News Digest
Tuesday, September 28,1999 Page 2
McCain makes an election bid
NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - War hero and senator,
John McCain officially opened his Republican
presidential campaign Monday, by declaring him
self the best candidate to command U.S. troops and
reform a political system that is “a spectacle of
selfish ambition.”
In an address that invoked the patriotic spirits
of his father and grandfather - “I was born into
America’s service” - McCain blended the outlines
of a presidential agenda with subtle digs at
President Clinton, his Republican presidential
rivals and the GOP Congress.
“It is because I owe America more than she has
ever owed me that I am a candidate for president of
the United States,” the Arizona senator and former
prisoner of war told a crowd of 500.
He pledged to protect Social Security, cut
taxes, veto pork-barrel spending, improve access to
the Internet and test the merits of spending govern
ment money in private schools nationwide.
His signature issues - decreasing the influence
of money in politics and beefing up the U.S. mili
tary - are part of what he called “a new patriotic
challenge” for the nation. Americans, he said, must
take up causes “greater than self-interest.”
McCain has been running for president since
December 1998.
The formal announcement, originally sched
uled for the spring but delayed because of the
Kosovo conflict, was designed to bring attention to
his underdog bid.
A former Navy pilot shot down on his 23rd
mission over Vietnam in 1967, McCain started his
day in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
A poor student and troublemaker, McCain barely
graduated from the academy, but later distin
guished himself during 5 Vi years in a Vietnam pris
oner-of-war camp.
“I am the son and grandson of Navy admirals,
and I was born into America’s service,” he said,
reading from a TelePrompTer in a dry but well
received speech. “It wasn’t until I was deprived of
her company that I fell in love with America.”
His campaign team believes that McCain’s
biography is his greatest asset in a field of candi
dates with less-compelling life stories. McCain
made subtle comparisons of his own, criticizing
political rivals in both parties.
President Clinton, he said, broke a promise to
protect Social Security and weakened the U.S. mil
itary.
By promising to “respect the dignity of the
office,” McCain suggested that Clinton has not.
He said Republicans and Democrats in
Congress waste money on unneeded weapons sys
tems while 12,000 military personnel “subsist on
food stamps.”
He attacked isolationists, saying “walls are for
cowards” - a reference to GOP presidential foe Pat
Buchanan, who is considering bolting to the
«
I am the son and grandson
of Navy admirals, and I
was born into America s
service”
John McCain
Arizona senator
Reform Party.
And he said the next commander-in-chief
needs “broad and deep experience,” a clear refer
ence to GOP front-runner George W. Bush’s lack of
foreign policy credentials.
Bush, a two-term Texas governor who served
stateside in the Texas Air National Guard during
the Vietnam War, has made no secret of his need to
bone up on foreign policy and to rely on advisers.
“There comes a time when our nation’s leader
can no longer rely on briefing books and talking
points when the experts and the advisers have all
weighed in, when the sum total of one’s life
becomes the foundation from which he or she
makes the decisions that determine the future of
our democracy,” McCain said.
Russian bombing
destroys Chechnya
■ Civilians try to flee
after Russian airplanes
drop missiles and bombs
on the country for the
fifth-straight day.
GROZNY, Russia (AP) -
Terrified civilians tried to flee
Chechnya by the thousands Monday,
driven out by a Russian bombing blitz
intended to crush Islamic militants in
the breakaway republic.
“I wish I were dead,” mourned
Tamara Aliyeva, 70, whose house in
Grozny was destroyed by Russian
bombs.
“I don’t know what to do or where
to go.”
Aliyeva joined tens of thousands
of Chechens who headed for the
neighboring Russian republic of
Ingushetia in hopes of finding refuge
- only to find the border closed.
In Grozny, Russian airplanes
were raining bombs and missiles for
the fifth straight day. Witnesses said
oil refineries in Grozny were ablaze,
blanketing the capital in choking
black smoke.
Russian jets also struck other
cities and villages throughout
Chechnya, targeting suspected mili
tant bases along with oil derricks and
other industrial facilities.
Chechen President Aslan
Maskhadov claimed Monday that
300 people had been killed in Grozny
alone.
The figure could not be indepen
dently confirmed.
The bombing is aimed at weaken
ing Islamic militants, who have twice
invaded the neighboring Russian
republic of Dagestan in recent weeks
from their main bases in Chechnya.
They also are blamed for a series of
terrorist bombings in Moscow and
other Russian cities that have claimed
300 lives.
Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev
said Monday that the bombing of
Chechnya would continue “until the
last bandit is destroyed,” according to
the Interfax news agency.
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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Execution numbers
rise to 76; total deaths
near pre-ban heights
■ This year’s total,
which is expected to rise
to 100 by year’s end, is the
highest since 1954.
WASHINGTON (AP) - With
three months remaining, 1999
already is the deadliest year on
America’s death row in almost half a
century. Eighteen states have execut
ed 76 killers, and the total could reach
100 by year’s end.
“There has been this stairway
upward since the death penalty was
reinstituted” in 1976, said Richard
Dieter of the Death Penalty
Information Center, a group critical
of how capital punishment is admin
istered. “It hasn’t peaked yet... 150 is
probably where things may max out
over the next three to four years.”
Executions last Friday in
Delaware and North Carolina raised
the year’s total to 76, the most since
1954, when 81 people were put to
death in U.S. prisons. If the year-end
toll reaches 100, as Dieter said could
happen, it would be the first time
since 1951 when 105 people were
executed.
There were 68 executions last
year and 74 in 1997.
States have executed 576 convict
ed killers since the Supreme Court
ended a four-year nationwide ban on
capital punishment in 1976.
Currently, about 3,565 people are on
death row across the nation.
Many countries have abolished
the death penalty, including Canada,
Australia, France and Germany.
Amnesty International said it
received reports of 1,067 executions
in China in 1998, more than 100 in
the Democratic Republic of Congo
and 66 in Iran. The organization said
it also has unconfirmed reports of
hundreds of executions in Iraq.
Eighteen of the 38 American
states with death penalty laws have
imposed capital punishment this
year, and once again Texas is first
with 25 executions.
“What sometimes people lose
sight of is that prosecutors don’t give
the death penalty - it takes a unani
mous 12 folks (on a jury) to do it,”
said John B. Holmes Jr, district attor
ney in Harris County, Texas, which
includes Houston.
Holmes’ office seeks a death sen
tence in 12 to 20 cases a year and
almost always succeeds.
wc uavc a guuu sense lur Know
ing whether it’s a death-worthy prose
cution,” he said. “We don’t seek it cal
lously or inadvisably. These people
we’re seeking death on generally
have awful records.”
Virginia has tallied the second
largest number of executions this
year at 11, followed by nine in
Missouri and six in Arizona.
Between 1930 and 1967, U.S.
prisons carried out 3,859 executions
- an annual average of more than 100.
After capital punishment
resumed in 1977 with Gary
Gilmore’s execution by a Utah firing
squad, the number of executions rose
slowly as many inmates filed multi
ple appeals to avoid the death cham
ber.
In recent years, Congress and the
Supreme Court have sought to speed
up die federal court appeal process by
limiting the number of appeals
inmates can file.
The number of people sentenced
to death across the country averaged
about 300 a year from 1986 through
1996, then dipped to 256 in 1997. If
that is the beginning of a trend toward
fewer death sentences, Dieter said,
the number of executions eventually
could start heading down as well.
Eight states with death penalty
laws have carried out no executions
since 1977: Connecticut, Kansas,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
Mexico, New York, South Dakota
and Tennessee.
■ London
Extradition hearing
for Pinochet begins
LONDON (AP) - With support
ers and opponents of Gen. Augusto
Pinochet clamoring outside, lawyers
for Spain laid out their case against
the former Chilean dictator Monday,
saying it constituted “some of the
most serious allegations of crime
ever to come before English courts.”
On the opening day of a long
delayed extradition hearing, lawyers
for Spain urged the magistrate to
consider not only 34 allegations of
torture, but also the anguish of rela
tives of the 1,198 people who
allegedly disappeared during
Pinochet’s 17-year rule.
Pinochet, who did not attend the
hearing, has been detained in Britain
since his arrest Oct. 16 at a London
hospital.
■ Washington
Gingrich, aide avoid
questions before trial
WASHINGTON (AP)-Former j
House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a
congressional aide named in his I
divorce proceeding are trying to
avoid answering questions about
their relationship from lawyers for
Gingrich’s wife.
In court papers filed Monday in
Georgia, lawyers for Marianne
Gingrich said the foriher speaker has
“willfully failed and refused to
answer virtually each and every
interrogatory concerning his person
al and professional relationships as
well as the finances of his marriage.”
And in motions filed in Superior
Court for the District of Columbia,
Callista Bisek, a clerk for the House
Agriculture Committee, asked a
judge last week to overturn a Georgia
court order requiring her to appear
Wednesday to answer questions from
Marianne Gingrich’s lawyers about
her relationship with the former
speaker.
■Washington
Tripp sues Pentagon
for privacy violations
WASHINGTON (AP) - Linda
Tripp, whose secret taping helped
launch the Monica Lewinsky scan
dal, says she’s been subjected to
“extreme public embarrassment,
humiliation, anxiety, ridicule” and
wants the White House and her
Pentagon employers to pay.
Tripp sued die president’s office
and the Defense Department, alleg
ing Monday they violated her privacy
rights by leaking “damaging infor
mation ... for partisan political pur
poses” from her confidential govern
ment records.
■ Washington
Quayle withdraws
from presidential race
WASHINGTON (AP) - Dan
Quayle, the former vice president
who hoped to overcome long odds
and ridicule to step up to the
Republican presidential nomination
in 2000, gave up his White House
dreams Monday.
At a Phoenix news conference,
Quayle said, “There’s a time to stay,
and there’s a time to fold. There’is a
time to know Mien to leave the stage.
Thus today I am announcing that I
will no longer be a candidate for
president of die United States.”