News in Brief

State

Proposal may soon open meetings to public, press

SANTA FE (AP) - The House approved a proposal Wednesday to allow the public and press to attend meetings of committees that negotiate the final version of legislation.

The House on a 45-19 vote endorsed the proposed rules change. The measure goes to the Senate for consideration.

House Republican Leader Ted Hobbs of Albuquerque said conference committees were the last policy-making panels in the Legislature that are closed to the public.

"We ought to let the sun shine in and let the people see what we are doing," said Hobbs.

Conference committees usually are six-member panels - three senators and three representatives - that iron out differences when the House and Senate approve different versions of the same bill.

The rules change would require a conference committee to be open to the public unless its members decided to close it for "good cause."

Opponents of the proposal said closed-door discussions helped in hammering out compromises. Allowing television cameras, reporters and the public into conference committee meetings may cause members to posture rather than seriously negotiate, they said.

Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said he had supported a similar rules change last year, but had changed his view about opening conference committees because "we get better government when people can be honest."

Rep. Edward Sandoval, D-Albuquerque, said, "We have nothing to hide except that we do need to discuss things in a frank way and sometimes that can't be done in public."

Hobbs and other supporters said the proposed rule would permit closed meetings when that became necessary, such as during discussions of sensitive personnel matters or litigation.

Just before a final vote on the proposal, Rep. Judy Vanderstar Russell, R-Rio Rancho, posed questions to her colleagues who were opposed to open conference committees: "What don't you want the people to know? What are you afraid of?"

Last year, a similar proposal passed the House but was rejected in the Senate.

"This is a good bill that is past due for passage," Bob Johnson, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said in a statement. "The next step is to get it through the Senate for the public good. FOG and the (New Mexico) Press Association have been working to open conference committees for the past two years, and this suggests that our efforts will finally pay off in the form of shining more light on the final creation of public policy."

Marriage license fee increase to be decided

SANTA FE (AP) - The cost of a marriage license would increase from $25 to $40 under legislation approved Wednesday by the state Senate.

County clerks would keep the revenue to cover their administrative costs, said Sen. Dianna Duran, R-Tularosa.

The bill went to the House on a vote of 23-14, after the Senate rejected an amendment that would have given couples a break on the extra $15 if they got premarital counseling.

"What we're doing is giving an incentive to couples to get the training they need to help them," said Sen. Mark Boitano, R-Albuquerque, who supported the amendment.

Opponents of the amendment said it would be difficult to get such counseling in rural areas, where psychologists are scarce and priests are already overworked.

Also rejected was a proposal by Sen. Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces, to eliminate the marriage license fee entirely.

Rawson said marriage should be encouraged and honored, not penalized.

"We shouldn't be taxing married people to run county government," the lawmaker said.

National

Hidden camera catches lounging airport security

DENVER (AP) - For two months, a TV station's hidden camera caught police officers spending hours behind the doors of a break room at the Denver airport when they should have been on patrol.

KCNC captured footage of one officer entering the windowless room during an NFL playoff game and exiting hours later. And one officer was clocked spending four hours of an eight-hour shift in the break room.

With airport security ratcheted up nationwide since Sept. 11 and with the Winter Olympics days away, newspaper editorial writers, callers to radio talk shows and city leaders were outraged by the footage last week, especially since the city has been paying thousands of dollars a day for extra officers to work at the airport.

"I went to the moon," said Councilman Ed Thomas, a former police officer and chairman of the City Council's airport committee. "How do you explain that you've got police officers, sworn to serve and protect, spending five hours watching football instead of watching the airport?"

Police Chief Gerry Whitman has launched an investigation that could lead to disciplinary action against officers.

On Monday, he announced the transfer of 10 people, including a former police chief who commanded the airport detail. A total of 247 officers are assigned to work full- or part-time at the airport.

Whitman said it appears security has not been undermined at the airport, which has had 20 additional officers assigned there since Sept. 11.

Capt. Tom Sanchez, former commander of the airport detail, did not return a call for comment Tuesday. Sanchez was asked to step down as police chief two years ago. His tenure included a botched drug raid that ended with the death of an innocent man.

Taxi driver Joe Henderson said the officers should lose their jobs.

"They're taking the city for a ride," he said outside the airport Wednesday. "With all the scrutiny they're getting, how could they not be there? Any other job, they would be fired."

Letter carrier Sidney Miller wasn't at all outraged.

"Everybody goofs off," he said at the airport. "Most of them do their jobs."

Gunman loose in Conn. capital, governor safe

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Reports that a gunman was spotted in the state Capitol complex Wednesday prompted authorities to lock it down, as the legislative session got under way.

Two women, making separate reports, told police they saw a man with a weapon on the top level of the Legislative Office Building's parking garage. One woman said the gun appeared to be a machine gun, Hartford police Lt. Neil Dryfe said.

The Legislative Office Building was evacuated, and state and local police searched it late into the afternoon, said Sgt. J. Paul Vance, a state police spokesman.

The reports came in shortly after Gov. John G. Rowland finished his annual budget address inside the adjacent state Capitol. Hundreds more people than usual were on hand for the opening session of the Legislature and Rowland's speech. The governor spent the day in the Capitol and was in no danger, someone from his office said.

"This is not an inconvenience to me," Rowland told WVIT-TV. "Unfortunately in this new world that we live in, we have to be safe and we have to allow our security people and our police and our law enforcement people do their job."

Streets near the Capitol and a nearby Interstate exit were blocked off and a state police helicopter hovered over the building. The state Supreme Court building, across the street, also was closed.

"I don't think there's any such thing as overreacting these days," said Republican Sen. Catherine Cook.

International

Avalanche may inhibit U.N. aid to Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An avalanche buried 20 cars in snow near a tunnel leading through some of Afghanistan's highest mountains Wednesday, a United Nations spokesman said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The cars were buried outside the Salang tunnel, about 80 miles north of the capital, Kabul, on the main road to the country's north, said spokesman Yusuf Hassan.

He said it was not clear how many people were trapped in the vehicles.

The Afghan government asked for international assistance to rescue people in the vehicles and the British-led peacekeeping force in Kabul sent a helicopter to the scene, Hassan said.

He said the United Nations does not have snowplows or bulldozers in the area.

In Geneva, Peter Kessler, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said, "relief operations won't be able to start until tomorrow, when it's light."

Kessler said he did not believe the cars were part of an aid convoy.

"No U.N. vehicles or U.N. personnel seem to have been involved," he said.

A spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Antonella Notari, confirmed that no Red Cross vehicles were trapped in the avalanche.

The Salang tunnel, a key link in connections between the country's north and south, was damaged during Afghanistan's wars, but was reopened last month after Russian-led repair works.

During the past few days, snow has blanketed parts of Afghanistan, blocking roads and isolating remote mountain villages.

Hassan said that U.N. relief agencies have emergency supplies in many large towns but are concerned that villages could run out of food if they are cut off for more than a few days.

"The snowfall is blocking off huge areas of Afghanistan," he said.

Helicopters needed to deliver vital humanitarian aid have been grounded in nearby Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Hassan said. Earlier, peacekeepers said that Kabul airport was closed due to the snow.

Iraq says it dismantled mass destruction arms

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Responding to harsh U.S. rhetoric, Iraq has reiterated its claims that it has dismantled weapons of mass destruction.

"The U.S. administration is aware of the fact that Iraq has fully cooperated with (U.N. weapons inspectors) and the International Atomic Energy Agency," an unidentified Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying in the al-Iraq newspaper Wednesday.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil," accusing them of seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Bush also has recently warned Iraq of unspecified consequences if it did not resume cooperation with the United Nations. In Washington Tuesday, an Iraqi offer conveyed through the Arab League for a dialogue with the United Nations drew a curt and negative response from Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"It should be a very short discussion," Powell told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The inspectors have to go back on our terms."

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry official quoted by al-Iraq newspaper claimed that U.N. inspectors worked in Iraq for years without finding any evidence Iraq had violated U.N. resolutions barring it from having weapons of mass destruction.

U.N. inspectors left Baghdad in December 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes, and Iraq has barred them from returning.

Last month, Iraq allowed International Atomic Energy Agency experts to begin limited inspections of a nuclear research center near Baghdad, but it said the visit is unrelated to U.N. demands on Iraq to dispose of its weapons of mass destruction.

The Iraqi official accused the U.S. administration of "launching such false accusations to cover up for the Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people and to cover up for Israel's possession of weapons of mass destruction."

Tough economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. They cannot be lifted unless U.N. inspectors verify that Baghdad has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction.