The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 9

The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday, November 27, 1987 Page 9 The unseen threat to Egypt's City of the Dead Soviets optimistic despite Star Wars Menll levels of underground water have risen and its salinity has increased. At the end of this chain, the limestone of the tombs and the sandstone of the monuments have drawn up the waters, so that salt crystals form, eroding surface inscriptions and murals. At the same time, the tourists like to touch the ancient surfaces some even carved their names in them, Mr Bell said while their body heat in the enclosed tombs added further to the moisture problem. Chicago House archaeological centre here. Luxor and the Nile valley are held to contain the world's biggest concentration of ancient sites, chronicling civilisations that flourished thousands of years ago.

The testaments to its wealth and power remain in the great spread of temples in what is called the City of the Living on the Nile's east bank, and in the myriad tombs and shrines that stipple the barren valleys of the City of the Dead on the west bank. "Eventually," Mr Bell said, "they are just going to have to take the best preserved parts and put them into climate-controlled museums, separated from the water table." Such is the crisis in the tombs of Nakht and Menna, dating from 1,450 BC, that they have been closed to visitors while a Scandinavian team experiments with the installation of a glass tunnel to shield the ancient inside from the modern outside. The New York Times But according to Egyptologists, the filling of the Aswan High Dam, 225 kilometres upstream, has started an ecological chain. The dam has stemmed the annual floods that swelled the Nile with waters from East Africa. That in turn has permitted year-round cultivation by irrigation, which has moistened air that dried when the old floods were over.

Sustained agriculture, moreover, has weakened the alluvia that once sustained the harvests, so more fertiliser is needed, while the LUXOR (Egypt), Thursday: Those concerned with preserving the tombs and temples in this ancient city that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists here each year say apprehension persists that profound shifts in the environment, and the effect of the tourists themselves, are gradually destroying the monuments the visitors come to see. "This generation of scholars and tourists may well be the last to see the sites here as they are," said Mr Lenny Bell, of the American 1 TALKS at camp ISRAEL mm wJWMfwi 4 Wk 1 -jTY MOSCOW, Thursday: A senior Soviet arms control official says completion of a treaty to cut superpower arsenals by 50 per cent is feasible despite President Reagan's renewed commitment to Star Wars. Mr Viktor Karpov, head of the Foreign Ministry's Arms Control and Disarmament Directorate, told a news conference that he believed a draft strategic arms pact could be worked out before the President's planned visit to the Soviet Union next spring. He said Tuesday's agreement in Geneva on the terms of a pact eliminating intermediate-range nuclear forces had cleared the way for the Kremlin leader, Mr Gorbachev, and President Reagan to concentrate on strategic arms at their Washington summit. Asked whether a strategic arms accord might be threatened by President Reagan's statement that he would not give up his Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), or Star Wars, Mr Karpov said he viewed SDI as "an internal American "The most important thing is that we have the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty ruling out the development of large-scale ABM systems," he said, noting that the NEW YORK, Thursday: The United Nations Secretary-General, Dr Javier Perez de Cuellar, may abandon his effort to negotiate a cease-fire in the Persian Gulf war if an Iranian diplomat does not arrive here for talks by next week.

On Tuesday, Iran's representative at the United Nations, Mr Said Rajaie-Khorassani, told the Secretary-General that the Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Mohammed Jawad Larijani, will arrive in New York "early next week" for new talks on the Security Council's peace plan. He said the same thing last week. Earlier this month, the Secretary-General told both Iran aad Iraq he wanted them to send high level negotiators by the end of this month to reopen talks with him. The New York Times treaty banned deployment of Belfast paralysed in night of rioting BELFAST, Thursday: Hoax bombs paralysed Belfast and snipers attacked police and troops in a night of rioting that left three injured, police said today. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), fighting to oust the British from Northern Ireland, admitted stealing 24 cars, dumping them around the city and telling police they contained bombs.

Rush hour traffic yesterday ground to a halt as bomb disposal experts checked each vehicle. Snipers fired at security forces and one army patrol was attacked with hand grenades. Two men were injured when an incendiary bomb exploded on a bus. Armed men broke into the central railway station and set fire to a train. Meanwhile, a man at the centre of an Anglo-Irish extradition tangle was back in police custody after a car chase involving a Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams.

Paul Kane, who escaped from the Maze Prison four years ago, was released earlier in the Irish Republic, despite a warrant issued by Belfast Crown Court. Kane, 32, from Belfast, was released in County Longford and was being kept under surveillance by police pending the arrival of the warrant rom Belfast. He left a solicitors office in Cavan and went to a house outside the town which was surrounded by troops and police. Sinn Fein in Dublin said Kane was driven away from the house iri Mr Adams' car with Irish police in pursuit and claimed that the car was forced off the road into a ditch. K- They said Kane then tried to run off across fields, but was tackled by police and taken under armed escort to Cavan police station.

Police in Dublin confirmed that Kane was being held on an assault charge, but refused to comment on details of the re-arrest beyond saying that a car had been stopped for dangerous driving. Kane was arrested on Monday at the start of the Irish security forces' anti-terrorist crackdown, along with a second Maze escapee, Dermot Finnucane. The warrant against Kane was over his jailbreak during an 18-year attempted murder sentence. Reuter, Press Association By THOMAS FRIEDMAN JERUSALEM, Thursday: At least one Arab guerilla landed in a light aircraft just outside an Israeli army base in northern Israel last night and managed to kill six Israeli soldiers and wound at least seven others before being shot dead, Israeli military officials said today. The attack was believed to be the first time that guerillas from Lebanon had actually carried out an attack against an Israeli Army position inside Israel.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a pro-Syrian Palestinian guerilla group, said it sent in a formation of hang-gliders to attack an Israeli military camp and lost one pilot in the assault The Israeli military officials said the aircraft was apparently some kind of motorised glider that had taken off from somewhere in southern Lebanon and managed to elude a unit of Israeli helicopters scrambled to intercept it It touched down at about 10:40 pm some 4.75 kilometres south of the Israel-Lebanon border, on a road just outside an Israeli Army outpost near the settlement of Beit Hillel. Complete details about the attack were being withheld because the Israeli army censor was holding up their release until families of the killed and wounded Israeli soldiers were notified. The area of the incident was sealed off by the army and no reporters were allowed in. At least one Arab guerilla managed to fly his glider to a point right next to the base, jump out of the cockpit and begin spraying machine-gun fire in all directions as soldiers rushed toward him, the military officials said. A firefight lasting 30 minutes or more followed before the attacker was shot A military official said six Israeli soldiers were killed.

In addition, a spokesman for the Safed area hospital, the largest medical centre in the area, said five soldiers, including four men and a woman, were brought in with wounds ranging from light to serious, at 1 1 :30 pm. The spokesman said two other space-based systems such as SDI. "Both sides recognise that any future agreement on the reduction of strategic arms requires that the two sides reach an agreement that within an agreed time period they should not withdraw from ABM and should strictly observe its provisions." Analysts said this represented a shift from the previous Soviet stand that SDI development posed a serious obstacle to deep reductions of long-range nuclear arsenals. Moscow has said it would counter a future SDI deployment by building up strategic arms to increase its chances of penetrating A Port-Au-Prince worker leaps over the remains of a roadblock set up by the pro-election groups. Haiti's voters turn on their tormentors soldiers, one in serious condition with a bullet in the skull, were flown by helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

Hours after the guerilla from the aircraft was killed, hundreds of Israeli troops, guided by helicopters with searchlights and flares, were combing the area, trying to determine whether other gunmen were involved. During the search a worker at a nearby collective farm was shot and wounded. The army blocked all roads around Beit Hillel and most residents of nearby Qiryat She-mona and other farming settlements spent the night in concrete underground bomb shelters. Israeli military officials appeared uncertain where the aircraft took off from and whether it had been able to get aloft on its own power or was lifted by another plane. The closest available air strips to northern Israel are in Cyprus; at Rayak air base, which is controlled by the Syrian army and is situated in the Bekaa in Lebanon; at Beirut International Airport, which is also under Syrian control; and at Syrian air force bases near the Golan Heights.

The most recent cross-border penetration into Israel from Lebanon took place on April 19 when three guerillas cut a hole through the border fence and managed to cross a few hundred yards into Israel before being killed in a shootout, which also claimed the lives of two Israeli soldiers. The New York Times the space-based missile shield if war broke out, making weapons cuts illogical if SDI development went ahead. But Mr Karpov warned that the deal to remove medium and shorter-range missiles from Europe would be called off if the US Senate did not ratify the treaty. He said Moscow viewed the completion ot the lNr pact as a unique phenomenon" in the interests of both sides and it was wrong to think in terms of Soviet or US By JOSEPH TR EASTER PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Thursday: As election officials struggled yesterday to organise the presidential elections scheduled for Sunday, neighbourhood defence groups killed four men suspected of anti-election terrorism. The officials, who have been hampered by violence and a lack of Government support, said the emergence of the self-defence groups in the capital and three other towns indicated that Haitians were determined that the first round of elections should succeed despite this week's rise in anti-election violence.

But they are worried that the counterattacks could be used by the army-dominated provisional Government as a pretext for cancelling the elections. With 80 per cent of voting materials waiting to be distributed, the officials were unsure yesterday of being ready in time for Sunday's poll, the nation's first presidential election in 30 years. But they assumed the elections would still take place. The anti-election violence that surged early in the week, has apparently diminished as a result of roadblocks and patrols mounted by neighbourhood defence organisations. The groups, armed with clubs and machetes, stayed in the streets until dawn yesterday.

However, election officials said that gunshots were fired outside the national election headquarters on Tuesday and that gunmen killed a teenager yesterday in the capital. bullets as it stopped for a roadblock in a residential section of the capital. No-one was hurt. US officials said yesterday that they were urging the Government to provide security and a "calm atmosphere" for the elections. Many Haitians and Western diplomats say that four people are front-runners among the 22 men and one woman standing for the presidency.

They are: Sylvio Claude, 53, a Baptist minister who was a well-known opponent of the Duva-lier dictatorship; Gerard Gourgue, 63, a lawyer and human rights activist; Marc Bazin, 55, a lawyer and former senior official of the World Bank; and Louis Dejoie, 59, a millionaire businessman. The New York Times Later, gunmen killed a pregnant woman in a city street. Election offices on the north coast and in central Haiti were set alight. At least two of the men killed by the groups appeared to have had no involvement in violence. They were identified as employees of a private security agency.

They had been beaten to death after guns and ammunition had been found in their car. The bodies of the other two victims, one of them identified by election officials as a police detective, had been mutilated and burned. Radio Metropole, an independent station in the capital, reported that 10 members of the groups had been arrested. Yesterday, an unmarked US embassy van was hit by three advantages. The treaty provides for the destruction over a three-year period of all superpower nuclea missiles with a range of 500 to 5.000 kilometres.

The Soviet side will eliminate some 1,500 war heads, over three times more than the US side. Reuter Assault team called in I ii 1 1 i xl i s44 -i A J. I USA JLUAX XSxxxxxS xs xx xx xx. Wft xixxx xx --xXX5- XSXX x-X X. A A Itliiiii xr Sxasx xx Xk to jails themselves in for protection and some Cubans believed to have not been part of the uprising were taken out of the Atlanta jail by bus on Tuesday.

In Washington, a Defence Department spokesman said the Army team was sent to Atlanta at the request of the Justice Department "to give technical advice to the civilian authorities in "We won't comment on the role or the nature of these advisers as we might exacerbate the situation and endanger the hostages," he said. Mr Michael Quinlan, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, said his patience was "I think that the situation will go on as long as the hostages are unharmed," he said. US authorities consider about 2,500 of the Marielitos the 125,000 Cubans who left on a boatlift from Mariel in 1980 to be undesirable because of their previous criminal records or mental incompetence. "We are willing to die here if you make any attempt to send us back to Cuba," one inmate, Carlos Marrer-to-Gonzalez, told a camera crew which was permitted to enter the prison compound. Agence France-Presse xvlftX vV4x xJS Stl xff Nylon coated wire mesh on castors $100.00.

Mobile file holds over 25 files with 2 storage baskets under. Available in black or white S95.00. Optional files in white S1.75. ATLANTA, Thursday: Rebellious Cuban prisoners who want to remain in the US continued their stand-offs at two jails yesterday as a crack army assault team arrived here. At the Atlanta jail, the inmates took 26 more hostages who had been holed up in the prison hospital.

A hostage, who identified himself as a guard, said "They're going to kill us if anything stupid is done" as the Army Special Operations Forces arrived. "The Cubans are ready to put an end to all of us," he said. At the penitentiary in Oakdale, Louisiana, Cuban inmates holding 28 hostages said they would accept being sent to countries other than Cuba. "I would be happy if another country would accept them," said Louisiana Senator John Breaux. The prisoners are refugees with criminal records who started the riots on Saturday after Friday's announcement of a pact with Cuba to send them back.

Picture by REUTER-UPI Mrs Maria Silva is overcome with joy after seeing her husband leave the Atlanta jail with other inmates on a bus. Tutu's backing for violence splits Church JOHANNESBURG, Thursday: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other South African Anglican leaders have aroused a storm of protest after endorsing a document which says anti-apartheid movements are justified in using violence. The Anglican Church's top executive body, the Provincial Standing Committee, voted unanimously on Wednesday to accept a statement issued by the World Council of Churches. The statement says that the "nature of the South African regime" compells "liberation movements" like the African National Congress (ANC) to use force to end oppression. A dissident group of white Anglicans attacked the committee's decision, saying the Church was being subverted by "a small leadership group bent on politicising the Church for its own It said the decision would lead to an exodus of members and a loss of funds, and it challenged the Church to hold a referendum on the issue.

Meanwhile, South African police, in an unusual move, have given permission for the former ANC chairman, Mr Govan Mbeki, to address a rally. Mr Mbeki, 77, a close friend and colleague of the jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, was freed this month after serving 23 years in jail for plotting to overthrow white rule by force. The rally will be held on Saturday at a stadium in Zwide, a black township near Port Elizabeth. The Government uses its powers under the state of emergency to ban most black political rallies. Mr Mbeki's words will not be heard in South Africa outside the stadium, as he is a "listed communist" and the local media are banned from quoting him.

Mr Mbeki, responding to written questions last week, said the Government would have to drop all apartheid laws before the ANC would be prepared to negotiate with it on the issue of political power. Asked the minimum conditions that the Government would have to meet, he said: "The basic condition is that apartheid must go South Africa has flatly rejected a UN demand to withdraw its troops from southern Angola. "South Africa will not be prescribed to in this manner regarding its security," said the Foreign Minister, Mr Pik Botha. The UN Security Council unanimously demanded on Wednesday that South Africa halt acts of aggression against Angola, unconditionally withdraw its forces and respect the country's territorial integrity and independence. Reuter, The New York Times 4 Late on Tuesday, inmates at the Atlanta prison released five of their 74 hostage but then, early on Wednesday, a competing faction of inmates stormed the prison hospital and seized 26 other people.

US prisoners who had turned Officials say they have been stumped by a lack of leadership among the inmates. At the Atlanta prison, where the prisoners with the worst records are housed, the inmates have included US citizenship among their demands. Nylon coated wire holds 12 pairs of shoes. Available in black or white. S35.00.

Zhao spells it out: the party is over for bureaucrats i-5 CHINA Suitable for home and office. Black or white frames In 3 sizes $55. $70. $75. Baskets in 3 sizes $13, $17, $25.

Optional extras are a set of 4 castors $6. or two sizes of tops. $18. $26. Nylon coated wire.

$8.50. If Mr Zhao succeeded in reducing the party bureaucracy, millions of mostly low-level officials in the 46-million strong party would have to be moved to other jobs, they said. Since most senior officials and company managers were party members anyway, the party would continue to exercise direct control, they added. The New China News Agency said the country's 27 million officials would be divided up into distinct management systems and no longer be subordinated to central or local party organisations. Around four million Government workers would be the first to be separated, forming a civil-servant system under the State council (Cabinet), it said.

REUTER industry and Government at all levels. "Party committees were bogged down in administration and had to set up big offices with an army of full-time functionaries," Mr Zhao Separation of party and Government was the key to political reform in China, he declared. The speech was made to a meeting of the party's central committee on October 14 but was made public only today. Diplomats said Mr Zhao's main aim was greater economic efficiency. At present, State firms have a two-tier management system where the party committee gives orders to managers that often fly in the face of economic realities.

1 MSI BEIJING, Thursday: The Chinese Communist Party leader, Mr Zhao, Ziyang, has called for thorough' political reform in his first major policy speech to be published since coming to power on November 2. Dominating the front page of the party newspaper, People's Daily, today, it attacked China's huge bureaucracy and stressed the importance of stopping the party from interfering in the daily affairs of A it QGPO is A 100 Mr Ziyang his main aim is greater economic efficiency..