The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 4

CITY REGION B2c The Vancouver Sun. Friday. July 12. 1996 Native Indian group to hold first annual conference and powwow ture 20 of North America's most celebrated drum groups and Indian dancers in traditional costume. Daily admission to the powwow is $7.00, or $15 for the weekend.

For information on conference costs and registration call Fred Anderson or Gus Wilson at 540-6054. Destiny Unlimited, a native Indian organization, has organized a Youth and Elder's Conference at the Sheraton Landmark Hotel on Robson Street, beginning Monday. The four-day conference is open to everyone. The powwow July 19-21at the Pacific Coliseum will fea A I A I) 0 Jericho Beach Hotcl fcst The Jericho Beach Youth Hostel will hold an open house and salmon barbecue Saturday to celebrate 25 years as the busiest youth hostel in Canada. The open house begins at 3 p.m., with hostel tours available on request.

Tickets for the barbecue are $7.50 for adults, and S5 for children under 12. The hostel's address is 1515 Discovery Street, right next to Jericho park. For more information call 224-3208. Hurnaby composting lessons The City of Burnaby engineering department is offering tips on backyard composting as a part of the city's Discovery Days Festival at Deer Lake Park on Saturday and Sunday. Visitors will be able to purchase compost bins for $25.

Discovery Days will also include children's rides, arts displays, a clay-a-thon and more. Call 291-6864. Granville and Drake closure The Granville and Drake Street in: tersection will be closed to all traffic except pedestrians and public transit this weekend, beginning at 7 a.m. Saturday. The closure is to allow city officials, to install a fire protection system for the downtown area.

Alternative routes are Seymour southbound and Howe Street northbound. For more information call Don Moore at 873-7362. B.C. Paint Care Association The B.C. Paint Care Association is furthering its efforts to provide environmentally safe disposal of paint products by opening a third location for paint drop-off in Burnaby.

The depot is located at 3984 Kitchen: er Street, and is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information contact PCA's toll-free information line at 878-8700. COMMUNITY CENTRE The Vancouver Sun 732-2445 month of July. Osteoporosis volunteers The Osteoporosis Research Centre at St.

Vincent's Hospital seeks volunteers to participate in a study on a new osteoporosis treatment. Participants will be given injections of a new drug at three-month intervals for three years. Volunteers must be post-menopausal women with low bone density and established osteoporosis to be considered for the trial. For more information call Natalie or Erica at 876-1741. Cancer society softball tourney The Canadian Cancer Society is playing host to the Wreckreational Invitational Slo-pitch Softball Tournament July 20 and 21 in Gibsons.

The society hopes to raise $2,000 for Camp Goodtimes, a camp for children with a history of cancer. For more information call Dave Cudlipp at 886-8779. Kids' help-phone fund-raiser Downtown workers can contribute to the Kids Help Phone by purchasing ice cream from the stand located at the Bentall Plaza on Burrard Street. All proceeds from sales will go to Kids Help Phone, a national bilingual 1-800 number that offers counselling to abused children and teenagers. The ice cream is on sale from 11 a.m.

until 2 p.m. every Wednesday for the CONGESTION from page 1 ENERGY from page 1 New Westminster confronts traffic issue Port Mann Bridge Sueensborouqh ridge yjU Pattullo Bridge pAlex Fraser Bridge to avoid shifting the problem from one area to another. The Kelvin neighborhood, with about 400 homes, is surrounded by Sixth, Eighth and 10th avenues. "We agree we have to have traffic," Puchmayr said. "We're the centre and the dissecting point for a lot of commuters.

But we're very vulnerable." Puchmayr is concerned that commuters will be tempted to use side streets when the arterials are jammed. In May, for example, city engineers counted 280 cars between 4 and 5 p.m. on 10th Street, a side street with an elementary school and a park. "People listen to the traffic reports on the radio and hear there's been an accident on Pattullo or Alex Fraser, and they take a short cut." He said his neighbors whose homes front major arterials face lower property values. "People are upset that all this traffic is going through, and there's no benefit to New Westminster," Puchmayr said.

"The three major arterials don't have shops, so people won't stop and do shopping on their way home. It's the last thing on their minds." Port Moody Mayor John Northey, chair of the public meetings this fall to collect ideas on the complex issue of traffic management. A 25-year traffic plan is expected early next year. Councillor Casey Cook said the city needs a comprehensive plan. "We are into situations where it's getting progressively worse in terms of numbers.

Neighborhoods are being overrun." City planners and engineers are considering a number of options to relieve the congestion, including bicycle networks and high-occupancy vehicle lanes. New Westminster, with a population of 49,000, is a victim of its geography, positioned as it is at the centre of a region of 1.8 million people. "They like the fact they live in the geographic centre; they have great access to all the ad jacent municipalities," city transportation engineer Renate Ehm said of New Westminster residents. "By the same token, they resent the fact that because we have such great access, we're in a prime location for people travelling through New Westminster." Chuck Puchmayr, president of the Kelvin Residents' Association in a neighborhood besieged by commuter traffic, says the problem must be addressed on a regional basis not neighborhood by neighborhood Consumption rates tested by residents monplace in homes of the future. Stafford, who lives in Burnaby, is one of 44 Lower Mainland residents who have volunteered to let the information highway pass through their homes.

He's part of an 18-month trial to monitor energy and water consumption that will include 10 commercial users such as restaurants, banks and schools. It is costing the utilities $300,000 in equip: ment and monitoring costs. "I think it's kinda neat," Stafford said Thursday when media people were in-, vited to view the fibre optics-based system installed and designed by B.C. Hydro, BC Gas, the Greater Vancouver regional district and Rogers terns. Some households are having the, information piped on to their TV monitors, others to their home computers.

In Stafford's case it is displayed on a special Vuphone. This a slightly-larger-than-avefage phone with a digital display above the number pad. The front of the phone can TRAFFIC FLOW: Map shows major arteries Greater Vancouver regional district's strategic planning committee, noted that Lower Mainland traffic volumes are forecast to increase by 60 per cent by 2021. This despite the expected introduction over the same period of transportation control measures such as high-occupancy vehicle lanes, bridge and road tolls, improved transit and bicycle lanes. Embezzlement suspect wanted in Thailand released on bail Migration key growth factor, B.C.

estimates wmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmm mmmmm LARRY STILL be flipped open and underneath is a full computer keyboard. It is the'sort of arrangement that will make possible home banking, payment of bills and thanks to fibre-optics access to the Internet. It could be used to turn lights on and, off by phone and to activate heating systems or home alarms. The information that pops up on the Stafford's Vuphone is simultaneously being fed into the computer systems of the three utilities. And for the first time they will be able to get a minute-by-minute picture of what is happening to energy and water use in an average home.

The implications are obvious. Monitoring equates to metering and metering spells control over use, which is what the utilities would like to Anthony Ho, a B.C. Hydro energy Sun Legal Affairs Reporter An Indian national sought in Thailand for allegedly embezzling bank funds worth $88 million Canadian was released Thursday in Vancouver on $1.2 million bail. Rakesh Saxena, a former treasury adviser to the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, was ordered to surrender his passport and report daily to RCMP. Saxena, 44, was arrested at Whistler by RCMP executing an extradition warrant.

The RCMP were accompanied by members of the Royal Thai Police. Saxena's release, pending an extradition hearing, came after defence lawyer Winton Derby denied news reports saying Saxena fled Thailand. Derby produced an affidavit signed by Saxena saying Thai police knew he was in Canada and spoke to him by phone at his Lion's Bay residence. Saxena said he agreed to meet in Whistler with Thai police to discuss the allegations. The affidavit indicated Saxena, far from avoiding the Thai police, sent a car to meet the officers at Vancouver International Airport and arranged their accommodations in Whistler.

He was arrested by RCMP after having lunch with the Thai officers. Police seized a briefcase containing $100,000 in various currencies. NICK DIDLICKVancouver Sun The massive increase in the Lower Mainland's population forecast by provincial demographers hinges on Ottawa significantly increasing immigration levels. B.C. Statistics estimated this week thatbout 37,000 new residents will settle in the Lower Mainland every year until 2021, pushing the population to 3.3 million.

But it says its forecast is based on the assumption that Canada will have 250,000 immigrants a year by 2001 and that immigration will continue at that level thereafter. Slightly more than 250,000 immigrants were accepted by Canada in 1992 and 1993, but the numbers have declined ever since. "We have got to try and second guess what the federal policy is going to be for the longer term," B.C. Statistics director Don McRae said this week of the assumption on which the long-range forecast was based. Provincial demographers expect B.C's share of newcomers to the country will fall after China resumes control of Hong Kong next June from 21 per cent to 17.5 per cent by 2001.

Despite a federal commitment to increase immigration levels to one per cent of the population about 300,000 at the current national population of nearly 30 million the range for this year is between 195,000 and 220,000 immigrants and refugees. The Economic Council of Canada recommended in 1991 that Canada reduce immigration by about 70,000 for one year so the country could adjust to a recession that eliminate ed jobs and raised tensions over immigration in Central Canada. The council said Ottawa should then increase immigration to one per cent of the population by the year 2015 and hold it there. During the 1993 election campaign, the federal Liberals said they wanted to raise the immigration level to one per cent of the population, but only if Canada was able to absorb that many. The government fell short of the one-per cent target by about 42,000 immigrants and refugees in 1991, by 32,000 in 1992, by 35,000 in 1993 and by more than 64,000 in 1994.

TEAM CARE: nurses Llewellyn Robles (left) and Nichole Reed are among the medical staff looking after Jane Doe on the Neurosciences Unit at Vancouver Hospital UNIDENTIFIED from page 1 management engineer, said ideally Hy-' dro would like to see a constant der" mand for electricity and not have to pro: vide a distribution system built to han-, die peak loads that occur for just a part of the day. "We know that's impossible, but we'd like to be able to reduce the load" that occurs between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.," Ho said.

"We are involved in the trial to find out more about the characteristics of residential use. It will provide us with up to date information instead of having to wait 60 days for a metre reading." The system will also show customers how much energy they are using. A switch has been fitted to Stafford's hot water tank that will enable Hydro to turn it on and off by computer in order to save energy at times when hot water isn't needed. Rolf Lyster, a manager with B.C. Gas, said any decrease in gas demands would enable the company to build smaller transmission pipes and reduce the size of pipes needed to serve average homes.

"That would be quite a saving," said. Woman remains stable the attack. Police have no record of the woman's fingerprints At the bail hearing Thursday, federal Crown counsel John Cliffe, acting for Thai authorities, told B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm the $88 million allegedly embezzled is part of a banking scandal that could involve $2.6 billion Canadian in bad loans. Surrey construction worker believed-murdered while on visit to Tennessee LORI THORLAKSON indicating she has no criminal record.

"We're frustrated," Tod said. "I'm frustrated as an investigator, plus others are as well. "We don't have a starting point." He wants to find the attacker. He would like to find anybody who saw anything suspicious early last Friday morning. Mostly, he wants to identify the victim.

In the meantime, she remains in stable condition at Vancouver Hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness, cared for by a team of people who feel compelled to be a bit more protective, a bit more caring. "We all want to see her make a good recovery," nurse Nichole Reed said Thursday. "Not that you don't with other patients. But you feel a special kind of a connection with a patient of this kind." She has no visitors except for police officers. No familiar voice at her bedside, soothing and encouraging her.

"So I think we feel obligated to fill that role," social worker Barbara Casson said. Llewellyn, Reed and the rest of the nursing staff speak softly to the woman at every opportunity, telling her where she is and who is in the room, telling her she has nothing to fear. "We don't know if she hears us," Casson said. "But I think we have to assume she does on some level." Dr. Christopher Honey, too, has special concern for his anonymous patient.

Since he does not know her medical history, he risks giving her medication to which she is allergic, or failing to prescribe something needed to keep her alive. More worrisome, without family on hand, Honey has only other doctors to consult before making potentially life-threatening decisions on her behalf. "It is," he said, "an uncomfortable feeling." Despite all of this, staff in the neurosciences unit at Vancouver Hospital deal with anonymous patients on a regular basis. In fact, the anonymous woman is the fourth such patient in a month admitted with a severe head injury and no means of ident ification. What makes this case all the more difficult, they say, is the violence involved.

"This just flies in the face of our inherent sense of all that is just and right," Honey said. "That feeling of revulsion at what people can do to each other it never goes away," Reed said. "No matter how many times you see it. It never goes away." Closed ballroom deal collapses Ross Patterson says he will not be the Commodore Ballroom's new tenant. Patterson, described as being with a group affiliated with the Texas-based, nightclub chain America Live, had been named by Morguard Investments Ltd.

as a prospective tenant of the Granville Street ballroom. Morguard manages the Commodore for the Ontario-based Pensionfund Ltd. But Patterson said Thursday the deal is dead and admitted he has no affiliation with America Live a fact confirmed by chain headquarters in Dallas. Asked to discuss the collapse of the deal, Morguard representative Rhonda Smith said she would make no comment to the media at this time. The fate of the Commodore has been in doubt since Drew Burns, who had run the Commodore Ballroom for the last 27 years, was told to vacate the premises at 870 Granville last month after his lease ran out.

As it stands now, the Commodore's 900-seat liquor licence has been suspended. Morguard has an application for a new licence before the liquor control and licensing branch. near the body. Personal effects, including several sets of keys and Canadian, German and U.S. currency, were scattered near the body.

The only luggage authorities found was a duffel-type bag that contained a number of receipts, including a plane ticket and documentation on two cars the victim had rented. Using the receipts and documents, detectives retraced some of Adams' steps before his death, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported. Authorities believe Adams rented a car July 9 in Vancouver and then drove to Seattle, he boarded a plane bound for Washington, Adams then rented a white Toyota Camry, was due back July 12. "We have no idea why he came to Chuck Denney of the sheriffs department'fold" the News-Sentinel. Adams checked into a motel a kilometre away from the construction site, just hours before death.

His rental car was located Thursday about 10 kilometres away from the construction site, Lyon said. Police did not have a motive late Thursday for the killing. Vancouver Sun Authorities believe a Surrey man whose body was found Thursday at a construction site east of Knoxville, was beaten to death. Surrey RCMP confirmed Thursday the victim is Robert Dennis Blair Adams, 31, of Surrey. Adams' partially nude body was found in a pool of blood at a construction site off Interstate 40 near Knoxville.

"He had been bludgeoned by some type of object," said Assistant Chief Keith Lyon of the Knox County Sheriffs Department. Corporal Pat Kratchmer of the Surrey RCMP serious crimes section described Adams as "a spontaneous individual. "He just up and decided to go for a trip. He didn't leave a message when he would return." Kratchmer said Adams was an unmarried construction worker. Police, who do not know why Adams went to the U.S.

this week, were searching late Thursday for anyone who may have heard from Adams shortly before or during his trip. Adams was found clad only in a shirt. His jeans, tennis shoes and socks were found by detectives rvirinrnfrJn-.