72 Americans believed aboard hijacked ship
By The Associated Press
PORT SAID, Egypt Palestinian hijack
em seized an Italian cruise liner at sea
yesterday with more than 900 people aboard,
demanded that Israel release 50 prisoners
and threatened to blow up the ship if at
tacked, officials reported.
Italian Defense Minister Giovanni Spadoli
ni placed the nation's armed forces on alert.
Owners of the Achille Lauro listed 78 Amer
icans as passengers aboard the ship.
Patrizia Terese, a duty officer at the For
eign Ministry, told The Associated Press that
72 Americans and 20 Britons were among 600
passengers who left the ship in Alexandria for
a day-long land tour, meaning that possibly
six Americans still were aboard.
American passenger who left the ship in
Alexandria told the ABC News program
"Nightline" that there still were Americans
on board.
Harriet Hauser, of Hollywood, Fla., said in
Council vetos extra
By SCOTT A. ALDERFER
Collegian Staff Writer
State College Municipal Council
last night defeated 4-3 a proposal that
would have required landlords in the Council member Daniel Chaffee
borough to submit to further licensing called the proposed ordinance over
and inspection of their rental units. kill, citing the Centre Region Code
Council member R. Thomas Berner Enforcement inspections which rent
said the Neighborhood Conservation al properties must undergo.
Program would have protected both "How is this going to make non
neighborhoods and tenants from compliers comply?" Chaffee asked.
landlords who do not adequately "I'd like to see more concentration on
maintain their rental properties. problem properties."
"The concept behind this proposal Council member James Bartoo
is to stop a problem before it starts," joined Chaffee in dissenting.
State College Municipal Council Board members Carl Fairbanks, Robert Kistler,
Gary A. Wiser and Mary +leas read council notes at last night's meeting.
Budget may not hike tuition
By DAMON CHAPPIE
Collegian Staff Writer
The University began a nine-month
budgetary trek fraught with fiscal
twists and turns yesterday as it sub
mitted a preliminary state appropria
tion request that may lead to stable
tuition rates for the first time in 18
years.
The adminstration gave raw dollar
figures to the state Department of
Education yesterday so the agency
could feed the numbers into its com
puter to make recommendations to
Gov. Dick Thornburgh's budget of
fice.
Little information is publicly avail
able about the budget, but University
President Bryce Jordan has said it
calls for no tuition hike this year.
Many no-tuition hike budgets have
been submitted during past years.
The reason for spiraling tuition, as
Jordan has said repeatedly, is be
cause the state consistently allocates
less funding than Jordan claims the
University needs. State appropria
tions support about 45 percent of the
University general funds budget
while about 48 percent comes from
student tuition and fees. The remain
der comes from investment income
and bookstore profits.
But as tuition has escalated, mak
ing the University one of the most
expensive public research universi
ties in the country, state aid has
declined from 34 percent of the total
budget to 24 percent in 1985. Last year
the administration asked the state for
an 11.8 percent increase in funds over
the previous year.
The state granted less than half of
that, resulting in a $99 tuition in
crease for full-time undergraduate
students and an additional $lOO sur-
index weather
classifieds 10 Sunny and warmer today with a
opinions 6 high of 69 degrees. Cool and
state/nation/world 8 clear tonight, low 39.
Heidi Sonen
the
daily
Cairo, "I have two friends that stayed on ship
because they had been here before." Another
passenger, Matthew Polito of New Jersey,
also said he knew of Americans still aboard
the ship.
Polito said security was good in Alexan
dria, but he criticized the security measures
in Naples, Italy, the second stop in the cruise.
"In Naples, you could go on and off the ship
as you felt free. And I saw kids running up
and dovM the ramps and just one hullaballoo
there. There was no security whatsoever in
Naples," he said.
In Washington, State Department spokes
man Mike Austrian said the U.S. Embassy in
Cairo was trying to locate the cruise organiz
ers to find out how many Americans left the
ship to visit Cairo and the nearby pyramids.
He also said the State Department had
established an informal task force in Wash
ington to monitor the situation.
Egyptian officials said the Achille Lauro
had left Alexandria and was about 30 miles
Berner said. "It is proactive rather
than reactive."
"Rental properties create ten times
the problems owner-occupied prop
erties do," he added.
charge for students in most technical
-'majors.
This year, however, some of the
normal budgeting procedure have
been changed and delayed as Jordan
and the presidents of the University
of Pittsburgh and Temple University
work on a new funding formula for
state-related universities with the
state Secretary of Education.
The University Board of Trustees
refrained from approving next year's
appropriation request to the state
until its November meeting while the
guidelines for the new concept
differential funding were being
discussed. University administrators
are currently examining how those
tentative guidelines will affect the
University and this is causing the
delay in the normal budget timetable.
"Normally the appropriation re
quest would have been approved by
the Board of Trustees," said Richard
Althouse, University budget director,
"but this year is different because of
differential funding."
Jordan said the adminstration is
requesting a package of items under
differential funding which by defi
nition gives more state money to
research institutions like Penn State
than smaller state universities like
Bloomsburg State University.
The differential funding package
will focus mostly on acquiring techni
cal instruments for the scientific de
partments and money for
maintaining and renovating Univer
sity facilities, Jordan said.
Although the differential package
is mostly separate from the complete
budget, Jordan said there may be
some special items in the regular
budget that fall under differential
funding although he declined to be
specific.
Collegian
west of Port Said, its next destination, when it
was commandeered by an undetermined
number of hijackers and headed farther out
into the Mediterianean, its destination un
known.
Word of the takeover came in a ship-to
shore radio report by the hijackers' leader to
Port Said at about 9:30 p.m. (4:20 p.m.
EDT.). He said the hijackers were members
of the Palestine Liberation Front, a dissident
faction of the Palestine Liberation Organiza
tion.
It was not known how the hijackers took
control of the ship, which had been scheduled
to dock in Port Said a half-hour before the
radio call came.
Many of the passengers who left the Achille
Lauro in Alexandria had been scheduled to
rejoin the cruise at Port Said, the northern
entrance to the Suez Canal and 150 miles east
of Alexandria. The vessel was then to contin
ue on to Ashdod on Israel's west coast before
heading for Naples.
licensing
Bartoo pointed out the motion
would interfere with a 1973
agreement between State College Bo
rough and College, Patton and Fergu
son townships which requires the
municipalities to maintain a standard
fee structure for applications, inspec
tions and approvals of housing codes.
The agreement says the municpali
ties must make any changes jointly,
he said.
Bartoo said the motion applies. to
only the eight to nine percent of the
borough's rental properties which are
code violators.
"I think conservation of the neigh
borhood is a concept we should adopt,
but I don't think we should attatch it
to a license," Bartoo said.
Council member John Dombroski
also opposed the motion.
"It effects eight to nine percent of
the rental units but it would cost (all
of the rental units)," he said.
The Council's human services com
mittee sponsored the motion. Felicia
Lewis, a member of that committee,
defended the proposal.
"We want to attract people to our
residential neighborhoods;" Lewis
said.
"It should improve the housing
situation for everybody in town
rental residents and neighbors," she
said.
Althouse said the adminstration
submitted numbers yesterday so the
state Education Department may
begin working on recommendations
for the governor's budget office.
The entire University budget pack
age, including written justification
for the numbers, will be submitted to
the department Oct. 16.
With that begins a long process of
hearings, workshops and recommen
dations involving the University ad
ministration, the state Education
Department, the governor's office
and the General Assembly.
Althouse said the state Education
Department reviews the University's
budget package along with all the
other state-related univerisities' re
quests and sends a recommendation
to the governor's budget office that
will fit the governor's state budget
package.
The University's requests and the
education department's recommen
dations go to the appropriations and
education committees in the General
Assembly.
Jordan and other University ad
ministrators will testify before those
committees to justify the need for the
money. The legislature will vote in
late Spring 1986 on a final appropria
tion amount, which the governor may
veto.
While the legislature debates the
merits of the University's request,
University administrators on - the
Budget Task Force will constantly
review the priorities and program
needs.
In July, the Board of Trustees will
adopt a final operating budget after
the governor agrees to the legis
lature's spending bill and the Univer
sity readjusts spending priorities for
the 1986-87 academic year.
Bill may force
By KRISTINE SORCHILLA
Collegian Staff Writer
Pennsylvania municipalities, retirement fund agencies
and state universities including Penn State may be
forced to divest from companies doing business in South
Africa under a package of bills to be voted on today by the
state House of Representatives.
A bill was introduced in the House calling for all state
related universities and member institutions to divest
from companies with holdings in South Africa and Nami
bia, a country occupied by the Republic of South Africa.
This legislation, one of seven proposals before the House,
proposed by Rep. David P. Richardson, D-Philadelphia,
will affect Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and
the 14 other state universities, said Michael Edmiston,
Richardson's legislative assistant.
As of Aug. 31, the market value of the University's
holdings in companies doing business in South Africa was
about $5.7 million, said David E. Branigan, special
assistant to the University treasurer.
If the bill is passed, the University must sell all holdings
in the companies within six months after the bill takes
effect, Branigan said, adding that stock value at the time
of sale would depend on the stock market.
"We are monitoring the bill though our government
affairs office," Branigan said. "We are not lobbying at
this time and no specific action has been taken yet. We
are just sitting back to see how things develop."
Other divestiture bills pending in the House include:
• Obligating the state treasury to refuse state funds to
banks that make loans to the government of South Africa
or to businesses that make loans to or have dealings
within South Africa.
• Requiring the state Public School Employee Retire
ment Board and the state Employee Retirement Board to
But when the passengers arrived in Port
Said, they were placed on buses and taken
back to Cairo, 138 miles southwest of the
canal city, and checked into hotels.
The threat to blow up'the vessel came from
the hijackers' leader, identified only by the
name Omar, according to the Port Said
officials.
Italian news agencies quoted the Foreign
Ministry as saying the hijackers were armed
and had a large supply of explosives.
A Palestinian named Samir Konaiterry
headed the list of prisoners the hijackers said
were being held in Israel and whose freedom
was demanded in exchange for the ship and
passengers, the officials reported.
In Tel Aviv, a spokesman said the Foreign
Ministry was in close contact with Italian
officials and the Israeli Cabinet would meet
Tuesday morning.
Other Israeli officials said Konaiterry was
one of four Palestinians who landed on the
Israeli coast at Nahariya on April 22, 1979,
Tuesday, Oct. 8, 1985
Vol. 88, No. 63 14 pages University Park, Pa. 18802 '
Published by students of The Pennsylvania State University
©1985 Collegian Inc.
and seized Dani Haran and his five-year-old
daughter as hostages. The hostages were
killed as Israeli soldiers closed in; two guer
rillas were slain in a gunfight and the other
two were captured.
There were conflicting estimates on the
number of hostages aboard the ship.
An Italian official involved in the crisis
command said there were 340 crew members
and "about 60 to 80 passengers aboard the
ship."
"The passengers seem to be treated well on
the basis of what we'e learned from Egyptian
authorities" who were in radio contact with
the ship, the official added.
"We don't know how it happened," he said.
"The crew apparently was disabled, but we
don't know if the hijackers boarded in Alex
andria or from the sea."
Egyptian officials said they believed there
were 160 passengers aboard the ship when it
was commandeered.
PSU to divest
divest themselves of holdings in corporations doing busi
ness with South Africa.
• Obligating Commonwealth municipalities to pass
responsible reinvestment orders.
• Establishing a system of priorities for reinvestment
of funds. This priority system calls for reinvestment first
in Pennsylvania corporations, then in contiguous state
corporations and, finally, in the United States.
Although some job losses could result from such large
scale divestiture, Edmiston said the bills provision for
reinvestment in Pennsylvania and other U.S. corpora
tions could create new ones.
More than 400 U.S. corporations are doing business with
South Africa, Edmiston said, including General Motors,
Ford, Coca-Cola, IBM, Westinghouse, General Electric
and Bethlehem Steel.
"Withdrawing the availability of capital funds will
perhaps raise the conciousness of the South African
government and enhance their willingness to stop dis
crimination against the black majority," Edmiston said.
The bills are supported by Speaker of the House K.
Leßoy Irvis and members of the state's Black Caucus.
However, Gov. Dick Thornburgh and others are doubtful
of the legislations' effectiveness, said Therese Mitchell, a
spokeswoman from Thornburgh's press office. Thorn
burgh would rather look into all available options for the
South African situation and determine which policies
would be most effective, she said.
However, some of the proposed divestiture policies
have already been effective in other parts of the country,
Edmiston said.
Recently,'the New York City Public Employee Retire
ment Fund established a policy to phase out investments
- in three banks dealing with companies that did business
in South Africa. As a result, three of the largest banks in
New York City stopped lending money to those compa
nies, Edmiston said.