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BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP)
- Heading home after yet another
unlikely success, American mediator
George Mitchell predicted Thursday
that a new compromise package will
finally spur formation of a Protestant
Catholic government for Northern
Ireland and prompt the outlawed ERA
to disarm.
in an interview witn me
Associated Press, the former senator
from Maine - who helped achieve last
year’s landmark Good Friday peace
accord - said he hadn’t wanted to
return when the deal started unravel
ing this summer, and the prime minis
ters of Britain and Ireland phoned.
Then he listened to his wife.
“She said, ‘You’ve got to do it. It’s
the right thing to do,”’ Mitchell said in
a spartan office at die British govern
ment headquarters, his home away
from home for the past 11 weeks of
patient mediation.
The compromise package,
already being put into action, involves
the Ulster Unionists, the province’s
major British Protestant party, drop
ping their longstanding demand for
Irish Republican Army disarmament
before the new four-party govern
ment is formed.
Instead, as Mitchell emphasized
Thursday in his concluding report, the
Ulster Unionists would be expected to
accept the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party
as government colleagues on the
same day the IRA starts negotiations
with a disarmament commission.
Both moves are expected in early
December - but only if Ulster
Unionist leader David Trimble can
overcome considerable opposition
within his party in a key vote late this
month.
Mitchell told the AP he could not
be sure whether Trimble would pre
vail or be ousted as Ulster Unionist
leader. But he stressed that Trimble’s
critics, who complain that the IRA
has provided no guarantees it will
ever “decommission” its weapons
dumps, had no alternative strategy to
make it happen.
In the past, IRA commanders
have argued that to hand over even a
single bullet would symbolize surren
der, and humiliate and split their
ranks.
“There’s only one guarantee in
this whole process,” Mitchell said. “If
Mr. Trimble is rejected and if this
process fails, then I guarantee you
there will be no decommissioning.”
Those Ulster Unionists backing
Trimble, he said, “are in a very diffi
cult situation because it’s politically
very awkward for them. There are
many key decisions ahead, and this
process can fail at any one of several
points along the way.”
But Mitchell expressed total con
fidence that Canadian Gen. John de
Chastelain, who leads the disarma
ment commission, will achieve the
Good Friday accord’s expectation of
total disarmament of the IRA - as
well as outlawed pro-British groups -
by next May.
“I’ve known John de Chastelain
for many years,” Mitchelf said.
“When he says he’ll get a job done,
he’ll do it.”
Mitchell denied media reports
that, as part of the behind-the-scenes
negotiations, the IRA would be
expected to start destroying its hidden
weapons dumps in cooperation with
de Chastelain by late January.
He noted the agreement unveiled
this week confirms the general is
solely responsible for setting dead
lines for progress.
Vindicated after flying across the
Atlantic more than 20 times since
September, Mitchell now is receiving
praise and gratitude from all the talks
participants.
But the 66-year-old diplomat
emphasized that he can’t be persuad
ii
When (John de
Chastelain) says
he ’ll get a job done,
he’ll do it.”
George Mitchell
American mediator
ed to take on any new work in
Northern Ireland.
He’s looking forward to being
back home with his wife of five years,
Heather, and being awoken by their 2
year-old son, Andrew.
“This’ll sound funny,” he said
with a smile, “but I can’t wait to get
up in the morning with my young son
and change his diapers! It’ll be nice to
watch the sun come up together.”
Egyptians
■ Cairo locals say suicide
of pilot is impossible due
to his Islamic beliefs.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Many peo
ple in Cairo say they can’t believe what
U.S. investigators seem to suspect: A
co-pilot nearing retirement uttered a
few final words and then sent EgyptAir
Flight 990 plummeting into the
Atlantic Ocean, killing himself and
216 others.
it s impossible, insisted Hassan
Syed, an engineer.
“Of course nol,” said his wife,
Faiza Gamal.
“It’s crazy,” said student Islam
Zeydan, as two other buddies from the
American University of Cairo soccer
team shook their heads.
Many Egyptians say they suspect
American investigators find it easier to
blame a dead crew member than to
uncover what really happened aboard
the flight heading from New York to
Cairo.
Some, in this nation where con
spiracy theories are plentiful, believe
blaming relief co-pilot Capt. Gameel
el-Batouty for the Oct. 31 crash is an
attempt to hide something - sabotage,
a mechanical failure, an assassin tar
geting 33 Egyptian military officers
who were on die flight
Others say the American investiga
tors must be misinterpreting the words
U.S. officials have linked to the co
pilot Just before the dive began, a fed
eral law enforcement official said, a
crew member uttered a phrase or
phrases in Arabic that have been trans
lated as, “I made my decision now. I
put my faith in God’s hands.”
Muslim religious expressions are
common in everyday language in
Egypt A phrase about entrusting one’s
faith to God comes from the Koran and
is invoked before many tasks.
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doubt suicide theory
Some people here say they think
Egypt should play a larger role in the
investigation.
The United States, at Egypt’s
request, is handling the probe because
the plane crashed less than an hour
after leaving New York and because the
Americans are experienced in ocean
crashes and have the equipment to
investigate them. But as the probe
turned toward pilot suicide, Egyptian
officials spoke up.
Egypt has dispatched to
Washington its most senior aviation
official, Gen. Abdel Fatah Qatu, head
of Egypt’s C ivil Aviation Authority. He
was heading a delegation of technical
experts and security and military intel
ligence officers.
Airline officials said the delegation
will try to find out why U.S. investiga
tors suspect the crash was a criminal
act. They are especially worried about
reports that a decision - delayed by
Egyptian concern - to transfer the case
from the National Transportation
Safety Board to the FBI was prompted
by the religious utterances attributed to
the co-pilot
Capt. Hussein el-Sayfi, a
Transportation Ministry official who
returned Wednesday from the United
States, told reporters that Egyptian avi
ation officials led by Qatu want to re
examine tiie voice recorder’s contents.
Information Minister Safwat el
Sherif said in comments carried by the
official Middle East News Agency that
murder-suicide reports “are mere spec
ulation, suggestion and imagination
that are far from being documented
facts.”
Suggestions of a mass murder-sui
cide by a crew member angered the
Egyptian Pilots Association. “The
records of the Egyptian pilots are hon
orable,” Capt. Walid Murad, head of
the association, said in a statement.
“Committing suicide is not a trait that
Egyptians and Muslims are known
for.”
Suicide, rare and considered
shameful in Egypt, is strictly forbidden
in Islam.
Government officials: Tact
key in flight investigation
WASHINGTON (AP) - With
Egyptian sensitivities on world dis
play, the State Department urged
investigators Thursday to exercise “a
maximum degree of cooperation and
tact” in drawing conclusions about the
culprit in the crash of EgyptAir Flight
990.
Egypt is experiencing a “great
trauma,” the State Department
spokesman James P. Rubin said.
In Istanbul, Turkey, where
PresidentClinton and European lead
ers are holding summit talks, Egyptian
Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told
reporters it was premature to suggest
anything other than a “technical fail
ure” caused the crash that killed 217
people, including 106 Americans.
By stressing they have found no
mechanical or weather-related cause
and disclosing the presence and words
of a relief co-pilot in the cockpit, U.S.
investigators had pointed to the possi
bility that the co-pilot intentionally
crashed the plane and resisted his cap
tain’s urgent plea to help him take the
plane out of its dive.
Contributing to that conclusion
was a recording of foe relief pitot say
ing, “I made my decision now; I put
my faith in God’s hands” just before
the Boeing 767 began its plunge into
the Atlantic.
“You can’t jump to conclusions
from spmeone quoting foe Koran and
say that this was more than an acci
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dent,” Moussa said in Istanbul. “The
investigation has to continue.”
Egypt’s ambassador to the United
States also questioned whether the
quotation attributed to relief co-pilot
Capt. Gameel el-Batouty was on the
tape.
Interviewed on NBC’s “Today,”
Ambassador Nabil Fahmy said: “I’ve
listened to the tape myself, but I will
refrain from commenting on the con
tents.”
Asked whether the statement
“sounds like a statement of suicide,”
Fahmy replied: “No, it does not, if it
was said.” He declined to say whether
the tape raises doubt about a suicide
scenario.
Rubin, at the daily State
Department news briefing Thursday,
said, “we’re concerned by statements
coming out of the investigation.”
He said the State Department was
using its diplomatic expertise to
ensure proper coordination between
die United States and Egypt
Rubin also agreed the administra
tion was trying to avoid negative
effects on U.S. relations with Egypt
“Obviously,” he said. “But what
we’ve been trying to do, and we think
successfully, is ensuring that a close
frienid, Egypt, which has obviously
gone through a great trauma when its
national airline crashed ... that the
investigation is done with the maxi- '
mum degree of cooperation and tact”
Kentucky leads U.S.
in adult smoking rate
ATLANTA (AP) - Kentucky, with
its tradition of tobacco farming and low
taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco
products, once again leads the nation in
the rate of adult smoking while heavily
Mormon Utah still has the lowest rate.
The CDC has blamed Kentucky’s
high smoking rates on a lack of tobacco
controls. The state has the nation’s low
est tobacco excise tax at 3 cents a pack
and has the nation’s most tobacco
dependent farm economy.
“There is a misconception in my
state that if you help smokers quit, you
are hurting the state’s farmers,” said
Todd Warnick, head of Kentucky
Tobacco Control, who was in Atlanta
for a conference of state anti-tobacco
officials sponsored by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
“But U.S. demand for tobacco is
about 5 percent of the entire world
demand, and if every smoker in
Kentucky quit, it wouldn’t make a
dent.”
jsentucxy naa a rate or ju.s percent
of adults who smoke cigarettes, accord
ing to the CDC’s 1998 adult state-by
state smoking report released
Thursday, the same day as the Great
American Smokeout.
The statistics were based on a
national telephone survey of people
over 18. Smokers were defined as those
who have smoked at least 100 ciga
rettes in their lives and currently smoke
every day or some days.
Kentucky was followed by Nevada
at 30.4 percent, West Virginia at 27.9
percent, Michigan at 27.4 percent and
South Dakota at 27.3 percent. South
Dakota made the biggest increase
among states, jumping from 24.3 per
u
If every smoker in
Kentucky quit, it
wouldn’t make a
dent
ToddWarnick
head of Kentucky Tobacco Control
cent last year.
Georgia, the nation’s third-largest
tobacco producer, reported a rate of
23.7 percent, up from 22.4 percent last
year.
Utah had the lowest rate at 14.2 per
cent, kept down by the Mormon
church’s stand against tobacco.
After Utah, the lowest states were
Minnesota at 18.0 percent, California
at 19.2 percent, New Jersey at 19.2 per
cent and Hawaii at 19.5 percent.
Minnesota had the largest drop,
from 21.8 to 18. Dr. Michael Eriksen,
director of the CDC’s Office of
Smoking & Health, attributed that to
the state’s high-profile suit against
tobacco manufacturers.
The CDC included cigar rates for
the first time in the report, saying 5.2
percent of adults had smoked at least
one cigar in the past month, with 39
percent having tried at least one cigar
ever.
More than 5 percent of Americans
are regular cigar smokers, and federal
health officials blame the increasing
popularity in part on stogie-chomping
celebrities.
FCC proposes video
description for blind
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal
regulators proposed Thursday that
television broadcasters and program
distributors in the biggest markets
offer narrated programming for the
blind.
The action was the first step in the
Federal Communication
Commission’s effort to bring video
description services, which describe
the scene and action not captured in
dialogue, to television programming.
Under the FCC proposal, commer
cial television broadcasters affiliated
with NBC, ABC, Fox and CBS in the
top 25 markets would have to provide
four hours per week of described prime
time and/or children’s programming.
Large video distributors also
would have to carry described pro
gramming to broadcasters affiliated
with the top four networks and those
that reach a certain number of house
holds.
The FCC said this would be a step
ping stone for more widespread use of
the service and also asked for com
ment on eventually applying video
description rules to cable operators,
satellite providers and others. The
commission expects that between 8
million and 12 million people could
benefit from the service.
“We cannot afford to let the issue
of disabilities be simply an after
thought,” said Bill Kennaid, the FCC
chairman. He hopes that the proposal
will be approved in the next six
months. Broadcasters then would have
18 months to implement the rules.
Regulators said they want to act
now so they can set the stage to incor
porate descriptive services as televi
sion transitions from analog to digital.