Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 10

World Saturday, July 16, 1994 B4 Star-Tribune, Casper, Wyo. -i Despite peace in Sarajevo, suicide attempt jump nlnmmptpft to less than one in 200 in the figures, but the number of attempts re- a I There is running water and electricity. Cafes and restaurants have reopened. People once again crowd the streets and ride in buses and trams without risk to their lives. But appearances deceive.

The elemental need to survive from one day to the next has faded with the end of shelling and sniping that made venturing outside as risky as Russian roulette. While a blessing, the lull also means time to take stock. Some, grappling with the loss of family and friends in a war that has left more than 200,000 dead or missing, are finding life is not worth living' Psychiatrist Zeljko Troganovic said five of every 200 patients coming to his department before the war came for therapy after attempting suicide. The number By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina Peace may have come to Sarajevo, but not to many of its residents. Suicide rates are soaring among people who faced war with courage only to find they cannot deal with its aftermath.

Psychiatrists at Kosevo, Sarajevo's main hospital, say they're seeing seven times the number of people trying to kill themselves than during Sarajevo's darkest days, when death from a shell or bullet could come anytime. Sarajevans today should be far happier than just five months ago, when a ceasefire began. Since then, an illusion of normalcy has returned. first year of the war, then started slowly rising in 1993. But only after the cease-fire was declared did it blip upward past prewar levels.

By March the rate was seven times that of 1992 and climbing. "In the first year of the war, the pure overriding need was to survive," Troganovic said. "People did not have a lot of time to think about suicide, and those with trivial motives realized that amid all the killing you won't be able to draw attention to yourself by killing yourself." By the second year of war, people's endurance started giving out and suicide rates started inching upward, said Troganovic. Police won't release suicide neci ine rising rmc. One patient, whose daughter was killed by shelling "would seek out the areas of worst shelling and then go for walks amid the explosions," Troganovic said.

"His reaction after being slightly wounded was, Why wasn't I lucky enough to be The real crisis came with peace in February, when mourners finally got the chance to dwell on the deaths of loved ones. The loss of a family member or special friend "is a bigger trauma than the loss of an arm or a'leg," Troganovic said. "For such people, it's very often a case of adding up everything worth living for and coming up with a First stumbling block TV news shies away from gory coverage Some stations offer 'family-sensitive' news By SCOTT WILLIAMS Associated Press writer NEW YORK The sensational, "if-it-bleeds-it-leads" approach to local TV news is giving way at about a dozen stations around the country to "family-sensitive" coverage that shuns blood and guts. "We're out of the body count said Paul Shipley, news director bf KGBT in Harlingen, Texas, which has been using the new approach since April. "We're as aggressive as we've ever been, just better focused." The stations offering "family-sensitive" or "family-friendly" news generally avoid sensational images of violence and gore, eliminating them entirely from the afternoon news and using fhem sparingly in the late news.

It's about having the courage to step beyond titillation and colorful video that is, on the surface, seemingly good local television," said John Lansing, who as news director of Minneapolis' WCCO is Credited with coining the term "family-sensitive," if not inventing the form. He said violent news video was scaring people and distorting their perceptions of their community and 'others. -The trend is not without its critics. "Unfortunately, the news is often disturbing by its nature, and to avoid disturbing the audience is ill-serving them," said Dave Bartlett, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "We have to be careful that in our zeal to be family-sensitive, w' don't lose sight of the fact that we still have to be doing news." for North Korea's new leader is the economy By PAUL SHIN Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea For Kim Jong II, securing his place as North Korea's leader 1 1 1 (n I Eric Braun, manager of consultation Jt though, discontent would have to be extreme to erupt into unrest.

North Korea seldom releases economic figures. But by its own acknowledgement last year, its economy is facing "grim difficulties." According to the Bank of Korea, South Korea's central bank, the North's economy shrank 4.3 percent last year and 7.6 percent in 1992. By the end of 1993, the North's per capita income was estimated at $904, compared with $7,466 in the capitalist South, the bank said. i "Even if it is open to the outside, the North Korean economy can hardly expect to make noticeable progress) since it is perennially plagued by such serious structural problems as extreme shortages of foreign currency, foods, basic materials and aging machinery," the bank said. The North's trade is also sharply limited, with little immediate prospect for improvement.

According to Japanese government figures, North Korea's trade totaled $2.7 billion in 1991 and $2.8 billion in 1992. Those figures wer compiled with statistics from China, Russia and 22 othef countries trading with tlje North. South Korea's state-run Korea Development Bank es-. timated the North's trade deficit at $590 million iff 1993. China is North Korea biggest trading partner, and their two-way trade hit a record $890 million in 1993 That was up about 30 percent from the previous year, according to the Beijing government, In 1984, North Korea, adopted a joint venture law tor attract foreign investment.

But it generated only a small amount of investment, nearly; all from pro-North Korean; residents of Japan. In its latest effort to lurt foreign investment, the North in 1992 set up a free trade area, patterned on China') special economic zones. It has adopted more than 20 new laws aimed at attracting foti eign investment to the zone; located in an isolated northern region. was probably the easy part. Now he has to cope with the isolated state's most pressing problem: its moribund economy.

Boding ill for those efforts is the fact that Kim who has taken the leadership role following last week's death of his father, Kim II Sung has already been responsible for day-to-day operations of the government for some time. Western diplomats believe the younger Kim, 52, may have even been the architect of policies that have helped send the North's economy into a downward spiral or at least failed to strengthen it. Under Kim Jong II, the isolated North is likely to pursue a Chinese-style economic policy, some experts predict. "It's only a matter of time for Kim Jong Il's North Korea to take the road to economic openness. There is no other choice," said Kim a political science professor at Dankuk University.

But Kim and others said such a path would likely lead to failure unless fundamental changes are made in the North's rigid central control over its economy. The North's huge defense expenditures are also a major stumbling block in efforts to revive the economy, they said. The country spent $5.5 billion, one-third of its annual budget, on defense in 1992, according to South Korean figures. The North's economy, never robust, fell on even harder times when the hard-line state lost most of its former trading partners with the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The isolation was heightened by the elder Kim's philosophy of self-reliance, known as "juche." Under it, North Korea's 22 million people were cut off economically and politically from the rest of the world.

Defectors from the North have told tales of hunger and hardship, especially in the countryside. In a tightly policed state like North Korea, Greg SailorAP Young astronomers look toward Jupiter from Columbus, Ohio, Thursday night Telescopes await comet collision and research for Frank N. Magid Asso-' ciates Inc. of Marion, Iowa, a media consulting company, said he, too, is troubled by the development. "I'm just real nervous about saying to the viewers that we are going to censor what you're going to see," he said.

In January, WCCO, the top-rated station in the nation's 14th-biggest market, became the first to identify and promote its newscasts as family-friendly. The impetus emerged from about 100 small, WCCO-sponsored "town meetings," with the station's executives, managers and staff. "The first words out of people's mouths were, 'Television news is too Lansing said. At a later meeting, Lansing said, a participant said that the problem was not TV news violence, but that TV did a bad job at covering crime issues in particular, and, in general, a bad job at putting the world into context. "That was a defining moment for hie," Lansing said.

In addition to eliminating violent video from the 5 p.m. newscast, WCCO created a new beat system to look at more complex issues, and added two fliH-time staffers to research crime databases for trends and statistics that would put a story in context. The station also established a "bill of rights" for victims of crime. Among other things, reporters covering crime stories cannot put microphones in front of people's faces without first asking permission, Lansing said. In Miami, CBS-owned WCIX has Used family-sensitive news since May 9 to counter top-rated WSVN, an independent known for its fast-paced, sensational coverage.

WCIX's 4 and 6 p.m. newscasts were changed with children in mind. "There are certain graphic images not just body bags, but also medical stories, in terms of blood where children can't interpret visual data as well as adults can, where they can't put it.into context," said news director Sue Kawalerski. "Our aim is not to put gore on TV to begin with, but there are some stories where a picture does tell the story," she added. "They air at 11 o'clock, where you do have a principally adult audience." Other stations using a family-sensitive approach include KRQE, in Albuquerque, N.M.; WLOS of Asheville, N.C.; WMAR, in Baltimore; WCNC in Charlotte.

N.C.; WB1R, in Knoxville, KWTV of Oklahoma City; WTAE of Pittsburgh; KXTV of Sacramento, KIRO of Seattle; and KGUN in Tucson, Ariz, i Kawalerski, Lansing and Shipley said That their changes have not significantly affected ratings, but that community reaction has been overwhelming approval. "It leads us to believe we're hit a hot button in the community, something that's been needed for a long time," Kawalerski said. WCIX actively promotes its family-sensitive approach, offering explanations when the broadcast does not show explicit video, and giving warnings when graphic footage is shown on the late news. Kawalerski rejected criticism that family-sensitive news is censorship. "Hogwash." she said.

"What we've done is expand our view of what's new A Impact point on beck of ptoewt Shattered comet to strike Jupiter The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, fragmented into 21 or more large pieces by Jupiter's gravity, Is due to smash into the giant planet in late July 1994. Observers on Earth, 485 million miles away, may be able to see disturbances in the planet's atmosphere caused by the impacts. Large telescopes will be needed to see the effects. TV station retracts story on prosecutor at Simpson estate WASHINGTON (AP) Astronomers worldwide, professional and amateur alike, are waiting with poised telescopes for the 21 -punch pounding of Jupiter by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. It starts this afternoon.

The comet fragments, arrayed in a string like a series of runaway freight cars, are bearing down on Jupiter at about 130,000 miles per hour. The first fragment, appropriately named 'A', splashes into the Jovian cloud tops at about 1 p.m. MDT today. The others will nit at roughly six-hour intervals during the next six days. What happens when they hit is anybody's guess.

Some scientists have said the speed and the mass of the mountain-size pieces could make each explode with the force of about 200,000 megatons of TNT, larger than any nuclear bomb exploded on Earth. By some estimates, each impact could trigger a fireball more than 1,500 miles across and rising 600 miles above the Jovian clouds. Other experts, such as Paul Weissman of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, predicting what he calls "a cosmic fizzle," where the comet could hit clouds shrouding Jupiter search at Simpson's estate the day after his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death outside Ms. Simpson's condo. If the prosecutor, Marcia Clark, was present before the warrant was issued, it could help the defense show that police knowingly seized evidence illegally and that it should be excluded from trial.

A source close to the investigation told The Associated Press that Clark got to the mansion at 12:30 p.m. and stayed about an hour to watch the search, which already had turned up bloodstains and a bloody glove. Neither the video nor the box that contained it indicated whether the time, 10:28, was a.m. or p.m. KCBS said 10:28 could simply be the time at night that the video was transmitted from a truck to the station.

LOS ANGELES (AP) A TV station Friday retracted a story asserting a prosecutor was at O.J. Simpson's estate before a search warrant had been issued. The KCBS report earlier this week was based on a videotape the station said was automatically stamped 10:28 on June 13, or 1 7 minutes before the warrant was issued by a judge. On Friday, KCBS said it could no longer be certain the tape was made then. "We want to apologize," reporter Harvey Levin said during a noon newscast.

"We now have reason to believe that we made a mistake in one of our reports." The district attorney's office, which denied the original report, praised the retraction as a "responsible action." The report had raised questions about the legality of the MWwlTMe Sana AMronony magunt PJ Chain. PropuKan Ubaratary and disappear without a trace. Writing in the journal Nature, Weissman said he expects the powerful gravity of Jupiter will further shatter the comet pieces, turning them into high speed gravel and ice. "They ill likely come in as an elongated shot- gun blast of smaller pellets," said Weissman. "Thus, the giant impacts will produce a spectacular meteor shower of bright bodies, but not the massive fireball explosions that have been predicted by some researchers..