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Voice of America, 99-10-18Voice of America: Selected Articles Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Voice of America <gopher://gopher.voa.gov>CONTENTS
[01] TURKEY / QUAKE BY AMBERIN ZAMAN (ADAPAZARI. TURKEY)DATE=10/18/1999TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT NUMBER=5-44536 CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: More than two months have passed since a major earthquake hit northwestern Turkey, killing at least 17-thousand and destroying tens of thousands of homes and buildings. But as Amberin Zaman reports from the city of Adapazari, the Turkish government has yet to fulfill promises to provide adequate shelter for hundreds of thousands left homeless by the quake. TEXT: The harsh Anatolian winter is approaching. Fall rains have already started converting this tent settlement into what thousands of refugees here call a "mud city." Many express anger at the government for failing to keep its promise to shift them to all weather shelters ahead of the rains. Ayca Sumbul is a young mother with three children. She lost her husband and home during the seven-point-four magnitude earthquake. She complains bitterly about living in a flimsy, canvas tent provided by the state run Red Crescent. /// Act Sumbul, in Turkish, Fade under ////// Act Bulut in Turkish, fade under ///NEB/AZ/GE/JP 18-Oct-1999 10:00 AM EDT (18-Oct-1999 1400 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America [02] E-U / SOLANA (L-ONLY) BY RON PEMSTEIN (BRUSSELS)DATE=10/18/1999TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT NUMBER=2-255192 CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: Javier Solana, the European Union's new representative for a common foreign and security policy, is taking up his duties in Brussels. V-O-A correspondent Ron Pemstein reports from Brussels that former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana has experience in dealing with a defense alliance. TEXT: Javier Solana managed to keep 19 NATO countries together throughout nearly three months of war in Kosovo. Now his challenge is to build a defense consensus among 15 countries, including four declared neutral members. He also has the challenge of getting the European Union to speak with one voice on foreign and security matters. He started his first day as the European Union's high representative by declaring his confidence that his new job will not bring him into conflict with the European Commission's external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten. Both men have failed to make clear which one of them will be Europe's authoritative spokesman on foreign and security issues. Mr. Solana says they are committed to cooperate in their work. Mr. Solana will lead the European Union's effort to build up its own defense identity cooperatively -- but separately -- from NATO. He tells reporters it is time for Europe to assert its economic power in the world. /// 1st SOLANA ACT ////// END ACT ////// 2ND SOLANA ACT ////// END ACT ///NEB/RP/GE/WTW 18-Oct-1999 13:28 PM EDT (18-Oct-1999 1728 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America [03] E-U REFORM (L-ONLY) BY RON PEMSTEIN (BRUSSELS)DATE=10/18/1999TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT NUMBER=2-255187 CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: Three elder statesmen have presented the European Commission with proposals to reform the European Union before it takes in new members in four years. V-O-A correspondent Ron Pemstein reports from Brussels on the reforms and the need for them. TEXT: The rules - originally designed for six members are not working well for the current European Union membership of 15. It is clear that with plans to expand by 12 or 13 countries in the next decade, that the European Union is going to have to change the way it makes decisions. It is already difficult to reach unanimous votes when European leaders or ministers meet. The president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, appointed three elder statesmen to suggest ways to reform European structures before an inter-governmental conference is held at the end of next year to approve the reforms. As expected, the so-called "wise men" suggest that Mr. Prodi and his successors, as head of the European Commission, be given greater powers to choose their commissioners independently of European governments. They also say decisions will have to be made by qualified majorities - with no countries being given the power to veto them. Those reforms will be controversial among the leaders. For instance, Britain has pledged to block any plan within the European Union to impose a single tax system. The chairman of the wise men, former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, says since the last inter- governmental conference in Amsterdam two years ago, the prospect of the European Union growing to more than 20 countries is closer to reality. /// Dehaene Act ////// Opt act ////// End Act ////// End opt act ////// Von Weizsacker Act ////// End Act ///NNNN Source: Voice of America [04] N-Y ECON WRAP (S & L) BY ELAINE JOHANSON (NEW YORK)DATE=10/18/1999TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT NUMBER=2-255204 CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: Stock prices in the United States were mixed today (Monday) in volatile trading as inflation fears re-emerged. Last-minute buying, however, cut big losses for the Dow Jones to keep it above that psychologically-important 10-thousand mark, which it reached last March. V-O-A correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York: TEXT: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 96 points at 10-thousand-116. The Standard and Poor's 500 index gained six points to close at 12-hundred-54. But the Nasdaq index lost one and one-half percent as high-technology and internet stocks were battered. Earnings in the banking sector came in strong. Citigroup, the leading financial services company, reported a tripling of third-quarter profits - up over 230 percent. Bank of America and J-P Morgan - the largest and fourth-largest U-S banks - also showed a leap in profits that beat Wall Street estimates. Inflation worries re-surfaced, however. The consumer price index - the chief measure of inflation in the United States at the retail level - will be released on Tuesday. Those numbers are expected to be up. /// REST OPT ////// BISSELL ACT ////// END ACT ///NNNN Source: Voice of America [05] MONDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)DATE=10/18/1999TYPE=U-S EDITORIAL DIGEST NUMBER=6-11518 EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 CONTENT= INTRO: A survey of U-S editorial pages reveals substantial commentary Monday on President Clinton's ban on new road-building in the nation's forest preserves. Another popular topic is the departure of special counsel Kenneth Starr after a long, and costly investigation of President Clinton. Other topics considered include progress in Nigeria, the passing of a Tanzanian legend, a Nobel prize for Doctors without borders and another blow from Mother Nature in the person of Hurricane Irene. Now, here is ____________ with a closer look and some excerpts, in today's Editorial Digest. TEXT: President Clinton said last week he will ban the construction of any new highways, logging roads or trails in much of the nation's national forests. The move was praised by environmentalists, but criticized by the timber industry. The Chicago Tribune says the worry about the new policy is overblown. VOICE: The alarm by the timber and paper industry over President Clinton's announcement Wednesday that he plans to bar road-building on [about] 16-million 187-and-one-half thousand hectares of national forest is overblown and more than a bit dishonest. . Neither the world nor the logging industry will collapse: [Mr.] Clinton's decision is justified to protect an irreplaceable natural resource for future generations. /// OPT ///TEXT: The New York Times is also pleased with Mr. Clinton's decision, calling it one of the landmark environmental acts of his presidency. VOICE: . in scope and political audacity, nothing quite matches the proposal he announced last week to protect more than 16-million-187-and-one-half- thousand-hectares of national forest from commercial development. If his scheme survives legal and congressional challenges - no sure thing - it will almost surely be recorded as a signature (defining) environmental achievement of his administration. . This plan is the culmination of a long effort . to impress upon Congress and indeed the Forest Service itself the notion that the national forests are more than tree farms. TEXT: Still on U-S domestic issues, the imminent departure of the long-serving special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, is drawing a good deal of comment. The Atlanta Constitution says Mr. Starr "exits with [a] tarnished legacy." VOICE: . Historians and legal scholars . Will have to judge for posterity whether [Mr.] Starr's meandering investigation of President Clinton and practically everybody with whom he came in contact with in his adult life in Arkansas and the District of Columbia was worth the 50-million dollars and five years [Mr.] Starr's office devoted to this cold pursuit. . Considering all the time [Mr.] Starr took, he leaves a distressing stack of work undone. TEXT: In Oklahoma, The Tulsa World is even more critical of the cost and time involved in the investigation, given what the paper feels are fairly meager returns. VOICE: Rarely has so much money, time and effort been expended to achieve so little. So little, that is, save collateral damage done to the nation's political and legal processes-and its psyche. With his five- year, 47-million-dollar pursuit of President Clinton all but history, and a sad chapter in history to boot, Independent counsel Kenneth Starr will formally step down this week and return to private law practice. . [Mr.] Starr managed to get 14 guilty pleas or convictions, notably those of Whitewater business partners Jim and Susan McDougal and then-Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker. But [Mr.] Starr's no-holds- barred effort to bring down the president failed. [Mr.] Clinton was impeached by the House (of Representatives), which relied on Starr's information, but he was acquitted in the Senate. /// OPT ///. Is the United States better off now than it was five years and 47-million dollars ago, before [Mr.] Starr began his relentless, seemingly obsessive, pursuit of Bill Clinton? Hardly. ///END OPT /// TEXT: Moving to overseas topics, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's trip to Africa, the New York Times is encouraged about what she will find in Nigeria. The newspaper praises the former general, Olusegun Obasanjo, elected president in May, for early moves in improving the nation's rather desperate situation. VOICE: There was reason for skepticism about his intentions. Nevertheless, President Obasanjo . has won over many of his critics by distancing himself from his former military allies, taking important steps to combat corruption and restoring political freedoms. He is now beginning economic reforms. With one important exception . the oil-producing Delta region - President Obasanjo has awakened hopes that Nigeria's slide can be halted or reversed. TEXT: Still on the subject of events in Africa, the late Tanzanian leader, Julius Nyerere, is remembered by The Sun in Baltimore as a man who tried hard to move his country forward after independence from Britain, but with a program of socialism that eventually failed. VOICE: Like many other 1960s Third World leaders, Mr. Nyerere thought one-party socialism offered the best answer to . poverty and underdevelopment . He nationalized foreign banks, plantations and manufacturing plants - even though he had no trained personnel to run them. .These experiments, combined with his leadership in the non-alignment movement, won Mr. Nyerere plaudits from other socialists .[but] Long before Mr. Nyerere retired in 1985, it was evident his policies had failed .. Even as it mourns Mr. Nyerere, Tanzania is still trying to figure out how to catch up. /// OPT ///TEXT: Turning to events in Latin America, today's Los Angeles Times is talking about some nations that have made gains in both democracy and economics. But there is one area the paper says, that still lags behind - the justice system. VOICED: Reform won't be easy, but it cannot be delayed if the Latin nations want to establish stability under law and to work within the global community. . a new breed of justice officials and systems is positively reshaping Latin attitudes toward the police, courts and jails. The Argentine government is policing its police, particularly on the score of corruption in the ranks. Bolivia's government is changing archaic laws and limiting the oft-abused powers of state prosecutors. In giant Brazil, reformers in and out of government are transforming prisons from dismal cages to places where inmates earn wages through work and require less supervision. /// END OPT ///TEXT: There is also praise this Monday for Doctors without Borders, the organization which won the Nobel Peace Prize last week. Boston's Christian Science Monitor feels the group is justly deserving, noting: VOICE: In its healing mission into lethal war zones, the group uses such commando tactics as crossing borders without permission, rallying the media to fight injustice, and opening talks between warring parties. It brings a quality of mercy that puts people above borders, a doctrine gaining popularity and [one] that was invoked in the NATO bombing in Kosovo. . Most of all, the award reminds us that humanitarian disasters are the responsibility of all of us, not just governments . /// OPT ///TEXT: Turning briefly to the Middle East, today's Washington Post is praising the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for declaring that some of the 42 illegal hilltop settlements set up by Israelis on the West Bank will be removed. And the Post continues: VOICE: . Prime Minister Barak deserves more credit than the comparison to Mr. Netanyahu's government gives him. In including in his government parties close to the settler movement . Mr. Barak is attempting something truly ambitious: to bring elements within the settler movement along with a vigorous peace process. /// END OPT ///VOICE: In the United States, another hurricane, Irene, has dumped flood waters on Florida and the Carolinas, just as they were recovering from the last Atlantic storm, prompting this from The Miami Herald: VOICE: What Irene lacked in wind, the storm made up in rain, tons and tons of water dumped atop one of the wettest summers on record. Lacking storage capacity and awaiting an overhaul, South Florida's basic drainage system was simply overwhelmed. The Miami River overflowed, as did a dozen smaller canals and "constructed' lakes that were once thought would protect pricey western suburbs. .And therein lies a lesson: Take no hurricane for granted -- each carries its own misery. TEXT: On that note we conclude this sampling of
editorial comment from some of Monday's U-S daily
newspapers.
[06] CHILD SOLDIERS CONFERENCE (L-ONLY) BY JONATHAN BRAUDE (BERLIN)DATE=10/18/1999TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT NUMBER=2-255196 CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: The British Army, as well as clandestine military groups from Kurdistan and Kosovo, are being singled out for criticism at a conference on the use of children as soldiers in Europe. Jonathan Braude reports from Berlin. TEXT: The United Nations conference on the Rights of the Child defines a child as anyone who has not yet reached the age of 18. But when it comes to soldiers, the convention only calls on governments to keep children under 15 out of direct combat. But German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, in a keynote speech to the Berlin conference on Monday, described that as a double standard. He called on all governments to agree to a ban on recruitment of those under the age of 18. Other conference delegates, including the representatives of the United Nations and the European Union agreed. But some went further than Mr. Fischer by naming those who recruit child soldiers in Europe. Lotte Leicht, of Human Rights Watch and the Coalition to stop the Use of Child Soldiers, said many European governments recruit children. But she called Britain one of the worst offenders, for recruiting boys of 16 and 17 into combat units - when they are still too young to vote, drink alcohol or marry without their parents' consent. /// Act Lotte Leicht ////// End act ////// Act Lotte Leicht ////// End act ///NNNN Source: Voice of America Voice of America: Selected Articles Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |
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