European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 14, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 28 the stars and stripes tuesday August 14,1990 Kuwait makes formal Appeal for Aid from Page 1 by a truck on a dark runway. He May have been wearing protective car cover Ings the officials said. Baker when asked whether the United states intended to Stop air planes As Well As ships said we re going to take measures that Are necessary and  Baker said Kuwait had made the for Mal request now that is needed under article 51 of the United nations charter for the United slates and other countries to have a Legal basis for stopping the Export of Oil and that sort of thing. We now have the ability the Legal basis for interdicting those kinds of  article 51 authorizes countries under at tack to act in self defense and seek help from other nations. The administration is avoiding the words blockade and quarantine be cause under International Law those terms can be interpreted As acts of War. Let s not use the word blockade Baker said adding that he would Call it  the administration also Hopes Egypt will close the Suez canal to All snips bound for Iraq or whose cargoes arc bound for Iraq via the jordanian port of Aqaba one official said. Closing the canal is like slitting a major vein he said because the canal is critical to iraqi Commerce with Europe. Closing it to ships bound for Iraq would make inter diction much easier. Meanwhile the commander of the . Military Effort in the Middle East told reporters sunday the deployment of . Forces is running ahead of schedule and Iraq would pay a Price if it at tacked saudi Arabia. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf com Mander of the United states Central come said the iraqis Are continuing to move reinforcements into Kuwait. Those forces Are taking up defensive positions he said and some were right Down liter ally on the Kuwait saudi Arabia Bor Der. Secretary of defense Dick Cheney interviewed on Abc to s meet the press said Saddam has upward now of 200,000 men in Kuwait or Southern Iraq and had close to 6,000 tanks and a Large air  Pentagon officials said they were Send ing a Battle group headed by the Carrier John f. Kennedy to relieve one of the three Battle groups in the Gulf Region. In another development a Pool of american journalists was allowed to travel to saudi Arabia for the first time since . Troops arrived in the persian Gulf nation. The Washington based reporters were briefed by Schwarzkopf at Macdill fab before their non Stop flight on an air Force cargo plane. They were scheduled to arrive in saudi Arabia on Mon Day. Journalists had protested that . Troops were in saudi Arabia but no american reporters were allowed into the country to cover their activities. . Officials had said it was saudi officials who established the ground rules that kept journalists from the United states out of the kingdom. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf commander of the United states Centra come talks with an officer in the War room at Macdill fab in Tampa Fla. Schwarzkopf told Pool reporters the deployment of . Forces is running ahead of schedule. Girl who fled Iraq reunited with parents Paris a a 10-year-old american girl who escaped across the desert after being stranded by the iraqi invasion of Kuwait was reunited with her parents sunday and calmly recounted some scary moments in her ordeal. Penelope Nabokov detained in hotels in Kuwait and then Baghdad reached Freedom in Jordan on sat urday and finally rejoined her parents Peter and Isa Belle in Paris on sunday. At a Paris news conference the girl a frequent Solo air traveler on visits to her anthropologist parents calmly recounted the moment she knew she might be in danger i realized i was trapped in a War zone when we were moved to the Airport hotel. From my window we could see All the troops going into the Airport grounds and runways and we could see lots of tanks and me with  Penelope from the Oakland calif., suburb of Albany was flying unaccompanied from France to India where her Mother was doing research. The British air ways flight had a Stopover in Kuwait where the Pas sengers were taken into custody by iraqi soldiers. She and some of the other passengers later were taken to Baghdad and held in a hotel with a number of americans amid speculation iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein intended to hold americans hostage. The . Embassy persuaded the iraqis to release the girl to embassy custody but the others were kept in the hotel and All foreigners were told they could t leave Iraq. But Penelope with 10 other americans in several cars made a grueling 72-hour, 660-mile drive to Iraq s birder with Jordan crossing to Freedom at the Jorda Nian Border outpost of run nishid on saturday. The scariest moments she said in press conference remarks reported by Abc news were caused by her fellow travellers reactions. Asked when she was fright ened most she said matter of factly on the third Day because the hostesses were Start ing to Freak out too and they were getting scared and so that got me even More scared. That s when 1 got hysterical and started  lightning triggers dozens of fires burning vast areas in Calif forests from wire reports dozens of Lightn ing triggered wildfires sunday devoured thousands of addition Al acres of forests across California especially in Yosemite National Park. Experts feared it could get much much worse because of the lengthy drought. Officials announced the Park would remain closed at least until mid week. The largest of three fires in the Park threatened a Campground Gas station and general store at Crane Flat near Arch Rock fire officials said. The a Rock fire which already has destroyed66 structures in the Village of Foresta and claimed Timberland valued at $7.2 million jumped into the adjacent Stanis Laus National Forest. Once there it charred 3,000 acres of old growth spotted owl habitat. Meanwhile an estimated 20,000 fire fighters battled hundreds of other fires in six Western Stales adding to the More than 856,000 acres already burned by sunday afternoon said Reed Jarvis a spokesman for the National fire information Center in Boise Idaho. In addition to 14 major Hla is burning in California Jarvis said that there were 30 major fires burning in Utah Idaho Washington and Oregon. In California alone an estimated 11,701 firefighters were fighting some 1,300 fires which have consumed More than 200,000 acres. At least 127 Struc Tures have been lost since aug. 3. Of particular concern to fire officials were reports of a thunderstorm system brewing in Mexico that could bring anew round of lighting strikes and High winds to the Sierra Nevada and North Western United states by wednesday. In the period of aug. 3 to aug. 11, electronic detection equipment already had counted 28,893 lightning strikes i California. Planning for the worst Benson said that 2,400 army troops in Washington state and Colorado have begun firefight ing training and could respond to fires in California and Oregon by mid week. Some of those troops May be Dis patched to Yosemite. Three fires there have scorched More than 15,500 acres about 10 Miles West of Yosemite Valley and continued to Burn out of control. By sunday the two largest the a Rock and Steamboat fires were Only 20 per cent and 30 percent contained respectively said Len Mckenzie a . Park service Ranger. The third fire a smaller 500-acre blazon the Northwestern Edge of the Park near the Hetch tetchy Reservoir took an ominous turn sunday afternoon in the direction of Aspen Valley. About a dozen families were evacuated As a pre cautionary measure officials said. The larger fires about three Miles apart threatened to engulf a stand of 3,000-year-old Sequoias on the Western Boundary of the Park called the Merced Grove. By late sunday afternoon flames were Only two Miles from the Grove. Firefighters and Yosemite Park employees have Cle ared a fire line around the Grove and doused the Mammoth tree trunks with biodegradable fire retardant chemicals. In addition fire resistant blankets were stapled Over the Wood Shingle roof of a nearby historic log Cabin built in the 1930s. Yosemite Valley which attracts As Many As 25,000 visitors on summer weekends has been untouched by the fires except for the fact that it has been declared off limits to tourists and is Cov ered by a Gray Smokey Haze. Drug Kingpin killed by cops in Colombia Bogota Colombia a a key Medellin Cartel figure was shot and killed by police who raided his fortress apart ment police said sunday. They said Gustavo de Jesus Gaviria the 41-year-old Cousin of the Cartel s Leader Pablo Escobar was responsible for coordinating shipments of cocaine to the United states and Europe. He was killed saturday when he fired on a special anti narcotics police unit aiding his apartment in Southern Medel Lin according to an official statement. Escobar forced underground by the authorities search for him had charged his Cousin with managing the Cartel s terrorist network and its shipments of tons of cocaine to the United states and Europe said Gen. Octavio Vargas operations chief of the National police. The damage caused to the Cartel by the elimination of Gaviria is incalculable Vargas said. Vargas who planned saturday s raid said Medellin residents angered by the Cartel s terrorist tactics had two weeks ago tipped off police to Gaviria s whereabouts