Voice of America, 00-07-21

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

CONTENTS

[01] YUGO WAR CRIMES (L-ONLY) BY LAUREN COMITEAU (THE HAGUE)

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

[03] FRIDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

[01] YUGO WAR CRIMES (L-ONLY) BY LAUREN COMITEAU (THE HAGUE)

INTRO: A Bosnian Croat who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for failing to prevent a rape has lost an appeal to the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. (An appeals panel rejected all defense claims that the original trial was unfair, that the judge was biased and that the sentence was too severe.) Today's (Friday's) decision confirms the original verdict - the first time an international court has dealt with rape as a war crime. Lauren Comiteau reports from The Hague.

TEXT: It took barely 15 minutes for appeals judge Mohamed Shahabuddeen to read his chamber's final decision in the case against Bosnian Croat Anto Furundzija.

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

INTRO: U-S stock prices were lower Friday, due to profit-taking after Thursday's sharp gains. Weakness in technology-related companies put pressure on all three major market indices. V-O-A correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York.

TEXT: The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 110 points, one percent, to 10-thousand-733. The Industrials are down about three-quarters of one percent for the week. The Standard and Poor's 500 index closed 15 points or one percent lower. And the technology-weighted NASDAQ composite shed over two percent after some disappointing earnings news. Agilent Technologies, a spin-off from computer-maker Hewlett-Packard, warned profits will grow more slowly than forecast. And revenues at America Online - a major Internet service provider - rose less than investors had expected. Analyst Ed Lavarnway says there is no cause for worry. He says stock values need to move more in line with earnings:

[03] FRIDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

INTRO: The startling pullback from the brink of collapse at the Camp David Mideast peace summit has captured the attention of most editorial writers in Friday's U-S press. There are also some comments about the economic summit underway in Okinawa by the "Group of Eight" -- the world's leading industrial powers plus Russia -- and a big debate in the United States about possible tax cuts. Other topics under discussion include Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempt to impose tighter controls on big business; alleged snooping on the Internet by the U-S government; the latest crack-down on religion in China; and an emotional dispute over an endangered species of monkey that has become a family pet in New York. Now, here is ___________ with a closer look and some excerpts in today's U-S Editorial Digest.

TEXT: The bags were packed and the cars in the motorcade had their engines running at Camp David, when Israeli Prime Minister Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat decided at the last minute to continue talking. The rescue of the summit is drawing a good deal of praise around the nation. The Boston Herald speaks for many:

VOICE: We've been expecting the Middle East peace talks to break down and have been amazed that they haven't thus far. But this is still a case where no agreement is clearly better than a flawed one.

TEXT: However, in Texas, the San Antonio Express-News warns, "Just because the two leaders continue talking does not assure that a lasting peace agreement will be reached." In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel warns that "a collapse of the negotiations will create a climate in which attitudes on both sides will harden. ... Moderates will be forced into a defensive crouch. Violence, perhaps war, will become almost inevitable." Florida's Orlando Sentinel, comparing the talks to a marathon run, urges the negotiators to "go the distance for peace." The Chicago Tribune focuses on the main issue that divides the Israelis and the Palestinians -- control of Jerusalem, which the newspaper says should be "a holy city, above politics."

VOICE: Jerusalem is a city burdened by history ... [and] by people who have tried to use that history to back up their claim to the holy city through the ages. Jerusalem has ... changed hands at least 11 times from one religion to another over the millennia. It is worth remembering that history, now that the Camp David summit ... seems to have ground to a halt because of the dispute over who has the right to Jerusalem.

TEXT: The Tribune recalls the United Nations recommended in 1947 that Jerusalem be brought under international trusteeship, to recognize the city's central importance to Jews, Christians and Muslims. And the Chicago newspapers says an international role for Jerusalem, "frankly, still is the best long-term solution." The New York Times says the fact that Mr. Barak and Mr. Arafat decided to keep talking while President Clinton flew to Okinawa for the G-8 summit is "encouraging." The Washington Post adds:

VOICE: The onus at this point is clearly on Mr. Arafat to show some flexibility. It's hard to imagine any Israeli leader offering a more generous package than Mr. Barak has put on the table.

TEXT: Lastly, the New York Post, which sees the whole Camp David process in the light of domestic U-S politics, exclaims:

VOICE: President Clinton no doubt breathed an audible sigh of relief when ... [the two leaders] agreed to remain. ... That's because an ... agreement -- any agreement -- is central to [Mr.] Clinton's long-range hopes for his political legacy and his short-term plans for the political futures of his wife and ... vice president. Whether anything that emerges from Camp David will serve the interests of the Middle East, however, is unlikely.

TEXT: Mr. Clinton rushed from Camp David to Okinawa, just in time for the opening of the economic summit. The Dallas Morning News says the president is the "senior statesman" at the annual gathering of heads of state and government.

VOICE: This will be his last Group of Eight summit. ... When he attended his first, in 1993, also in Japan, [he] ... was the new, young heir to American's political throne ... surrounded by older men. ... For better or for worse, the world is fundamentally different from when he took office. The scope of the annual summits has been appropriately broadened to reflect that. Whether the leaders will actually accomplish much is a matter for speculation.

TEXT: Ohio's Cleveland Plain Dealer is not expecting much substantial progress:

VOICE: In the business sessions, few policy breakthroughs are expected. The topics are expected to include information technology ... and ways to close the divide between technological haves and have-nots. Few firm answers are anticipated, but much warm air is sure to be exchanged.

TEXT: Russia's President Putin, who is at the summit, is continuing to do battle with his country's business tycoons, called oligarchs, at home. Hawaii's Honolulu Star-Bulletin worries the outcome of those battles will be costly for Russia's free press.

VOICE: President ... Putin has launched a campaign to dramatically restructure the government and reduce the influence of the [business] tycoons. The risk is that striking down what threatens to become an oligarchy could come at the cost of creating an autocracy and infringing on press freedoms.

TEXT: In this country, Congress is passing a series of tax cuts, which are being vigorously debated in the press. One affects the so-called "marriage penalty" a quirk of U-S tax law that means a husband and wife who both work pay more to the government than they would if they were not married. The Record, Bergen County, New Jersey, says eliminating the marriage-penalty, is both "extravagant and financially risky." It says Republicans were "playing politics" when they tried to reduce taxes for most married couples by 182-billion dollars over 10 years. However, the Free Press, in Detroit [Michigan], and the Hartford Courant [in Connecticut] say it's a good tax bill, and they are urging President Clinton not to veto it. On the other hand, Minnesota's St. Paul Pioneer Press is upset about by tax cuts which it says are "racing through Washington." It calls them fiscally "reckless." In Jacksonville, The Florida Times-Union notes that President Clinton has again delayed invoking a law passed by Congress in 1996 against Cuban appropriation of private companies during the Castro revolution. It allows U-S citizens to seek reparations from international companies currently using those "stolen" assets to do business on the island. The paper says Mr. Clinton is failing his obligation to those Americans who lost property in Cuba decades ago. The [Akron] Beacon Journal in Ohio is the latest major daily to call for more help for Africa to fight its AIDS pandemic, asking for the U-S government to give direct financial aid, rather than loans. And in California, the San Francisco Chronicle is criticizing China for what it says is renewed government violence against the Falun Gong spiritual sect, after a "solid year of harassment, oppression and arrests." The Chronicle says, "The United States must work to halt China's abuses of religious freedom and human rights." Lastly, Connecticut's [Waterbury] Republican-American is angry at the New York City government for what it considers slavish devotion to environmental laws. A Russian immigrant couple in Brooklyn has a legally purchased pet monkey that happens to be an endangered species. After a court battle, the city is planning to kidnap the simian and send it to a zoo in Detroit to be with its own species. But the monkey wears clothes, and is very much a part of the heartsick Brooklyn family, whose neighbors are threatening to barricade their street to block anyone from taking the monkey. The Republican-American says:

VOICE: Bureaucrats abhor exceptions [which] ... force them to think in the moral dimension; ... exceptions form cracks in stupid and unnecessary rules. ... If Cookie [the monkey] is exiled to a zoo, someone should keep track of her well- being. Our guess is she'll be dead before the year is out -- a martyr to New York's hidebound [stubborn and narrow-minded] bureaucracy.

TEXT: On that anthropomorphic note, we conclude this sampling of editorial comment from Friday's U-S press.
NEB/ANG/WTW 21-Jul-2000 12:04 PM EDT (21-Jul-2000 1604 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

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