• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1979-04-19_Vol44_No29_03

APRIL 19, 1979/THE WESTERN CAROLINIAN/PAGE 3 WCU faculty In Nepal / CIML to head foreign assistance WCU's Center for Improving Mountain Living has been chosen to head a U.S. foreign assistance planning team for development of aid to Nepal that could run to millions of dollars. A nine-member planning team, some of whose members already have flown to Nepal, will be headed by Mark Freeman, director of the WCU center. The planning effort, and the measures expected to be recommended, are aimed at helping the Far East kingdom overcome historic soil erosion, flood, and agriculture problems now acutely pressing the Nepali government. Gov. Jim Hunt, who himself spent two years in Nepal as part of a Ford Foundation agriculture assistance program, announced the new venture at a meeting in the Governor's Office with Western Carolina Chancellor H.F. Robinson and other officials involved in the undertaking. Western Carolina, they announced, will be the "lead institution" for development of the long-term plan that will form the basis for action by Nepal and for U.S. assistance. The U.S. aid will be administered by the Agency for International Development (AID). An estimated $6 million already has been projected by AID for the effort during 1980-85. For 1979-80, a $547,000 grant for the planning team's work has been awarded to an organization of southern and eastern higher education institutions, South East Consortium for International Development, (SECID), headquartered in Chapel Hill. Freeman will leave for Nepal in early May but three Western Carolina team members already are in Nepal. They are Dr. Patrick Morris, head of the department of sociology and anthropology and a specialist in Nepal rural life; Dr. Gary White, a watershed management specialist in the department of earth sciences; and Darold D. Westerberg, a forestry specialist under special employment at Western by arrangement with the U.S. Forest Service. Westerberg will be the American team leader, sharing the leadership role with a Nepal co-leader. The total program that will be in design through 1980 will exceed the U.S. investment. According to AID data, Nepal will spend the equivalent of $3 million and a number of other countries and international financing agencies will assist. Robinson said the importance of Nepal to the United States is urgent because of the country's strategic location between China and India. But most importantly, he said, the people "desperately need help." Hunt said he is "awfully proud" of the project and sees it as an opportunity to help a "great country of wonderful people we have a moral obligation to help." Too, he said, the project is a chance to demonstrate that North Carolina universities can help solve problems in that part of the world. The design team, whose members will spend varying periods of time in Nepal, is charged with helping Nepal develop a plan for conservation and reforestation. The plan then will be put to work in selected mountain areas. The implementation period, Freeman said, could extend almost indefinitely. He said he expects CIML to continue to be involved for the lifetime of the aid program. Freeman said the team is charged with developing: Ways to reduce erosion in mountain regions that now lose an estimated 240 cubic million meters of soil annually. Flood control measures in an area with four major river systems that have 6,000 tributaries. Ways to implement the right technology to improve farm production in mountainous areas where two-thirds of the nation's people live but where only a third of the soil is arable. Reforestation programs, including employment in forestry programs because agricultural employment is only marginal. Farming systems (or improving them) that mix crops and livestock to make the best use of limited land. The program also is expected to help establish in Nepal's farming practices crops not now grown in the country. It is expected, too, to start the use of alternative energy sources in addition to wood and manure, now the most common fuels. If the programs work in the selected areas, the techniques are expected to be applied nationwide. A training component will begin Nepal middle-management persons to the U.S. for advanced degree training in American colleges and universities, and the first are expected next fall. In addition to the WCU specialists, team members include one N.C. State faculty member, a Research Triangle Institute representative, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture range management expert, and faculty members from two Alabama institutions. the world at a glance The World at a Glance Is compiled from the wires of Associated Press. Edited by Al Lagano BOSTON—Former Sen. Edward W. Brooke and his ex-wife are being sued by the state of Massachusetts for recovery of more than $84,000 in Medicaid payments made in behalf of Mrs. Brooke's late mother. In filing the suit Tuesday, Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti said he has no plans to prosecute either Brooke or his former wife Remigia on criminal welfare fraud charges. The action came in a suit originally filed by Brooke in an effort to clear himself of the allegations. The attorney general's office filed a counter-claim Tuesday, seeking to recover the $84,387 in Medicaid payments made in behalf of the late Teresa Ferrari-Scacco. HARRISBURG, Pa.—The painfully slow process of cooling down the damaged reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is being accelerated through changes in the plant's plumbing. Harold Denton, chief of Nuclear Regulator Commission operations at the plant, said Tuesday that technicians hope to lower the temperature of the reactor's cooling water by another 10 degrees. He had announced plans last week to reduce the water temperature by 10 degrees per hour from about 280 degrees down to 230 degrees, but it was only down to 245 degrees by Tuesday. WASHINGTON—Nicholas Galifianakis, a former Democratic congressman from North Carolina, says he is innocent of charges that he lied to a House committee when he denied receiving money from South Korean rice dealer Tongsun Park. The innocent plea was entered Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey in Washington. Galifianakis, 50. of Durham, N.C, was charged with accepting $10,000 through an aide while running for the Senate in 1972. BANGKOK, Thailand—The Thai armed forces have launched a campaign against a large Communist stronghold in southern Thailand, a military spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman said artillery and helicopter gunships were assisting infantrymen attacking the Krung Ching camp, in the Sala district of Nakhon Si Thammarat province, 350 miles south of Bangkok. Border police said the government was preparing to evacuate some 350 families in another southern province because of the growing influence of the insurgents. JACKSON,Miss.—The bloated Pearl River was slowly receding today in crippled Jackson, but more evacuations were ordered downstream as the floodwaters surged southward. The river, which crested at 43.3 feet in the Mississippi capital Tuesday—more than 25 feet above flood stage—had dropped back to 42.5 feet early today but thousands remained isolated from their homes. WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court, voting 6 to 3, ruled today that public figures suing for libel may inquire into a journalist's "state of mind" and the editorial process behind the allegedly libelous statement. Handing the news media a major legal defeat, the justices ruled that reporters and editors enjoy no constitutional protection from having to answer such questions in libel cases. "We have concluded that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals misconstrued the First and 14th amendments and accordingly reverse its judgement," Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court. The decision is a big victory for former Army Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert, who is suing CBS and others in a $44.7 million libel action. WASHINGTON—President Carter announced today he will nominate Gen. Robert H. Barrow, a three-war veteran who cracked down on training abuses, to become the 27th commandant of the Marine Corps. Barrow, holder of the Navy Cross and the Army Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism" in the Korean and Vietnam wars, will replace Gen. Louis H. Wilson, who will retire June 30 after four years as head of the 187,000-member Corps. The 57-year-old Barrow, a native of Baton Rouge, La., has been assistant Marine commandant for the past 13 months. SALISBURY, Rhodesia—Officials predicted another big turnout of voters yesterday on the second day of the Rhodesian election. More than 20 percent of the nation's black and white adults went to the polls on the first day and only a few guerrilla attacks were reported. In the first eight hours of the five-day polling to elect Rhodesia's first Parliament with a black majority, more than 568,000 of the 2.8 million black voters and 100,000 whites cast ballots Tuesday. Even optimists among white election officials were surprised by the black voters' response. "It's startling," said one. The turnout in northeast Rhodesia far exceeded the national average, although the region is heavily infiltrated by Robert Mugabe's guerrillas based in neighboring Mozambique. TEHRAN, Iran—Two of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolutionary committees executed seven more persons early Wednesday for killing innocent persons, Radio Tehran announced. The announcement said six military men, ranging in rank from private to major, were executed in Tehran after a revolutionary court convicted them of involvement in the killing of hundreds of demonstrators against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the capital last Sept. 8. WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court, employing a logic scorned by four of its members, says states may prevent aliens from teaching in public schools. The effect could be to keep French citizens from teaching French to American children or, as in the test case, English-women from teaching English grammar in public schools. The justices split 5 to 4 Tuesday in upholding a New York law that prohibits aliens who do not seek U.S. citizenship from teaching in the state's public schools. MONTGOMERY, Ala.—A new execution date of April 27 has been set for condemned killer John Louis Evans III, who now is cooperating in legal efforts to block his electrocution. The state Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Evans put to death on that date in the electric chair for the January 1977 slaying of Mobile pawn shop owner Edward Nassar. The action came one day after Attorney General Charles Graddick asked that a new date be set. WASHINGTON—Absences without leave, the most prevalent crime in the nation's armed forces, cost the government an estimated $1.1 billion between 1973 and 1977, a new report says. The nation's sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines went "over the hill" 608,000 times in those four years, according to the General Accounting Office study. The study said the Marine Corps had the highest AWOL rate, the Air Force the lowest. And the report by the congressional investigating agency said punishments given service men and women who went AWOL varied widely and were not likely to be more severe for repeat offenders than in first-time cases. KAMPALA, Uganda—Troops still loyal to Idi Amin are reportedly killing officials in eastern Uganda believed sympathetic to the new government in Kampala. With the invasion force of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles still preparing to extend the new govenment's authority to northern and eastern Uganda, the deposed president's forces were reported on a murderous rampage in the eastern city of Tororo, near the Kenyan border.

The Western Carolinian is Western Carolina University's student-run newspaper. The paper was published as the Cullowhee Yodel from 1924 to 1931 before changing its name to The Western Carolinian in 1933.

• Creator
  • Western Carolina University
• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date original: 1979-04-19
  • Date digitized: 2018-09-10
• Extent
  • Dimension: 15" x 11.5"
  • Pages: 20 pages
• Subject - Topic
  • College student newspapers and periodicals
  • Cullowhee (N.C.) -- Newspapers
  • Universities and colleges -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee -- Newspapers
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1979-04-19_Vol44_No29
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library