Voice of America, 00-05-03

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

CONTENTS

[01] NATO GENERAL (L) BY JIM RANDLE (STUTTGART, GERMANY)

[02] EUROPE / STOCK MERGER (L) BY LOURDES NAVARRO (LONDON)

[03] LONDON MAYOR BY LOURDES NAVARRO (LONDON)

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

[05] WEDNESDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

[01] NATO GENERAL (L) BY JIM RANDLE (STUTTGART, GERMANY)

INTRO: NATO's new military commander says he will work hard to repair relations with Moscow that were badly strained by disagreements over Kosovo. U-S Air Force General Joseph Ralston took command of the alliance's powerful forces in a ceremony Wednesday in Mons, Belgium. V-O-A's Jim Randle reports.

TEXT: Last year, forces from most of NATO's 19 nations launched hundreds of planes and missiles to pound Serb targets all across Yugoslavia. It took 78 days and nights of bombing, but they eventually forced Serb-led troops and police to stop a bloody campaign of repression, arson and killing in Kosovo and leave the province. The NATO air campaign came over loud protests from Moscow, which has close cultural and religious links with the Serbs and is a traditional ally. Angry Russian leaders froze relations with NATO, cutting off cooperation on many military issues. Four-star General Joseph Ralston says new people in key places in both the alliance and Moscow might be able to repair the badly strained relations.

[02] EUROPE / STOCK MERGER (L) BY LOURDES NAVARRO (LONDON)

INTRO: The London and Frankfurt stock markets have confirmed that they will merge, creating the world's second-largest stock market, after New York. Together, the London Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Boerse will be called I-X, standing for International Exchanges, and will be equally owned by both partners. As Lourdes Navarro reports from London, the exchanges also confirmed plans to join forces with the U-S NASDAQ exchange in a joint venture involving high-tech stocks.

TEXT: The new entity will be headquartered in London where shares in more traditional companies will be traded. High-tech firms will be traded in Frankfurt. Both parts of the exchanges will use Frankfurt's advanced electronic trading system. The new chairman of the I-X, Don Crushank, told British radio (B-B-C) that the merger will rival the recently formed Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam exchange and will help their European customers.

[03] LONDON MAYOR BY LOURDES NAVARRO (LONDON)

INTRO: London will be getting its first-ever directly elected mayor when residents of the British capital go to the polls Thursday. The person elected London mayor will have the biggest personal mandate of any politician in Britain, with responsibility over the capital's transport, economic development, planning, and culture. Lourdes Navarro in London takes a look at the issues and the personalities surrounding the race for what has been dubbed "the second most important job in British politics."

TEXT:

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

INTRO: Concerns about the U-S economy and higher interest rates triggered a sell-off on Wall Street today (Wednesday). Stock prices fell across-the- board. VOA correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York

TEXT: All three major indexes gave up more than two percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 250 points, closing at 10-thousand-480. The Standard and Poor's 500 index closed 31 points lower. And the Nasdaq composite dropped 78 points. Shares of A-T and T hit another 52-week low. A-T and T stock fell sharply Tuesday after the U-S long- distance phone company projected lower earnings for this year. Shares of leading retailer Wal-Mart, another Dow component, traded lower, after a major investment firm lowered its ratings on more than a dozen U-S retailers, saying it expects consumer spending to slow down in the second half of the year. However, new factory orders in March rose more-than- expected - a sign that the U-S economy is still growing, despite five interest rate hikes since last June.

[05] WEDNESDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

INTRO: Newspapers around the world are honoring their fallen comrades on World Press Freedom Day. In the Washington, D-C suburb of Arlington, Virginia, the names of 40 journalists killed last year will be added to a Freedom Forum Memorial. The editorial columns of several newspapers are also calling attention to the ultimate sacrifice many journalists make to keep the people informed. Other topics under discussion include a view of Vietnam, 25-years after the end of the war; The struggle to revive the Northern Ireland peace process; the confrontation on the Caribbean island of Vieques; Mexico's presidential election; and a comparison of three world leaders allegedly masquerading as democrats. Now, here is __________ with a closer look and some quotes in today's U-S Editorial Digest.

TEXT: The Fort Worth [Texas] Star-Telegram reminds its readers, that while the job of a reporter in this country can be difficult, in many other nations it can be lethal.

VOICE: The daily grind of the American journalist ... is not always a picnic ... although newspeople working in the States rarely have to worry about dying in the course of covering a story. Forty journalists were killed worldwide in 1999 while doing their jobs. Their names will be added today to the ... Memorial in Virginia, a somber tribute to the 13-hundred-69 reporters, editors, photographers and broadcasters killed from 1812 through 1999 in pursuit of the truth.

TEXT: The Chicago Tribune singles out some of the worst offending nations for treatment of journalists.

VOICE: Sierra Leone stood apart for the murder of 10-journalists there, more than any other country, while China distinguished itself by becoming the world's largest jailer of reporters. At the start of this year, 18 Chinese journalists were behind bars, of whom six were convicted because of their use of the Internet.

TEXT: And in Georgia, The Augusta Chronicle selects a few of the journalistic martyrs to personalize their lives.

VOICE: Jaime Garzon, shot down amid a fusillade of bullets while driving to his Bogota, Colombia, radio station. Ahmet Taner Kisali, killed in front of his Ankara, Turkey, home by a bomb planted by Moslem fanatics. Slavko Curuvija, shot 17-times outside his Belgrade, Yugoslavia, apartment. These three crusading journalists were among [those] killed around the world last year in the line of duty. ... Freedom-loving people everywhere must never forget these martyrs. ... This newspaper is proud to join ... in recognizing the many human sacrifices made in the worldwide struggle for press freedom.

TEXT: Closing out the remembrances, today's Detroit Free Press laments that only about 30 countries in the world, home to fewer than one-billion of the world's people, boast a truly free press.

VOICE: The communist victory in Vietnam ... brought the usual Communist political brutality. Thousands of political "enemies" were killed; many more `boat people" died trying to flee by sea. Tens-of-thousands were herded into "reeducation" camps. Today Vietnam is attempting to rejoin the world economy, and the worst of the postwar human-rights abuses have ended. .... Yet Vietnam remains a one-party state whose leaders seem hesitant about how far they want economic reform to go; rampant corruption retards foreign investment, and a key trade agreement with the United States remains in limbo pending Hanoi's approval.

TEXT: On the other side of the world, the struggle to re-start the peace process in Northern Ireland draws this comment from today's Washington Times.

VOICE: It has been more than a month since Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble spoke at the national Press Club...on St. Patrick's Day, once again pushing his message of peace in an atmosphere where neither the Roman Catholic Sinn Fein nor Protestant hard-liners within his own party were willing to compromise. But he has not given up on the Good Friday accords that set up a power-sharing government. The people of Northern Ireland, who voted to approve the accords, should not be ready to forget the peace process either. ... Sectarian violence must not be considered a plausible alternative to peace.

TEXT: In the Caribbean, off Puerto Rico, a confrontation continues between federal agents and Puerto Rican protestors over a U-S Naval aviation bombing range on Vieques Island. The Miami Herald sympathizes with the protesters, noting "The Navy would not conduct such exercises on the Florida Keys or Martha's Vineyard." However, The Herald adds:

VOICE: ... a deal is a deal. And the one agreed to by the U-S and Puerto Rican governments in January stipulated that the Navy could resume limited training on its Vieques range this month, while Vieques residents would vote to decide if the Navy could stay or leave after 2003. The compromise was reasonable, and both governments must deliver. That means that protesters trying to stop the Navy from resuming its training must leave Navy property, we hope peacefully.

TEXT: In Mexico, where the presidential race is the freest ever, and the opposition PAN party's candidate Vicente Fox is doing well, the forth Worth Star- Telegram feels he won the country's first televised debate.

VOICE: [Mr.] Fox scored a resounding victory. ... [accomplishing] what many thought to be an insurmountable feat. He distinguished himself in a crowded six-man format. ... the English- speaking, cowboy-boot-wearing candidate, is surging, and ... threatens to turn over not only Mexican presidential politics but decades of P- R-I rule as well.

TEXT: Half a world away, an on-going conflict sees black, Zimbabwean squatters, with President Robert Mugabe's approval, occupying the nation's large, white-owned commercial farms. The Milwaukee [Wisconsin] Journal Sentinel sees it as a crisis.

VOICE: For years, [President] Mugabe realized that racial peace and economic prosperity in Zimbabwe required the cooperation of all its citizens, black and white. That is why he sought to help, not demonize, the country's agricultural leaders. Now, he has sided with the farmers' adversaries, probably to distract political attention from Zimbabwe's numerous economic woes. ...South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu says [Mr.] Mugabe has become "a caricature of all the things people think black leaders do. He seems to be wanting to make a cartoon of himself." In fact, Zimbabwe is not becoming a cartoon, but a disaster.

TEXT: Boston's Christian Science Monitor criticizes Mr. Mugabe, Peru's Roberto Fujimori, and the Islamic hard-liners of Iran for pretending to be democrats, while denying fundamental rights to their people.

VOICE: ... the next few weeks or months will determine whether autocratic rulers in these countries can get away with using devious, often violent means to cling to power, despite national votes that reveal their unpopularity.

TEXT: The Los Angeles Times says it is worried about a Lebanese proposal to have the U-N force in Southern Lebanon move into the Israeli-controlled security zone when Israeli troops pull out.

VOICE: ... that is asking for more than UNIFIL the U-N Interim Force in Lebanon, has ever been able to deliver, although it may have some useful part to play once Israel's army goes home. UNIFIL can not substitute for the Beirut government's own assertion of sovereignty. That requires sending in the Lebanese army, with the specific task of making sure that Hezbollah, the radical Iran-backed Islamic group whose attacks were decisive in forcing Israel out of Lebanon, curbs its militancy.

TEXT: With that apprehension over a key, international border issue, we conclude this sampling of editorials from Wednesday's U-S press.
NEB/ANG/RAE 03-May-2000 11:12 AM EDT (03-May-2000 1512 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

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