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Barak’s short trip yields results ■ Israeli-Palestinian negotiations may involve more U.S. mediation. .,j JERUSALEM (AP) - In a con cession to the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepted President Clinton’s proposal to increase U.S. ihvolvement hhead of a May deadline forp peace treaty out line, a senior Israeli official said Wednesday. Barak’s agreement was elicited during a quick visit to Washington at ' Clinton’s behest, said the official in -^Barak’s delegation, who spoke on ; ' condition of anonymity aboard Israel V Air Force One. ; ^ Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Complained this week that the most ^ lecent round of U.S.-sponsored talks r has not come up with anythingxoiW Crete. Arafat is demanding Israel agree to a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza with part of Jerusalem as its capital. He has accused Barak of taking an “extrem ist” position. The sides are still deadlocked over final borders, the future of Jerusalem and the status of refugees. A failure to meet a Sept. 13 dead line for a full-fledged peace agree ment could precipitate a complete breakdown in negotiations and a return to violence. Clinton sum moned Barak to Washington to ensure that the process he has nur tured for seven years does not col lapse just before he leaves office. * The Israeli official said Clinton’s interest in the topic stretched what was supposed to be atwo-hour meet ing into more than four hours. The Israeli official shid U.S. observers would begin sitting in on the Israeli-Palestinian sessions regu - larlyat Bolling*Air Force Base near Washington. He said Clinton felt that their presence at the meetings would facilitate the after-hours informal mediation that the Americans had been conducting until now. If the May deadline for a treaty outline approaches and there is still no significant progress, the Americans would adopt a much more involved role and begin to put their own proposals on the table, the official said. The three leaders - Clinton, Arafat and Barak — would wrap up loose ends at a Washington summit, the Israeli official said. He didn’t bay when that would .take place, but Barak is due to attend an American Israeli Public Affairs"Committee meeting on May 20 in Washington. The official said, a successful treaty outline would “make it a lot easier for us to be more generous with territory” in the last interim troop withdrawal in the West Bank, slated for June. $$ Arafat has complained that Barak has made niggling offers of territory. The chief Palestinian nego tiator, Yasser Abed Rabbo, has described Israel’s proposal as isolat ed “islands in an Israeli ocean” lack ing the contiguity Arafat needs for statehood in what are now the Palestinian-controlled territories. The Israeli official said Israel saw a small number of areas near Jerusalem as remaining under joint Palestinian-Israeli control in a filial settlement - the first time Israel has raised such a proposal. The Palestinians want all areas now finder joint control to come under their full rule after.a final agreement. \ " \ ' ^ ;"" It is the refugee issue, however, on which the two sides are furthest apart. The Palestinians want Israel to at least acknowledge the right of. return of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in what (is now Israel in the 1948 Mideast war. • —: . Founders: Sale won’t melt social role MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, the ice-cream maker founded by two former hip pies, is being sold for $326 million to Unilever, the) world’s largest ice cream maker. At the same time, the multinational giant is buying diet staple Slim-Fast. The Ben & Jerry’s deal, announced Wednesday, would bring the maker of ice cream flavors like Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia under the same corporate umbrella as Good Humor, Popsicles and Breyers ice cream. On the opposite end of the weight scale, Unilever said it will pay $2.3 billion for Slim-Fast Foods Co., a privately owned Florida company that makes nutritional supplements and food for dieters. Ben & Jerry’s has played up its iconoclastic image as a small Vermont company bucking the worldwide standard of maximizing profits. It has long bragged of giving 7.5 percent of its pre-tax profits to chari table enterprises and has purchasing policies that fyvor family (farms and sustainable agriculture. Its annual meeting has coincided Newsmakers File Photo Jerry Greenfield, left, and Be» Cohen, tlie fonnders of Bin & iMakflA KlftNUiniAflii n«^^ , jerry s Homemaoe me. with a summer pop festival in Vermont, where the bottom line has been played on bass guitar. There were already signs that the company’s rebellious nature might H We hope that, as part of Unilever, Ben & Jerry s will continue to expand its role in society.” C Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield Founders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemad e Inc. have become chilled. Michael Garrett, the owner of four Bejn 4^#eijry’s franchises in southwestern Connecticut and New York, said in January that he and other franchisees were joining forces to stop the company’s sale "to corpo rate interests.” Wednesday, Garrett applauded the sale, saying it “might allow us to increase what we do best, which is to be involved in our community and to be socially conscious.” , The Ben & Jerry’s deal with Unilever follows an effort by a group led by co-founder Ben Cohen to take the company private. , r The agreement calls for Ben & jerry’s to operate separately From Unilever’s current U.S. business. There will be an independent board of directors and the company will remain in Vermont. “While we and others certainly would have pursued our mission as an independent enterprise, we hope that, as part of Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s will continue to expand its role in society,” co-founders Cohen and Jerry Greenfield said in a state ment released Wednesday morning. Ben & Jerry’s CEO Perry Odak said Wednesday, the company will operate as an independent sub sidiary, with only one Unilever mem ber on its board. * f-. He said Ben & Jerry’s would continue manufacturing exclusively in Vermont. WE ATH E R--, t t ' .• ^ „ ... . ^ ^ _ ia „ M^.., _• * 9 ' . *• <? Rc El lily MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Attorney General Janet Reno took an extraordinary step to resolve the Elian Gonzalez case Wednesday, flying to Miami and personally urging Ids rela tives to end the wrenching 4^-month custody struggle. Reno left after a 21/2-hour meeting with the boy’s great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, and cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, at the Miami Beach home of Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin, the nun who was host of a meeting between Elian and his grandmothers. There was no immediate word whether a handover agreement was reached. “She wants to do anything possible to resolve this,” Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin said before the meeting. “She realizes it’s a tall order but believes she may be die one who can do it” Elian and his relatives had left their Litde Havana neighborhood for Sister O’Laughlin’s home earlier in the day. One option Reno planned to pro pose was for Elian and some of his rel atives to come to Washington, to w arrange a meeting with the boy’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and the transfer of custody, said a government official, who requested anonymity. This official said the attorney gen eral’s negotiation strategy was flexi ble, and she did not intend to insist upon any single pUp. Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman fof the Miami relatives, called her trip “agoodsign.” The visit at least temporarily post poned a letter the government had planned to send the Miami relatives Wednesday telling them where and when to relinquish custody of Elian. “The timing of the letter is now in Reno’s hands,” Marlin said. It was learned that the latest draft of the letter called for the transfer to occur at 9 a.m. today at Opa-locka air port outside Miami. The transfer could also be moved back to Friday. Reno also planned to meet with community leaders in her hometown, where she served as state’s attorney for 15 years and where Cuban exiles now Wield signs denouncing her and depicting her with horns. ■ South Carolina Senate takes steps toward ' removing Confederate flag COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina lawmakers on Wednesday toojc the first step to removing the Confederate flag from atop the Statehouse dome, exactly 139 years after the first shots of die Civil War were fired. , South Carolina is the only state that flies the Confederate flag above , its Statehouse, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is leading a tourism boycott of the state until die flag is removed. “I think it’s a great day because a lot of people are sacrificing their spe cif interests in fattotof what is best for the people of South Carolina. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been fighting this battle a long time,” Democratic Sen. McKinley Washington said of the Senate’s ini tial 36-7 vote to take die flag down. All opponents were Republicans. ■"Florida Wildfire stalls, fire crews wait to see what will happen NAPLES, Fla. (AP) - A wildfire that had destroyed three homes and charred 13,000 acres of brush and * grass stalled Wednesday between " Naples and Big Cypress Swamp. Fire crews initially feared “very aggres sive fire behavior” but by mid-after noon said the fire had not advanced at all during the day. Wind was expected to pick up later but was forecast to push flames back into areas that already had burned. “We’re just kind of sitting on pins and needles waiting to see what’s going to happen,” said Robert Heed, manager of Kountree Kampinn RV Resort, which sits about 2Vi miles from the edge of the burned area. ■ Belgrade Building explosion blamed on opposing Socialist party BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - An explosion raided a branch office of President Slobodan Milosevic’s ruling party, a news agency reported Wednesday. No one was injured, but the blast shattered windows in the building and throughout the Belgrade neigh borhood. Local Socialist official Branislav Ivkovic linked die blast late Tbesday to the opposition, which has sched uled a massive rally Friday to protest Milosevic’s rule and demand new elections. Milosevic’s Socialists openly revile the opposition, accusing key leaders of being traitors for maintain ing ties to the West despite NATO’s 78-day air war against Yugoslavia to end repression in the southern province of Kosovo. ■ Peru Fujimori shy of majority vote, runoff expected LIMA, Peru (AP) - President Alberto Fujimori fell just shy of the majority needed to avoid a runoff for an unprecedented third term, elec tion officials said Wednesday, setting the stage for a showdown with inter national economist Toledo. Officials said that after counting 97.68 percent of Sunday’s ballots, Fujimori had 49.84 percent com pared to 40.31 percent for Toledo. Jose Portillo, head of the office in charge of the count, said the most Fujimori could expect to win at this point was 49.89 percent of the vote. A runoff election will be sched uled for late May or early June.