today in brief
THE MURDER TRIAL of Hel-mut Buxbaum, a millionaire nursing home operator, has been one of the most publicized in Ontario’s history. Page
BITTERNESS and a silver medal are all that’s left for the Canadian junior hockey team.
Page
IMPROVED medical care and better education are reasons for the sharp decline in pregnancy-related deaths in women 35 and older, a study suggests.
Page
LOTTERY NUMBERS - PAGE 2
13
16
HERMAN
"Do you think we'll be on TV?"
Index                        
                             
                             
City, B.C......... ......3,7 
                             
                             
                             
                             
Entertainment ...  ......8-9 
                             
Horoscopes ......  ......22  
International..... .......2  
                   .......8  
                             
                             
                   .......22 
Late hit Page 13
Sadrack says
   It’s expected to be sunny this afternoon with a few clouds, increasing cloud overnight with snow by Tuesday morning, when it’s expected to be mainly cloudy.
  The temperature should drop to near -5 tonight, with a high of 1 Tuesday.
  The probability of snow is zero today, 30 per cent tonight and 60 per cent on Tuesday.
   Sunday’s high was -7.2, the overnight low was -9, there was 8.8
 cm of snow in the past 24 hours and no recorded sunshine.
 Sunset today is at 4:06 p.m. and sunrise Tuesday is at 8:27 a.m.
Details page 7
The
Prince George
Citizen
40c
Monday, January 6, 1986
WARSHIP
BUILDUP
 DENIED
   TRIPOLI (AP) — Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy says his country is in a “state of war,” ready to repulse any attack from U.S. warships in the Mediterranean and warns an onslaught will be answered by attacks inside the United States.
   Libya’s state-owned news agency JANA also quoted Khadafy as saying the Libyans almost went to war Saturday with the United States, which accuses Tripoli of abetting the Palestinian group Washington blames for the airport raids that killed 19 people, including five Americans, in Rome and Vienna on Dec. 27.
   “The U.S.A. mobilized yesterday no less than 40 warships in front of Libya and we have considered this a state of war and have announced the state of preparedness in the air and naval forces and air defence,” JANA quoted Khadafy as telling reporters Sunday at a farm project outside Tripoli.
   Pentagon officials denied the charge.
   “It would be physically impossible for us to put 40 ships off Libya,” said a U.S. navy source in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There are only about 20 ships in the (U.S.) Sixth Fleet normally, and that includes everything. There are only about 15 combatant ships” in the Mediterranean.
ANALYSIS, page 2
  bu I leti n
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A balky fuel line valve today forced a second postponement of the launch of Columbia on the first of three consecutive space shuttle missions to study Hailey’s comet.
   The launch was rescheduled for 7:05 a.m. EST Tuesday. The seven-man Columbia crew includes a U.S. congressman from Florida.
Volcano tremors force evacuation
  BOGOTA (AP) — Scientists using seismographs and helicopters kept constant watch on Nevado del Ruiz, trying to determine whether another major eruption of the Colombian volcano that killed 25,000 people in November would follow new tremors and ash showers.
   The government said Sunday it would keep about 15,000 peasants out of valleys near the volcano “until further instruction.” Police using sirens roused the peasants Saturday and gave them blankets and food for a trek to higher ground.
   Tolima state authorities said Sunday many people had to be almost forcibly evacuated and many were in a state of panic. Evacuees took only their most valuable possessions with them and thousands huddled in mountain caves as torrential rains soaked the area.
   The 5.395-metre volcano trembled for the second time in two days Sunday and chunks of ice drifted down rivers.
   About 70 scientists have kept watch on the volcano since the Nov. 13 disaster. Pablo Medina Jaramillo, co-ordinator of the group, said Sunday the volcanic activity first noticed late Friday “continues without change.”
   Medina Jaramillo said the state of maximum alert will probabl) last through today. He said scientists are monitoring the Nevado del Ruiz around the clock with seismographs and continuous helicopter flights over the mountain.
   The government put the area on maximum alert Saturday after the first sign of new activity.
Citizen photos by Brock Gable
Keep trying!
 Learning how to skate is going to take more than just one weekend, three-year-old Tristan Moore discovered during an outing at the Prince George Speed Skating Club oval at the Exhibition grounds. Just when he thought he had it all together, it slipped out from under him. But after being coached by mom, Tristan was ready to give it another try.
 DOLLAR HITS HISTORIC LOW
Liquor helps oily birds
   SOOKE, B.C. (CP) — Canadian whisky is proving to be effective medicine for oil-soaked birds caught in slicks believed to be from a tanker that ran aground last month at Port Angeles, Wash.
   A drop or two of the liquor appears to help revive the birds rescued in a volunteer effort that has brought in about 50 birds, Ray Nestman, regional district director of this southern Vancouver Island community, said Sunday.
   “Canadian Club seems to work the best,” said Nestman, who has been helping to co-ordinate waterfowl rescue efforts since patches of oil were first noticed on area
  beaches Friday, nearly two weeks - after the spill 40 kilometres southeast of here.
     “When you’ve got a bird that’s in particularly bad shape, (whisky) seems to be the only thing that will save them.”
    He estimated that about 400 birds have been contaminated with oil but little can be done to help them until they become so weak they seek refuge on the beach.
    Volunteers tried to catch some birds for treatment before they became too sick by setting out in canoes and rowboats with fishnets. About 20 dead birds were sighted during the weekend.
   TORONTO (CP) — The Canadian dollar hit a historic low against its U.S. counterpart today and one chartered bank raised its prime lending rate half a percentage point as a result.
   The dollar opened at 71 cents U.S. but rebounded slightly to 71.10 in morning trading. On Friday it had fallen to 71.02 cents — its previous all-time low — before recovering to close at 71.25.
   At this morning’s rate, it would take $1.4065 Canadian to buy one American dollar on the wholesale market. However, Canadians thinking of travelling south for a holiday will have to spend about $1.42 including commissions to buy one U.S. dollar.
  The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce announced it is raising its prime lending rate, available to favored corporate customers, to 10.5 per cent from 10 per cent, effective Tuesday.
   A spokesman for the bank said the increase reflects the weaknesss in the Canadian dollar and an associated rise in short-term interest rates.
   The chartered banks’ prime rate has stood at 10 per cent, the lowest level of the decade, for several months. However, the Commerce’s decision to raise its lending rate is likely to be matched by the other major banks and translate into higher loan and mortgage rates.
   Meantime, currency watchers say the Canadian currency is likely to continue slipping lower.
  Jim Snook, vice-president of Citibank Canada, blamed the dollar’s weakness on the federal government’s failure to tackle its budget deficit.
   “Anytime they run into any kind of opposition they back off,” he said. “They have got to show some leadership.”
   And Barry Davenport, vice-president of foreign exchange at the Bank of Montreal, said foreign investors have not been encouraged by the government’s willingness to raise taxes rather than reduce spending.
   “They’re not too impressed with our fiscal policy,” he said.
   Other negatives include forecasts that Canadian economic growth is likely to slow, the recent failure of two small banks in Western Canada and a feeling that U.S. interest rates are no longer likely to decline as had been expected in December.
   The Bank of Canada has been actively trying to defend the currency as it slipped steadily lower during the late fall after climbing above 74 cents U.S. in the summer.
   The trend-setting bank rate rose last week to 9.62 per cent, its third straight weekly increase-
Meat inspection coverup alleged
by PETER CALAMA1 Southam News
   OTTAWA — The federal agriculture department is siding with the giants of the Canadian meat packing industry to cover up government reports of unsanitary conditions and improper processing in packing plants.
   Official documents show the agriculture department has ignored arguments from a federal information ombudsman that it had a duty to let the taxpaying public know which plants didn’t meet federal operating standards.
    Instead, agriculture officials plan to lobby Parliament for tighter secrecy blocking any public disclosure of “negative comments” in the regular government meat inspection reports.
   The documents, obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, also reveal that the agriculture department sympathizes with 10 of the nation’s largest meat packers who are battling in Federal Court to block public release of the critical reports under the existing access-to-information law.
   The meat giants involved include Canada Packers, Burns Meats Ltd., Gainers Ltd., J.M. Schneider, International Packers Ltd., F.W. Fearman and four others with packing plants in Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Kitchener, Waterloo, Burlington, Ont., Quebec City and Charlottetown.
   Meanwhile, concern over the proindustry bias of the agriculture department has prompted intervention in the court case by the federal information commissioner, the ombudsman who reminded the de-
 Eartment last March of its public ealth mandate.
    A top-level source in the office of the federal information commissioner confirmed last week that Commissioner Inger Hansen has agreed to join legal forces with a newspaper battling for the public’s right to know what government inspectors say about meat packing plants.
    Hansen’s intervention will be formally requested this week by the lawyer acting for the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, according to the source. Lawyer Hilde English said Sunday she couldn’t comment because of a secrecy order imposed on the proceedings in Federal Court by Associate Chief Justice James Jerome.
    At issue are secret inspection reports about meat operations similar to the rancid tuna reports that the government voluntarily made public in October. The meat inspection reports were available to the public until a policy shift in 1981 and are still available under U.S. freedom of information law if exporting plants in Canada are visited by U.S. inspectors.
Despite this publicity, the packing industry claims it would suffer
 financial harm from “sensational” news reports based on critical findings by inspectors but taken out of context. Accepting this argument, the agriculture department initially censored all critical findings from inspection reports released in 1983 and 1984 after access to information requests from Rubin and Jim Romahn, a reporter with the Kit-chener-Waterloo Record newspaper.
   But commissioner Hansen said the exemptions were not legally justified and Agriculture Minister John Wise pledged that his department would follow through on making the critical reports public.
   Inspection reports on about two dozen smaller packing plants were made public this summer, over the strenuous objections of the companies involved. An Owen Sound, Ont. plant complained that Canada “is slowly turning into a country much like Russia.”
   The largest meat packers, however, hired top-dollar Toronto law firms to oppose release of the critical findings, despite the recommendation of the information commissioner. These objections forced the current court battles where the meat packers are asking Jerome to block the release.
   And the agriculture department is not pressing for release of the inspection reports, despite Wise’s earlier promise. Participants in the closed-door hearings say the federal lawyer is standing on the sidelines and letting the solitary newspaper lawyer take on the six To-
 ronto law firms.
   The department’s pro-industry sympathies are evident in a Dec. 18 memo from an agriculture bureaucrat to Wise, reviewing the 18-month struggle after an earlier Southam News article.
   “The Department, while hesitant to disclose this information, did not have sufficient justifications from the meat packing plants involved to challenge the Information Commissioner’s interpretation in court,” wrote Jill Stern, co-ordinator of access to information.
   The existing legislation, said the memo, “is presently not worded in such a way as to protect the interests of third parties and this will be brought to the attention of the Justice Committee reviewing the provisions.. .”
   The 1983 access legislation guarantees Canadians the right to see records held by the federal government, subject to a host of exemptions. Private firms have previously challenged the release of information they provided in confidence to the government, but the meat packing case is the first involving release of reports prepared by government inspectors.
   Jerome is expected to rule by mid-January whether the entire court hearing will be held behind closed doors using sealed files, as the industry wants. The meat packers are also pressing for testimony in court rather than written affidavits, a move that would significantly boost legal costs for the Kitchener-Waterloo newspaper.
HIGH COSTS CITED
Medicare rates rise
  VANCOUVER (CP) - Rising costs will force the provincial government to raise medical care premiums April 1.
   Under the new rate structure, the premium for a single person will rise $1 to $18 a month. The rate for a person with one dependent will increase to $34 a month from $32 and families of three or more will pay $38, up from $36.
   The current rates have been in effect since last April.
   Health Minister Jim Nielsen, in announcing the increase, said it will help the Medical Services Plan, which insures all medically required services provided by B.C. doctors, meet "rising costs, which continue to exceed the growth in population.”
   Health care economist David Schreck, while noting the increase is in line with past gov-
 ernment policy, said B.C. is one of only three provinces that charge for medical insurance. He called the premiums a “head tax” and said they amount to “harassing low-in-come people.”
   The province maintains a premium assistance program covering more than 500,000 low-in-come people. Most pay 10 per cent of the full premium rate while about 20,000 pay 50 per cent.
   But Schreck said many people don’t have that protection and, as a result, might suffer from a lack of medical attention. He cited as an example a person who loses his job after working for an employer who paid all or part of his premium. That person would suddenly have to assume full responsibility for payment.