Voice of America, 00-06-13

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

CONTENTS

[01] U-N/ BOSNIA (L-O) BY BARBARA SCHOETZAU (UNITED NATIONS)

[02] CROATIA CORRUPTION (L-ONLY) BY BARRY WOOD (WASHINGTON)

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

[04] TUESDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

[05] ITALY / POPE GUNMAN (L ONLY) BY SABINA CASTELFRANCO (ROME)

[01] U-N/ BOSNIA (L-O) BY BARBARA SCHOETZAU (UNITED NATIONS)

INTRO: At the United Nations today (Tuesday), the top U-N official for Bosnia Herzegovina, Jacques Klein, said the international community has an historic opportunity to end the instability that has characterized the region. Correspondent Barbara Schoetzau reports from the United Nations.

TEXT: Mr. Klein says Bosnia Herzegovina must not be confined to the fringes of Europe. Instead, the U-N envoy says, Bosnia needs to be given the attention and mentoring required to become a stable and self- sustaining member of the wider European region. Currently, Mr. Klein says, the people of Bosnia Herzegovina are living in a "no-man's land," unsure of their identity and their place in the modern world.

[02] CROATIA CORRUPTION (L-ONLY) BY BARRY WOOD (WASHINGTON)

INTRO: Allegations of widespread corruption during the administration of the late President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia are worrying many policy-makers in Washington. V-O-A's Barry Wood reports the Washington Post newspaper gave front-page treatment Tuesday to the charges that were revealed in Zagreb recently by reformist President Stipe Mesic.

TEXT: The reformist government in Zagreb is alleging that billions of dollars were plundered from the national treasury by President Tudjman and his associates. Thousands of transcripts and tape recordings found in the former president's office reportedly chronicle widespread abuse in Croatia's privatization agency, which disposed of 18-hundred state enterprises between 1993 and 1999. Taped conversations between President Tudjman and aides also reportedly tell of companies being handed almost free of charge to political cronies, of secret bank accounts, and the existence of phony companies to disguise the use of government money for private gain. Officials say the sensitive material was never meant to be made public and would not have been had President Tudjman not died last December and his party been defeated in subsequent parliamentary and presidential elections. Tom Dawson, the International Monetary Fund spokesman, says as yet there is no evidence that I-M-F loans to Croatia were misused.

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

INTRO: U-S stock prices closed higher today (Tuesday), as new data pointing to a slowing U-S economy eased concerns about more interest rate hikes. VOA correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York:

TEXT: The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 57 points, one-half of one percent, to 10-thousand-621. The Nasdaq composite gained more than two percent. The Standard and Poor's 500 index closed 23 points higher. The latest on the U-S economy shows retail sales in May unexpectedly fell for the second straight month. And April sales were revised downward for a bigger loss than initially reported.

[04] TUESDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

INTRO: Regional papers throughout the United States are commenting this Tuesday on the death of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Other popular topics include the two Koreas summit underway in Pyongyang; and a disturbing study of U-S death penalty cases. There are also comments on Greece's inability to combat terrorism /// OPT /// the Elgin Marbles debate

TEXT: Monday the nation's largest daily papers had their say about Hafez al-Assad's death, and now from around the country, it is the turn of the regional and local dailies. In Ohio, the [Akron] Beacon Journal writes:

VOICE: Hafez Assad cunningly and brutally cultivated power. What did he do with it? He didn't achieve peace. [He] rejected peace.

TEXT: The Seattle Times, noting that a new generation is taking over in the Middle East, says of the dead leader:

VOICE: [He] died consumed by a grudge against Israel as personal as they come. He was defense minister when Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. [Mr.] Assad's pride was as much an impediment as his fierce Arab nationalism. His burial today will allow the two countries to discuss the strategic plateau without the personal rancor that doomed all previous efforts.

TEXT: Today's Orlando [Florida] Sentinel says Assad's death leaves "storm clouds on [the] peace horizon" adding "more uncertainty" to the "already-uncertain Middle East." However, the Denver [Colorado] Post is more positive, suggesting:

VOICE: It's tempting to say ... [Assad's] death ... is a setback to the ... peace process. While that is probably true in the short run, it's doubtful that any future Syrian leader could ultimately prove more obdurate in his opposition to peace than [President] Assad ...

TEXT: The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City headlines its commentary: "After Assad - - His Death Gives Hope for Change," while Pennsylvania's Greensburg Tribune- Review, after offering condolences to the people of Syria, goes on to call Mr. Assad a tyrant who: " ... rode roughshod over neighboring Lebanon and attempted to do the same with Israel. His state was no better than a Leninist police state that has kept Syria's 17- million people ... in economic backwaters.

VOICE: As an ophthalmologist, Bashar al-Assad helps to preserve people's eyesight. But his own vision is what most concerns Middle East watchers.

TEXT: Turning to Asia, the historic meeting of the two Korean leaders in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, is "a ray of hope" according to Jacksonville's Florida Times-Union, because:

VOICE: ...there is reason for optimism because North Korea seems to be shedding its "hermit kingdom" image. Its participation in the summit alone is quite remarkable since it refused until recently even to talk with the South ... Also, Kim Jong-il's regime recently opened diplomatic relations with Italy and Australia -- and it may soon also exchange ambassadors with traditional enemy Japan, which not long ago it was threatening to obliterate with nuclear weapons.

TEXT: The New York Times, calling the meetings "an encouraging change in ... relationship" is also pleased, but notes:

VOICE: Never before have North and South Korea come this close to a normal, peaceful relationship. ... Unfortunately, North Korea's government remains one of the world's most opaque and unpredictable. Expectations for specific agreements coming out of the meetings should not be set too high.

TEXT: Boston's Christian Science Monitor is also intrigued by the summit, adding:

VOICE: With so much military tension, it's a sign of courage that the North's Kim Jong Il and the South's Kim Dae Jung plan to meet today. Even if they just agree to open mail service for divided families, this first-ever Korean summit will have been a triumph of hope over despair.

VOICE: If state and federal appeals courts have felt compelled to overturn two-thirds of death penalty convictions they reviewed over the past 20 years, what does that say about the flaws of the criminal justice system? This astoundingly high reversal rate is the key finding of a sweeping study released Monday that would intensify uncertainties about the penalty among some elected officials and the public. ... Those who support the death penalty see this as evidence that the system works, that appellate review sifts out the errors and the innocent. However, for many others, the high reversal rates ... provide glaring evidence of widespread error at the trial level that should clear the way for reform at trial as well as appeal.

TEXT: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is also upset by the study's findings.

VOICE: ... a system in which two-thirds of the verdicts are shown to be seriously flawed does not inspire confidence that all of the remaining third are error-free, particularly as legislatures hasten executions.

TEXT: On now to a decades old debate, over the removal of the "Elgin Marbles," or the "Parthenon Marbles," famous statuary taken from Greece by a British nobleman and one-time ambassador, Thomas Bruce. Monday afternoon's San Francisco Examiner says:

VOICE: The British should rectify a long-ago act of art pillage by returning to Greece the statuary stolen by Lord Elgin. ... Instead of punishment in an era when theft of bread in London was a capital crime, Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire has been honored ever since with the most popular gallery in the British Museum. It displays the damaged 25- hundred year-old Grecian sculptures that Elgin ripped from the Parthenon.

TEXT: In yet another controversy of a far more damaging nature, today's Hartford [Connecticut] Courant is calling for U-S help to Russia in safely scrapping more than "150 aging Russian nuclear submarines." The paper says the old boats:

VOICE: ... languish untended and rotting in their berths, exposed to theft and sabotage. Spent fuel assemblies and whole reactors are inadequately secured. The decaying submarines represent in the words of Representative Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, "the most imminent environmental danger in the world today."

TEXT: The paper calls on the Senate to hurry and pass a bill already passed by the U-S House, that would aid the Russians in carefully dismantling the unused boats.

TEXT: And lastly, a lament from the Waterbury [Connecticut] Republican-American that most U-S newspapers are ignoring the latest revelations about irregularities in fund raising for the last presidential campaign.

VOICE: Documents regarding Democratic fund-raising abuses in 1996 were finally made public last week by the House Government Reform Committee. They included memos from F-B-I Director Louis Freeh and Charles LaBella, the prosecutor [Attorney General Janet Reno] assigned to run [the Justice department's] campaign- finance investigation, urging Ms. Reno to name an independent council to investigate Mr. Gore. She steadfastly refused. ... Mr. LaBella [wrote]... "If these allegations involved anyone other than the president, vice president, senior White House or D-N-C and Clinton/Gore '96 officials, an appropriate investigation would have commenced months ago without hesitation. ... the media downplayed or ignored the story. /// OPT /// The New York Times bumped its account off page one in favor of stories about space mapping and the "ethnic crisis in Fiji," and then failed to report Mr. Freeh's most damaging statement: Mr. Gore "was an active participant in the core group's fund-raising efforts ... he was informed about the distinctions between `hard' and `soft' money, and ... he generally understood there were legal restrictions against making telephone solicitations from federal property." /// END OPT ///

TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of editorial comment from Tuesday's U-S press.
NEB/ANG/KL
NEB/ANG 13-Jun-2000 12:15 PM EDT (13-Jun-2000 1615 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

[05] ITALY / POPE GUNMAN (L ONLY) BY SABINA CASTELFRANCO (ROME)

INTRO: Italy's president has pardoned the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul the Second 19 years ago. As Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome, the Pope had already publicly forgiven him.

TEXT: The Italian president on Tuesday pardoned the gunman who made headlines on May 13th, 1981 when he wounded Pope John Paul in Saint Peter's Square as the Pope was waving to a crowd of followers from an open car. But the gunman, 41- year-old Ali Agca, will not be a free man. Italian authorities will extradite him to Turkey where he will serve a sentence for a separate killing. Agca, a member of a shadowy right-wing called the Grey Wolves, was caught moments after shooting the Pope and was later sentenced to life in prison. The gunman has spent the past 19 years and one month in an Italian jail. He repeatedly asked for clemency from Italian authorities after the Pope publicly forgave him and even went to visit him in prison in 1983. Questions still remain as to whether the Turkish gunman acted alone or was part of a conspiracy to kill the Pope. One of the prosecutors who investigated the attempt on the Pope's life said that he is convinced the whole truth about the matter has not been revealed. He said Agca was -- in his words -- "a link in a chain, but being the last link, he did not know everything." The prosecutor added that the act of clemency was a "wise decision." NEB/SC/JWH/ENE/KBK 13-Jun-2000 13:27 PM LOC (13-Jun-2000 1727 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

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