th ship damaged by Red Sea mines By The Associated Press An explosion “severely damaged” the Liberian-registered tanker Olympic Energy in the Red Sea yesterday and sources in Egypt’s Suez port said there were reports the vessel was sinking. No casualties were reported, but it appeared to be the worst in a series of explosions in the key waterway that damaged at least five other ships since Thursday. Some Persian Gulf officials have said they believed the blasts were caused by mines or some other type of explosive devices. U.S. victories have others seeing red, white and blue By SCOTT KRAFT Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES These Games of the XXIII Olympiad have become an American Olympics, a red, white, blue and gold crescendo that has almost drowned out those 139 national anthems that don’t begin, “Oh say can you see...” The United States has won almost half of the gold medals contested thus far, and even some U.S. fans are embarrassed by the riches. “It’s a shame we don’t have more competition,” said Dorothy Malo, of San Diego, watching track and field competition at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the Olympic Torch burns. Certainly the Games of Los Angeles, which reached their midway point Saturday, have been a big, brassy celebration of Americana., The torch relay was the longest ever. The opening ceremony was hailed as the most dramatic. The American team quickly won more medals than anyone else. A lot more. Too many more, some thought. “Americans do like to see Americans win medals, but it’s gotten to the point where you want to see the other competitors win some,” said Jim McKay, ABC TV’s Olympic anchorman. The cheers are louder for the Americans. The crowds are bigger when the Americans are in contention. The stands are usually a sea of American flags. “We are much calmer in our countries, not so full of' patriotism,” said a Swedish official who asked not to be identified. “We’re used to spectators screaming, but this is a bit too much.” The International Olympic Committee, worried that the Games were losing their international flavor, had asked ABC to tone down its pro-American coverage. But after meeting with top ABC officials, lOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch changed his mind. “We are very happy with the coverage,” he said. Not only is the United States grabbing much of the gold, it is reveling in the victories. But few countries would be doing as well if Ray Graham of Lewisville, Texas scoops up oil from a grounded British tanker after the goo wash ed up on the beach. the Soviet Union and the 13 Warsaw Pact nations it led on an Olympic boycott were here The Soviet Union’s official press has been haranguing the Games from afar all week, reporting some Olympic results but reminding its citizens that many of the world’s top athletes are not in Los Angeles. That, along with some stunning U.S. performances, has fueled patriotic feelings that peaked Wednesday night when a sextet of clean-cut young gymnasts upset China for the men’s team . gymnastics title. It continued Friday night when a Chinas find during Olympic Games By RICK GLADSTONE Associated Press Writer PEKING China’s Olympic triumphs have given the communist country an exciting young batch of heroes and a new basis to promote friendly contact with capitalist Taiwan, a state-run newspaper said Saturday. “The mainland’s valiant fighters have won credit for Chinese on both sides of the . Taiwan Straits,” the Sports News newspaper said. China, fielding its first full fledged team in the Olympic Games, by Saturday collected eight gold medals its first Olympic gold medals ever at the Los Angeles Summer Games, in events ranging from weightlifting to fencing. It is also the first time the Chinese are competing in the Olympics alongside athletes from Taiwan, the Nationalist Chinese held island that Peking considers a renegade province. The issue led to China’s withdrawal from the Olympic movement in 1956, when the International Olympic Committee allowed Taiwan to enter a separate team in the Olympics. A compromise was reached in 1979, when China and Taiwan accepted a proposal under which the Taiwan team would call itself the “Chinese Taipei Olympic Oil from tanker may coat Texas beach for two weeks By SUSAN HUMPHREY Associated Press Writer GALVESTON, Texas Almost no oil from an 85- mile slick remained in the waters off Galveston Island yesterday, but officials said it would take two weeks to finish cleaning up the gooey balls and puddles left on popular beaches by the leak from a grounded tanker. The sun shone over the island yesterday, and the resort industry was “feeling better” that the wave borne pollution had been no worse. “It’s pretty much a matter of just cleaning it up now,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer Eric Olson. “It looks good now,” said Coast Guard spokesman Larry Clark, adding that almost all of the oil that was going to float ashore had done so by early yesterday. Officials said a large portion of the oil, which had floated on the Gulf of Mexico in a slick up to 85 miles long, had ended up on the island’s beaches, while much of the remainder had sunk as dense tar balls. Some of it still floated in the form of a light sheen on the water. AP Lassrphoto The pollution was concentrated along the west end of Galveston Island, largely sparing the more popular the daily A spokesman for the Lloyd’s of London insurance underwriters said mayday messages from the 88,599-ton Olympic Energy indicated the ship was sinking. Lloyd’s said the tanker was sailing in the southern zone of the Red Sea and was en route from the port of A 1 Hudaydah in North Yemen to Jidda, Saudi Arabia. Shipping sources in the Persian Gulf said it appeared the Olympic Energy was much farther into the Red Sea and international waters than the previous ships damaged last week. North Yemen’s pro-Western government Collegian capacity crowd at Pauley Pavilion joined 16-year-old gold medalist Mary Lou Retton in singing the national anthem after she upset Romanian Ecaterina Szabo in the women’s all-around gymnastics competition. Clara Ruckman, of Covina, Calif., who was waiting for a shuttle bus to take her to another Olympic event, said she has been heartened by the flag-waving. “I’m thinking about the ’6os, when kids wouldn’t have been caught dead with an American flag in their hands,” she said. “I think patriotism was here all the time.” some unity Committee,” carry the Olympic flag and refrain from playing the. Nationalist Chinese anthem. China boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This is the first time China has competed in the Games since 1952. Taiwan’s government-run ' television banned coverage of Chinese mainland athletes until Friday, when it finally gave in to viewer protests. By contrast, Peking’s Olympic telecasts have made continuous, prominent mention of the Taiwan competitors, part of the communist effort to woo the capitalist island. The Nationalists always have rejected Peking’s moves as propaganda ploys. When Chinese weightlifter Chen Weiqiang won a gold medal Wednesday and Taiwan’s Tsai Wen-yee won a bronze, millions of mainland television viewers saw them mount the award podium together, waving hand in hand. Reports from Taiwan said Chen was bleeped off the screen. “Athletes from Taiwan are also members of the Chinese nation,” Chen said later at a news conference, which also was not seen in Taiwan. Tsai told reporters he was “proud that the Chinese team and the Chinese Taipei team could compete at the Olympics together like sisters and brothers.” said yesterday its patrol boats, were keeping a vigilant watch in its northern territorial waters at the southern end of the Red Sea where the earlier explosions occurred. At least one North Yemeni minesweeper was reported to be operating in the zone. Government officials in Sanaa, the North Yemeni capital, declined to comment on the latest explosion, saying it had not happened in the country’ territorial waters. The officials, contacted by telephone, said investigations were continuing into the blasts last week that damaged three vessels in North Yemeni waters.'They identified the ships as 1,. America’s Carl Lewis waves Old Glory as he runs the Memorial Coliseum track Saturday after winning the Gold in the men's 100-meters. Lewis could win as many as four gold medals adding to what other country’s see as the United State’s glut of medals. surfline on the island’s east end and environmentally sensitive areas on Galveston Bay behind the island, the Coast Guarcl said. Keith Spangler, another Coast Guard spokesman, said officials were watching the San Luis Pass area, at the far west end of Galveston Island, after an oil sheen was spotted off the coast there Saturday night. “There is a lot of marine life in the marshes there,” he said. Work crews set out two floating deflection booms around San Luis Pass that were aimed at keeping the oil out of sensitive breeding grounds for birds, shrimp, halibut and snapper. Farther to the southwest, near the coastal town of Freeport, the Coast Guard reported a “light sheen” about five miles off the coast but said there was little danger of major pollution. Coast Guard Petty Officer Joe Gibson said officials expected the cleanup from the 45,000-barrel spill to take about two weeks. Joe Cochran, a state parks superintendent, estimated that 200 people using road graders and shovels worked on the beaches yesterday afternoon. the 11,800-ton Greek vessel Kriti Coral, the 5,150-ton Turkish Morgul, and the 7,720-ton East German freighter Georg Schumann. North Yemen has condemned the blasts as “criminal perpetrations” intended to destabilize the region. Persian Gulf shippers have been concerned about attacks on tankers in the gulf by Iran and Iraq, at war since September 1980. One shipping company executive in Saudi Arabia said Sunday the firms were “worried” about the Red Sea blasts, but they were not halting their vessels until it became clear “what those blasts are and who is behind them.” «2£Tt7! V- .:.? a** . .*P K .# • fa-th. ■ - . ..«> '*■ ***%*&' 4 * 1 inside • Hiroshima, one of Japan’s most vital cities, home of the Mazda Motor Corp. and a major league baseball team, will look back 39 years into its past today to the moment, at 8:15 a.m., Aug. 6,1945, when the nuclear age began Pa 9® 2 • Tracy Caulkins of Nashville, Tenn., the most decorated Swimmer in U.S. history and the winner of three gold medals in the 1984 Olympics, retired yesterday at the age of 21, joining a growing list of teammates .7 • Richard Burton, who savored the lusty, roistering life, died quietly in a Geneva hospital Sunday at the end of a brilliant but unfulfilled acting career Pa ß° 10 index • Comics Opinion Sports State/Nation/World weather Hazy, warm and humid today with an afternoon or evening thundershower possible. High of 88 degrees. Becoming cloudy tonight with showers and thunderstorms likely by morning. Low of 66. Variably cloudy tomorrow with occasional showers and thunderstorms. High near 84. by Glenn Rolph Monday, Aug. 6,1984 Vol. 85, No. 31 12 pages University Park, Pa. 16802 Published by students of The Pennsylvania State University ©1984 Collegian Inc. 1 J / ' 1 AP Laserpholo Red Sea Mined Peres attempts coalition By ALLYN FISHER Associated Press Writer JERUSALEM President Chaim Herzog yesterday named opposition Labor leader Shimon Peres as prime minister- designate and asked him to form a national unity government, but incumbent Yitzhak Shamir kept up his own efforts to put together a governing coalition. The president sought to break the stalemate resulting from Israel’s July 23 elections by appealing for a unity government to deal with Israel’s problems, chiefly the economic crisis reflected in a $22 billion foreign debt and an annual inflation rate of 400 percent. Herzog also stressed “our democracy is in danger” because of internal divisions between religious and secular Jews and among ethnic groups. Peres appealed to Shamir to join a Labor-led government, and Shamir agreed to meet Peres privately this afternoon at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, Shamir spokesman Yossi Ahimeir said. “We are ready to continue the talks we have begun in order to establish a national unity government... In our opinion we have to include all of the parties that want such a government,” Shamir said in a letter accepting Peres’ invitation. Many analysts doubted whether the two major blocs could find common ground for working in the same government. Eight hours of exploratory talks were held last week on the possibility of a bipartisan government. Until a new government is formed, Shamir remains head of a transition government, and he continued to barter with small parties for support in forming a government headed by his Likud bloc. Deputy Prime Minister David Levy said in a television interview that Likud would only continue coalition talks with Labor if the issue of the prime ministership was open for discussion.
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