Times Colonist from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada • 1

.0 If Tonight, Thursday: Cloudy, Showers rr i Classified 386-2121 News 382-3131 WW 95th YEAR, No. 74 VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1978 15 CENTS DAILY, 30 CENTS SATURDAY Insulin 147 JOBS AFFECTED Bred Posties Waiting Sithole's Offices Bombed In actena The provincial government Tuesday merged its two money-losing bus systems and said it will sell off its charter and sightseeing wings. Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Hugh Curtis said 117 jobs will be affected although he said most will be found other work. DUARTE, Calif. (UPI) In a major genetic engineering feat, scientists at the City of Hope Medical Centre today announced the first production of human insulin in bacteria "tricked" by the insertion of artificial genes.

Laboratory manufacture of the hormone means that human insulin can soon be made available for the first time to diabetics whose lives depend on daily injections. The insulin now being used is extracted from the pancreas of slaughtered cattle and pigs, and the supply is diminishing each year, the researchers said. They said they produced only a few grams of insulin from bacteria in the laboratory, more than enough to prove the validity of the experiment. About 300 units, or 3 cubic centimetres of insulin, are produced from a slaughtered cow or pig, a spokesman said. The average diabetic insulin user requires about 10 units or four-tenths of a cubic centimetre, each day.

The development, combining some of the most advanced techniques in the rapidly expanding field of genetic manipulation, was announced by the 10 collaborating scientists from the City of Hope and Genentech a research and development laboratory in South San Francisco which funded the work. "We've managed to trick E. coli bacteria into making human insulin," Dr. Arthur Riggs of the City of Hope said in an interview. "It took a year, beginning last September until the final product.

That was on Aug. 9." The work on insulin began shortly after the same team of researchers chemically synthesized the hormone somatostatin in the first demonstrated practical benefit from recombinant DNA technology in which scientists are able to combine segments of hereditary material from organisms of different species to create life forms with new chacteristics. Dr. Kciichi Itakura, one of (he City of Hope re- searchers, said about 10 to 20 per cent of all diabetics are allergic to animal insulin and while the human population is increasing rapidly with an associated increase in diabetics of about 6 per cent per year, the animal popula- tion is decreasing. "The insulin shortage becomes more severe every year," he said.

"There are about 6 million known dia- betics in the United States alone and about 1 million are insulin users." Liberals Widening Lead In Gallup Poll The since bombing i error' rf Jack Thomas, current general manager of VICL was named general manager of the new operation. Curtis said VICL. the B.C. Hydro-operated PSL and their sightseeing, tour and charter services are losing in excess of $8 million a year. The merger of the bus services will end a duplication of See MAJOR page 2 Bill Halkclt Photo fear for lives Summit Talks Begin Times News Services CAMP DAVID President Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, secluded in an idyllic mountain setting, today began efforts to mediate peace in the Middle East.

Carter met with Sadat early today following an initial meeting with Begin Tuesday night. The first meeting of all three men is expected later today in talks that could last 10 days. Hard-line Arab leaders, meanwhile, reacted to the summit today with gloom, predicting it would mean the end of Sadat's peace initiative and possibly point the Middle East toward war. Syrian President Hafez Assad and Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat both suggested Sadat would get nothing at Camp David. WACKY 78 KELOWNA (CP) There will be no grand birthday-party today for former premier V.

A. C. Bennett. Instead, he is spending his 78th birthday quietly at home with his family, says wife May Bennett. Mrs.

Bennett said her husband has an ulcer and is on a strict liquid diet. She said he requires almost round-the-clock care. On Old Couple OTTAWA (CP) Letter carriers are in a legal strike position today. But whether the 18.000 members of the Letter Carriers Union of Canada will withdraw services will not be known until later in the week when results of a strike vote are in, union spokesmen said. Union president Robert McGarry says if members authorize a strike, the union will be ready to walk out at the end of the month.

Main disagreement with the post office is over a cost-of-living formula. A mediation panel recommended an 18-month contract with a 40-cents-an-hour wage increase retroactive to July 1 and a further 30-cents-an-hour increase effective July 1, 1978. The last contract expired June 30. Air Woes Sept. 20? MONTREAL (CP) Another Air Canada shutdown could come as early as Sept.

20 if members of the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants Association agree this week to give their union a strike mandate. The airline's 2.7U0 flight attendants belonging to the union are currently taking a strike vote by mail and the vote results should be known by Sept. 15. hours a day in an effort to get the NHB bac to the bargaining table. The workers are seeking an 80-cent-an-hour wage increase to reach parity with dockworkers employed by private companies.

The current base rate is $8.33 an hour. Spoke said the harbors board offered to meet with the union if it would be flexible in its demands. "The union, however, is apparently not prepared to depart from their position, which has not changed on the basic issues since the negotiations were started several months ago," he said. Births Classified Comics Deaths Entertainment Family Finance Gardening Sports I 1 1 SALISBURY (Reuter) A hand grenade was thrown at the headquarters of black nationalist leader Ndabaningi Sithole's party in central Salisbury Monday night, military headquarters said today. There were no casualties and only slight damage, communique said.

The offices were empty at the time. Meanwhile. Rhodesian troops, many of them off-duty volunteers, scoured black guerrilla strongholds today for a gang said to have killed plane-crash survivors in one of the worst episodes in the Rhodesian war. Judge Jaunt: $45,000 VANCOUVER The cost of giving 29 senior Quebec judges a two-week English language training course at the Bayshore Inn in Vancouver with teachers brought in from Ottawa was around $15,000. But almost twice as much tax money was spent during the same two-week period ending Sept.

1 for 50 senior federal judges from English Canada (including B.C.) to learn French while staying at the Chateau Bonne Entente in Quebec City. English and French judges got the same deal: Economy-class airline tickets, two weeks' accommodation at a first-class hotel and a $25 daily stipend for expenses. Sol Samuels, commissioner for federal judicial affairs, said in a telephone interview from Ottawa Tuesday that a language immersion program for judges with a budget this year of $170,000 has been operating several years. 1 Samuels said the decision to hold this, year's English language training for Quebec judges in Vancouver 3,125 miles (5,073 kilometres) from Quebec City followed a suggestion from the Quebec judges that the program be held someplace "interesting." When the program was offered at a resort in Northern Ontario, he said, only five applications had been received from francophone judges. Samuels said he felt the $6,500 extra in air fares to hold the training in Vancouver rather than a place like Toronto was "money well invested in the over-all picture because the response was really great." FIKSTX It) UYB IDZZAVGOWc.

tion would have provided about 55 jobs." As a result of the decision, Charlish said Victoria Cable-vision will continue broadcasting on Channel 10. Victoria viewers would not have lost KING-TV, Seattle, Channel 5, if CBC had constructed its local transmitter and started broadcasting, Charlish said. The cablevision service planned to put community programming on Channel 11 and move 11 to midband. Ms ways CANADIAN DOLLAR TOUCHES LOWEST MONTREAL (CP) The Canadian dollar set another 15-year low on New York money markets Tuesday after the Bank of Canada released figures showing it intervened heavily in August to support the sagging currency. The dollar closed at 86.77 U.S.

cents on the inter-bank wholesale market, down 11-50 of a cent from Friday's closing of 86.99 cents. By noon today, it was down even further at 86.66 U.S. cents. The last 15-year low was recorded only last Wednesday, with the dollar slipping to 86.86 cents before recovering slightly by week's end. Currency markets were closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

One trader said continued negative market reaction to the figures, released in Ottawa Tuesday, could push the dollar further down for the rest of the week. In the last two months, Ottawa has spent nearly $1.1 billion of its U.S. dollar holdings to support live dollar, which has been losing confidence among market participants because of Canada's economic situation. About 77 employees, mostly with PSL will, in Curtis words, become redundant, but the minister said Hydro promised they will all be absorbed into other Hydro operations. In the special sevices charters and sightseeing areas about 70 will lose their jobs.

Curtis said the Public Ser An elderly Victoria couple said today they fear for their lives in the wake of a firebomb attack on their home over the weekend. Artem Sokalski, 77, and his wife Mary, 71, her nose and chin bearing scars of a terrorist-style attack in which a home-made Molotov cocktail was hurled through their bedroom window early Sunday, said other neighbors are also fearful. The firebomb, which burned Mrs. Sokalski's face and caused about $2,000 damage to the couple's duplex at 1136 Empress, was tossed through their window at about 5 a.m. "It was an attempt to murder us," Sokalski said.

"There's no question about that." Sokalski said he believes the bomb, a gasoline-filled pop bottle with a rag attached, was a reprisal for numerous calls the couple has made to police over the past six months about noisy parties. "Everyone in the neighborhood they get no sleep either, and phone police. But they (the noisemakers) put all the blame on me." Sokalski said he has lost count of the number of times he has complained. One night he called poiice four times because of loud noise and shouting- "I've written to city council, talked to the chief of po- It's official the CBC has indefinitely suspended plans for its new Victoria station originally scheduled to start broadcasting Nov. 30.

CBC president Al Johnson said station CBUVT on Channel 10 will be delayed as a result of a $71 million budget cutback ordered by the federal government. But CBC regional director Len Lauk said today construction will continue on the Blanshard Street site and the City vice Commission will endeavor to find other work for them. He said the number who will lose their jobs altogether will be minimal. Vancouver Island Coach Lines and Pacific Stage Lines becomes Pacific Coach Lines with headquarters in Victoria effective immediately. i wm they live in deadly pleaded for help," he said.

"The police come and the noise stops-for a time. But everyone fears retaliation." He said that three weeks ago an unidentified caller-warned him if he. called po- lice again the caller would "fix" him. The following week there was another party and Sokalski contacted police. Twelve officers in five cars arrived and quelled the disturbance.

Early last Sunday, Sokalski said, he and his wife were in bed when they heard noise. "My wife she was still awake woke me and said they were starting a party again. But a few minutes later the noise stopped. I looked out the window but couldn't see anyone. The light was on in the veranda." He said he returned to bed.

Suddenly there was a loud, explosion and the room filled with flame. Mrs: Sokalski face was burned when she grabbed window drapes and tried to smother the flames. "If we'd hesitated just one second we'd have been dead," he said. "The flames, they were all over." A team of city police detectives and arson investigators are continuing their investigation. As yet no charges have been laid.

But until they are and the culprits are caught, the Sokalskis will live in fear. $2 million building will be finished on schedule. Broadcasting equipment worth about $5 million wHl not be installed for at least a couple of years. Lauk said. He said CBC executives plan to meet with Victoria council to discuss proposals for use of the building.

Johnson said CBC expects CHEK-TV to remain an affiliate and continue providing national service to Victoria and surrounding areas. CHEK planned to join CTV Port Pickets Idle Shipping TORONTO (CP) The federal Liberals in the first week of August widened their lead over the Progressive Conservatives and were supported by 15 per cent of the decided voters, according to a Gallup poll released today. Thirty-three per cent of those questioned were undecided. The poll shows the Conservatives were supported by 35 per cent of the decided voters and the New Democratic Party by 15 per cent. The remainder of the decided voters supported other parties.

Poll results are based on 1.015 personal interviews with eligible voters, 18 years and over, across Canada. The question asked was: "If a federal election were held today, which party's candidate do you think you would favor?" The poll was taken four days after Prime Minister Trudeau made a speech on television in which he pledged to reduce govern-' ment spending by $2 billion, reduce the size of the public service and convert the post office to a Crown corporation. In July, the Liberals had 42 per cent of the decided voters, the Conservatives 31 per cent, the NDP 19 per cent and other parties had five per cent. Opposition Leader Joe Clark said in- Vancouver today that he hoped the latest Gallup poll results would give Prime Minister Trudeau the courage to call an election. Clark said he would be delighted if an election was called and said he was confident he could win.

The results indicated the Conservatives were ahead in nine provinces and behind in See GRITS Page 16 In Vancouver, the CBC's announcement was immediately applauded by Garth Pither, chairman of the Association of Lower Mainland Cablevision Operators. "We're definitely enthused because we had written to the CRTC suggesting it would be a good plan to shelf Channel 10 until such time that it develops substantially-different programming than Channel 2, Vancouver," said Pither in an interview. Record Flooding CALCUTTA (Reuter) -India's worst monsoon flooding in years has driven an estimated two million people from their homes in the east- em state of West Bengal and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands in the area around the national capital of New Delhi. See story on page 2. PWA Files Suit VANCOUVER (CP) Pacific Western Airlines and Canadian Acceptance Corp.

filed a $12.1 million suit Tuesday for damages arising out of the crash last Feb. 11 of a PWA Boeing 737 at Cran-brook in which 43 persons died. See story on page 33. Train Link Cut HONG KONG (IPI) -Hanoi has shut off its train link with China and may be preparing public opinion for a worsening of the Sino-Viet-namese border conflict. See story on page 56.

Somoza Irate MANAGUA (WP) An irate President Anastasio Somoza accused Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez Tuesday of trying to "provoke a bloodbath in my country." See story on page 3. Druggist Charged QUESNEL (CP) Donald Clark Dickie, owner of Spencer-Dickie Drugs, chose trial by judge and jury when he appeared in court Tuesday charged with fraud over $200 following an investigation involving the provincial Phar-macare program. VANCOUVER (CP) Container facilities at the Port of Vancouver were idled Tuesday as 136 striking National Harbors Board employees increased picket action. The clerical and maintenance workers, represented by the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union, local 517, went on strike 10 days ago in a contract dispute. They had been picketing harbors board offices and maintenance sheds, but Tuesday they set up outside three other NHB facilities Vanterm, Centennial Pier and Lynnterm.

About 750 longshoremen refused to cross the picket lines. Bulk exports such as coal, wheat and lumber, were still being handled by private terminals: Fred Spoke, port general manager, said in a news release that several vessels were being directed to other terminals in port, while Canadian container cargo is being off-loaded in Seattle. A spokesman for Casco Terminals the stevedoring operation at Centennial Pier, said the company is losing several thousand dollars a day. Union spokesmen said the picketing would continue 21 taiion Chopped CBC 8 after CBC Victoria opened. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has already approved the move.

CHEK-TV news director Tony Cox said station heads are discussing the effects of the CBC decision. A spokesman for Victoria Cablevision said today he is sad the new station will not be operating this year. "I'm sad about it, because Victoria had a lot to gain." said Len Charlish. "The sta.