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For Editorial and Discussion use only: China Rejects U.S. Explanation Of Embassy Bombing BEIJING, Jun 17, 1999 -- (Reuters) China said on Thursday it had rejected an explanation by visiting U.S. envoy Thomas Pickering that NATO's bombing of Beijing's embassy in Belgrade last month was a mistake. The U.S. explanation was "unconvincing" and unacceptable, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan as telling Pickering. The Chinese government and people cannot accept the conclusion that the "bombing was a mistake", it quoted Tang as saying during his meeting with the U.S. Undersecretary of State on Wednesday. Tang ...

Parents have just won a tremendous legal victory over the widespread public school practice of forcing students to answer nosy, privacy-invading questions about themselves and their families. The U.S. District Court in San Antonio, Texas, has signed the final order of judgement in a class action case against the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) brought by parents, who were represented by the Texas Justice Foundation.The wide-reaching order is of landmark and nationwide importance. For many years, parents have objected to the way that schools force students to respond to nonacademic questionnaires intruding on pupil and family privacy and involving ...

China Does Not Accept U.S. Explanation Thursday, June 17, 1999 2:18AM ET BEIJING (June 17) XINHUA - The U.S. explanation of the U.S.- led NATO attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is " unconvincing," and therefore the Chinese government and people cannot accept the conclusion that the "bombing was a mistake." The remarks were made here by Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan during his meeting Wednesday with U.S. envoy Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering. Tang urged that the U.S. side must make a satisfactory explanation on this issue. Pickering arrived here on Tuesday to explain to China the result ...

"March for Liberty, One million and one strong ... and you're the one" June 16, 1999 UPDATE The March for Liberty continues to prepare. We now have organizations forming which are pushing for similar Marches at State Capitols on October 2nd of this year for all of those who cannot make it to the Washington DC March. We have had over 10,000 hits on our web site in the first month ... BUT WE NEED MORE, MANY MORE, and every hit has to represent dozens or even hundreds of folks who will attend !!! Folks, there was never a ...

CLICK HERE Nuremberg set a precedent for future trials and offers seven basic principles: 1.Initiating and waging of aggressive war is a crime. Aggressive war is illegal - there is no justification for it. 2.Conspiracy to wage aggressive war is a crime. 3.Violation of the laws or customs of war is a crime. 4.Inhumane acts upon civilians in execution of, or in connection with, aggressive war, constitutes a crime. 5.Individuals may be held accountable for crimes committed by them pursuant to superior orders. 6.Individuals may be held accountable for crimes committed by them as heads of state. 7.An individual charged ...

The Students for Keyes 2000 (SFK2000) effort is rapidly gathering steam as students across the nation are joining the fight to promote Dr. Keyes' message and candidacy. All of these students are enthusiastic about Dr. Keyes, and several state and campus coordinators have already been appointed. To make this effort truly successful, however, we need all of you students out there to contact us and let us know if you would like to join the team. Whether you want to take on a leadership position on the state level, help out on your own campus, or simply occasionally attend ...

Check out www.lucianne.com for a preview of Lucianne Goldberg new web site, the Lucianne ™ Forum. I posted the news that she had registered two internet domain names a few days ago, but those posts got deleted in the heat of the recent controversy. Now, in the last few days, the web pages are starting to appear. Good luck to Trixie on her new forum, and I hope it will enjoy peaceful coexistence with Free Republic.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's identification with Eleanor Roosevelt has taken on a new dimension in her choice of top campaign adviser. Harold M. Ickes enjoys an even closer communion with the Roosevelt years -- his father was FDR's hard-charging interior secretary and, in many ways, his enforcer. Like father, like son. The son, loyal, combative and at times perhaps a little over the edge, is devoting his energies to getting the first lady into the Senate. His father had tried to persuade Franklin Roosevelt's wife to take the same course but she declined. Rising from the caldron ...

Spanish fighter pilots admit that NATO deliberately attacked civilian targets From the Spanish weekly "Articulo 20" (Article 20, the constitutional provision on the freedom of speach?), No. 30, of June 14, 1999, about the NATO bombing raids against Yugoslavia and the role of Americans in making all decisions. Translation. "The pilots of Spanish planes who participated in bombing raids against Yugoslavia do not feel like "supermen" nor as masters of air space. Quite on the contrary, they say that our forces play to the tune of music played by the North Americans, and accuse NATO of having honoured with medals ...

Chat: Join AllPolitics and Vice President Gore for his first online conversation as an official presidential candidate, Thursday at 4:50 p.m. EDT.

U.S. troops are finally in Kosovo, last in a ``peacekeeping race'' won by the Russians. There is nothing wrong with a slow and cautious approach into a blighted landscape of snipers, mine fields, booby traps, unexploded cluster bombs and truculent Serbs refusing to accept defeat gracefully. But it does give the departing Serbs a final opportunity to loot and torch Albanian homes in the ``ethnically cleansed'' province. A line of fire marks their retreat. And it demeans NATO's most powerful army to come in behind the British, French, Italians, Germans and Dutch. The Russians stole a march on all the ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Thursday, June 17, 1999   KOREA Pyongyang severs contact with Seoul over 'brinkmanship' AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Seoul and AGENCIES North Korea said yesterday it was severing contacts with South Korea "for the time being" following Tuesday's naval firefight in a disputed area of the Yellow Sea. A spokesman for the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Fatherland, which is in charge of contacts with the South, accused Seoul of "bringing the situation to the brink of war". The statement did not refer to a vice-ministerial meeting scheduled for Monday in Beijing. The statement's strong wording, ...

Bush and Gore in dead heat in Calif. Updated 11:22 AM ET June 16, 1999 LOS ANGELES, June 16 (UPI) Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush are locked in a dead heat among California voters according to a new Los Angeles Times Poll. Bush, the second-term Texas governor, out-polled Vice President Gore 49 percent to 44 percent in a hypothetical general election matchup, but the lead was within the margin of error. Seven percent of voters did not know which candidate they would vote for. Both men would easily triumph at this stage in their parties' primaries. Bush ...

KOSOVO: A PYRRHIC VICTORY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By David H. Hackworth, 15 June 1999 Wait a military minute. We spend 4 billion bucks, risk our Green Berets' and jet jockeys' lives, and the Ruskies do an end run and march into Kosovo before us? They get the parades, flowers and cheers that were beamed by television around the world -- and we pick up the tab. This just doesn't add up. But come to think of it, nothing in the "war that wasn't a war" makes much sense. Let's review the deal. President Clinton does a peace dance with indicted war criminal ...

Reporters Sans Frontieres: "Doubts about goodwill of certain western leaders" Nato has come under fire from a media organisation for "distorting the truth" and giving "false information" about the war in Yugoslavia. In a report called War in Yugoslavia, Nato's Media Blunders, the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) said the problems could have arisen from simple mistakes, or could have been deliberate misinformation. "False information, exorbitant and impossible-to-check figures and the use of debatable historical references have strengthened doubts about the goodwill of certain western political and military leaders," it said in a statement. The group illustrated its concern with ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Thursday, June 17, 1999   Satellite company defends actions AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Washington An American satellite manufacturer has defended its role in the row over alleged thefts of nuclear secrets by Beijing. In full-page adverts in leading US newspapers, Loral Space and Communications denied charges that it supplied sensitive technical information to China. It was time "to put the events into a more complete context", it said in an open letter to employees and shareholders, in response to criticism in the Cox report, named after the head of a congressional investigation panel, Christopher Cox. ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Thursday, June 17, 1999   'Hawkish Western leaders' berated WILLY WO-LAP LAM Beijing's strategists have warned against the "trigger-happiness" of the younger generation of Western politicians. The leadership of President Jiang Zemin, however, has underscored the importance of maintaining ties with the United States and Europe to procure capital and technology. Western diplomats in Beijing yesterday quoted an internal paper as highlighting the hawkish tendencies of Western leaders in their late 40s and early 50s, including US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The paper said since these leaders had no ...

The moderate leader of the Kosovar Albanians, Ibrahim Rugova, has said he is planning to return to Kosovo in the next few days to resume his political activities in the war-ravaged province. Several of Mr Rugova's more radical opponents in the Kosovo Liberation Army, the KLA, are already back in Kosovo at what could be the beginning of a contest for power when preparations get under way for elections. Mr Rugova has spent six weeks in western Europe, mostly in Italy, since he left Kosovo, where he was held under house arrest by the Serbian police during the first ...

Source--Text of Article NEW YORK (AP) - The reputed leader of the terrorists who killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was charged Wednesday in a conspiracy to kill Americans that included efforts to secure ``The Nuclear Bomb of Islam.'' Ayman Al-Zawahiri was charged with conspiracy in the bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as was a second alleged terrorist, Khaled Al-Fawwaz. The indictments raises to 15 the number of people charged in the Aug. 7 bombings that killed 213 people. The indictment, which supersedes a previous indictment, claims that three days before the embassy bombings, Al-Zawahiri threatened to retaliate against ...