Daily News from New York, New York • 96

8 DAILY NEWS Saturday, October 10, 1992 IttrniiEnrilteltnrairercfl mm an U.S. demands release i i v- fay V1 vw-'' 5 P.l w. 4 'JL ii'- I v3- "-f0 1 .3 'J" vi ob Latif Khabbaj. "We know the border is not marked: that is why we have those problems around here." Disputed territory The area where Hall was nabbed was part of Iraq until it was returned to Kuwait in May under UN auspices. Baghdad still considers it Iraqi territory.

Hall's abduction is the latest incident to raise tension between Washington and Baghdad. It coincides with UN rejection of an Iraqi request to put off a visit by weapons inspectors next week. Nizar Hamdoun, Iraq's UN ambassador, sought to ease tension, telling reporters in New York that he hopes the situation does not escalate into a major crisis and that Hall "is safe and in good health." Americans detained by Iraq in the months just after the war were imprisoned for anywhere from a few days to a month, but were later released. But a Briton and three Swedes detained at the border in the last three months were sentenced to at least seven years in prison for illegally entering the country. Hall is working with Environmental Health Research and Testing of Lexington, Ky.

ROCKER Elton John guards his spot on Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame yesterday after becoming first entertainer to be so honored. As with the previous 25 inductees, John was cited for his many memorable appearances there 37 in all, if you count tomorrow's show. PAT CARROLL DAILY NEWS DrrgiDT(Soo FBI probing incident By NEIL MacFARQUHAR The Associated Press KUWAIT The United States yesterday demanded that Iraq free an American bomb disposal expert grabbed at gunpoint by Iraqi police along the Iraq-Kuwait border. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington that the U.S. had told Saddam Hussein's government to release Chad Hall immediately.

U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Edward Gnehm said he was working through diplomatic channels to obtain Hall's freedom. Hall, in his 50s and from the Houston area, was working under contract to clear explosives left over from the Gulf War in an oil-rich strip between Iraq and Kuwait The Texan's associates in Kuwait said the Iraqi cops argued with Hall and two Pakistani workers Thursday over whether they were on Iraqi or Kuwaiti territory. They then put a gun to his head, ordered him into his car, and forced him to drive away with them. UN observers, banned under Security Council ceasefire regulations from acting as police, did not intervene.

"We are trying to do whatever we can for his release," said UN spokesman Abdul- By VTJAY JO SHI Trie Associated Press NEW DELHI Scientists yesterday said they have created the first birth-control vaccine for women, with a single injection effective for an entire year. "We have proved that the vaccine does indeed protect women without any side effects," said Dr. Gursaran Prasad Talwar. "That's a very important milestone." Preliminary tests on 174 women suggest that the vaccine may act by preventing the fertilized egg from sticking to the wall of the uterus. AH other methods either physically block contraception such as condoms, diaphragms, lUDs and sterilization -or iise steroids and.

By OWEN ULLMANN and AARON EPSTEIN Kn-Rjdoer Newspapers WASHINGTON Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh lost a suitcase crammed with top-secret information when an aide checked it curbside for a flight from Los Angeles Inter- national Airport. The FBI has launched an intensive effort to recover the documents, which one source said had been taken to California for an interview with former President Ronald Reagan. "An employe's bag was stolen on an official trip," said Walsh spokeswoman Mary Belcher. "We cannot comment further." The Justice Department accused Walsh's office of a "flagrant violation" of security, procedures that could affect pending Iran-Contra cases and complained Walsh waited more than two weeks before reporting the loss. No officials would detail the suitcase's contents, nor indicate what impact their loss could have on national security.

But the bag was thought to hold highly classified government documents, including secret codes. During Walsh's nearly six-year-long investigation, the prosecutor's staff has obtained thousands of classified documents, largely involving secret U.S. activities in Central America, Iran and Israel. In an Aug. 14 letter to Walsh from Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, the incident was described in detail.

The letter was provided by a Bush administration source angered by Walsh's pursuit of Reagan and other Reagan officials, most recently the indictment of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Terwilliger wrote that Walsh's aide placed a folder containing the secret documents "in a suitcase, which he then checked with an airline at a curbside check-in station. At the conclusion of the assistant's flight to Dulles Airport (outside Washington), the suitcase was missing and has not subsequently been located." Classified coded Terwilliger described the missing papers as "highly classified" and including "code word material." Codeword refers to keys used to break coded messages. In recent weeks, President Bush has come under renewed questioning about whether he told the truth about his knowledge of the affair, in which the United States secretly sold weapons to Iran to free U.S. hostages f.

in, Lebanon ana usea the i 4 hormones foreign to the body such as the pill or Norplant This is the first birth-control method that makes use of a woman's immune system. "This is a very good vaccine, said Dr. Rosemarie Thau of the New York-based Population Council, a nonprofit research organization. "It may not be in its optimal form, but it certainly shows that a birth-control vaccine can work." Because it apparently prevents uterine implantation of a fertilized egg, the vaccine could run into opposition from anti-abortion aetivists1-r who contend -life; begins at conception and opposefcon-', traceptives that act after the it egg is i .1...... Teacher guilty in kid porn case CONCORD, N.H.

A teacher at the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy prep school yesterday was convicted of possessing and shipping child pornography. Lane Bateman, 51, was found guilty by a federal trial jury of keeping child pornography in his apartment and of mailing it across state "I expected get 'tapijed, but not zapped on all four1 (counts)," he saw aAerwaed- cc 1 Luuiiia uuui nit; mic iu tiu ail insurgency against Nicaragua's Marxist regime..