4 The Daily Collegian
Hurricane Mitch roars through Caribbean
A child stands on a flooded street caused by Hurricane Mitch in
Honduras yesterday. The National Weather Service still considers the
hurricane “extremely dangerous,” according to its latest advisory.
NATO extends
By JEFFREY ULBRICH
Associated Press Writer
OSTROZUB, Yugoslavia
Serb forces drew back yesterday
from former Kosovo battlefronts,
holding off the immediate threat
of NATO airstrikes. But the
alliance reserved the right to
launch an attack anytime if the
situation worsens.
To keep up the pressure on
Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic, the 16-nation military
alliance decided to maintain more
than 400 NATO warplanes on
alert, but did not set any new
deadlines for airstrikes after the
previous one expired yesterday.
That continuing threat should
help guarantee the safety of hun
dreds of thousands of refugees,
terrified of returning home
A Kosovo Libertarian Army soldier talks on his radio as he hides on the side of the road from passing Serb police near Pristina yesterday.
Although most of the Serb forces have withdrawn to meet the NATO deadline, some KLA forces were still taking position.
Weather concerns improving for launch, Glenn's historic return to space
By PAUL RECER
AP Science Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. All
elements for John Glenn’s historic
return to space were in good shape
yesterday, with the astronauts on
hand, the countdown going smooth
ly and the outlook for launch day
weather improving.
Forecasters said yesterday that
there was a 70 percent chance of
favorable weather for Thursday’s
launch, with a slight chance of
showers. Earlier, the chance for
good weather had been put at 60
percent. Stiff winds peeling off
from Hurricane Mitch are the only
concern.
The hurricane was far from
Florida and posed no threat to the
state, but forecasters worried that
the storm system could trigger an
increase in winds blowing across
the oceanside launch pad. Winds of
17.2 mph at launch time could
force a postponement.
If the launch is delayed for some
reason to later in the week, fore
casters said weather could become
more of a problem. The outlook for
\
AP Photo/Vlctor R. Caivano
unless government troops and
Serb police are held back.
“We know that President Milo
sevic only moves when he is pre
sented with the credible threat of
force,” NATO Secretary-General
Javier Solana told a news confer
ence after a 2 and a half hour
meeting of NATO ambassadors in
Brussels, Belgium.
More than 4,000 Serb police
men were reported to have pulled
out of Kosovo on Monday alone,
vacating many villages and dug
in positions. That encouraged a
few among the 300,000 displaced
people in this largely ethnic
Albanian province to take a
chance on returning home.
“We have observed what I
would consider significant reduc
tions in the Serbian police pres
ence in the field,” said Shaun
favorable launch conditions
declines to 60 percent for both Fri
day and Saturday.
Glenn and his six crewmates had
some rare leisure hours today at
the crew quarters, a short drive
from the launch pad.
They were to review their flight
plans, check equipment, including
their spacesuits and undergo brief
medical exams. In the afternoon,
they were given five hours of free
time to spend with adult family
members. As a guard against colds
or infections, mission rules bar
children and teenagers from the
crew quarters.
Nearby, preparations by specta
tors and journalists were reaching
a pace that rivaled the frenzy of
the Apollo moon shot days of 30
years ago.
Motels in nearby Titusville and
Cocoa B-; ch were filled. Traffic
jams were common.
Along highways that afford
cross-water views of the launch
pad, workers erected barriers and
installed portable toilets for the
thousands of tourist expected to
watch Glenn’s return to space. By
Dateline
With 155 mph winds, Hurricane
Mitch’s path was unpredictable as
it ripped through Honduras and
Belize killing two, and now heads
for Mexico.
By VICTOR R. CAIVANO
Associated Press Writer
LA CEIBA, Honduras Hurricane Mitch cut
through the western Caribbean yesterday, pum
meling coastal Honduras and Belize with dri
ving rain and fierce winds that snapped trees
and sent thousands of people fleeing for higher
ground. Two storm-related deaths were report
ed.
Honduran President Carlos Flores Facusse
declared the highest state of alert and sent in
troops to evacuate thousands of people from vil
lages on the sparsely populated coast. Thou
sands more made their way to safer ground on
their own.
Most of the population of Belize City fled
inland in cars and government buses, while
tourists rushed to find ways out of the Mexican
resorts of Cancun and Cozumel, where the
storm is expected to hit by the end of the week.
At 4 p.m. EST, Mitch was about 60 miles
north of Honduras and moving west-southwest
roughly parallel to the coast at 6 mph. Its
winds dropped from 180 mph to near 155 mph,
reducing Mitch to a Category 4 hurricane, one
category below the most powerful. But the 350-
mile-wide storm remained very powerful and
dangerous.
Mitch’s slow speed made the hurricane’s path
especially unpredictable, forecasters said
Earlier in the day, when Mitch’s 180 mph
airstrike threat
Byrnes, head of the American
section of the Kosovo Diplomatic
Observer Mission, part of what
eventually will be 2,000 “ground
verifiers” who will make sure
that Milosevic is living up to his
promises.
“Last night, we watched con
voys of Serbian police leaving
Kosovo and going north into Ser
bia proper,” he said. “We estimat
ed that there were roughly 4,100.
That’s quite a few policemen.”
The Clinton administration said
observations on the ground indi
cated Milosevic was in "substan
tial compliance," meaning the
threat of allied military interven
tion has been, at least for the
moment, averted.
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright said NATO would move
quickly to use force against
"I have been pleasantly surprised at the outpouring
of interest in this flight, and it's really gratifying to
see people get so fired up about the space
program again."
launch day, the highways are
expected to be lined with cars and
recreational vehicles filled with
spectators awaiting the show.
About 3,500 journalists have reg
istered to cover the mission. More
than two dozen television trucks
jammed the media complex.
President Clinton and a large
congressional delegation are
scheduled to attend, along with
sports and show business celebri
ties.
The crew was about an hour late
arriving at the space center yester
day. One of the five T-38 jets r.ir
rying the crew members developed
a battery problem when the astro
nauts stopped for refueling at Tyn-
winds made it a Category 5 storm, the U.S.
National Weather Service said only three
Atlantic storms were stronger Gilbert in
1988, Allen in 1980 and the Labor Day hurricane
of 1935.
Strong winds bent palm trees along the Hon
duran coast yesterday, and heavy rain caused at
least four rivers to overflow their banks. The
entire coast of Honduras was under a hurricane
warning, and up to 20 inches of rain was fore
cast in mountainous areas.
In La Ceiba, on the western Honduran coast,
residents fled to shelters set up in schools and
fire stations on higher ground. The area has the
sea to the north, the Cangrejal River to the east
and a creek to the west.
Fisherman Manuel Padilla said he wanted to
evacuate with his three children but authorities
had not told him where the shelters were locat
ed.
“Nobody has come to see us,” he complained.
“They’ve forgotten us.”
Still, hundreds of people waded through knee
deep waters to safety. At one fire station shel
ter, about 150 people huddled in the damp, with
no dry blankets or other protection. Some
brought pets, including five parrots.
Blanca Almeida Ramirez, 22, said she and her
three children fled early yesterday when water
began to seep into her wooden house. “The
wood is all rotten inside,” she said. “I couldn’t
stay any longer.”
The head of the Honduran armed forces, Gen.
Mario Hung Pacheco, said 5,000 soldiers were
deployed to help victims of the storm.
Five villages in the northeastern province of
Gracias a Dios were cut off by flooding, but
police evacuated all 2,000 residents before the
rivers rose, said national police chief Col. Anael
Perez.
Yugoslavia if Milosevic sends
troops and special police back to
Kosovo.
NATO allies were preparing to
assemble a rapid-reaction force
in neighboring Macedonia to be
ready to intervene if Milosevic
sends troops against civilians
again, Albright said.
As the diplomats were ponder
ing how to deal with Milosevic,
Avdullah Krasniqi, an ethnic
Albanian from Ostrozub, a small
community southwest of Pristina,
loaded up his farm wagon with
wife, kids and household goods
and headed home Tuesday.
He made his decision less out
of confidence that NATO had
forced an end to the crisis than
the fact that it was getting colder
by the day in his mountain
refuge.
AP Photo/Enric Marti
John Glenn
dall Air Force Base in the Florida
Panhandle. Scott E. Parazynski
waited at Tyndall for a ride in
another plane while the others flew
on to the Cape.
In brief remarks after arriving,
Glenn introduced himself as “PS2
on this flight.” Payload specialist
number 2 is the lowest rank on the
crew.
“I am very glad to be here,”
Glenn said. “I have been pleasantly
surprised at the outpouring of
interest in this flight, and it’s really
gratifying to see people get so
fired up about the space program
again.”
Glenn walked quickly to his wait
ing family, hugging his wife,
Consumer confidence
falls sharply
By RACHEL BECK
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK Consumer confi
dence tumbled to its lowest level in
nearly two years in October amid
increasing concerns about global
economic and political troubles.
The Conference Board reported
yesterday its index of consumer
confidence fell 9.1 points to 117.3
from a revised 126.4 in September.
The last time it was lower was in
December 1996.
October’s decline, the fourth
straight month of retreat, was
much larger than Wall Street ana
lysts expected. The index now is
down 20.9 points from its 29-year
high in June.
“Growing anxiety about the
financial markets, combined with
political concerns and recent layoff
announcements, have given con
sumers the jitters,” said Lynn
Franco, associate director at the
Conference Board, a New York
based, business-financed private
research group.
Consumer sentiment is an impor
tant economic indicator since con
sumer spending accounts for two
thirds of the nation’s overall eco
nomic activity.
The report comes amid increas
ing evidence that the U.S. economy
is slowing as a result of the finan
cial crisis in Asia and Russia that is
now threatening Latin America.
In reaction to continued econom
ic turbulence, U.S. stocks slumped
sharply in early October, before
beginning to rebound.
Stocks were up broadly yester
day, with the Dow Jones industrial
average adding 47.38 at 8,479.59
late this morning. That’s more than
7 percent above where it began the
year but 9 percent below its record
high of 9,337.97, reached July 17.
Federal Reserve policy-makers
cut short-term interest rates by a
quarter-percentage point twice in
Annie, and his children, daughter
Lyn and son David. Lyn held her
father for a long moment, appar
ently whispering in his ear.
In an interview earlier in the
day, the astronaut’s son said he at
first was apprehensive about his
father returning to space 36 years
after becoming the first American
in orbit.
astronaut
David, a family physician, said
that when he learned of his father’s
space shuttle flight, he saw mental
images of the 1986 explosion of
Challenger that killed seven astro
nauts.
“I just watched it over and over
and over,” he said.
More recently the doctor said he
has come to believe that the shuttle
safety record “is as close to perfect
as you can imagine it possibly
being, so I’ve sort of gotten beyond
seeing that replay in my head.”
Discovery’s nine-day mission
will concentrate on science, with
Glenn participating in 10 experi
ments on the effects of weightless
ness on the human body and how
those effects might relate to aging
on Earth.
Wednesday, Oct. 28, 1998
Two other villages were cut off by fallen
trees.
In El Progreso, 100 miles north of the Hon
duran capital of Tegucigalpa, the army evacuat
ed more than 5,000 people who live in low-lying
banana plantations along the Ulua River, said
resident Nolly Soliman.
Two brothers, Misael and Rainel Juares, were
electrocuted Monday when they tried to take a
television antenna down from their roof in the
village of Jutiapa, near La Ceiba.
Early yesterday, the storm passed almost
directly over the tiny Islas del Cisne, Honduran
islands used in the 1980 s as a U.S. radar station
and radio base for broadcasts to Cuba. Authori
ties said the military base lost its roof, but the
five soldiers posted there were unhurt because
they took refuge in nearby caves.
Forecasters expect Mitch to swirl parallel to
the Honduran coast and then turn northward
and head for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and
its resorts of Cancun and Cozumel. But a strike
on Belize also was possible.
Belize residents weren’t taking any chances.
Stores and banks were closed in Belize City and
almost all the city’s 75,000 residents were flee
ing by car or bus to higher ground.
A huge traffic jam and a heavy rain
slowed drivers headed to Belmopan, the
Belizean capital built after Belize City itself
was destroyed by Hurricane Hattie in 1961.
All gas stations in Belize City had run out of
gasoline, but the government commandeered all
buses in the country to run 24 hours a day, fer
rying people inland for free.
The government also ordered the evacuation
of Ambergris Cay, a northern island that is
home to many Americans and Europeans. Resi
dents were fleeing on water taxis and military
planes, authorities said.
in October
"Consumers are most
concerned about
personal wealth."
economist at Nikko
Securities International Co.
the last month in hope of cushion
ing the U.S. economy from the
financial turmoil.
The Conference Board survey,
which ran from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15,
does not reflect consumer reaction
to the surprise second rate cut on
Oct. 15.
The survey does show that con
sumers are nervous about the
effect of the gyrating stock market
and slowing economy.
Consumers said they were most
concerned about what’s to come in
the near future, sending the index
that measures expectations for the
next six months down 10.2 points to
86.6.
Fewer Americans said they
would buy a home or major appli
ance or planned a vacation. More
consumers expect business condi
tions to worsen, meaning fewer
jobs and lower paychecks.
Only one of the nation’s nine geo
graphic regions the south-cen
tral section of the United States
saw a rise in consumer confidence
in October.
“Consumers are most concerned
about personal wealth,” said Dan
Seto, an economist at Nikko Securi
ties International Co. “They watch
the extreme market volatility and
hear of the economy slowing and
wonder what they means for
them.”
Although consumers are worried
about future economic conditions,
they remain somewhat confident
about their current economic situa
tion.
Sen. John Glenn tries on his
gloves while in hl» launch and
entry suit yesterday. The final
preparations are being planned for
Thursday's space shuttle launch.
Dan Seto
AP Photo/Gaorga Shaft on