AAP Internet Bulletin 1100 Tuesday Dec 29, 1998

AAP General News (Australia)
12-29-1998
AAP Internet Bulletin 1100 Tuesday Dec 29, 1998



[T][YACHTING SYDHOB][YACHT]

Sydney-Hobart death toll rises

Rescuers today recovered a second body and possibly located a third in the search for three
missing crewmen from the Sydney to Hobart race yacht Winston Churchill, which sank in heavy
seas on Sunday.

The discovery of the second body brings the death toll to five in this year's race.

Earlier today a first body was winched from seas off the NSW south coast.

The dead man, not yet formally identified, is believed to be one of three crewmembers washed
from a liferaft.

An Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokesman said a second body was later retrieved
from the same area.

"There's been a sighting of a possible third person, also in the same area," he said.

Huge waves yesterday swept three Sydney men - Jim Lawler, Mike Bannister and John Dean -
from their liferaft.

Six of the nine Winston Churchill crew members were rescued from lifeboats yesterday.

Meanwhile, the navy frigate HMAS Newcastle has made contact with another missing yacht,
Solar Globe Challenger.

"Two people were taken off and the remaining three elected to stay onboard," the spokesman
said. The two people taken from the vessel were believed to be injured, although it was not
known how badly.

Missing Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race vessel Veto was found this morning
with its five crew believed to be safe, AMSA said.

The damaged yacht had temporary rigging and was heading back to Sydney, an AMSA spokesman
said.

Yesterday two yachtsmen were confirmed dead and another was washed overboard presumed dead.

The search for English yachtsman Glyn Charles, missing since Sunday night when he was swept
away from the Sword of Orion, has been called off.

The Tasmanian yacht Business Post-Naiad became a floating coffin off the southern NSW coast
with two dead crew members left inside the upturned boat after their seven colleagues were
rescued from the mountainous seas.

The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia said the dead crew members were the yacht's owner Bruce
Guy and Phil Skeggs, both of Launceston.

AMSA, which is organising the search, believed Mr Guy, from Launceston, suffered a heart
attack when the Naiad rolled in heavy seas. Mr Skeggs apparently drowned in his safety harness
when the yacht overturned.

The Sydney-Hobart emergency was looking to rival yachting's worst disaster, the 1979
Admirals Cup Fastnet Race off southern England, which claimed 19 lives.

There had previously been only two fatalities in the annual Sydney to Hobart race event. In
1984 a crew member was washed overboard from the yacht Yahoo Two and in 1989 a sailor was
struck and killed by a boom on the yacht Flying Colours.

Officials said half the fleet of 115 yachts which started from Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day
had pulled out of the event or were sheltering from the terrible conditions.





[T][YACHT SYDHOB WIN][YACHT]

Sayonara captain says never again, maybe

American billionaire Larry Ellison today easily took line honours in the tragedy-struck
Sydney to Hobart yacht race in his maxi Sayonara and then declared that getting safely home was
what mattered.

Sayonara crossed the finishing line to a subdued welcome by a smaller-than-usual spectator
fleet and dockside crowd about two and a half hours ahead of last years line honours winner
Brindabella, which was expected to finish about 1030 AEDT.

To mark the tragedies of the race, the gala welcome was canned. There were no fireworks,
cannon firing or champagne reception and the trophy presentation was delayed until January 2.

Ellison said it was an extraordinarily difficult and emotional voyage as his 24 metre yacht
battled through and his crew heard by radio of the deaths in the battered fleet.

He said he'd never experienced anything remotely like the storms of Sunday.

Asked if he'd come back again, the two-times race winner said: "My first reaction is not if
I live to a thousand years. But who knows?"

Sayonara, gratefully picking up a southwesterly change in the Derwent River, finished at
8:03am for a race time of two days, 20 hours, three minutes and 32 seconds.

This was almost five hours outside the 1996 record of German maxi Morning Glory.

Sayonara finished with its crew of 23, including News Limited chairman Lachlan Murdoch,
feeling battered and exhausted, but with only one significant injury, Phil Kiely having
suffered a broken ankle.

An emotional Ellison said the record did not matter in the circumstances.

"Guys were knocked down time and time again, but kept getting up to do what had to be done
to keep us alive," he said.

"It's a tough crew, but the guys were choked up. It was a very emotional experience.

"We were learning of people dying. That's not what this is supposed to be about."

Principal helmsman Chris Dickson said he'd only ever experienced such conditions in the
Southern Ocean during the Whitbread round the world race.

"It was as tough as it gets," said New Zealander Dickson.

"If we had known it would be that tough we would have thought twice about being there."





[I][IRAQ US][US]

US, Iraq exchange missile fire

American warplanes exchanged missile fire with Iraqi air defences today, and President
Clinton said there would be no letup in American and British pressure on Saddam Hussein.

Clinton said U.S. planes were fired upon by Iraqi surface-to-air missiles and then
retaliated.

"They took appropriate action today in responding to Iraq's actions," Clinton said.

He cast the incident as a demonstration of American resolve to keep a lid on Saddam's
military forces, which were among the main targets of a four-day U.S.-British missile assault
less than two weeks ago.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi military said Monday's U.S. attack killed four Iraqi soldiers and
injured seven others. Iraqi officials harshly denounced the American attackers as "murderers
and criminals."

Clinton said Saddam should not think he can strike with impunity at U.S. air patrols.

"Because we effectively control the skies over much of Iraq, Saddam has been unable to use
air power to repress his own people or to lash out again at his neighbours," Clinton said,
describing the "no fly" zones over northern and southern Iraq as part of a broader U.S.
strategy for squeezing Iraq. The northern zone has been patrolled regularly since April 1991;
the southern one since August 1992.

"The no-fly zones have been and will remain an important part of our containment policy," he
said.

He did not mention the United Nations economic sanctions that have been in place since Iraq
invaded neighbouring Kuwait in August 1990. Iraq has never accepted the legitimacy of the "no
fly" zones and occasionally has challenged them by firing surface-to-air missiles at patrolling
aircraft.

In Monday's incident, U.S. defence officials said an air defence installation in northern
Iraq used its radar to target U.S. warplanes on a routine overflight, then fired at least three
surface-to-air missiles two directed at a group of four F-15 Eagle ground attack jets and one
at an F-16 fighter. Full details were not available, but officials said the U.S. planes
returned safely to their base in Turkey.

The U.S. planes that fired back possibly not the same ones that were fired upon included
F-16s armed with HARM anti-radar missiles and three F-15s that dropped a total of six GBU-12
precision-guided, 500-pound bombs. U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity said they
had videotape showing the American planes scored at least two direct hits on the air defence
site. EA-6B electronic warfare planes also were involved, the officials said.

U.S. officials flatly denied an Iraqi News Agency report that the Iraqi missiles "almost
certainly shot down an enemy plane." White House spokesman David Leavy called the report
"totally not true."





[T][CRICKET ENGLAND][CRIK]

England leads with one run

Pace bowler Glenn McGrath has made a breakthrough for Australia early on day four of the
fourth Ashes cricket Test at the MCG.

McGrath removed England's nightwatchman Dean Headley for one in the third over of the
morning, bowling him with an off-cutter.

England is now three for 71 in its second innings, holding an overall lead of just one run
with skipper Alec Stewart on 47 and Nasser Hussain on one.

Vice captain Steve Waugh said Australia will face a demanding run chase to win the fourth
Test.

England resumed on the fourth day five runs behind Australia and with eight second innings
wickets remaining.

Waugh's unbeaten 122 yesterday in Australia's first innings of 340 steered the home side to
a commanding position.

Waugh's century confirmed his place amongst Australia's greatest ever batsmen when he became
only the fifth player in this country to register 7,000 Test runs.

But the veteran batsman, who now boasts 17 Test centuries and seven against England, was
wary of a tricky MCG pitch.

"Anything over 150, 200 will be hard to chase," Waugh said.

"We are in good shape, especially if we can take a couple of wickets this morning," Waugh
said.

"The England tail hasn't done well so far and we would be backing ourselves to knock them
over."

Waugh said the pitch was difficult for batting.

"It wasn't an easy wicket to bat on, a lot of times when you are driving the ball is
stopping a little bit," he said.

Australia leads 2-0 in the series.





[A][SYDHOB CORONER][NSW]

NSW Coroner to investigate yacht deaths

The deaths of up to six yachtsmen in this year's Sydney to Hobart yacht race will be
investigated by the New South Wales Coroner's office.

Senior Deputy State Coroner John Abernethy today confirmed the office would assume
jurisdiction of the misadventure in which four sailors were confirmed dead and another two
missing and feared drowned.

A spokesman for Mr Abernethy said it was too early in the investigation to determine whether
an inquest would be held.

Rescuers this morning located two bodies in their search for three missing crewmen from the
sunken yacht Winston Churchill.

The two dead men, not yet formally identified, were believed to be crewmembers washed from
the liferaft of the veteran cutter which sank in heavy seas on Sunday.

They were both found in seas off the NSW south coast.

Jim Lawler, Mike Bannister and John Dean, all from Sydney, were washed out of the liferaft
early yesterday.

A massive air and sea search continued for the third crew member.

Yesterday, Post Naiad owner-skipper Bruce Guy, from Launceston, suffered a heart attack and
died when the yacht rolled in heavy seas.

Naiad crew member Phil Skeggs, also from Launceston, drowned tangled in his safety harness.





[I][YEMEN KIDNAPPING]

Two Australians taken hostage in Yemen

Islamic militants kidnapped 16 Western tourists in southern Yemen Monday, including two
Australians, 12 Britons and two Americans, security officials said.

They said the kidnappers, who belong to the Islamic Jihad extremist group, were demanding
the release of their leader Saleh Haidara al-Atwi, who was arrested by Yemeni authorities two
weeks ago.

Tribal leaders said about 10 gunmen ambushed a convoy of five vehicles carrying a group of
17 tourists near the southern town of Mawdiyah, in the Abyan province. They opened fire on a
number of policemen escorting the tourists.

No one was injured in the firefight, but the group's British tour leader and a Yemeni guide
managed to escape, said the tribal leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The remaining 16 tourists were abducted and driven to an unknown destination in Abyan
province, about 200 kilometres (175 miles) south of the capital, San'a.

The tourists included two American women and two Australian men. The British tourists were
six women and six men.

Security officials in Abyan, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said al-Atwi's arrest
was part of a crackdown on Islamic vigilantes who were enforcing strict Islamic rules on the
population of southern Yemen.

They said members of the group flogged men for selling and drinking alcohol which is
forbidden in Islam and women for ignoring the Islamic dress code.

The group, which has no more than 200 members, also ran a military camp in southern Yemen,
said the officials. The kidnappers are also demanding the release of another leader. The
security sources did not identify him.





[I][ANGOLA PLANE][AFR]

Angolan crash SOS sparks hope

The United Nations mission in Angola has picked up an SOS morse code signal from a
U.N.-chartered plane that crashed near a war zone in the central highlands of Angola, raising
hopes that some of the 14 people on board may have survived.

One of the passengers was an Australian working for the U.N. mission observing the peace
process in the war-torn country.

U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure said the United Nations is increasing pressure on the
government and the rebel group UNITA to call a cease-fire and allow in a rescue team.

"This may be last be our last chance to rescue innocent U.N. peacekeepers," Toure said by
phone.

The C-130 aircraft crashed Saturday at Vila Nova near the city of Huambo, about 500
kilometres (310 miles) southeast of the capital, Luanda.

U.N. communications specialists cannot tell whether the signals identified as coming from
the plane are being sent manually or if they are just automatic transmissions, according to
Toure.

The 10 passengers on board included three Angolans, two Russians, an Australian, an
Egyptian, a Cameroonian, a Zambian and a Namibian. The crew was made up of a South African, an
Angolan, a Bolivian and a Filipino.

Eight of the passengers were members of the U.N. Observer Mission in Angola which was
overseeing implementation of the country's collapsed 1994 peace deal.

Two others were employed by a private communications company, Dinacom, which works with the
United Nations, Toure said.

The plane, owned by TransAfric, was painted with the U.N. colours, and both the government
army and rebels were informed of the flight's schedule before the aircraft took off from
Huambo.





[F][DOLLAR]

Weak dollar at mercy of year-end business

The Australian dollar opened lower today in thin end-of-year trade.

After dipping to a level not witnessed since early October, the local currency recovered
somewhat to open this morning at $US0.6075/80 from 0.6100/05 on Christmas Eve.

The domestic currency was around $US0.6070 in Tokyo trade yesterday.

It is still a hostage of necessary year-end business which, in the thin market, has the
ability to cause dramatic fluctuations.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia senior manager corporate foreign exchange Stavros Nitis said
the market was very quiet with only a few exporters buying the Australian dollar on dips.

"The only business going through is that which needs to be done prior to year-end," Mr Nitis
said.

"An order of $30-$40 million Aussie can move the market 20 to 30 points," he said.

The Australian dollar dropped to a low of $US0.6057 in offshore trade in the United States.

"But once again the focus is the commodity outlook," Mr Nitis said.

The Commodity Research Bureau index was still trading at low levels, closing in New York at
189.68, up only 0.42 and off a low of 189.19.





[F][US STOCKS]

Internet stocks buck Wall Street trend

Most stocks fell overnight in sleepy holiday-season trading, although it was business as
usual in the red-hot Internet group, which drove the Nasdaq market to another new high.

The Dow Jones industrial average barely finished higher, rising 8 points to 9,226, but
extended its winning streak to seven sessions. The Dow has gained 436 points in that time, and
now sits 150 points from the Nov. 23 record of 9,374.27.

Decliners outnumbered advancers in the lifeless session as many investors stayed home for an
extended holiday break.

In fact, with just a few days left before the close of such a difficult year, those who did
show up for work were playing it cautiously to preserve what's shaped up as a surprisingly
happy ending.

Less than three months ago, the Dow was trading in the 7,000s and showing a loss for the
year. Now, the Dow is up 16.7 percent in 1998, the S and P 500 is up 26.3 percent and the
Nasdaq composite index is up 38.8 percent.

Internet stocks soared yet again amid reports that online holiday shopping was even more
robust than expected.

SkyMall surged as the most active Nasdaq issue after the in-flight retailer reported that
Internet sales have more than tripled in the fourth quarter to dlrs 1 million, up from dlrs
300,000 a year ago.

Among other Nasdaq Internet names, Yahoo! and Amazon.com also rallied. America Online also
shot higher as the most active issue on the New York Stock Exchange.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.6 percent. Germany's DAX index rose 1.9
percent, Britain's FT-SE 100 fell 0.7 percent, and France's CAC-40 finished a shade higher.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.76 to
9,226.75.





[I][Israel-Politics, 3rd ]

Israel election set, Begin splits party

The son of the Likud party's first prime minister, Menachem Begin, and a staunch opponent of
the land-for-peace agreements with the Palestinians, announced Monday that he is breaking away
from the party to run for prime minister.

Benjamin Begin, a 56-year-old geologist, served as science minister in Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's government, but he quit the Cabinet after Netanyahu agreed to pull troops
out of the West Bank town of Hebron in January 1997.

His father, a founder of the hard-line Likud, set the precedent of ceding territory with the
return of the Sinai peninsula to Egypt from 1978-82. Israel had captured the peninsula in the
1967 Mideast war.

The elder Begin, who died in 1992, had committed to granting Palestinians a limited version
of autonomy, but with a continued Israeli military presence throughout the West Bank.

Although Benjamin Begin's chances of becoming prime minister are remote, he could weaken
Netanyahu by splitting the hard-line vote and forcing a second round.

In such a case, most hard-line groups would support Netanyahu against a centrist or liberal
candidate as the "lesser evil," said Hanan Porat, a legislator from the National Religious
Party.

Another Likud breakaway, former Finance Minister Dan Meridor, is also running for prime
minister on a centrist slate. Two senior Likud figures and members of Netanyahu's Cabinet,
Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai and Communications Minister Limor Livnat, are debating
whether to leave the party.

Netanyahu denied that support for him within his party was collapsing. "The party is very
solid and very unified around the direction we have taken to bring Israel peace and security,"
he said.

Yet on Monday, Netanyahu's government failed to garner enough legislators to pass
legislation necessary to allow passage of a budget bill. Two members of the coalition abstained
and others including senior Likud figures were absent from the chamber.





[A][TOLL NATIONAL][FED]

Holiday road toll rises to 58

Australia's Christmas-New Year holiday road toll today rose to 58 after the death of a
40-year-old New South Wales woman in South Australia.

Police said the woman from the Sydney western suburb of West Ryde died in hospital
overnight.

She was a passenger in a car that crashed into a tree in South Australia's Riverland
district yesterday afternoon.

Meanwhile, a nine-year-old Queensland girl died from head injuries suffered in a crash that
killed her seven-year-old sister on the Oxley Highway in northern New South Wales yesterday.

A 23-year-old male motorcyclist, believed to be from Melbourne, died last night in an
accident on the West Tamar Highway near Launceston in northern Tasmania.

Tasmania and South Australia had recorded five deaths each since the start of the holiday
period on December 18.

NSW had the worst toll of 20 deaths, followed by Victoria on 12.

Queensland's toll was eight, Western Australia's six, and the ACT two.

Only the Northern Territory remained fatality-free.

Queensland was heading for its lowest yearly road toll in more
than four decades.

With less than three days to go until the New Year, the state's road toll for 1998 stood at
278.

Senior Constable Dirk Japin, of Queensland's traffic support branch, said if the toll
remained under 300, it would be the lowest since 1955 when 277 deaths were recorded on the
state's roads.





[A][BUSHFIRES VIC][VIC]

Firefighters hope to control Vic blazes

Firefighters hope to bring three bushfires raging in Victoria's remote north-west under
control today.

Their efforts were yesterday hampered by westerly winds as the fires engulfed thousands of
hectares.

About 140 firemen and three fixed-wing fire bombers were yesterday working to control the
blazes, the biggest of which has burnt out 4,470 hectares in Annuello Flora and Fauna Reserve,
30km north-east of Ouyen.

Department of Natural Resources and Environment state fire controller John Lloyd said
unpredicted westerly winds late yesterday caused breakaway blazes on the fire's broad southern
boundary.

"There is no indication when it will be contained," Mr Lloyd said.

The fire is about two and a half kilometres from a cereal-growing property, but it is not
under threat.

Meanwhile, firefighters hope to contain a 1,450-hectare fire in the Mt Cowra wilderness area
of the Murray Sunset National Park.

A third fire, on the Murray River about 60km west of Mildura, has destroyed up to 60
hectares of redgum, Mr Lloyd said.

The fires were sparked by lightning strikes over the weekend.





[I][FRANCE WINE]

French wine contaminated by pesticides

Some of France's most prestigious wines may have been contaminated by pesticides over the
last decade, posing no health hazard but affecting the taste, a top industry group said today.

A spokeswoman for the Bordeaux Wine Board made the admission in a telephone interview after
an investigative report appeared in this week's L'Express news magazine.

Since the problem became known in Champagne in 1982, many wine professionals have tried to
keep it a secret, L'Express reported.

L'Express said trace quantities of chlorophenol, a pesticide widely used to treat new wood,
has seeped into wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Beaujolais, and even champagnes.

The pesticides come from treated wood that was used to build new storage facilities.
Hundreds of top French labels, including high-priced bottles from Margaux in Bordeaux, have
been affected, L'Express wrote.

Bordeaux Wine Board spokeswoman Sophie Girard claimed Monday that the pesticide affected
only about one percent of wines tested in the past two years, and had been corrected for all
Bordeaux wines.

She said the public was not informed because the board preferred to "help Bordeaux vintners
resolve the problem, rather than alarm the public about something that was relatively minor."

Some buyers had returned contaminated wine to the vineyards complaining of the bad taste,
the news magazine said. The taste was often blamed on bad corks.

Girard said of the 1,344 wines chosen at random for analysis in the past two years, 44 had a
bad corky taste, and 11 of those were due to pesticides.





[I][CHINA CRASH]

China traffic crash kills 18, injures 100

At least 18 people were killed and nearly 100 injured when an unmarked truck laden with
detonators and fuses exploded after colliding with a bus in eastern China, official media
said.

The explosion, which happened Monday as rescuers were trying to pull people from the
wreckage of the accident, killed 17 people on the spot and another seriously injured person
died later in a hospital, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Of the remaining nearly 100 injured, 63 are still in hospital, Xinhua added.

The bus carrying nine people collided Saturday afternoon with the truck in Dingyuan county,
Anhui province, about 850 kilometres (530 miles) south of Beijing, Xinhua said. The cries of
people caught in the accident attracted a crowd of several hundred people who tried rescuing
the injured and putting out a fire.

After about 10 minutes, the truck was burning out of control. As a group of people were
preparing to push the bus away from the burning vehicle, a badly injured person climbed down
from the truck and said it was carrying a dangerous cargo, Xinhua said.

The explosion occurred as people began running away. It was later discovered that the truck
was carrying 60,000 detonators and 40,000 meters (132,000 feet) of fuse, Xinhua said.

It quoted witnesses as saying that casualties would have been worse had rescuers not got the
last minute warning from the injured person who came down off the truck. The witnesses said
that they had seen that the truck was laden with boxes, but that the boxes were not labeled
with their contents.





[X][IMMORTALITY]

Fountain of youth doesn't cause cancer

Appearing forever young is everybody's dream. But, biologists wonder, what good is
immortality if all those extra years are accompanied by cancer?

That's the quandary posed by the discovery earlier this year that a body substance called
telomerase is an "immortality enzyme" that encourages cells to keep dividing indefinitely
instead of dying with age.

Scientists theorised that telomerase could be used to slow the aging process. At the same
time, some feared that the enzyme could cause cancer by letting cell division run amok.

Now, new experiments by the same University of Texas team of researchers have concluded that
such fears are groundless.

The researchers watched human cells divide hundreds of times in test tubes and concluded
that telomerase does not by itself turn healthy cells into malignant ones. In fact, they said
the enzyme may offer promising new ways to treat cancer.

"Telomerase does not cause cancer progression," said Woodring Wright of the UT Southwestern
Medical Centre in Dallas, a co-author of the study, published Tuesday in the January issue of
the journal Nature Genetics. "The abnormalities seen in cancer are due to other mutations."

Other researchers said the experiment is too limited to exonerate telomerase.

They said that while telomerase may not cause cancer by itself, it appears to play a
fundamental role in the growth of cancerous cells, even if the cancer itself is triggered by,
say, radiation or a virus.

"There is no simple statement that telomerase is irrelevant to cancer," said Ronald DiPinho
of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard University. "It's a very complex subject."

KEYWORD: NETNEWS 1100

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