DAILY NZ

P A G E 1A C O L O R

P U B D A T E 07-15-02

O P E R A T O R JHERRERA D A T E //

TIME:

Mexican airport protesters increase their demands / 7A

Golf and business
Executives see the sport as an essential tool
Business/1F

JULY 15, 2002 METRO EDITION

MONDAY

Roadside assistance
Buff on mission to uncover origin of street, town names
S.A. Life/1C

50

SERVING SOUTH TEXAS SINCE 1865

IN SID E

More rain in store for soggy S. Texas

But dry and hotter weather could be moving into the area by Thursday .
D BY SCOTT HUDDLESTON
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER

A 24-page section recaps the drought-busting rains of early July, which forced lakes to overflow and chased thousands from their homes. Section G

Another wave of torrential rain could sop an already waterlogged South Texas, causing more flooding and emergency evacuations before the region finally returns, at least briefly to , a normal cycle of hot, dry weather, forecasters predict. By Thursday the area could ,

settle into a typical July scenario, with a weak subtropical high-pressure system building over the state, keeping rain out of the forecast this weekend. But for now, residents can expect more rain, and possibly a few inches of it, in a region that has taken more than two weeks of wet or threatening weather fueled by moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and a series of low-pressure systems that have dominated South Texas. Storms continued to soak parts of the Hill Country for the second straight day Sunday as , some counties west and north of San Antonio were placed under flood warnings. Comal County officials ad-

vised residents of Horseshoe Falls, Rivers Edge and other subdivisions downstream from the Canyon Lake spillway to evacuate voluntarily since re, cent rain upstream along the Guadalupe River is expected to add to flows from the spillway . Water that flowed from the spillway at less than 5,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) Sunday is expected to reach 6,000 to 10,000 cfs by this morning, possibly making River Road and other roads in the area impassable, a spokeswoman with the Comal County Sheriffs Office said. The National Weather Service forecast for San Antonio calls See BETTER/6A

EDWARD A. ORNELAS/STAFF

A.J. Batey (right) helps his son, Richard, 10, reach Drew Browns (left) waiting boat. They were on the flooded County Road 73 in Nueces County northwest of Corpus Christi on Sunday.

Militants convicted in Pearl slaying

Judge sentences 1 to death and the others get 25 years in prison.
D BY KATHY GANNON
ASSOCIATED PRESS

AS S AS S INATIO N TH WARTED

SEC chief says he wont quit

Pitt defends his response to accounting scandals
BY RICHARD SIMON
LOS ANGELES TIMES

HYDERABAD, Pakistan A Pakistani judge today convicted four Islamic militants in the kidnap-slaying of the Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl and sentenced one of them to death. The others received 25 years imprisonment. Lawyers for PEARL the chief defendant, British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and the three others said they will appeal. Saeed was sentenced to hang for his role in the Jan. 23 abduction of Pearl, 38, the South Asia correspondent for the newspaper. Reporters were barred from the courtroom inside the heavily guarded jail here when Judge Ali Ashraf Shah rendered the verdict. Deputy defense lawyer Mohsin Imam informed journalists of the decision against Sheikh, Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Shaikh Adil. Pearl disappeared in Karachi while researching Pakistanis Islamic extremist movement, including possible links to Richard Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight between Paris and Miami with explosives in his shoes. A videotape sent to U.S. diplomats in February confirmed Pearl was dead. Security was heavy at the Hyderabad jail as the verdict was announced. Sharpshooters manned rooftop positions across the streets, and police sealed off the street in front of the walled compound. The trial has fanned the anger of Islamic militants against Pakistans government, which many extremists feel betrayed them by abandoning the Afghan Taliban and supporting the United States after Sept. 11. The government will impose the decision at the behest of the United States, said Sheikh Aslam, Adils brother, as he arrived to hear the verdict. All executive decisions in Pakistan are being imposed by the United States.

WASHINGTON Amid accusations that the White House has failed to act aggressively enough to clean up corporate accounting abuses, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, on Sunday defended the administrations performance and said he would not resign. For their part, Democrats called for President Bush to restore integrity to the White House by releasing information on his 1990 sale of stock in a Texas oil company prior to the companys announcement of a significant decline in earnings. On the eve of todays Senate vote on a far-reaching accounting reform bill, Pitt took aim at his critics, denouncing their politically crass sound bites. I have absolutely no inten-

tion of stepping down, the nations top securities regulator told CBS Face the Nation. I believe I enjoy the conPITT fidence of the president, Investors seek port in a and Im certain if I dont, storm/4A hell let me Coke to know. change its But Sen. reporting system/5A John McCain, Feds are R-Ariz., regood at bad newed his call accounting/5A for Pitts resignation, contending that the SEC chairmans past work as a lawyer for the accounting industry makes him unsuitable for the job. We have now a crisis of confidence on the part of the See SEC/4A

JACQUES BRINON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A man is subdued by police after allegedly firing a shot in the direction of French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac was riding in a Bastille Day parade Sunday and was not hurt.

Big business cheaters arent facing hard time

Most white-collar criminals go to low-security facilities.
D BY DICK J. REAVIS
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER

Gunman fires at Chirac

French president was participating in Bastille Day parade.
D BY JOHN LEICESTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS A man described as an emotionally disturbed neoNazi allegedly tried to assassinate French President Jacques Chirac on Sunday pulling a ri, fle from a guitar case and firing

off a shot before being wrestled to the ground during a Bastille Day parade. There were no reported injuries. It was not immediately clear how close the shot came to Chirac, who was passing about 130 to 160 feet away in an open-top jeep near Paris Arch of Triumph as he reviewed troops in a military parade to celebrate Frances national holiday . As the gunman pulled a fully loaded .22-caliber rifle out of a brown guitar case, the crowd

along the tree-lined edge of the Champs-Elysees began shouting, apparently alerting police who rushed in and tackled him. Police did not identify him, but media reports gave his name as Maxime Brunerie. I saw a guy with a gun, said a witness, Mohamed Chelali, who told LCI television that he and other members of the crowd helped subdue the man. Another man knocked See ASSASSINATION/6A

President Bushs proposal last week to stiffen sentences for corporate crimes wont land guilty executives in tough prisons, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. But if convicted book cookers and document shredders dont wind up behind bars in maximum-security lockups, they also wont spend time in Club Fed, because country club prisons dont exist, prison officials maintain.
3C Sports Science TV listings 1D 6F 5C

The new punishment proposals, approved unanimously by the Senate and now before the House, increase the maximum sentences for fraud and obstruction of justice in financial cases from five to 10 years. Defrauding investors is a serious offense, and the punishment must be as serious as the crime, Bush said in a Tuesday speech calling for the change. But guidelines for assigning inmates to federal prisons assure that most white-collar criminals with 10-year sentences go to low-security dormitories and minimum-security camps, said Cory Clark of the Federal Bureau of Prisons See BUSINESS/4A
137th year, No. 285, 70 pages. Entire contents copyright 2002, San Antonio Express-News. This newspaper is recyclable.

Todays Weather
Thunderstorms High 89, Low 72 Full weather report, Page 12D

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INDEX

Business Classifieds Comics

1F 1E 8C

Deaths Editorials Metro/State

4B 6B 1B

Movies Puzzles S.A. Life

10C 1C

DAILY NZ

P A G E 1A C O L O R

P U B D A T E 07-15-02

O P E R A T O R JHERRERA D A T E //

TIME: