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.
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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.
