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Another Yeltsin candidate refused
MOSCOW (AP) - Lawmakers rejected Boris
Yeltsinas candidate for prime minister on Monday for a
second time, throwing Russia into even deeper politi
cal turmoil as the economy hurtles out of control
In other blows to Yeltsin on Monday, the ruble
crashed again dramatically and the Central Bank
chairman offered to quit Some Russians flocked to
stores to buy goods before prices shot up any higher.
"The economic crisis is gaining momentum with
catastrophic speed,” acting Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin warned the State Duma, the lower
house of parliament, before it torpedoed his nomina
tion 273-138.
“We are all standing on the edge and no time is left
for settling scores,” he said “Ws must begin acting.”
The vote sets the stage for a final confrontation
between the president and his opponents. Yeltsin must
decide whether to nominate Chernomyrdin again or
find another candidate. If the Duma rejects Yeltsin’s
choice a third time, the constitution requires the presi
dent to dissolve parliament and call new elections
within three months.
Russia has been operating with an interim govern
Divers search for box
Signals detected may be from Swissair’s device
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP)-A
Canadian navy submarine detected a
signal Monday believed to be from
the second black box aboard Swissair
Flight 111, boosting investigators'
hopes of solving the mystery of the
plane’s horrific crash.
Divers equipped with hand-held
sonar searched 190 feet underwater
for the cockpit-voice recorded hoping
to repeat Sunday’s success when they
retrieved the other black box - the
flight-data recorder.
That device was sent to experts in
Ottawa, who were trying to determine
if they could retrieve the more than
100 types of information it is
designed to record
Together, the two black boxes
could be key in explaining why the
wide-bodied MD-11 crashed off
Nova Scotia late Wednesday, killing
all 229 people on board
The voice recorder, if intact,
would reveal other noises in the cock
pit besides the pilots' conversation
with controllers, portions of which
were released Saturday. That conver
sation was cut off 10 minutes after the
pilots reported smoke in the cockpit
and six minutes before the crash.
Divers also were trying to con
firm if three large pieces of wreckage
found near the flight data recorder aire
sections of the planed fuselage.
> Although officials have declined
to give an updated figure of how
many bodies have been recovered,
they have indicated that most still
remain in the water. Recovery of the
fuselage also'could lead to recovery of
many more bodies, officials said
The Geneva-bound Swissair
plane crashed 16 minutes after die,
pilots reported the smoke and decided
tb afteihpt an emergency landing -
more than an hour after leaving New
Yorkb Kennedy International Airport
After reporting an emergency, the
plane started toward die Halifax air
port, but made two sharp turns as it
tried to descend and dump fuel.
Swissair officials say the plane
couldn’t have made a direct approach
to Halifax because it was flying too
high and was too heavy with 30 tons
of fuel. The call was made 70 miles
out of Halifax, but the pilots would
have needed 130 miles to make a
direct landing, Swissair said.
Alan Wolk, a U.S. pilot and avia
tion lawyer, said Sunday that Flight
11 l’s pilot, Urs Zimmermann, should
have begun a direct emergency
descent sooner.
“The MD-11 could have been
landed overweight without difficul
ty,” Wolk said. “We have learned from
aircraft fires historically that the only
procedure that has a prayer of avoid
ing an accident is the quickest possi
ble-descent and landing.”- ;.. ,
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ment for two weeks, since Yeltsin brought
Chernomyrdin back after firing him in March.
Chernomyrdin^ efforts to win confirmation by parlia
ment have left him little time to devote to the worst
economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The president suggested that the parliament con
firm Chernomyrdin, and then assess his performance
after a “trial period” of six to eight months.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said his
party, the largest in the Duma, would never accept
Chernomyrdin. He complained that Yeltsin was not
interested in a real dialogue with parliament and had
not listened to opposition calls for an alternative can
didate for prime minister.
“This is not a victory,” Zyuganov said after the
opposition defeated Chernomyrdin. “The country is in
trouble.”
Chernomyrdin picked up 44 more votes Monday
than during die first vote Aug. 31. He needs 226 votes
to be approved.
The Communists and their allies say they have
nine alternative candidates, including several top
Soviet-era bureaucrats.Meanwhile, the Central Bank
«
This is not a victory.
The country is in
trouble.
Viktor Chernomyrdin
acting Russian prime minister
set the official exchange rate at 18.9 rubles to the dol
lar; down sharply from 17 on Friday. Deals that are to
take effect today pegged the rate as low as 30 rubles a
dollar.
The ruble was trading at about six to the dollar
when the crisis hit last month.
Chernomyrdin is advocating an ambitious if
somewhat unclear plan to stabilize the economy with
in several months. He has also sought to reassure
Western governments and Russians that there would
be no retreat to a Soviet-style economic system.
Sides differ on progress
of West Bank withdrawal
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel and
the Palestinians diverged widely
Monday, the eve of a new U.S ./Middle
East peace mission, on how much
progress has been made in talks on a
West Bank troop withdrawal.
Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak
Mordechai said a deal was “very
close,” while Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat said the gaps between the two
sides are substantial.
With their contradictory assess
ments, each side apparently hoped to
invite maximum American pressure
on the other side.
U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis
Ross was expected in the region on
Wednesday to try to clinch a deal.
Ross was scheduled to meet with
Arafat on Wednesday and Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
on Thursday.
On the table is a U.S. proposal that
Israel withdraw from 13 percent of
the West Bank and the Palestinians
commit to a detailed blueprint for
fighting Islamic militants under close
U.S. supervision.
The Palestinians have accepted
the U.S. proposal.
Israel, after first rejecting the
scope of withdrawal, said it would
hand over 13 percent, on condition
that 3 percent of that area be declared
a nature reserve in which Palestinian
land use is restricted.
Israeli officials have said the two
sides agreed on the scope of die with
drawal and that the key sticking point
was a Palestinian refusal to commit to
security measures as part of a crack
down on Islamieinilitants:
“We think we are very close to
achieve agreement with the
Palestinians,” Mordechai told
reporters Monday in his halting
English. “It needs that the
Palestinians will be flexible... to fight
against terror. The gap, I think, is very
close.”
Netanyahu said Israel and the
Palestinians had reached “an under
standing that was not written official
ly, but was clearly the basis for contin
ued progress.”
Arafat, however, denied there was
agreement on key issues. “No under
standing has been reached, and the
gaps still remain wide,” he said.
The Palestinians have said the
withdrawal issue is still on the table
and that they have not agreed to the
restrictions on land use proposed by
the Israelis.
Clinton issue polarizes Congress
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats
are split as to whether censure or
impeachment is die best way to handle
President Clinton’s indiscretions when a
special prosecutor’s expected report
reaches Capitol Hill.
Republicans appearing on the
Sunday news programs were more unit
ed in their belief that a verbal slap at the
president over his affair with White
House intern Monica Lewinsky would
not be sufficient
“I think we have passed the point
where we might wish this away,” Sen.
Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said on CBS’
“Race the Nation.”
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott,
R-Miss., said he expected the House to
receive Independent Counsel Kenneth
Starr’s report on the Lewinsky matter
soon and that the issue could occupy
Congress well into next year.
Democratic Sea Joe Lieberman, a
leading critic of the president, said the
president had hurt both the party and the
nation with his “immoral behavior.”
The Connecticut moderate, whose
Senate speech last week galvanized
Democratic feelings about the presi
dent’s personal problems, said he hoped
a vote of censure would be “the maxi
mum we will want to do to end this sad
chapter in our history.”
But Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
D-N.Y., said Congress must move for
ward with impeachment proceedings.
“We have a Constitution Let us live
by it,” he said
Moynihan said both perjury and
abuse of power, charges Starr may sug
gest, were impeachable offenses.
Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-NJ., noted
that other presidents had lied to the
American public on such matters as U
2 flights, the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and
Iran-Contra.
He said that while Clinton had
“engaged in some rather significantly
immoral acts, it is not clear whether that
constitutes a statutory offense that in
any way approaches the constitutional
standards for impeachment.”
The House Judiciary Committee,
after receiving Starr’s report, must
decide whether to send articles of
impeachment to the full House, which
then votes on whether to send the matter
to the Senate for a final judgment
Two die in New York
during thunderstorms
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -
Violent thunderstorms with hurri
cane-force wind bent flagpoles like
paperclips and killed two people at
the New York State Fair early
Monday. Thirteen others were
injured, one critically.
Heavy hail, rain and lightning
battered the central part of the state,
and the National Weather Service
reported wind gusts of 75 mph at
Syracuse Airport Tornado warnings
had been issued before die storms
struck around 1 am., and there were
two unconfirmed sightings of
twisters.
At the state fair grounds in
Syracuse, today’s closing day was
canceled. Flagpoles at the main
entrance were Dent in nan.
Monuments, tents and stands featur
ing carnival games were blown down
and washed away.
Vendor John Perry, 43, was
killed when the roofblew off the fair
ground dairy building and hit the tent
he was sleeping in. Beryl Stone, 61,
was killed when a tree limb slammed
into his trailer.
Scientist: Sheep in Britain
may have mad cow disease
Research info
: whether sheep have been infected
with mad cow disease is urgently
needed, a top government adviser
said Monday.
Jeff Almond, chairman of the
sheep subcommittee of die govern
ment advisory group on mad cow
disease - formally called bovine
spongiform encephalopathy - said
there is a “a distinct possibility” that
sheep are infected.
“It would be a national emer
gency,” Almond said in a British
Broadcasting Carp, radio interview.
The government would face the
dilemma of risking public health or
ordering the slaughter of 40 million
sheep and causing toe collapse of the
industry, he said.
Scientists have known for two
years that sheep could be infected
because they woe fed the same sus
pect fed-containing parts of sheep
' that caused the disease in cattle. The
suspect food is no longer used. .
<*; Ozone hole over South Me
expected to be largest ever
GENEVA (AP)-The hole in the
ozone layer over the South Pole is
expected to be as big this year as itb
been since measurements have been
taken, the World Meteorological
Organization said Monday.
The whirlpool-like wind that
develops every year in die stratos
phere above the South Pole is very
strong, threatening to create a large
ozone hole, said John M. Miller,
chief of die U.N. weather agency^
environment division.
The hole, which forms annually
over the South Pole and will probably
last until December this year, allows
the sun’s dangerous ultraviolet radia
tion to reach the Antarctic. As in
some earlier years, it may be large
enough that radiation hits the south
ern tip of South America.
Miller and otherU.N. officials
said efforts to stop the production of
chemicals that damage die ozone
layer continue to be successful, but
there will be little noticeable
improvement for 20 years.
