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50*
December 8, 1999
Mars lander probe still not phoning home
A ssociated P ress
en
Español
AC4S.4 sounded increasingly gloom y Sunday
about the chances o f ever contacting the 165
m illion M ars Polar Lander, after m ission
officials listened in vain for a signal for a third
Oklahoma Shooting
FO R T G IB SO N , Okla. - A 13-year-old
m iddle school student w ounded four o f
his classm ates this m orning before being
subdued w ith a gun still in his hand,
authorities said. “T here was not a hate
thing. I asked him why. H e said, “ I d o n ’t
know ,” said M uskogee C ounty S h e riff s
D eputy Terry Cragg, w ho spoke to the
boy briefly in the isolation cell at the
county jail. Cragg said the boy did not
appear rem orseful. The w ounded w ere
taken to hospitals in T ulsa and M uskogee.
N one o f the in ju ries ap p e ared life-
threatening. A fifth student reportedly
suffered bum ps and bruises.
Clinton Signs Child
Labor Treaty
Mars Polar Lander will use an articulated robotic arm to dig trenches to collect soil samples. This terrain near the
south pole is believed to consist o f layers o f soil and ice built up over many years (similar to tree growth rings). The
composition o f the layers may reveal clues to past climatic conditions
SEA TTLE - President C linton signed a
treaty banning abusive child labor and
suggested it could serve as a m odel for
bridging differences betw een business
a n d la b o r in in te r n a tio n a l tr a d e
agreements. C inton said it was not a matter
o f trying “to im pose one nation’s values
over another, but about shared values,
the dignity o f work, the decency o f life, the
fragility and im portance o f childhood.”
The treaty w as unanim ously approved in
June by an arm o f the U nited N ations.
New Belfast Cabinet
Makes History
BELFAST, N orthern Ireland - On a day o f
historic firsts and defining m om ents, Irish
Republican A rm y supporters sat dow n
w ith their Protestant antagonists in a new
N orthern Ireland governm ent. That first
m e etin g p ro d u ce d no d e c isio n s b u t
e n c o u ra g e d g re a t h o p e s th a t th re e
decades o f bloodshed m ay truly be at an
end. Earlier Dublin, the Republic oflreland
am ended its 1937 constitution to drop its
territorial claim to the British province.
Britain and Ireland also signed treaties to
c re a te a ll- Ir e la n d an d B ritis h -Iris h
institutions envisaged in the G ood Friday
accord o f 1998.
First Woman to Row
Across Atlantic
P O IN T E -A -P IT R E , G u ad a lu p e - A
K e n tu c k y la w y e r b e c a m e th e first
A m erican - and the first w om an - to row
3,000 m iles across the Atlantic alone. Tori
M urden, 36, com pleted the journey in 81
days, about a w eek o ff the record o f 73 1/
3 days, set by Briton Sidney Genders.
M urden w as the first w om an and first
A m erican to ski to the geographic South
Pole.
Site for King
Memorial Approved
W A SH IN G TO N - T he national Capital
P la n n in g C o m m issio n u n a n im o u sly
approvedn a site am ong presidential
m em orials for a m onum ent to slain civil
rights leader M artin Luther K ing Jr. The
m em orial, approved in a 10-0 vote, w ould
sit on the northw est side o f the Tidal
Basin, betw een the Jefferson and Lincoln
m em orials and close to the m ore recent
one honoring Franklin D. Roosevelt.
straight day.
“C learly the team is getting m ore frustrated,
certainly, and m ore tense about all o f this.”
said operations m anager R ichard Cook.
The lander was supposed to have signaled
im m e d ia te ly a f te r F rid a y a f te r n o o n ’s
touchdow n about 500 m iles (800 kilom eters)
from the M artian south pole.
Instead, several w indows o f opportunity came
and w ent over the w eekend with no sign o f life
from the unm anned craft. The ever-m ore
om inous silence raised the prospect that the
lander w as destroyed or severely dam aged
during its descent to the p lanet’s surface.
Failure o f the M ars Polar Lander would be the
second m ajor blow in recent weeks to 2V.4S/1 ’ s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, still smarting from
the Septem ber loss o f its sibling spacecraft,
the M ars Clim ate O rbiter.
M ission m anagers w orked on elim inating
sim ple failure scenarios one by one. But they
conceded that if, after trying all the obvious
re m e d ie s , c o n ta c t s till h as n o t b e e n
established by m idw eek, the explanations for
the failure would becom e m ore com plex and
the p ro sp ects o f success w ould greatly
diminish.
“ W hen you start stacking _ if this thing has
to fail and then this thing has to fail and then
th is th in g has to fail to g et in to this
circum stance_ then y o u ’re definitely in extra
tim e,” C ook said. “ W e’re not there yet. I think
w e will be, com e T uesday m orning.”
S unday’s first com m unications w indow _
designed to use a second antenna _ opened
at 10:50am .(1850G M T)andclosed lOminutes
later without any transmission from the surface
o f the Red Planet.
The lander, if working properly, was supposed
to have sw itched radios to relay a signal
th ro u g h N A S A ’s o rb itin g M ars G lobal
Surveyor, instead o f transm itting directly to
Earth. But the m apping spacecraft sent only
its ow n data and none from the lander.
S u n d a y ’s
seco n d
c o m m u n ic a tio n s
o p p o rtunity, using the original antenna,
opened at 9:40 p.m. (0540 GMT). A fter the
w indow w as o pen for several m inutes,
scientists still had not detected any signals
from the lander.
Protesters released, residents come to grips with JfTPrelated riots
A ssociated P ress
Joe M artinez, a self-described m aterialist w ho had barely
heard o fth e W orld Trade O rganization until last w eek, found
him self joining its opponents in a vigil outside the King
C ounty Jail.
“M y w hole life I ’ve been about m oney and m y self and my
$800 stereo,” he said Sunday as his C hevy M alibu blasted
hip-hop to entertain protesters angry at their colleagues’
detention.
“I cam e dow n because I saw people getting beaten up and tear
gassed on TV ,” the 20-year-old m echanic said. M artinez said
he was converted to the protesters’ cause once he heard their
concerns over the impact o f free trade on the environm ent and
hum an and labor rights.
By this morning, m ost o f the m ore than 500 people arrested
last w eek had been released, except for seven still being held
for investigation o f felony charges and tw o being investigated
for m isdem eanor assault, jail spokesm an Jim H arm s said.
M eanw hile, a candlelight vigil w as held in the Capitol Hill
neighborhood where citizens had been gassed along with
dem onstrators during a police crackdow n follow ing window
sm ashing and looting dow ntow n on Tuesday.
A ctivists Sunday w ere declaring victory over the WTO.
D elegates had failed to reach agreem ent on an agenda for new
round o f global trade talks _ exactly the outcom e “N o New
R ound” dem onstrators dem anded.
“This victory has wildly surpassed all our expectations,” said
Jeremy Simer, 25, ofPeople tor Fair Trade, a local group formed
to help coordinate WTO opposition.
“It w asn’t ju st the people in Seattle,” he said. “ People all over
the w orld recognized the opportunity to focus ev eryone's
energy on stopping one o f a handful o f international
organizations th a t’s chipping aw ay at o u r dem ocratic
institutions.”
A num ber o f activist groups have alleged m istreatm ent at the
hands o f arresting and jail officers. Direct Action Netw ork, an
um brella group for activists, said all o f those arrested w ould
I
Seattle police use gas to push back World Trade Organization protesters in downtown Seattle
Last week. The protests delayed the opening o f the WTO third ministerial conference
seek full ju ry trials.
C ity officials did not im m ediately return a call for com m ent.
A ssistant P olice C h ief Ed Joiner defended the m idw eek
crackdow n and denied that officers overall w ere too aggressive
in their tactics.
“I f y o u ’re asking for perfection from a law enforcem ent officer,
then y o u 're not talking about a hum an being, he said, noting
that there w ere m ore than 1,000 officers on the street, and any
w ho did “cross the line" w ould be investigated.
A cknow ledging that the departm ent had not expected the scale
or ferocity o f protests Tuesday and initially had too few
officers in the field, Jotner said, “1 think the Police Department
did an absolutely fantastic jo b under the m ost d ifficult o f
circum stances.”
Shoppers returned in force over the w eekend to a dow ntow n
that had been m ostly boarded up and blocked by p o lice a
w eek ago. Just as in the previous w eek, they saw police
blocking intersections Sunday w hile hundreds o f people
ran through the streets in stocking caps.
This tim e, though, it w as for the city ’s “Jingle Bell R un.”