today in brief
THE CONSERVATIVES cir-cled the wagons to protect British Prime Minister Mar-aret Thatcher, but the Opposi-on didn’t believe her explanation of her role in the Westland affair. An analysis. Page BUSINESSES that have been linked with sex services in other communities continue to spark heated debate in Prince George. Page
CANADA’S highest-paid executive says the country needs an “economic charter of rights,” so the poor have a chance to become rich. Page
Index
City, B.C.......... .....3,7
Entertainment....
Music awards page 2
The
Prince George
Citizen
Sadrack says
The weather is expected to be unsettled with intermittent sun and snow showers through to Wednesday. The predicted high today is near 2, with an overnight low near -10 and a high Wednesday near 3.
Monday’s high was 2, the overnight low was zero, there was 12.9 centimetres of snow and no sunshine recorded.
A year ago today the high was 9, the overnight low was -18, there was no precipitation or sunshine
Details page 7
recorded at the airport weather office.
Sunset today is at 4:34 p.m. and sunrise Wednesday is at 8:10 a.m.
4Qc
Tuesday, January 28, 1986
CREW OF SEVEN FEARED DEAD
Space shuttle explodes
Shuttle Mission 51-L explodes shortly after liftoff from Kennedy Centre this morning.
Labor congress chief named ambassador
McDERMOTT
by Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Dennis McDermott, the fiery outspoken president of the Canadian Labor Congress, has been appointed Canada’s ambassador to Ireland.
In a telephone interview late Monday, McDermott said Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had iust informed him he will take up the diplomatic posting which has been vacant since June 14,
1985, when Edgar Benson left the position.
McDermott, 63, said he was “very recently” approached to take the job but that he hadn’t been looking for it and didn’t know why he had been selected.
Asked if he was looking forward to going to Ireland, he replied. “Of course I am,” but declined to give any further details until the appointment is officially announced today.
CLC secretary-treasurer Shirley Carr has won congress executive backing to succeed McDermott at a convention April 28 to May 2 in Toronto. No candidate endorsed by the executive has been rejected by delegates who are to choose the new leader.
New Democratic Party Leader Ed Broadbent said he was delighted with the government's intelligent decision to appoint McDermott.
“It’s entirely appropriate that
the government recognize the very great contribution that Dennis McDermott has made to the life experience of ordinary Canadians that goes well beyond the trade union movement,” Broadbent said in an interview.
“He has devoted his life since coming to Canada as a young immigrant from Ireland to improving the condition of men and women in our country and that got its expression immediately in trade union activity,” Broadbent added.
“But he has fought for improved medical services, pension rights for all Canadians and has been front and centre in his expression of concern for such important matters as world-wide disarmament and has always done so without illusions.”
bul I oti n
REGINA (CP) — The Sas-katchewan legislature has been recalled to end rotating strikes by 12,000 provincial goverment employees.
Premier Grant Devine said today a letter had been delivered to Speaker Herb Swan to recall the assembly for 2 p.m. Thursday to deal with the dispute.
The premier told a news conference that legislation would be introduced based on the report of conciliator Vincent Ready as a basis for a new contract.
Scientology
founder
dies at 74
LOS ANGELES (AP-CP) - L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who founded the often-embattled Church of Scientology three decades ago, has died of a stroke, the church announced Monday night. He was 74.
Hubbard, who had not been seen in public since 1980, died Friday at his ranch near San Luis Obispo, 240 kilometres northwest of downtown Los Angeles, said Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International.
Scientology is based on Hubbard’s 1948 book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The book has sold millions of copies. Hubbard and his third and surviving wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, founded the organization in 1954.
Through the use of a so-called E-meter, somewhat like a lie detector, Scientologists undergo exercises and counselling to eliminate negative mental images and achieve a “clear state.”
“It’s mental technology to improve communication, intelligence, and give people the ability to be happy human beings,” Ken Hoden, president of the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles, said last year.
Hubbard did not control the organization and its corporations for the last few years, Jentzsch said.
Scientology’s Toronto headquarters was raided in March 1983 when more than 100 police officers removed 250,000 documents as part of investigation into allegations of fraud.
by Associated Press CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -Space shuttle Challenger exploded in a gigantic fireball about a minute after launch today, apparently killing all seven crew members aboard.
The $1.2-billion spacecraft, one of four in NASA’s shuttle fleet, appeared to be destroyed. Parts of the ship fell into the Atlantic, about 18 nautical miles southeast of the launch pad.
The crew included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, the first U.S. civilian to fly in space, along with commander Francis Scobee, 46, pilot Michael Smith, 40; Judith Res-nik, 36; Ronald McNair, 35; Ellison Onizuka, 39, and Gregory Jarvis, 41.
“Recovery forces were unable to enter the area for several minutes because of continuing falling debris,” a Mission Control commentator said.
NASA administrator William Graham was meeting with congressmen on Capitol Hill about the NASA budget when word came of the disaster. “NASA officials told the congressman it doesn’t look like any lives were saved,” said Steve Goldstein, an aide to Representative Manuel Lujan, a New Mexico Republican.
The flight had been delayed this morning because of fear that icicles on the launch pad could harm the shuttle.
NASA said the explosion occurred about 60 seconds into the mission at a point when the astronauts were beginning to throttle their engines up to maximum thrust. They had earlier throttled them back to a 60-per-cent level at the 35-second mark to reduce the forces of gravity during liftoff.
. It was the first in-flight disaster in 56 U.S. manned space missions, although three astronauts were killed in a 1967 launch pad fire during the Apollo program.
The explosion was a devastating setback for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration after successfully carrying out 24 shuttle missions in slightly less than five years.
Among those who witnessed the explosion were McAuliffe’s husband, Steve, and their two children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6.
Also there were members of Scott’s third grade class from Concord, N.H., displaying a large Go Christa banner.
They watched in stunned silence as the spacecraft blew apart. Several began crying and parents hugged others and quickly cleared
Challenger’s crew, from left, front: Michael J. Smith, Francis R. Scobee and Ronald E. McNair. Back row: Ellison S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis and Judith A. Resnik.
them off the viewing bleachers and herded them aboard buses.
McAuliffe, 37, had been selected from 11,146 teacher applicants to be the first to fly in NASA’s cit-izen-in-space program.
Spouses of the other astronauts were also at the Cape.
The shocking spectacle was also seen by millions of people in the United States and Canada who were watching the launch on television.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney told reporters he had expressed Canada’s grief to U.S. Ambassador Thomas Niles over what he called a monumental tragedy for the American people.
“It is a terrible loss in remarkably tragic circumstances,” Mulroney said in a statement.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes said President Ronald Reagan was “concerned” and “saddened” at the accident but had no immediate details.
The gleaming ship had risen spectacularly off the launch pad at 11:38 a.m. EST, after a series of weather and technical delays, and was climbing smoothly trailing a 200-metre geyser of fire when suddenly it erupted in a huge fireball and shot out of control.
“Vehicle has exploded,” said a voice at Mission Control.
Ships and helicopters raced to the area and the control centre said paramedics had leaped into the water. There was no indication how much of the shuttle was intact.
About 30 minutes after the explosion a serpentine trail of white smoke, twisted by the upper wind, remained in the clear sky, marking the path of the shuttle’s wreckage.
Doomed space shuttle mission blasts off earlier today.
PULP EXECS GET OUT CRYSTAL BALL
Citizen news services
MONTREAL — More than 10,000 representatives of the pulp and paper industry, gathered Monday in Montreal to start a week of discussions on the challenges of foreign competition.
Five executives from Prince George’s three pulp mills will discuss with other delegates issues such as freer trade with the United States, rising imports of European paper-making machinery and acid rain at the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association convention.
In Prince George, there are 1,200 unionized pulp workers, with a payroll of about $900,000 a week.
Howard Hart, president of the group, told a news conference Monday that “450,000 jobs in Canada depend on our ability to export.”
The falling exchange value of the Canadian dollar has helped the industry compete in the crucial U.S. market but that isn’t enough, he said.
The industry needs more efficiency at all levels — rowing trees and protecting them, harvesting, reaking wood fibres into pulp, making paper and controlling wage and transport costs.
Parallel to tne conference is an exhibition of pa-
G;r-mill equipment, billed as the world’s largest, art noted that much of the technology imported recently to modernize mills came from Europe.
He said his group has complained to the federal government that it has allotted too much of its re-
search budget to so-called post-industrial sectors, while forgetting “that we’re a big consumer of high technology.”
Frank Oberle, federal science minister, who was in the lumber business before becoming MP for Prince George, acknowledged this while opening the convention. “There may have been some misplaced priorities,” he said.
Last year the industry spent $3 billion in capital costs — maintaining, upgrading or building machines — even though Canadian mills were working at 90 per cent capacity, which isn’t considered healthy for a capital-intensive industry.
Hart expects that this year’s investments will range from $2.5 billion to $3 billion.
That will include $102 million being spent — mainly by the Quebec government — to rebuild the ITT-
Rayonier pulp mill in Port-Cartier in northeastern Quebec.
Cascades Inc., a Quebec paper company, is putting up only $5 million but will be half-owner of tne mill along with a Quebec government agency. Ottawa declined to subsidize construction.
Hart said his association is against such largesse.
“We’re against a policy where grants are made on a discriminatory basis, which favors some (firms) and discriminates against others. The industry favors a system that works through the tax system and is neutral.”