Voice of America, 00-03-13

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From: The Voice of America <gopher://gopher.voa.gov>

CONTENTS

[01] TURKEY / ISLAMIC HEADSCARVES BY AMBERIN ZAMAN (ISTANBUL)

[02] YUGOSLAV WAR CRIMES (L-ONLY) BY LAUREN COMITEAU (THE HAGUE)

[03] CHINA-E-U/TRADE (L-ONLY) BY STEPHANIE MANN (BEIJING)

[04] E-U / AUSTRIA (L-ONLY) BY RON PEMSTEIN (BRUSSELS)

[05] E-U / I-M-F (L-ONLY) BY RON PEMSTEIN (BRUSSELS)

[06] RUSSIA / COUNCIL OF EUROPE (L ONLY) BY PETER HEINLEIN (MOSCOW)

[07] HUNGARY POLLUTION (L ONLY) BY STEFAN BOS (BUDAPEST)

[08] SPANISH ELECTION BY LAURIE KASSMAN (LONDON)

[09] SPAIN ELECTION UPDATE (L ONLY) BY GIL CARBAJAL (MADRID)

[10] NY ECON WRAP (S&L) BY ELAINE JOHANSON (NEW YORK)

[11] MONDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

[01] TURKEY / ISLAMIC HEADSCARVES BY AMBERIN ZAMAN (ISTANBUL)

INTRO: Turkey's government is vigorously enforcing its controversial ban on Islamic-style headscarves in government schools and offices. But as Amberin Zaman reports from Istanbul, a growing number of Turkish women are insisting on their right to cover their heads in accordance with the Islamic holy book, the Koran, and are beginning to fight back.

TEXT: In a small Istanbul apartment facing a mosque, a group of young women gather to discuss their next move. Some are college students. Others are teachers. All have been forced out their schools because they wear the Islamic-style headscarf. Turkey's coalition government, led by Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, has vigorously enforced a ban on the headscarf in government-run schools since it came to power nearly one-year ago. Hundreds of students and teachers who refuse to remove their scarves have been forced to abandon their education and their careers. One of the women gathered here in this tiny apartment, Ozlem Besci, is the president of a group called the Women's Rights Association to Combat Discrimination, called Akder for short. The group was formed more than one-year ago to combat the ban by convincing the Turkish public that their headscarves have nothing to do with promoting political Islam. Miss Besci was a medical student at Istanbul's Cerrahpasa Faculty, but she says she was forced to quit class during her third-year because she refused to remove her headscarf.

[02] YUGOSLAV WAR CRIMES (L-ONLY) BY LAUREN COMITEAU (THE HAGUE)

INTRO: Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague have started laying out their case against a Bosnian Serb general charged with genocide. They say General Radislav Krstic commanded troops that murdered thousands of Muslims in 1995, after the fall of the United Nations-declared safe area at Srebrenica. Lauren Comiteau reports from the Dutch capital.

TEXT: Radislav Krstic showed little emotion as prosecutors said he gave the orders that led to the crimes. Five years ago, Bosnian Serbs overran the U-N-declared safe area of Srebrenica. What followed, said Prosecutor Mark Harmon, was the abandonment of all sense of humanity, with the Bosnian Serb army committing atrocities of a type and scale not seen since World War Two.

[03] CHINA-E-U/TRADE (L-ONLY) BY STEPHANIE MANN (BEIJING)

INTRO: China's trade minister is optimistic a trade agreement can be reached when the European trade commissioner visits Beijing later this month. V-O-A Correspondent Stephanie Mann reports from Beijing a Sino-European trade deal is one of the few remaining obstacles to China's membership in the World Trade Organization.

TEXT: Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng says not many issues are left in the negotiations to conclude a trade deal with the European Union. At a Beijing news conference, Mr. Shi was asked about the issues that have so far blocked a Sino-European agreement. Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Shi, declined to specify the areas of disagreement.

[04] E-U / AUSTRIA (L-ONLY) BY RON PEMSTEIN (BRUSSELS)

INTRO: Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel traveled to Brussels to meet Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Guetteres to urge an end to Europe's political isolation of his government. Correspondent Ron Pemstein reports from Brussels that the Austrian leader's progress was limited.

TEXT: To indicate the chill between Austria and its 14-partners in the European Union, Portugal's Prime Minister did not want to appear in public with Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel. The current President of the European Union, Antonio Guetteres, met the press in the foyer of the European council building, while Chancellor Schuessel talked to reporters in a separate session in the main hall. Prime Minister Guetteres wanted to brief Austria on the preparations for next week's European Summit meeting in Lisbon. But because of the European Union's political sanctions against Austria, Mr. Guetteres did not want to travel to Vienna to do that. The sanctions have been imposed because Chancellor Schuessel's Peoples Party has a coalition government with Austria's rightwing Freedom Party. Prime Minister Guetteres tells reporters, the political sanctions against Austria will remain in force until the Freedom Party changes its extremist image.

[05] E-U / I-M-F (L-ONLY) BY RON PEMSTEIN (BRUSSELS)

INTRO: European Union finance ministers have unanimously chosen the director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Horst Koehler, as Europe's candidate to become managing director of the International Monetary Fund (the I-M-F). V-O-A Correspondent Ron Pemstein in Brussels reports the Europeans hope this second choice from Germany will overcome objections from the United States, which vetoed an earlier candidate.

TEXT: Portugal's Finance Minister Joaquim Pino-Moura says Europe sees no need to clear its choice with the United States. He says (through an interpreter) that Mr. Koehler is Europe's clear choice for the job of running the I-M-F.

[06] RUSSIA / COUNCIL OF EUROPE (L ONLY) BY PETER HEINLEIN (MOSCOW)

INTRO: The Council of Europe has accused Russian troops and Chechen rebels of war crimes and has condemned Russia's destruction of the Chechen capital, Grozny. V-O-A's Peter Heinlein in Moscow reports the group of European lawmakers made their comments after a fact-finding mission in Chechnya.

TEXT: The group's leader, Frank Judd of Britain, says Russia is likely to lose its membership in the Council of Europe next month unless it takes urgent action to investigate alleged military atrocities in Chechnya. Mr. Judd and the parliamentary delegation spent two- days touring the region. He says the lawmakers were shocked by what they saw.

[07] HUNGARY POLLUTION (L ONLY) BY STEFAN BOS (BUDAPEST)

INTRO: Three United Nations experts are expected to arrive in Hungary today (Monday) to help officials cope with the second environmental disaster in six weeks, caused by chemical pollution from neighboring Romania. Stefan Bos reports from Budapest that hundreds of thousands of Hungarians have been affected by the latest spill.

TEXT: Mayors of 13 Hungarian cities and towns along the Tisza River have warned people not to drink the water, as the Environment Ministry struggles to contain a 20-kilometer spill that includes zinc and lead well above permitted levels. Officials say the spill occurred Friday when torrential rains and rapidly melting snow broke a dam near the Romanian Baia Borsa mine, close to the borders of Ukraine and Hungary. On Saturday the 20-thousand tons of heavy metals moved further downstream in Hungary's second largest river, the Tisza, which was already polluted by a previous cyanide escape from another Romanian mine. Foreign Ministry official Istvan Horvath says Hungary wants help from the European Union to prevent further pollution of one of Eastern Europe's most important eco-systems. Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Horvath says that Hungary will ask an E-U task force being formed Monday to investigate dozens of Romanian industrial sites and other potential ecological trouble spots.

[08] SPANISH ELECTION BY LAURIE KASSMAN (LONDON)

INTRO: Spanish voters have reaffirmed their confidence in Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's center-right government, which won more than half the 350 parliamentary seats in Sunday's election. V-O-A Correspondent Laurie Kassman reports the election results finally put to rest Spain's history of civil war and right-wing dictatorships.

TEXT: The center-right Popular Party has won 183 seats, giving it an absolute majority in the 350-seat lower house of parliament. It marked a humiliating defeat for the Socialists, who had teamed up with the Communist Party in an effort to regain political power. Political commentator Felipe Sahagun says the victory of incumbent Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has more to do with the economy than with politics.

[09] SPAIN ELECTION UPDATE (L ONLY) BY GIL CARBAJAL (MADRID)

INTRO: In Spain, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party has won an absolute parliamentary majority in the country's eighth general election since the death of Francisco Franco. Gil Carbajal reports from Madrid that Mr. Aznar's victory defied opinion poll predictions that he would need support from regional parties to govern over the next four years.

TEXT: After winning Sunday's general election, Prime Minister Aznar has a comfortable majority of 183 in Spain's 350-seat parliament. His party won 44-point- five percent of the vote in an election in which 70- percent of Spain's 34-million voters cast ballots. The leader of the opposition Socialist Workers Party, Joaquin Almunia, has conceded defeat and resigned his post. His party obtained just 33-percent of the vote and was reduced to 125 seats in parliament. He had counted on an alliance with the communist-led United Left Coalition. In 1996 the two parties together had polled two-point-five million more votes than the Popular Party. This time round, their combined vote was nearly five-percent less than Mr. Aznar's party. The united left has been reduced from 21 to eight seats in parliament. Once again public opinion polls in Spain have shown how unreliable they can be. In 1996 they predicted an absolute majority for the Popular Party, but Mr. Aznar was finally forced to negotiate with the Basque and Catalan regional parties. This time the polls said he would, at best, fall five seats short of a majority. He has ended up with seven more than needed, enabling him to form one of the few remaining right-leaning governments in the European Union. The big loser in the general election is Catalan leader Jordi Pujol. He has been the arbiter of Spanish politics since 1993 when he propped up the socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez. In 1996 he and the Basque National Party supported the government of Prime Minister Aznar. Now Mr. Aznar is able to rule without their support, and can ignore their continual pressure for more autonomy. (Signed) NEB/gc/gm 12-Mar-2000 22:11 PM EDT (13-Mar-2000 0311 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

[10] NY ECON WRAP (S&L) BY ELAINE JOHANSON (NEW YORK)

INTRO: A wave of selling in Asian and European stock exchanges shook Wall Street Monday. U-S stock prices closed mostly lower. V-O-A correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York.

TEXT: The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to hold on to a modest gain of 18 points, closing at 99- hundred-47. But the Standard and Poor's 500 index fell 11 points. And the technology-weighted NASDAQ composite, which had a record run last week, dropped over 140 points, a loss of nearly three percent. A report showing Japan's economy slowed for the second straight quarter precipitated a major sell-off in global markets, especially of technology stocks. Profit-taking kept the U-S NASDAQ market in negative territory throughout the trading session, for its fourth-largest point loss ever. Analysts were not unduly alarmed. Many experts believe technology is over-valued in all major markets and due for a pullback.

[11] MONDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

INTRO: President Clinton's forthcoming visit to the South Asian sub continent, with a newly included stop in Pakistan, comes in for comment in Monday's editorial pages. The apology by the Roman Catholic Church from Pope John Paul the Second for past misdeeds, is also noted; as is the struggle for peace in the Middle East. Other topics include the latest food aid to North Korea from Japan; the China trade dispute in Congress; hopes for resurrecting the Northern Ireland peace process, and the difficult task of choosing a new head of the International Monetary Fund. Now, here is __________ with a closer look, including some excerpts, in today's U-S Editorial Digest.

TEXT: President Clinton leaves soon for a visit to the Indian sub-continent, with trips planned to New Delhi and Dhaka, Bangladesh. A few days ago, a short stop in Pakistan was added to the trip after a lengthy debate. On New York's Long Island, Newsday is pleased, saying it adds balance to the visit that was lacking.

VOICE: President Bill Clinton has made the right choice with his belated decision to include Pakistan in his upcoming trip ... To visit India and exclude Pakistan, as some of his aides had urged, would have been a gratuitous snub. [Mr.] Clinton, however, must use his brief visit to Islamabad to reassert his objections to last October's military coup and insist on the reinstatement of democratic rule.

TEXT: Oklahoma's The Tulsa World agrees.

VOICE: There might be no more dangerous area of the world than India and Pakistan. Both countries possess nuclear capabilities, both have little regard for the other and the region has a catalyst - - Kashmir - - for war. That is why President Clinton made the correct decision [which] ....will be criticized by those who think the stop will be an endorsement of the military junta that took over Pakistan last fall. ... But as important as the relationship with India is, it is just as important to repair relations with Pakistan and urge both countries to settle the Kashmir dispute. The visit in Islamabad could help achieve that goal.

TEXT: Monday's U-S front pages are filled with stories and pictures of Pope John Paul the Second apologizing for many long-ago sins of Roman Catholics in his Lenten Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Commenting on the Holy Father's comments, USA Today, the national daily published in a Washington, D-C suburb, says in part:

VOICE: The inherent power of an apology is its ability to soothe, even if it comes well after a harmful deed is done. There was such power in Pope John Paul the Second's broad-ranging apology Sunday [3/12] for the harm caused by Catholics over the centuries. He asked for forgiveness for the harm done to freedom, justice and peace by the actions of Catholics dating all the way back to the Inquisition and the Crusades. ... ///OPT /// More broadly, the pope's words are part of a global phenomenon of apology for historical wrongs. And as the words of contrition accumulate, the states that stay silent stand out. Successive German governments have apologized for the Nazi regime's genocidal, expansionist rule ... By contrast, Japan resists apologizing directly for one of the century's most grave acts - - its racially motivated expansionism in World War Two. /// END OPT ///

TEXT: Turning to the Middle East, and the continuing struggle for peace, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram views the struggle as important for the whole world, not just the participants, but it singles out the three principals for special attention.

VOICE: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has staked his political career on completing the peacemaking process by September. And Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has taken an enormous risk by pledging to proclaim an independent Palestinian state if the peace agreement is not concluded by the September 13th deadline. ...The other individual with much at stake in the peace negotiations is President Clinton. A peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would go far toward overshadowing some of the negative elements of his legacy.

TEXT: In Asia, the resumption of Japanese food aid to North Korea may have some bearing on the further testing of Pyongyang's long-range ballistic missile. At least that is the hope of Honolulu's Star-Bulletin.

VOICE: Japan ... was shaken when North Korea fired a three-stage rocket over northern Japan into the Pacific in August 1998. In response, Tokyo suspended food donations to the famine- stricken country. However, the government of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has now relented, announcing that it will give North Korea 100- tons of rice. /// OPT /// In addition, it will follow through on a decision to reopen talks on normalizing relations with Pyongyang. /// END OPT /// ... However, there has been suspicion that the aid was diverted by North Korea to feed the army. Now those suspicions have been strengthened by extensive military exercises carried out in North Korea, described as the heaviest winter training cycle in recent years. This suggests that despite the famine, North Korea is providing substantial amounts of food to the military, casting doubt on the entire policy of contributing food just when Japan is about to resume its contributions. /// OPT /// North Korea continues to keep Washington, Seoul and Tokyo guessing about its intentions. /// END OPT ///

TEXT: As regards China's efforts to enter the global trading organization, while at the same time, rattling its saber toward Taiwan, the Chicago Tribune thinks Beijing's diplomacy is at cross purposes.

VOICE: Last week China again threatened war against Taiwan, this time in an editorial in the Liberation Army Daily that promised a "blood- soaked battle" to protest China's territorial integrity. ... President Clinton has been walking a fine line, issuing muted expressions of concern over the Chinese threats while at the same time launching a major administration drive to get Congress to approve permanent "normal" trade status for China. /// OPT /// ... But in launching what may be the biggest legislative battle of his final year in office, [Mr.] Clinton barely mentioned Taiwan ... He chose ... to counter conservative critics of the bill ... by arguing that engagement with China and opening new markets there are the best way to undermine control by the communist government in Beijing. That may well be, but /// END OPT /// [Mr.] Clinton also should be making it absolutely clear that bellicose behavior is unacceptable...

TEXT: Today's San Francisco Chronicle decries the current political squabble that is holding up the selection of a new chief for the International Monetary Fund.

VOICE: By custom the top job goes to a European. This is an anachronism ... the United States and other non-European countries would like to change. A leader - - most likely a savvy international economist - - should be sought among the 182-member nations, not just the Euro-club. ... A new future awaits the fund, which has evolved from its early beginnings. It should moderate its policies and hear its critics, but it should not be banished from the job of repairing the global economy.

TEXT: There is still hope that in Northern Ireland the Irish Republican Army can be persuaded to begin handing in its arms and explosives, and the Irish peace process revitalized. The Dallas Morning News still holds out hope, but barely:

VOICE: If political sagacity were a shamrock, the I-R-A would possess a leafless stem. Under the 1998 Good Friday accord between unionists and nationalists, the I-R-A has obtained that which 10-years ago would have been inconceivable: home rule. Its political adjunct, Sinn Fein, had a place in the new provincial government. ... Today, most of the gains of the accord remain intact, as does the two and one-half year-old I-R-A cease-fire. The prisoner releases and police reforms will continue. ... The British and Irish governments will, in all likelihood, maintain their constructive dialogue. But a resumption of home rule seems a distant prospect. And all because the I-R-A refuses to make so much as a token gesture of good will.

TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of editorial comment from the pages of Monday's U-S press.
NEB/ANG/RAE 13-Mar-2000 11:14 AM EDT (13-Mar-2000 1614 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

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