power in the ethnically diverse new nation. Mobutu prom ised to preserve democratic institutions and eventu ally return the country to civilian rule. Instead, he declared him self head o f state, banned all other political parties, and embarked on a decades- long pursuit o f absolute power. To cement his dictatorship and keep potential rivals at bay, senior politicians from the previous govern ment were appointed to overseas dip lomatic posts lounty Hunters killed young Arizona couple The men said they were bounty hunters looking for a bail jumper. That was why, they told police, they broke into a house and mistakenly killed the young couple inside. But the bond for the fugitive they sought had expired four years ago, and a lawyer for his bail bond under writer says the men were acting on their own. “What I told the Phoenix Police Department two days ago was the people involved in this crime are ei ther lying about being bounty hunt ers, which I’m certain is the case, or they’re the world’s biggest idiots by looking for a defendant that they would not receive a penny for if they found him,” lawyer Mark Bernstein said Friday. Five men wearing ski masks, body armor and black military-style cloth ing broke down the door o f Chris Foote’s home early Sunday. Foote fired at the men as they kicked in his bedroom door and the men returned fire with assault rifles, killing Foote and his 19-year-old girlfriend. Spring Wright. Two o f the men, Michael Martin Sanders and David Brackne, had worked as bounty hunters in the past and told officers that’s what they were doing on Sunday, police spokes man Mike McCullough said. He said Sanders had worked as an informant for several police agencies in the Phoenix area. “We are not the ones saying they are bounty hunters,” McCullough said. “Could it be something differ ent? Absolutely.” Sanders, Brackne and three others - including Brackne’s son and Sand e rs’ brother-in-law - have been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault and unlawful im prisonment. P a u la Jo n es SAFEWAY I L I ) ith Paula Corbin Jones and her attorneys on the verge o f bitterly parting ways, President C linton’s camp suggested Saturday that the prospects o f settling her sexual harassment suit against the president had dimmed. In a petition dated Friday, Jones attorneys, Joe Cammarata and Gil Davis, cited a “difference o f opinion” in asking U S. District Court Judge Susan W ebber Wright for perm is sion to withdraw from the case, ac cording to two sources close to the W firing. He laterpleaded guilty to retaliation against a witness and served a two- year prison term. A fter his release, Sanders m ade his w ay to A rizona, w here he w orked as an inform ant for law en forcem ent agencies such as the M aricopa County A tto rn ey ’s o f fice, w hich paid him from 1985 to 1987, spokesm an Bill FitzG erald said. Sanders was charged with assault when he tried to barge into the wrong house while acting as a bounty hunter in 1990, but he was never prosecuted. COUPON MANIA! Attorneys petition from her case questions, said Stephen Krimel, vice president and general counsel for W EST-PA C Bail Bond G eneral Agency in Tollhouse, Calif. He was in Phoenix as a representative o f the bail bond industry in California. “It had nothing to do with bounty hunters,” Krimel said. “It had to do with a police informant who was out o f control and allowed to get out o f control.” S anders w as fired after one month as a county ja ile r in Texas in 1981, then was charged w ith p lo t ting to kill s h e r if f s investigators involved in the probe that led to his They gave police documents indi cating they were bounty hunters look ing for a man who had skipped out on a $25,000 bond in Los Angeles. But the bond for that fugitive - d ru n k e n -d riv in g suspect V ictor Rodnguez Alcantar - expired in 1993, said Bernstein, who represents Pete Brito Bail Bonds o f Pomona, Calif., which provided it. Not only does that mean that no bounty hunters could have been au thorized to look for Alcantar but that even if Alcantar were found, the finder would not be paid, he said. Sanders’ background also raises SAFEWAY FOOD & DRUG Look For Your Safeway Weekly Shopping Guide . SAFEWAY COUPON 2-lb. Tillamook Cheese GE Soft White Light Bulbs • Medium Cheddar. Pepper Jack, Jack, Monterey Jack or Colby • 4-pack. 40.60,75 or 100 Watt • First Two 4-Packs With Coupon • SAVE up to $3 ISA COUPON W ith Coupon ’ 1.30 ea. Using M ail-In Rebate On Package ■ a a I «Ou • First 2 with coupon In Your Oregonian FOODday in the Portland Metro Area ...and save more shopping at Safeway 000000090001 000000088961 000000075817 i
