Hurricane Georges heads toward Florida
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A slightly weakened Hurricane
Georges blew into Cuba and threatened the Florida Keys on Wednesday
after making a shambles of much of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic
and Haiti. At least 39 people were believed dead and many more were miss
ing.
In Florida, up to 100,000 people were ordered to begin evacuating the
exposed Florida Keys; and cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles streamed
along the highway linking the island chrin to the raainiand.
South Florida was put under a hurricane watch and Gov. Lawton Chiles
declared a state of emergency in central and southern Florida, allowing the
state to use the National Guard, lift tolls along evacuation routes and pur
chase emergency supplies.
Flash floods ravaged Haiti on Wednesday, and whipping winds tore tin
roofs off homes while floodwater overwhelmed drainage systems. Heavy
rain soaked Cuba’s southeastern coast, and Cuban news reports said author
ities evacuated more than 200,000 people from eastern provinces.
Georges was deadliest on the impoverished two-nation island of
Hispaniola. Thirteen people died in Haiti and 17, including two looters shot
by police, were killed in the Dominican Republic.
South Africa’s peacekeeping mission looks more like war
MASERU, Lesotho (AP) - Their peacekeeping operation in shambles,
South African military leaders gave their troops shoot-to-kill orders
Wednesday to suppress mutineers in Lesotho, where looters and arsonists
rampaged through the capital.
Smoke plumes rose above Maseru from arson fires set Tuesday when
600 South African soldiers crossed the border to quell a military uprising.
About 200 soldiers from Botswana arrived Wednesday to reinforce the
South Africans, but mostly only looked on as a procession of looters carried
away booty and continued to torch buildings.
The South African military said eight South African soldiers were killed
in Tuesday’s fighting, which surprised the South Africans with its ferocity.
Seventeen more South Africans were wounded in the combat - South
Africa’s first military intervention since the end of apartheid. President
Nelson Mandela said 58 Lesotho rebels had been killed.
Lesotho’s government requested the intervention two weeks ago amid a
revolt by junior Lesotho military officers and strikes that paralyzed
Maseru. The mutineers had apparently sided with opposition parties that
claimed elections last May - swept by the ruling Lesotho Congress Party -
were rigged.
Russian teachers paid in vodka
MOSCOW (AP) - Teachers in central Russia will be receiving their
monthly salaries in vodka because the government’s coffers are empty, a
news agency reported Tuesday.
The 8,000 educators in the Altai republic will get 15 bottles of vodka
each while local leaders pressure the federal government to pay its debts,
the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
The federal government had promised to pay $2.5 million to the teach
ers in August, but the money has not appeared, ITAR-Tass said.
About 75 percent of Altai’s budget comes from the federal treasury,
which is months behind in paying workers and pensioners nationwide.
But it isn’t clear if this offer is a step ahead or behind. Officials in Altai,
about 1,850 miles east of Moscow, had previously tried to pay part of the
teachers’ six-month wage arrears with toilet paper and funeral accessories.
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Impeachment inquiry looms
WASHINGTON (AP) - Speaker
Newt Gingrich rejected a call from
the House’s top Democrat on
Wednesday to impose a time limit on
a looming impeachment inquiry and
suggested President Clinton speed
the process by having reluctant aides
answer grand jury questions.
In a swift rebuttal, presidential
spokesman Mike McCurry said
Gingrich, the leader of House
Republicans, will bear the blame for a
process that could “drag on and on
and on endlessly” in defiance of the
public’s wishes.
The volleys from opposite ends of
Pennsylvania Avenue underscored
the hardening of partisan lines a few
weeks before national elections, even
as both sides professed to favor a
cooperative approach to the nation’s
first impeachment inquiry since
Watergate a generation ago.
Republican officials said the
Judiciary Committee would probably
meet next week to hear senior lawyers
lay out the evidence that Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr has submitted,
much of which has been made public.
The full House would vote for a for
mal impeachment inquiry before
lawmakers adjourn in early October,
and hearings would begin after the
Nov. 3 election.
One Republican familiar with the
deliberations said GOP officials were
considering a plan to allow the
Judiciary Committee to enlarge its
inquiry to include additional facts
that might be considered impeach
able offenses. That would permit the
committee to range far beyond
Clinton and his relationship with
Monica Lewinsky, and into areas
such as alleged fund-raising viola
tions in the president’s re-election
campaign.
Democrats served notice they
would vigorously contest any expan
sion of the case beyond Starr’s evi
dence relating to Lewinsky.
“We do not believe that this refer
ral of one matter, which (Starr) thinks
may contain impeachable offenses,
launches a fishing expedition into
every possible wrong that’s gone on
anywhere in the world over the last
six years,” said Rep. Richard
Gephardt of Missouri, the
Democratic leader in the House.
“This does not need to take eight
or nine months, as it did during the
Watergate period,” he said at a news
conference after a closed-door meet
ing with Gingrich and other leading
lawmakers.
For his part, Gingrich also scoffed
at Democratic suggestions for the
equivalent of a plea bargain under
which Clinton would be spared
impeachment, but censured, possibly
fined and otherwise punished.
“For anybody to talk about doing
anything before we finish the inves
tigative process simply puts the cart
before the horse,” the House speaker
told reporters.
Clinton’s ratings rise
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
release of President Clinton’s video
taped testimony in the Monica
Lewinsky case bolstered his stand
ing at a time the public’s perception
of him as the nation’s leader was
declining, a poll released
Wednesday indicates.
Also, Republican leaders of
Congress may have lost some
ground with the public after the
release of the videotape, according
to the poll by the Pew Research
Center for the People & the Press.
GOP leaders say they are not
taking cues from polls as lawmakers
decide whether to proceed with
impeachment.
“I don’t think people want this
Congress to deal with a constitu
tional issue based on the latest
overnight poll,” House Speaker
Newt Gingrich said Wednesday. He
also said Congress should not
“enact a grotesque version of justice
based on the latest poll or the latest
talk show.”
The president, under increasing
pressure in recent weeks from both
Republicans and fellow Democrats,
was losing ground in several key
areas in the polling done over the
weekend. Some had predicted the
video’s release would further dam
age his standing with the public.
But the Pew poll, in separate
samples taken before and after the
release of the videotape, shows a
different result.
Clinton’s job approval rating
was at 55 percent in polling over the
weekend after almost eight months
above 60 percent. But his rating
climbed back to 62 percent after the
video was shown Monday.
The percentage of people who
thought it would be better for the
country if Clinton were to remain in
office dipped from 76 percent in
early September to 60 percent by
the weekend. But that figure
rebounded to 69 percent after the
video’s release.
Almost half of those questioned
over the weekend thought the presi
dent did not have moral standing to
lead the nation. After the testimony
aired, that dropped to 41 percent.
Just two weeks ago, Republican
leaders of Congress had been get
ting their best job approval ratings
in the Pew poll in almost three
years, with 44 percent approving
and 37 percent disapproving. After
the video’s release, die public was
equally divided on their job perfor
mance.
“The Republicans are overplay
ing their hand,” said Roy Romer,
general chairman of the Democratic
National Committee. “The
American people have a wisdom
about this that Congress has not yet
picked up.”
Even if the president benefits
from some backlash because of the
video’s release, he does not fare that
well among Americans who saw his
taped testimony.
By a 50-38 margin, those who
watched thought he did not make a
good case for himself and he lost
sympathy with more people, 43 per
cent, than he gained it with, 32 per
cent.
The sample of 500 adults inter
viewed Saturday and Sunday had a
margin of error of plus or minus 5;
percentage points. The sample of
706 adults interviewed Monday and
Tuesday had a margin of error of ?
plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. <
Iran may lift threat to Rushdie
LONDON (AP) - Author Salman
Rushdie met with British Foreign
Office officials Wednesday amid
reports Iran is preparing to withdraw the
threat on his life.
Rushdie supporters who accompa
nied him to the meeting issued a state
ment saying they met with representa
tives of the Foreign Office concerning
remarks by Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami.
“We remain cautiously optimistic,”
the supporters said.
The late Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini pronounced a “fatwa,” or
death sentence, against Rushdie in 1989
after the publication of his book
“Satanic Verses,” which many Muslims
deemed blasphemous.
Islamic militants then put a $2 mil
lion bounty on Rushdie’s head, forcing
him into hiding in Britain.
At a Tuesday news conference in
New York, Khatami suggested Iran
wanted to resolve the Rushdie affair,
saying Iran considered it “completely
finished.”
London’s Guardian newspaper
reported Wednesday that Iranian
u
“It is Islamic law; it will remain so
irrespective of what does or does not
happen in Tehran. The fatwa stands.”
Ghaxasuddin Siddiqui
British Muslim leader
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi plans
to announce the lifting of the Rushdie
death threat today when he meets with
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
in New York.
Two members of the International
Rushdie Defense Committee who
accompanied the author Wednesday
said they hoped to meet again with gov
ernment officials today.
Iran hopes the move to dissociate
Tehran from the bounty will lead to a
new diplomatic relationship with
Britain, the Guardian reported.
Kharrazi is likely to tell Cook that
the Iranian government is calling on the
Khordad Foundation that offered the
bounty in 1989 to drop the offer and
make other steps to insure the affair is
over, the newspaper reported
Iran has long claimed thefatwais
an irreversible religious edict, even
though it has no plans to send anyone to
kill the author. But Britain, eager to end
the affair, is seeking solid guarantees.
British Muslims said Wednesday
the Iranian government has no authority
toliftthefatwa.
“It is Islamic law, it will remain so
irrespective of what does or does not
happen in Tehran,” said Ghayasuddin
Siddiqui, leader of an umbrella group
that styles itself the Muslim Parliament
of Great Britain. “The fatwa stands.”