Sunrise: 7:42 a.m.

. i "ns

. _ ie [
T : Cloudy, clear at the higher elevations. Highs near 0. Tonight: Mainly
cl , lows -4 to -6. Monday: Cloudy, clear at the higher elevations. Highs -2
too.

January 13, 1985

—~ Weather

aa

Cold Front

Warm Front

Rain

Snow
Cloud

Thunderstorms

Sunset: 4:17 p.m.

VANCOUVER (CP) — Ada
McGeer, the first -woman-
producer for the CBC in
Vancouver, has died at the
age of 94.

McGeer, mother of Univer-
sities and Science Minister
Pat McGeer, died Wednes-

day.

She became CBC producer
in 1988, earning $150 a
month. She later worked as a
music and drama critic for
the Vancouver News Herald
until 1957, when the paper
folded.

She published her mem-
oirs, titled Call Back Yester-
day, Bid Time Return, three
years ago when she was 91.

Mrs. McGeer was born in
Victoria and moved to Van-
couver in 1909.

Mrs. McGeer was the
widow of Judge James Mc-
Geer, the brother of Gerry
McGeer, former Vancouver

mayor,
She is survived by two
sons, a daughter and eight

PAYS FIRM _$5 MILLION

B.C. Rail settles suit

VANCOUVER (CP) —
action in which a tunnel
construction firm sued the
B.C. Railway for more than
$9 million has been settled
out of court for $5 million.

Searmar Construction
Ltd., in a suit set to go to trial
Monday in B.C. Supreme
Court, claimed damaged for
breach of contract in a tun-
nelling project at Tumbler
Ridge in northeastern British

The dispute was settled
late last week after Justice

Exploited

VICTORIA (CP) — Chil-
dren are being exploited in
sports, says John Jackson,
dean of education at Univer-
sity of Victoria.

There's an over-emphasis
on winning and examples set
by some professional athletes
encourage young people to
take out their frustrations in
a violent manner, he said.

Court news

of community service work
after pleading guilty to
possession of a narcotic this
week in Castlegar provincial

court.
. . .
Fines totalling $200 must

be paid by Wayne Postnikoff
after he pleaded guilty to two

Kennth Meredith held a pre- ect. It said the railway ag-
trial conference with all reed to provide access by
parties and their lawyers. December, 1981, but access

Sixty days had been set wasn't provided until March,
aside for the trial. 1982.

Vancouver lawyer Searmar, who said it had
Sorochan, who acted completed 75 per cent of the
Scarmar, said Friday: “It is contract when the suit was
no secret the settlement was launched, claimed it asked
for about $5 million. Had the the railway for an extension
matter gone to court, we of time to complete the proj-
would have asked for be- ect, but the railway refused.
tween $9 million and $10 mil- _In other areas of its claim,
lion.” Scarmar said the railway was

He said his clients, as part late in delivering on its part
of the settlement, agreed to
drop their allegations of
fraud, conspiracy and collu-
sion against the railway.

of the contract, with the re-
sult that the construction
company lost on the deal.

For its part, B.C. Rail de-
nied in a statement of de-
fence all of Scarmar’s alle-
gations, and alleged the con-
struction company failed to
properly perform its part of
the contract.

The railway alleged Scar-
mar negligently underesti-
mated the cost of performing
the work in its tender sub-
mission.

Parkin is

BCR information officer
Barrie Wall said the out-of-
court settlement amounted
to $3.8 million and Scarmar
also will receive $1.2 million
the railway paid into court
when the writ was issued.

“We are very glad it is out
of the way, and even more
glad the allegations of fraud,
collusion and conspiracy have
been withdrawn as if tried
before the court,” he said.

In its original statement of
claim, Scarmar said it con-
tracted in 1981 to build a
4.3-kilometre tunnel as part
of the Tumbler Ridge proj-

By CasNews Staff

Jack Parkin, was elected
new president of the Castle-
gar Downtown Business
Association at a meeting
Wednesday.

Parkin, a Mutual Life of
Canada representative, re-
places Joan Blain, who de-
cided not to seek re-election.

Brian Pritchard of CKQR
Radio was elected vice-presi-
dent, while Grace McPher-
son, retired from the Bank of
Montreal, was voted secre-
tary.

Treasurer is Jim Craig,
manager of the Kootenay Sa-
vings Credit Union's Castle-
gar branch.

counts of being a minor found
in a licenced establishment.
.

Jack Benton was fined $75
for consuming liquor in a
public place. Directors for 1985 are Joan

4 Blain of Moroso, Markin and
Blaine; Bill Craven, manager
of ‘the Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce; Phil An-
grignon of Pharmasave
Drugs; Burt Campbell,
Castlegar News publisher;

7

Sixteen hours of commun:
ity service work and four
months of probation will be
served by Glen Sorenson, for
being a minor in possession of
alcohol.

elected new
DBA head

and Paul Kerekes of Sted-
mans.

Craven was named chair-
man of the revitalization com-
mittee, while Kerekes was
named marketing and adver-
tising chairman.

Tower
tilt down

PISA, ITALY (AP) —
Leaning Tower of Pisa in
1984 registered its lowest tilt
in recent years, says the
head of the group maintain-
ing the landmark.

Professor Giuseppe Tonio-
lo, in a report issued Tues-
day, said experts’ measure-
ments showed the 55-metre
high marble tower increased
its lean by only 0.48 milli-
metres, down from an annual
average movement of almost
1.20 millimetres.

“It's a very comforting de-
velopment,” Toniolo said.

B.C. jobless rose

VANCOUVER (CP) —

lowest level in 2% years.

The provincial jobless rate was 14.7

per cent in November.

Federation communications director
Tom Fawkes said the jobless figures
is fast becoming a

prove that B.C.
“have-not” province

The B.C.
Federation of Labor reacted angrily to
statistics released Friday which show
that British Columbia's jobless rate
rose to 15 per cent last month while the
national rate fell to 10.8 per cent — its

“We've boon saying all along that

translates into 68,000 mrore jobs,

this (pi gover has been
driving us deeper and deeper into a
hole,” he said. “Every time the
statistics come out, they only prove us
right.”

But Fraser Institute director Mi-
chael Walker said there's still room for
a “modest amount” of good feeling from
the statistics because employment
growth in B.C. has almost doubled the
national average in the past year.

Walker said that employment grew
by 5.9 per cent in B.C., which

ber.

with the national average of

3.1 per cent.

Nationally, though the number of
unemployed dropped by 39,000, the
figures show there were still 1,316,000
people still looking for work in Decem-

In addition, those who have given up
looking for work because they don't
believe any is available — so-called dis-
couraged workers — climbed to 105,000
last month from 87,000 in November.

Hunger striker transferred

VANCOUVER (CP) — A
prisoner at the maximum-
security Kent Institutian in
Agassiz who has been on a
hunger strike for 53 days will
be transferred Monday to a

Canada to transfer him away
from his family to the maxi-
mum-security Edmonton In-
stitution.

Correctional service
spokesman Tom D’Aquino
said Friday that MeWhinney
was handed notice of his
transfer earlier in the day.

D'Aquino declined com-
ment on the reasons for the

transfer but said MeWhin-

However, MeWhinney ‘8
wife, Laura said
her husband had lost consid-
erable weight, was delirious
at times and looked “like s

picture from-a concentration
camp.”

MeWhinney was placed in
solitary t as a
suspect in the knifing death
of a prisoner at Kent, which
is in the Fraser Valley.

eveetealty, prisoner was

wally charged with the
ues but MeWhinney has
remained in solitary.

By CHERYL CALDERBANK
Staff Writer
The Conservative government's spring budget is

expected to follow the same kind of “sensible pattern” as
was laid out in finance minister Michael Wilson's statement
fast fall, says Kootenay West MP Bob Brisco,

Brisco, the Chamber of C.
on Thursday, said he expects the budget to be presented
either at the end of March or the beginning of April,
following the Prime Minister's summit conference with
business, labor and community groups, and after the first
minister's conference.

Speaking on Wilson's financial statement, Brisco said
that the $4.5 billion in cuts “just kept the deficit where it is.”

“It didn't do anything else,” said Brisco.

He added that the cuts were “welljudged and well
thought out.”

“It's pot going tobe a —vertous —tespeatiiou eu
communities, business and industry,” he said.

Speaking on the deficit, Brisco said that 45 cents out of
every taxpayer's dollar is now servicing interest on the
federal debt.

On the basis of the pattern developed by the former
Liberal government, Brisco added that by 1990, without any
change taxpayers would be paying one tax dollar to service
the interest on the deficit.

“This country simply cannot afford those kinds of con-
straints,” he said.

But the MP said he is encouraged by the latest
McLean's magazine which published results of a poll where
Canadians were asked about their attitudes towards the
future of the country.

“We simply cannot afford to lay down. We have to work
together and pull together,” Brisco said. “That really is the
kind of message I want to get out.”

Speaking about Kootenay West, Brisco said that what is
happening in the riding is following fairly closely things that
would have happened under “the other government,” but he
added that it is “useful to be able to apply a lever at times.”

Since elected in September, Brisco said two separate
group homes for the handicapped have received funding
under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and the Ministry
of Labor. The group home in Castlegar received $400,000 in
aid, and a similar facility in Nelson has received $200,000.

Kootenay West will also be receiving $663,000 for
Canada Works projects. The grant applications have been
P by of Brisco's advisory

board. The government will

the

BOB BRISCO . . . the Kootenay West MP
spoke in Castlegar Thursday.

Brisco noted that it was encouraging to see the number
of applications that were related to the forest sector.

Brisco said he has also had meetings with the Inter-
national Woodworkers of America, Pulp, Paper and Wood-
workers of Canada and the Canadian Merchant Services
Guild to listen to their concerns about Westar Timber.

Brisco has also had an opportunity to discuss the same
concerns with Westar president Sandy Fulton.

He said the message he feels he must take back to the
unions is “to seek compromise so we can in fact pull together
and make operations here function to the best degree that
we can.”

Brisco said he has also encouraged Westar to “develop
the kind of community attitude that has been demonstrated
over the years in Trail by Cominco,” he said.

Since being elected MP, Brisco said he has served on
three committees: Fisheries, Forest and Environment;

and Mii Esti-
mates. He is also chairman of the caucus committee on
Fitness and Amateur Sport.

During the chamber’s question period, Ald. Albert
Calderbank asked what has become of the proposal for a
forest hb centre at the former David Thompson Uni-

applicants on Jan. 16.

Brisco said there were 92 applications asking for a total
of $5 million.

“We have funded as we think would be most
productive,” he said. “We simply cannot fund them all.”

He said that in addition to the $663,000 in programs,
there are some very worthwhile applications which will be
funded under two other programs.

“We are looking in excess of $1 million funding directed
at job creation,” he said.

versity Centre in Nelson.

Brisco said the first priority in forestry must be a
national forestry act.

“While we had created a Minister of Forests, we don't
have a mandate component,” such as is found in the Ministry
of Environment or Indian Affairs.

“A national forestry act must describe the perimeters
under which the minister can work.”

“We can't do it overnight,” he said, adding that the
process is underway.

continued from tront poge of the
ties helps them get to know local
people quickly.
Added Iyer: “I always ask (my countries.

host family) why do you do this, and
why do you do that. They don't get

irritated, and help out.”
Shoba “Chary, 19, a third-year
Indian jes student who's

working in the archives at the Na-
tional Exhibition Centre for two
months, has also found Castlegar’
residents friendly, and was sur-
prised to discover that many were
aware and interested in the Canada
World Youth program.

“The people in Canada seem to be
a lot more casual than the people in
India. You walk into a shop and
people you-don't even know say hi,”
she said.

Chary said it’s an eye-opening ex-
perience to actually visit North
America, since news of the West
that appears in Indian media is
“colored,” depicting society here as
“immoral” and decadent.

The variety of Canadians’ ethnic
backgrounds also surprised Chary,
who says she’s met people from
Portugal, Russia and South Africa
while in Castlegar.

All World Canada Youth parti-
cipants emphasized the importance

counterpart.

lane.”

WORLD YOUTH

“counterpart” relationship
where Indians are Canadians are
paired off for their stays in both

This makes it either for each to
adapt when visiting the other's
homeland, and participants no lon-
ger take their own country for
granted in the presence of their

“When we were in India, we saw
everything in their eyes,” said lyer.
“And when we are in Canada, they
see everything through our eyes.”

Chary is working with her Can-
adian friend Lisa Wray, 21, a Uni-
versity of Toronto student who
visited her when the pair stayed at a
village in southwestern India.

Wray said she decided to join
World Youth for “a chance to live in
a different culture, and experience
that sort of reality (of) living in a
village in India.”

The reality Wray and Chary were
faced with when visiting the Indian
village was staying with a family
who ran a farm, had an open fire
fueled with grape sticks for a stove.
Wray said “The toilet was like a
communal pit down the end of a

However, Wray says she enjoyed
the experience, which has given her

an appetite to travel to countries
like Africa and India that would
have been “intimidating” before.

Chary and Wray are now helping

for an upcoming NEC
exhibition on Maritime crafts, and
are putting together educational
kits for local schools on the history
of Castlegar. Included in the kits,
designed to help teachers with
10-to 14-year-old-students, are pho-
tographs, games, musical scores,
recipes, clothing and other artifacts.

All the World Youth participants
interviewed said they'd recommend
the program to other young people.
Maloney says she’s become more
flexible, adaptable and self-confi-
dent-as a result.

“I think the most important thing
is learning about yourself,” she said.
“Your limits are further away than
you thought they were.”

As well, the young people said
that despite cultural differences,
they've learned people in different
countries share instrinsic human
similarities.

“Basically people are the same,”
explained Iyer. “The sentiments are
the same. There may be ‘some
differences, but basically senti-
ments, emotions, affections are the
same.”

Mayday call a hoax?

MANAMA, BAHRAIN
(AP) — A distress signal
purportedly radioed by some
one on a jetliner crashing in
the Persion Gulf was picked
up Saturday by control tower
officials in Kuwait, but the
officials said later the report
may have been a hoax.

Control tower sources in
Kuwait said initially that the
jet crashed into the Persian
Gulf near the Iranian coast
and that at least 135 people
were believed killed.

However, “we are begin-
ning to doubt the signal and
don't believe with any degree
of certainty that a plane had
crashed anywhere in the
(Persian) gulf waters,” traffic

quarters in Frankfurt said it
could acédunt for all of its
flights.

The shift supervisor, Peter
Stolz, said he had accounted
for all Lufthansa planes in
the Middle East and “can rule
out that it was one of ours.”

Air control tower officials
in Bahrain also said they had
picked up a distress signal,
but did not have any know-
ledge of its type or nation-
ality. The Abu Dhabi airport
tower, reached by telephone
from Bahrain, also said it had
received a report of a crash
but the nationality of the air-
craft was not known.

The West German Foreign
Ministry in Bonn said it had
not received any information
indicating the downed plane
belonged to the national air-
line.

Earlier Saturday, an Is-
raeli radio monitor in Tel
Aviv said he had picked up
signals indicating that a
plane crashed in the Persian
Gulf with 197 people aboard,

the whole thing was a hoax.”

The Kuwaiti control tower
sources had identified the
downed vessel as a West
German Lufthansa airliner.
But Lufthansa traffie head-

and that 135 of those aboard
may have been killed.

The monitor, Mickey Gur.
dus, said he heard a Kuwait
control tower message say
that there were 197 people on
the plane and there were 62
survivors.

Gurdus also told The Asso-
ciated Press he picked up a
distress message from a man
speaking in English who said

he was a passenger on the
plane and it crashed in the
gulf near the Iranian coast.
He said the man told him that
water was coming into the
plane and he was getting out.
Gurdus monitors short-
wave radio broade
around the Middle East and
has often been the first to
pick up information of plane
hijackings in the area.

Police raid
gaming house

Two Trail men will answer
charges of operating a com-
beet gaming house in Ross-

land provincial court Feb. 18
following an RCMP raid_gt
the Trail Passtime Club
Wednesday.

A Trail RCMP spokesman
said as a result of an “in-
vestigation,” Trail and Nel-

son RCMP raided the club at
9 p.m.

"Gambling equipment and
paral were ,
and 13 persons were detained
for questioning, and later re-
leased,” police said.

Charged are Enzo Accar.
do, 32, and Thomson Wynn,
also 32.

BRIEFLY
VIOLENCE KILLS

NOUMEA (AP) — New Caledonia’s territorial
government declared a state of emergency Saturday
as reports from Paris said 1,000 French troops were
being sent to the Pacific colony to help break a “cycle
of violence” that has left three dead and dozens
pyred ts sre Gans of Siane

The territorial government declared a state of
emergency after police killed two Melanesian pro-
independence leaders in a gunfight in an isolated area
on the west coast, about 90 kilometres from Noumea.

LIBEL TRIAL

VANCOUVER (CP) — A lawyer demanded
Friday that Svend Robinson be ordered to pay up to
$25,000 in damages as the libel trial against the
Burnaby New Democratic Party MP ended.

B.C. Supreme Court J Hugh Legg reserved
his decision in the lawsuit, la by prison official
Tony Parlett after a Dec. 11,4981, news conference at
which Robinson accused Parlett of improperly
profiting from the labor of a convict at the medium-
security Matsqui Institution.

LEADERS MEET

OTTAWA (CP) — Prime Minister

Mc

says fat cats
must sacrifice

OTTAWA (CP) — Cana-
dian

it’s about time for doctors,
lawyers, “fat cats and cor-

concession route.

“They've gone the six-and-
five (wage restraint pro
gram) route and I noticed at
our convention last year in
Montreal there was a per-
ceptible change in the men-

“Why can't we get back on
the offensive?” he asked in an
interview aired Saturday by

meet leaders of the Commonwealth countries of the
Caribbean in Jamaica next month, his office said

Friday.

Prime Minister Edward Seaga of Jamaica
initiated the meeting scheduled for Kingston when he
met y in Ottawa last S a
from Mulroney's office said.

KIDNAPPED

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A_ 68-year-old
violinist missing for 1'/ days was rescued Friday from
‘the trunk of a car where she had been imprisoned
since being abducted in Tennessee, police said.

The woman's violin, which police said was worth
as much as $50,000, was recovered from a pawn shop
that paid $35 for the instrument.

Nona Sisco, a member ¢ of ithe » Memphis Symphony
te) was kid) y night in the
parking lot of her Memphis, Tenn., apartment complex
and driven 764 kilometres to Oklahoma City, said
Lieut. Dave McBride of the Oklahoma City police.

CASTRO TO HELP

MANAGUA (REUTER) — Cuban President Fidel
Castro has offered his co-operation to prevent what he
called a ial disaster of i
in Central America.

Solving the region's problems requires not only
the help of Nicaragua but also that of the United
States, Cuba and the Central American countries, he
said.

Castro, in Nicaragua for Thursday's inauguration
of President Daniel Ortega, was speaking Friday night
at the opening of a Cuban-financed sugar mill

MAN KILLS SELF

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Iranian man told his
roommate he had “lost everything,” then killed
himself after finding his bride had suffocated in a
suitcase during an attempt to smuggle her into the
United States, say authorities and the roommate.

The five-foot-tall woman's bruised body was dis-
covered Monday in a large suitcase that revolved so
long around a luggage carousel at Los Angeles
International Airport that customs agents finally
inspected it, authorities said.

MISSILE FIRE

HEILBRONN, WEST GERMANY (AP) —
U.S. army was trying to find out today what ignited a
fire on a Pershing 2 missile that killed three U.S.
soldiers and injured at least seven others during a
routine training exercise.
it appears like it was just an accident,” said Maj.
Michael Griffon, a spokesman for the 56th Field
Artillery Brigade. “The reason for the fire is still
unknown.”

He said “there was no explosion and no nuclear
weapons involved” in the fire at the Red Leg missile
site outside Heilbronn in the south of the country.

Brig..Gen. Raymond Haddock, the unit com-
mander, told a news conference it was the first time
such an accident had happened and he had ordered an
investigation.

The

LOVE TRIANGLE

ROCHE HARBOR, WASH. (AP) — A man who
drove into a private room at the historic Hotel De
Haro on San Juan Island shot and killed his former
girlfriend and another man Friday before fatally
turning the gun on himsélf, San Juan County officials
said.

The county sheriff's department identified the
deed as Richard D. Nelson, 49, Marilyn K. Hamilton,
25 and John P. Lovegrew, 30, all island residents.

The hotel's owner, Neil Tarte, said the gunman
broke down the door of the woman's second-floor unit
in the hotel. He apparently shot other other man first,
while Hamilton was able to get to the telephone and
call the hotel switchboard before being shot herself.

News.
“Let someone else make

the sacrifice. Let the doctors
and lawyers and the fat cats

on
Mul-
roney to implement his elec-
tion promise to a minimum
tax on the rich but he re-

McDermott called
Prime Minister Brian

to-do should lose their old age
pensions and family allow-
ance cheques.

“You have the spectacle of
ineredibly rich people and
rich cor who have

“‘mott

paid Be. faxes at.‘all for”

it intends to continue sending
cheques to every qualified
person, regardless of income,
for social programs such as
the old age pension and fa..-
ily allowance.

But last year it repeatedl,
suggested it was ready to use
‘the tax system to take sume
or all of the money back from
rich.

McDermott also criticized
the Tory administration for
cracking down on people col-
lecting unemployment insur-
ance while making little ef-
fort to collect billions of dol-
lars in unpaid taxes, which he
said is mostly corporate
money.

“They come down like an
iron fist on individuals but
with the corporate entity, for
some reason, they have a
double standard.”

McDermott acknowledged,
however, that workers face a
difficult task in making up
wage and benefit concessions
extracted since the recession
began in 1981 because the
economic situation is not

OTTAWA (CP) — A con-
troversial advertisement for
an international poster con-
test, which the External Af-
fairs Department had asked
the Iraqi Embassy not to
print, has been published in
the Ottawa Citizen.

The ad in Saturday's edi-
tion promotes a contest for
illustrations of alleged war
crimes inflicted on Iraqi pris-
oners captured in an ongoing
border war with Iran.

Prizes range from $8,000
for first place to $2,000 for
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh
and eighth place.

In addition, at least one
Canadian will win a “gener-
ous prize” and be invited to
Iraq for the ceremony honor-
ing the international win-
ners, the ad says. It offers no
other details.

Earlier this week, Exter-
nal Affairs asked Iraqi Am-
bassador Abdo AlDairi to
withdraw the ad, saying
Canada has had guidelines
since 1975 that seek to en-

sure that diplomatic missions
not publish material which
might offend third world
countries with which Canada
also has diplomatic relations.

External Affairs spokes-
man Rejean Dodd said-
Ottawa cannot inflict penal-
ties on the Iraqi mission in
the capital over the episode
but added he hopes it will
honor the guides in future.

Dodd said the department
put no pressure on the news-
paper to reject the ad.

Citizen advertising mana.
ger Bob Littlemore said he
thought about the ethics of
running the ad and it came
down to a matter of taste.

He said people who dis-
agree can protest to the On-
tario Press Council.

The Iranian government
called Littlemore and asked
him to “take the propaganda
out of the paper.”

The ad has appeared in
other newspapers, such as
the Washington Post and Le
Monde of Paris.

End-of-train
units fail

WINNIPEG (CP) — Rail-
way company claims that
electronic monitoring devices
intended to replace cabooses
have never failed are false, a
locomotive engineer said Fri-

day.

John Skoberg told a Cana-
dian Transport Commission
hearing that an end-of-train
unit failed at least three
during a test run in Sas-
katchewan last September.

CN Rail and CP Rail want
to replace cabooses and the
tail-end crews with the elee-
tronie end-of-train unit
(ETU). They have claimed
the unit has had a 99.9 per
cent success rate during
tests.

The unit is designed to
give the locomotiye engineer
continuous read-outs of in-
formation from the train's
rear.

However, Skoberg said he
lost contact with the back of
the train he was operating
when it experienced engine
failure and the unit's digital

display faded from view.

He cited the incident to
support his argument and
that of many others voiced
during the hearings that the
railways should not eliminate
cabooses and tail-end crew
and rely solely on mechanical
devices.

“The fact is that the train
could be operating without
the head-end crew knowing
what was going on in the tail
end,” said Skoberg, a spokes
man for the Moose Jaw,
Sask., local of the Brother.

The Canada World Youth group in

MUSICAL NIGHT. . group is made up of seven Canadians and seven East
Castlegar put on a cultural evening Friday night. The 9

Indians. — Coattews Photo by Ron Hormen

Canadians live well

low rates of price changes in
Japan and Austria and Swit-

TORONTO (CP) — The
standard of living in Canada

inflation and currency ex-
change rates with the U.S.
dollar.

and Mail.
“Now if the United States

is higher than that of any is 100, Canada is 956, Norway zerland.”
other country except the ~ Canada’s standard of living 89 and Japan 75.” Also, unlike the United
United States, says a study was almost at a par with that REASONS States, Canada does not have

by the Paris-based Organi-
zation for Economie Co-oper-
ation and Development.
The survey of the buying
pover of residents jn 18
western countries found that
the. United States and Can-

of the United States in 1980
but it has dropped slightly
because of a weaker dollar,
the study said. The standards
of all other countries in the
survey also fell against that
of the United States.

capita level, although the ac-
tual GNP may be high.

The effect of higher in-

is when

Canada's performance is com-

was stronger against Europ-

ean currencies and because of
effects of

high investments in Alberta

ada consistently out-perform- Using the pared with Europe. Britain,
ed Japan and Western Eur- ,inflation and exhaigertio roa and 1981. for example, had a lower lev-
ope since 1980. index, the standards of Can- “I would imagine there is el of investment and a lower

ada and the United States
were “almost at parity in
1980,” Michael Ward, a con-
sultant who worked on the
study, told the Toronto Globe

The ranking of living stan-
dards was achieved by divi-
ding the per capita gross na-
tional product by an index
made up of the country’s

not going to be any remark-
able change in Canada’s posi- ope’s best performer, was in
tion in the next few years. third spot largely as a result
What you have to weigh of its higher investment
against Canada is the very spending.

ranking. Norway, as Eur-

Planet X killed dinosaurs?

tions were produced by a
death star called Nemesis
that orbits the sun and
periodically comes close to
Earth, pulling comets in its
wake.

If Nemesis exists, it, too,
is likely to be found in the
next decade, Matese said.

TUCSON, ARIZ. (AP) —
The ex 19 of the, dino-
saurs have ..been
caused by a mysterious
Planet X that periodically
pulls swarms of comets
into a collision course with
Earth, a new theory says.

The theory contends
that Planet X circles the
sun in a shifting orbit out
side the known planets.
Every 30 million years, the
orbital shift carries the
planet into a belt of com-
ets, said Daniel Whitmire,
one of the theory's authors.

When that happens, the
planet’s gravity pulls a
cluster of comets out of the
comet belt. Some of those
comets strike Earth, spew-
ing up vast dust clouds
that can change the wea-
ther and even spell death
for some species of animals
and plants.

The dinosaurs became
extinct 65 million years
ago, and extinction peaks
also occurred 34 million
years ago and, to a lesser
extent, 11 million years
ago.

“The Planet X theory is

one of many being con-
_Sidered by scientists as ex-
planatises of the extinction
peaks. Another is the pos-
sible presence of Nemesis,
a “death star” that would
cause the extinctions in a
manner similar to Planet
X, by causing comets to
rain periodically on Earth.
Other researchers suggest
that huge interstellar dust
clouds caused the peaks.

The latest theory, des-
cribed Friday by Whit:
more and co-author John
Matese at a Symposium on
The Galaxy and The Solar
System sponsored by the
University of Arizona, was
developed to try to solve
two mysteries.

The first is a pattern in
fossils that suggests mass
extinctions may have oc
curred regularly on Earth
about every 26 million
years.

The second is the prob
lem of unexplained slight
variations in the orbits of
Neptune and Uranus, two
of the outermost planets.

ALTERS ORBITS

Astronomers had sus.

pected for more than 50
years that an undiscovered
planet is altering those or-
bits, but they had thought
the problem solved with
the discovery of Pluto, the
outermost known planet,
in 1930.

That explanation fell
apart in 1978 when it was
found that Pluto's mass is
only a thousandth that of
Earth — too small to cause
the orbital variations,
Whitmire said.

In a publication of their
theory in the Jan. 3 issue of
Nature, a leading British
scientific journal, the two
researchers from the Uni-
versity of Southwestern
Louisiana said their des-
cription of Planet X is the
first to provide solutions to
both the periodic extine-
tion problem and the orbi-
tal variation problem.

The theory also suggests
how astronomers might
find Planet X. Matese said
it is likely that Planet X
would be discovered in five
or 10 years, if it exists.

An alternative theory
holds that the mass extinc

Not all scientists who
study fossils agree that
mass extinetions have oc-
curred in a regular cycle.
But evidence is growing
that the dinosaurs, at least,
were wiped out by weather
changes produced by colli-
sions of extraterrestrial
objects with Earth.

That theory has long
been advocated by Luis
Alvarez of the University
of California at Berkeley
and now by his son, Wal-
ter. In soil layers dating
back 65 million years,
when the dinosaurs van
ished, the men have found
relatively high levels of
iridium, an element un-
common on Earth but more
common in extraterrestrial
objects.

SOUTH AFRICAN TOUR
Kennedy witnesses inhumanity

JOHANNESBURG (AP)
— Senator Edward Kennedy
says his tour of South Africa
has shown him “the grossest
inhumanity of man to man”

dramatic increase in polar- South-West Africa, jeering
ization between blacks and whites carried banners that
whites since his brother, the said “Go home” and “We can
late Robert Kennedy, visited do without American liberal
South Africa in 1966. hypocrisy” as they protested

ministers and many anti-
apartheid campaigners. He
ends his nine-day stay today
with a speech in Soweto,
Johannesburg’s huge black

and that anti-Americanism is township. His visit has been He told reporters that at the airport where Ken
growing there because of marked by hostile exchanges “those like the U.S. ambas- nedy’s plane landed Saturday
perceived U.S. support for with white officials and a sador,” Herman el, who from Cape Town.

warm welcome from most
black activists.

Kennedy said he hoped to
announce measures soon
which he wants Congress to
adopt on South Africa. Much
speculation has focused on
whether he will endorse the

speak out against disinvest
ment may get applause from

Much larger crowds of ap
plauding blacks greeted him
when he arrived in the black
township of Katutura, out
side Windhoek.

Kennedy's meetings in
Windhoek centred on U.S.

apartheid.

Flying back from Namibia,
where he pledged to work for
an end to South African rule
over the neighboring ter.
ritory, Kennedy told report
ers he found South

“do not realize the depth and
sense of passion and rest
lessness” among blacks.
Nickel told a luncheon
Tuesday disinvestment is the

hood of L Engin.

Railway officials were sur
prised by Skoberg’s testi
mony and indicated they had
no knowledge of the incident.

“We have no evidence that
the ETU has ever failed,”
said CN Rail spokesman Jim
Starko, who added the com.
pany is standing by its almost
perfect test results.

“If Skoberg contends it has
failed, he hasn't reported it.”

led negotiations to bring the
territory to independence,
and allegations by Namibian

Africa's white leaders “un
responsive and unrealistic”

growing U.S. disinvestment
campaign or propose milder

wrong way to oppose race
segregation, but that Presi-

on the prospects for race re- legislation. dent Ronald Reagan is com- residents that the South
form. Disinvestment is a policy mitted to encouraging re- African-run police and
“I did not gather from my of withdrawing investments form. tary commit atrocities

Kennedy cited a growing
refusal by black leaders in
South Africa “to identify
with anything associated
with the (South African)
government or the United
States.”

In Windhoek, capital of
Namibia, also known as

conversations with govern
ment officials that they were
co d to
progress on the basic issues
of citizenship, voting and hu
man rights (for blacks),”
Kennedy said.

The Massachusetts Demo
erat has met three cabinet

from companies that operate
in South Africa. Its aim is to
put pressure on the
companies and the apartheid
government.

‘SIEGE MENTALITY’

Kennedy said he encount-
ered “a siege mentality”
among white officials and a

against villagers.

Among others greeting
Kenfiedy were Namibians
who had been held in deten.
tion for opposing South Afri
can rule.

The senator
Lusaka, Zambia,

travels to
today