North, to meet
* *
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The
leaders of North and South Korea
have agreed to meet for the first time,
a Seoul government official said
Monday (Sunday CDT), marking a
major step forward in relations
between the two nations that techni
cally remain at war. Q
South Korean President Kim
Dae-jung will meet North Korean
leader Kim Jong II in the North’s
capital of Pyongyang June 12-14,
said the source, speaking on condi
tion of anonymity. It would be the
first summit between the two rival
Korean states since the division of
their peninsula into the communist
North and the capitalist South in
1945,
The Koreas had planned to hold
their first summit in the summer of
1994, but the meeting was canceled a
few weeks before its scheduled date
because of the death of North Korean
leader Kim II Sung.
The agreement announced
Monday followed a series of upbeat
statements by top Seoul government
officials.
Last week, Kim Dae-jung hinted
that the two Koreas were holding
secret talks to thaw icy relations on
the peninsula.
During a visit to Berlin in March,
Kim said South Korea was ready to
help North Korea rebuild its tattered
economy, if the communist country
makes a request through formal
channels.
North Korea so far has shunned
top-level dialogue with Seoul, which
it has described as a U.S. puppet. But
in recent months, North Korea has
been increasing contacts with the
outside world, ending decades of iso
lation.
Early this year, North Korea
established diplomatic relations with
Italy. It is either in talks or in contact
with a number of countries, includ
ing the United States, Britain, Japan
and Australia.
Kim Yong Nam, speaker or North
Korea’s parliament and ceremonial
head of state, and Foreign Minister
Paek Nam Sun are now in Cuba
attending a summit of the Group of
77, an association of 133 non
aligned countries.
North Korea’s overtures to the
outside world could be an act of des
peration as much as a desire for rec
onciliation.
Years of famine brought on by
drought, floods and economic mis
management forced the totalitarian
Cuban boy’s father has
government’s support
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
government “will do what is neces
sary” to reunite Elian Gonzalez
with his father soon, a top Justice
official said Sunday, as lawyers for
the boy’s Miami relatives warned
that the family can’t control protest
ers if they stand in the way.
Attorney General Janet Reno
refused to discuss the use of force as
a last resort except to say such plans
have not been presented to her for
mally.
“I hope with all my heart that the
rule of law prevails, and I expect
that it will,” she said on CNN’s
“Late Edition.”
Eric Holder, the deputy attorney
general, said officials wanted a
peaceful transfer this week but was
going to consider taking Elian from
unwilling hands if they must.
“We don’t expect anything like
that to happen,” he said on NBC’s
“Meet the Press.” “We will do what
is necessary to reunite father and
son, however.”
In Miami, the relatives fighting
to keep the Cuban boy in the United
States would not offer a firm com
mitment to meet Monday with the
three psychiatric experts appointed
by the government to smooth the
boy’s return to his father.
Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian’s great
uncle and temporary custodian,
asked in a letter to Reno that the
meeting “be scheduled on a tenta
tive basis” because his daughter was
in the hospital, and the family want
ed her to be part of the discussion.
Hundreds of supporters gath
ered outside the family’s Miami
home over the weekend, keeping up
a peaceful vigil that officials fear
could turn confrontational if agree
ment is not reached on handing over
Elian away from that scene.
Outside Washington, such a
vigil became noisy and tense
Sunday in the Bethesda, Md.,
neighborhood where Elian’s father,
Juan Miguel Gonzalez, is staying at
the home of a Cuban diplomat.
Within shouting distance of the
house, dozens of protesters chanti
ng “Help is with you” began cross
ing a police barricade- trying to get
the father to come outside and meet
Delfin Gonzalez, another of Elian’s
Miami great-uncles, who stood
with them.
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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
The agreement announced Monday
followed a series of upbeat statements
by top Seoul government officials. Last
week, (South Korean President) Kim
Dae-jung hinted that the two Koreas
were holding secret talks to thaw icy
relations on the peninsula.
state to appeal for food donations
from international donors, including
the United States.
Aid workers say the situation
remains precarious. Many obstacles
to a lasting peace on the Korean
peninsula remain.
North Korea’s missile and
nuclear programs and human rights
record are a great source of concern
to officials in Seoul, Washington and
elsewhere.
North Korea wants the United
States to remove it from a U.S. list of
countries that sponsor terrorist activ
ities.
Pyongyang was put on the list
because of involvement in the midair
bombing of a South Korean airliner
near Burma, now Myanmar, in 1987.
All 115 people on board the Korean
Air plane died.
Monday’s announcement was
likely to boost the fortunes of South
Korea’s ruling Millennium
Democratic Party in parliamentary
elections Thursday.
Kim has been under domestic
pressure to show results from his
gradualist policy of trying to engage
North Korea, which critics say has
failed to win concessions and has
instead funded Pyongyang’s military
machine.
19 killed in crash of
new marine aircraft
MARANA, Ariz. (AP) - A
Marine Corps aircraft attempting to
land during a nighttime training mis
sion crashed and burst into flames,
killing all 19 aboard and adding to a
checkered history for a new breed of
hybrid plane that can take off and
land like a helicopter.
The MV-22 tiltrotor Osprey,
which looks like a turboprop, is part
of a new generation of aircraft sched
uled to eventually replace all of the
Marines’ primary troop-transport
helicopters. The military began fly
ing the aircraft six months ago.
A Pentagon spokesman said the
names of the Marines killed in
Saturday night’s crash - 15 passen
gers and four crew members - would
not be released until their families
were notified, which could take until
today.
The four crew members were
from a task force headquartered in
Quantico, Va., and the 15 passengers
were from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines
based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.,
according to the Pentagon.
On Sunday, investigators were
reviewing the crash site at Marana
Northwest Regional Airport west of
Tucson. Few details were released.
Carol Ward, who lives about five
miles from the airport, said she
watched the plane fly by from her
porch. It disappeared behind a moun
tain, and a few seconds later “I saw x
the smoke and this big old poof,” she
said.
The dust from the crash “just
eliminated the sky,” she said. A heap
of twisted, charred metal was visible
at the scene, and aerial footage
showed a large blackened patch on
the airport grounds.
Military officials said the
downed aircraft had been attempting
to land at the airport when it crashed.
It was one of two Ospreys simulating
the evacuation of civilians.
Firefighters said witnesses
reported seeing the plane head
straight down and become engulfed,
in flames after it crashed.
“Our sympathies go out to the
families of these Marines,” said
Marine Lt. Mark Carter, a
spokesman for the Marine Corps Air
Station, in Yuma, where the flight
originated.
President Clinton called the
units’ commanding officers and
asked them to “pass condolences to
the families and tell them of the
importance of their service,” White
House press secretary Joe Lockhart
said.
The crash is again raising ques
tions about the safety of the aircraft
that has been over a decade in the
making.
Former President George Bush’s
administration tried to scuttle the
project after early safety concerns,
but builders say modifications from
the original design make today’s
Ospreys lighter and safer.
The Marine Corps lists two other
Osprey crashes, both early in the air
craft’s development: One, in 1991 in
Delaware, was blamed on gyro
wiring problems; the other, in 1992
in Virginia, killed all seven people on
board after an engine caught fire.
Jointly produced by Bell
Helicopter Textron of Fort Worth,
Texas, and Boeing Co., in Ridley
Park, Pa., the Osprey can achieve
speeds of more than 400 mph and an
altitude of 25,000 feet. It is designed
to carry up to 24 troops or external
loads of 15,000 pounds.
The hybrid aircraft flies at twice
the speed, has twice the range and
carries twice the payload of the
Vietnam-era CH-46 helicopters it is
expected to replace.
WEATHER
Scattered showers
high 53, low 34
• -- ..
. > S ' •
Incumbent, economist
fighting for presidency
LIMA, Peru (AP) - In elections
overshadowed by allegations of
fraud, Peruvians voted Sunday on
whether to give iron-handed
President Alberto Fujimori a contro
versial third five-year tom.
Fujimori, 61, popular for years
for having crushed leftist insurgen
cies and ending economic chaos,
was fighting for his political life
against 54-year-old Alejandro
Toledo, a U.S.-trained economist
Toledo, who grew up in poverty,
has capitalized on the country’s deep
two-year recession and high unem
ployment to cut into Fujimori’s sup
port among the poor.
■ Ghtaa
China warns Taiwan
not to seek independence
BEIJING (AP) - Calling
Taiwan’s vice president-elect the
“scum of the country” and an incur
able separatist, China on Saturday
stepped up pressure on its island
neighbor by renewing its warnings
against moving toward independ
ence.
The harsh rhetoric China
unleashed Saturday contrasted with
the wait-and-see stance it has adopt
ed since a March 18 vote forced out
the Nationalists who had ruled
Taiwan since they fled the mainland
amid civil war 51 years ago.
Annette Lu, the vice president
elect, and President-elect Chen
Shui-bian, have said they support a
formal declaration of independence
for the island only if Beijing is
attacked.
■Saudi Arabia
U.S. military forces pull some
troops out of Saudi Arabia
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -
The United States, which has come
under criticism for maintaining mil
itary forces in Saudi Arabia nine
years after the Gulf War, is moving
some of its 4,000 airmen out of the
desert kingdom, a U.S. military offi
cial said Sunday.
It was not immediately clear if
the change was linked to a growing
unease in the Saudi government
about hosting U.S. troops. Besides
Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states such
as Kuwait have increasingly been
criticized by their own people and by
other Muslim nations for hosting
U.S. military bases.
U.S. Defense Secretary William
Cohen, who is on a regional tout,
discussed the logistics of the move
with American commanders at the
Prince Sultan Air Base in the Saudi
desert, said the official, who is based
in Saudi Arabia and spoke on condi
tion of anonymity.
■Los Angeles
Janitors, maintenance work
ers protest for better pay
LOS ANGELES (AP) -
Hoisting brooms; and mops, thou
sands of low-inbome workers are
walking picket lines and gearing up
for demonstrations across the coun
try to demand higher wages, better
job security and “justice for jani
tors.”
The pressure started building
last week when hundreds of janitors
went on strike in Los Angeles, leav
ing the companies that clean 70 per
cent of the county’s commercial
office space scrambling to find
replacements.
This week, the campaign
spreads to New York City, where
workers plan to march up Park
Avenue to promote their demands
for contract talks with owners of
3,000 residential buildings.
■
