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Serb premier: Police units to be pulled out of Kosovo
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Hoping to avert a NATO attack, the
Serbian premier on Monday promised to withdraw special police units from
Kosovo, declaring that separatists in the province had been defeated.
However, Premier Mirko Marjanovic said the Serb crackdown would
resume if the separatists stage new attacks. And Vice Premier Vojislav Seselj
said if NATO carries out threatened strikes, Serbia would take hostage pro
Western Serbs who work for independent media, peace and rights groups.
Marjanovic, who made his remarks during a parliamentary session, also
said the government would grant amnesty to Kosovo Albanians who have not
committed “war crimes,” provided they surrender their weapons within 10
days.
NATO has recently stepped up plans for airs trikes against Serb forces after
repeated warnings that it would attack unless violence ends in the restive
province.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, which is fighting for Kosovo’s indepen
dence, issued a statement pledging to continue what it called “the holy war”
against Serbia and demanding NATO action.
Hundreds of people have been killed, and about 275,000 have fled their
homes since February, when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s forces
began cracking down on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Kosovo is part of Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia. Most of
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians - who make up 90 percent of the 2 million inhabi
tants - favor independence.
Number of Americans without insurance jumps 1.7 million
WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of Americans without health insur
ance rose to 43.4 million last year, up 1.7 million from 1996, the Census
Bureau reported Monday.
The annual survey of households found that 16.1 percent of Americans
were without insurance for die entire year, up from 15.6 percent in 1996.
The number of uninsured children remained steady at 10,7 million, or 15
percent of all children.
And Hispanics remained the most likely to be uninsured - 34.2 percent had
no insurance in 1997.
Overall, adults who were working were more likely to have insurance than
adults who did not work. But among the poor, the reverse was true: Nearly half
of poor full-time workers did not have insurance in 1997. While nonworking
poor Americans may be covered by Medicaid, those who are working general
ly have low-paying jobs that do not provide insurance, but they make too much
to qualify for Medicaid.
Other groups most likely to be uninsured included those with little educa
tion, part-time workers and the foreign-bom.
Coverage rates fell in five states: Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico,
Rhode Island and Vermont.
Meanwhile, rates rose in 16 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,
Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York,
North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia
Hasbro Inc. to introduce Colin Powell doll
NEW YORK (AP) - He helped oversee the Persian Gulf War, headed the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and toyed with a run for the White House. Now Colin
Powell’s achievements are being memorialized in plastic.
Hasbro Inc., the maker of G.I. Joe, plans to introduce an action figure of the
retired general as part of its Historic Commanders Assortment, Time magazine
reports in this week’s issue.
The figure, which is expected to be available within a few weeks, will be in
full dress uniform.
The doll may be able to pal around in playrooms with G.I. Bob, a Bob Hope
doll Hasbro plans to release as its first Hollywood Hero, according to Time.
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THE DALY NEBRASKAN
Israel, Palestine reach deal
■ Netanyahu seems
optimistic about the peace
proceedings between the
two groups, which will
meet again next week.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Israel
will turn over more West Bank terri
tory to Palestinians under a break
through deal reached Monday
between the country’s two leaders.
President Clinton asked Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
to return next month to iron out a
final deal.
“I believe that we all agreed that
we have made progress on the path to
peace,” Clinton told reporters after an
hourlong session with the two leaders
in the Oval Office.
He described “a significant nar
rowing of the gaps between the two
parties across a wide range of issues.”
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright steered clear of claiming a
breakthrough on any of the tough
issues, including how much land
Israel would relinquish and what the
Palestinians would do to curb terror
ism.
“This process needs to be speed
ed up,” Albright said.
She and U.S. mediator Dennis
Ross will go to the Middle East for
more talks with the two leaders
around Oct. 6, and about a week later
Arafat and Netanyahu will return to
the White House to see Clinton again.
The two Middle East leaders flew
to Washington on Monday following
talks that lasted late into Sunday
night with Albright in New York.
After their three-way session in the
Oval Office, Netanyahu and Clinton
held a one-on-one meeting, and
Clinton is to meet Arafat separately
today.
“I think we’re getting close to
finalizing an agreement, and it’s time
for the leaders to meet,” Netanyahu
said on NBC’s ‘Today” show before
the White House meeting.
In his remarks to reporters,
Clinton did not mention details.
Earlier, Israeli diplomats, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said there
was agreement that Israel would
withdraw from an additional 13 per
cent of the West Bank.
Three percent would be turned
into a nature preserve and kept under
Israeli military control, with Israeli
and Palestinian construction prohib
ited.
“There is still a substantial
amount of work to be done until a
comprehensive agreement can be
reached,” Clinton said.
In his remarks to NBC on
Monday, Netanyahu spoke of the
West Bank withdrawal.
“That’s basically the concept
we’re trying to nail down here, and
that’s where we’ve made a break
through,” Netanyahu said.
He said he expected additional
talks, “possibly in the near future, and
yes, I would perk up your ears.”
Review board releases JFK details
WASHINGTON (AP) - The gov
ernment for decades “needlessly and
wastefully” withheld millions of
records about the assassination of
President Kennedy, causing Americans
to mistrust their government, a federal
review panel concluded.
The Assassination Records Review
Board closes shop this week after gath
ering and releasing a mountain of detail
- tantalizing and mundane - about the
Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of
Kennedy in Dallas.
The documents it has collected over
the past four years include new infor
mation about events in Dallas, the
alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald,
the presidential autopsy, photographs
and reactions of government agencies
to the assassination. It provides new
fodder to be debated by historians and
conspiracy theorists alike.
“The review board’s experience
leaves little doubt that the federal gov
ernment needlessly and wastefully
classified and then withheld from pub
lic access countless important records
that did not require such treatment,” the
board said in a 208-page report to be
released today.
Such secrecy “led the American
public to believe that the government
had something to hide,” the report says.
“Change is long overdue, and the
review board’s experience amply
demonstrates the value of sharing
important information with the
American public,” the board said.
The board was created by Congress
in response to public frustration that the
government was withholding informa
tion about the assassination.
Disagreement over the Warren
Commission’s conclusion in 1964 that
a lone gunman killed Kennedy and
government conspiracy claims in
Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie “JFK” led to
a consensus that it was time to open
assassination records for public inspec
tion.
But the board was not charged with
reopening the investigation, and while
it added to the millions of documents at
the National Archives touching on the
assassination, it did not address the
question: Who killed Kennedy?
“Although die review board intend
ed to search for any ‘smoking gun’ doc
ument that might still exist, the board
knew that its greatest contribution
would likely be to provide to the public
those records that would frame the trag
ic event,” die board’s final report says.
The board spent more than $8 mil
lion to gather and release records. It got
more than 60,000 documents from die
FBI, CIA, other federal entities and pri
vate collections, some which gave them
up reluctantly.
David Lifton, author of “Best
Evidence,” a 1981 book concerning
medical evidence about the assassina
tion, said the new material released by
the board will forever change the
debate.
“These documents give us new dots
to connect in all key areas - the medical
evidence, Oswald’s trips to Mexico and
Russia,” Lifton says.
“No one working on the Kennedy
assassination today can ignore what the |
review board did. The true debate now
begins.”
66
No one working on the Kennedy
assassination today can ignore
what the review board did.
The true debate now begins.”
David Lifton
author
f
Georges downgraded to tropical storm j
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) -
Hurricane Georges plowed into the
Gulf Coast on Monday and then parked
there, weakening to a tropical storm but
pouring rain at an inch-an-hour pace for
what could be a long and ruinous stay.
Winds dropped to just ova: 69 mph,
6 mph below hurricane strength and
down from a high of 110. New Orleans
was spared the catastrophic direct hit
that many in the Big Easy had feared.
But that was little comfort to the
thousands who huddled in shelters from
Florida to Louisiana and were expected
to remain there for days. Outside, all
was chaos - trees ripped from the
ground, windows sucked from their
frames, floods roaring down roads.
“In some areas, there’s water to
rooftops and 4 to 5 feet of water in many
other homes. I’ve never seen anything
like it in more than 50 years,” said
Jackson County administrator George
Touart, after a tour of Pascagoula,
Miss., where 15 inches of rain fell
overnight
Forecasters said up to 30 inches
could fall by the time the storm clears
out sometime in die middle of die week.
National Guardsmen waded
through chest-deep water to carry chil
dren and lead adults to safety from a
flooded housing project near downtown
Mobile, Ala. In die Florida Panhandle,
Guardsmen had to rescue about 200
people from their flooded homes.
A man in a wheelchair was rescued
in Moss Point, Miss., by emergency
workers who found him trapped in his
home with floodwater up to his lap.
In New Orleans, where authorities
had feared the worst - a sopping rain
4r.4t tk »V <*- -M’JV a.
and huge storm surge that would put the
entire city underwater -there was a col
lective sigh of relief. Instead of hitting
the Big Easy head on, Georges struck at
Ocean Springs, Miss., between Biloxi,
Miss., and Pascagoula, dealing New
Orleans rain and wind but no catastro
phe.
“We, by taking the brunt at Ocean
Springs, saved the city of New
Orleans,” Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice
said. “It was spared from the untellable
misery that would have occurred.”
Two storm-related deaths were
reported. A man died Monday in a New
Orleans fire started by candles being
used for light after the hurricane
knocked out electricity. An 86-year-old
woman died while she and 250 other
nursing home residents waited for beds
in a Baton Rouge shelter.
