The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 1

(7I riI 1 '''ii- 4ft i''S'ill 2 1 Mill i I $1.75 minimum outside Lower Mainland Vancouver, British Columbia, Saturday, March 8, 1997 http:www.vancouversun.corn $1.25 retail I $1.35 coin box INTERVIEW WITH 1. 1:::::.. ,1,,,, A 1.5 1 r-7. 2'71 i rck, A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH THE ROCKET Three years ago the Canucks confounded everyone and went to the Stanley Cup. Pavel Bure was magical.

But now a question hangs over the Russian Rocket does he still have it? In a talk with The Sun's sports editor, Bure reflects on his superstardom. See Pavel SPORTS, D1 Drama heightens when Langley hostage-taker angered by CKNW broadcast Host, les freed as gunman gives up A-G orders inquiry into sex abuser's probation Man holding four hostages at a furniture plant demanded to exchange hostages for a coworker he had fought with. A victim's father said he warned officials about Michael Gibbon when he was on probation, but nothing was done. JEFF LEE ....17.7, 777.71 ..1.:. 1 i '1 :1,:: ii i.c,": 3 I' A.

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11 sii, DOUG WARD Vancouver Sun A tense six-hour hostage-taking at a Langley furniture plant ended Friday night when the gunman released two hostages and gave himself up. No one was injured, although a shotgun went off at the outset of the incident. The standoff took an ominous turn when the 29-year-old plant employee phoned Vancouver radio station CICNW. 'NW talk-show hosts Philip Till and Jon McComb had angered the hostage-taker, referred to only as Brett, with comments about the release of two other hostages earlier in the standoff. "I phoned to tell whoever made that comment about exchanging two hostages for french fries and a burger that it was incorrect and it made me look like an ass." He added: "This is a serious situation There is no humor involved." Police initially reported the man let two of his four hostages go in exchange for food, prompting a remark by one of the broadcasters.

Till apologized for the comment. The hostage-taker replied: "Apology accepted." He said he released the two because it wasn't necessary to have four hostages. The phone call came only minutes after RCMP Sergeant Peter Montague requested a media blackout on the standoff. The RCMP were concerned that the hostage-taker could become alarmed by the media reports a suspicion that quickly proved true. The hostage-taker told the broadcasters he would only release the last two CRAIG HODGEVancouver Sun GETTING READY: Masked members of RCMP emergency response team gather with police dog outside a cement plant before taking up positions around Hotzon Furniture plant in Langley where a gunman was holding four workers hostage Friday.

was "ridiculous and stupid." The gunman said the other employee had accused him of trying to hurt the co-worker. The co-worker had slipped and fallen on the plant floor. "I'm not here to let everybody go and walk out and be arrested. I'm here for one reason and that was to get Rob the other employee and now I'm stuck here and I can't get out." The hostage-taker told the plant owner over the radio that he had found the owner's dog and fed it some milk. Please see Hostage-taker, A2 hostages in exchange for another employee whom he had had a dispute earlier in tne week.

"And we'll have a long talk," he added. The gunman, who was called Brett on the radio, said his dispute with the man t'uncouver sun Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh has ordered an independent investigation into the justice system's handling of Michael Gibbon, the accused child pornographer believed to have sexually abused two little girls while on probation. And more disturbing details came to light Friday about Gibbon, who was convicted in 1992 of sexual interference with a two-and-a-half-year old. The victim's father said he warned a probation officer that Gibbon posed a serious risk to children, but it appeared nothing was ever done. The Vancouver Sun is not naming the father in order to protect the identity of the child.

Gibbon, 28, is in custody and has been charged with possessing and distributing child pornography. Police say he will also.be charged with bestiality and sexual assault of two little girls, aged three and four, whose rapes he photographed. At least five other potential victims have been found since police made a public appeal earlier this week for help in identifying the two girls. The father of the toddler Gibbon sexually interfered with said the man's fetish for small children was "a deep, dark family secret. "They don't want to say anything, but it isn't helping anybody," he said.

The father, who is now estranged from his common-law wife, said he warned a Chilliwack probation officer that little was being done by Gibbon's family to keep him away from children, even though a court order prevented him from being left unsupervised. The father said he also told police he saw a member of Gibbon's family destroying children's clothing and photographs that appeared to come from Gibbon's room. A justice system source told The Vancouver Sun police and probation officers were aware of continuing problems in the Gibbon household after the man was released from jail. The source said police believed family members were frustrating attempts to get Gibbon help, and when officers went looking for material they believed existed they couldn't find it. As a result, police couldn't press any charges of child pornography, the source claimed.

Phase see Neighbor, 42 Women's Day quiz stumps respondents New TV station to move in with Planet Hollywood these and I should," she muttered anxiously as she looked at the sheet. Less dejected but no doubt just as surprised was Vancouver Sun assistant city editor Graham Rockingham, who scored highest on the test, answeringll out of 13 questions correctly. International Women's Day was started in 1910 by Clara Zetlin, a German socialist leader, to commemorate women and their struggles. The march today starts at Vancouver's central library, I lomer and Robson, at noon and will finish there at 1. From 1 p.m.

to 4 p.m., there will be speakers, music and art performances. In the evening, there will be a dance at the Maritime Labor Centre. And there will be an all-day event including an art display, theatre and quilt-making workshops at the Kalayaan Centre, 451 Powell. As the commemorative event approaches, some people find they know little about it. FRANCES BULA tincomer Sun Today is International Women's Day so we ask you: What's considered to be the day's anthem? That's one of 13 questions on a women's day quiz prepared by B.C.'s women's equality ministry.

And it proved a poser as did the others when we put it to the curious, the underemployed and the overeducated hanging out Friday at the main branch of the Vancouver public library. Everyone who took the multiple-choice quiz was sure of one thing: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is NOT the theme of the annual event. "Although maybe it should be," said one woman, as she laughed over the question. The correct answer is Bread and Roses, a poem based on the slogan used by young women mill workers in Massachusetts in the textile strike of 1912. Other questions quiz, which the ministry sends out to every school and post-secondary institution in B.C.

for classroom use, ask when the Canadian women's suffrage movement began and when First Nations women in B.C. were given the vote. Kristi Yuris, a 24-year-old political science student at Simon Fraser University with a minor in women's studies, did the best in our poll at the library, getting nine of 13 right. Chris from Langley, who preferred not to humiliate herself publicly by giving her last name, got only one right: the first Canadian woman in space. "I don't know the answers to any of WILLIAM BOEI and MALCOLM PARRY writ ou er Sun Baton Broadcasting's new Vancouver TV station, CIVT, is set to join Virgin Records and Planet Hollywood as the latest high-profile tenant in the old public library building at Robson and Burrard.

CIVT's plans include a street-level studio on the Burrard side of the building, where passersby will be able to watch the station in operation. Officials of Baton BreCadcasting and the building's project developer, Edgecombe Realty Advisers, confirmed Friday they've signed a conditional agreement for the tenancy. Please see New television, A13 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY QUIZ A6 INDEX A growing hazard that's a threat to us all The air We breathe Bates 611 Coyne A23 Lamphier H2 Religion 63 Births Deaths A20 Crossword A21, 011, Landers B2 Saturday Review 61 Books 65 612 Lautens A23 Science 69 Boyd 611 Dykk 63 Letters A22, 62 Scott 89 City Limits A21 Earthweek 69 Lotteries A2 Sports D1 Bndge D13 Editorials A22 Macintyre D2 Theatres 67 Business 111 Entertainment B1 Mason D1 Travel Cl Careers 114 Ferry Schedule A16 Movies B2 TV B6 City and Region A15 Gardening E19 Nation Provinces A3 Voice Personals E24 City Limits A21 Horoscope A21, E22 New Homes El Westcoast People 810 Classified D8 E21, Fl Houston D6 Palmer A22 Wood A10 Comics B12 Kids Page B12 Parry Bll Yaffe A3 One GVRD study predicts a steady increase in total air-pollution emissions starting in 2000 if current trends remain unchecked. Even with adoption of a regional air-quality management plan, pollution levels would stay the same or worsen somewhat to 2020. For people with respiratory problems the quality of air, at least on some days of the year, can be a matter of life or death.

Please see Saturday Review in The Weekend Sun for environment reporter Larry Pynn's full report on the air we breathe. From the once-pristine snowpacks of the coastal mountains to the tightly closed windows of a Fraser Valley home, there are troubling signs of a growing problem with the air we breathe on the Lower Mainland. Evidence of new sources of pollution and ti3e complex route they travel are emerging from a wide range of scientific studies that show Greater Vancouver's air is in worse shape and is more of a health threat than was previously thought. Those people who grew up in Greater Vancouver in the 1950s might say conditions have improved significantly from the bad old days, when noxious beehive burners clogged the air with smoke, when residential homes burned coal or sawdust and when cars guzzling unleaded gas ruled the highways. But air-quality officials say the environmental gains of the past are fast evaporating.

Those gains are being overtaken by a burgeoning CLASSIFIED Fl LOTTERIES A2 Reader Sales and Service 24Hour automated service 736-2281 Outside the Lower Mainland 1-800-663-2662 Fax 732-2200 Classified 730-7355 124 PAGES FOUNDED 1886 7 VOL.111 No. 253 1 More showers It was supposed to rain Friday, but it didn't. We can only hope for more of the same. The forecast is for rain, A16 1 57040 10075 3 eh. Short legs, fat arms padded seats: their modelling career is over! 1 I ten ea In order to make room for The New Collection, Solacc (AS' Nft-or we've reduced all our floor models by up to 70.

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