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Is a "good" Journalist today Required to Report Bill Clinton is a GOOD leader? "Many burial sites have been found," the fresh faced young spokesman with a British accent for one of the military groups said at the press conference. "But, bear in mind, there has been a war going on here." And, so we have people like Christiane Amanpour announcing what has taken place as an ethnic Albanian returns to the remains of his home, finding, he says, that 26 of his cousins have been killed and the home destroyed. Amanpour says the house was "torched." Perhaps my 29 ...

I am talking on NPR, the Chris Lydon show. The subject is Hillary Clinton–should she run, what will happen? Everybody and their pet cockroach has already expressed an opinion on the subject, but why not unburden myself of any last crumbs of opinion I might have hidden in the recesses of my mind? Anyway, radio is a seductive media sister. You speak from home into the phone as if there were no audience, but you know that out there someone, lots of someones, are wishing you dead. For some perverse reason, this is mildly exciting and habit-forming. You feel ...

News Analysis: In Words, Gore and Bush Stake Out Middle By ADAM CLYMER WASHINGTON -- Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush, declaring their candidacies for president, sound as though they are proclaiming the primary campaign over, the general election begun and the battleground designated as the moderate middle, with ideological extremes out of bounds. Gore, who announced in Carthage, Tenn., on Wednesday, and Bush, who did so in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last Saturday, spoke as if they were using the same pollsters and some of the same speechwriters. There were major structural differences, to be sure. In ...

Democrats Mount Attack on G.O.P. Over Gun Control By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE WASHINGTON -- Democrats are moving to capitalize immediately on the failure of the Republican-controlled House to pass even modest gun-control legislation, and promising to take the issue to the forefront of the 2000 Presidential campaign. In a short, blistering radio address delivered today from Europe, President Clinton took the House and the National Rifle Association to task and set the tone for the coming campaign. "Time and again, the gun lobby has used every weapon in its arsenal to defeat any effort to strengthen our gun laws, no ...

Where Serbia Fits In: Rebuilding Is Hard Without the Keystone By ALISON SMALE As the fighting raged in Kosovo, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and other leaders cast the latest Balkan battle as a moral imperative on the order of fighting Nazism. Much less forcefully stated was another goal: creating a Europe whole and free. Then Mr. Clinton, in his speech marking the end of bombing, invited Serbia to join what he termed "this historic journey to a peaceful, democratic and united Europe." But he insisted Serbia would get nothing but the most basic humanitarian aid unless its leader, Slobodan Milosevic, ...

Sunday, June 20, 1999   Time is on Arafat's side   By Zvi Bar'el A recent editorial in the Syrian newspaper Tishrin contained the following sentence: "Ehud Barak could have put his government together within an hour of the elections." The brash statement was intended, of course, to demonstrate that the government of Israel, be it Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak's or outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's, has only one main item on its agenda: how to kill time and put off the diplomatic solution. The editorial even recommends its readers not hold their breath: "A government will be constituted ...

SERBS A Town Returns to Life With Albanians Alone By IAN FISHER PRIZREN, Yugoslavia -- It is nearly impossible to find a Serb here anymore, a state of affairs that is novel for the Albanians and which the better side of Naim Spahiu, a 30-year-old driver, said was not good for Kosovo. "They should stay here," Spahiu, an Albanian Kosovar, said Saturday as he walked past Prizren's main mosque, filling with worshipers. "We've always lived together." But in the next breath, all the anger and resentment felt on both sides of the ethnic divide of Kosovo spilled out. "They took ...

THE PULLOUT Serb Police Exit Joking, but Menace Lingers On By CARLOTTA GALL MITROVICA, Yugoslavia -- The Serb special policemen -- all over 6 feet tall, thickset, dressed in green camouflage bearing the double-headed eagle of Yugoslav forces and unit patches -- were relaxed, joking, their automatic rifles propped against a wall. On the face of it, their withdrawal from Kosovo appeared fairly painless. Cooperation with NATO is smooth. "We are professionals, and they are professionals," said one policeman. "But the French troops are very small, at least a head smaller than us," he added, laughing. Despite the studied relaxation ...

RUSSIA Uncertainty Persists in U.S.-Moscow Dialogue By JANE PERLEZ COLOGNE, Germany -- When the Clinton Administration invited Russia to help it out of the war in Kosovo, the idea was that the involvement in big game diplomacy would help maintain Washington-Moscow ties, and even improve the ailing relationship. But now, as President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia is about to make his first foreign trip in four months on Sunday and to meet here with President Clinton, as many -- if not more -- questions are hanging over the dialogue as were before the war. The national security adviser, Samuel ...

Sunday, June 20, 1999   Khatami wants secret talks with Israel, British claim Sources assert Iranian president wants to negotiate a missile treaty   By Sharon Sadeh, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami is interested in opening a secret dialogue with Israel, and has asked senior British government figures to approach Jerusalem with the request. Khatami suggested a series of confidence-building steps between the two countries to try to break the current circle of distrust and suspicion, senior British officials told Ha'aretz. The British sources said the information has been relayed to Jerusalem, with a recommendation that they be considered seriously. ...

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK When 'Fear Ate Everything,' and There Was No Place to Hide By STEVEN ERLANGER STIMLJE, Kosovo, June 18 -- The proud talk of NATO victory seems hollow here, in this dank little cellar where Nesibe Gashi has been hiding for months, with her memories and her nightmares and her grief. Outside, there is the rumble of British armor, but inside there is mostly silence, broken by sobs. Mrs. Gashi's husband is long dead and her son, Emin, is missing, having fled to the mountains to try to stay alive. Her house has been looted and burned, her animals ...

© Hong Kong fury: Li protected by guards Photograph: Richard Jones Gangster No1 awaits Chinese bullet by Michael Sheridan Hong Kong FOR "Big Spender" Cheung Tze-keung the time has come to pay for his alleged crimes, probably with a police bullet in the back of the neck. But as Hong Kong's most wanted gangster sits awaiting his fate in a prison cell across the border in China, the question is whether he may take to his grave the secrets of kidnap plots involving two of the richest men in the world. Li Ka-shing, the biggest property developer in Hong ...

June 16 - 22, 1999 bywilliam bastone The Hillary Clinton Cheat Sheet A Guide to the Scandals and Issues That Could Stall Her Senate Run   (illustration: Gary Aagaard) Every night before her latest hairdo hits the pillow, Hillary Clinton probably crams a few more facts about New York into her head. Like an immigrant studying for a citizenship test, she must prepare for the pop quiz that, were she to flunk, could hobble her nascent Senate campaign. You can almost hear Hillary reciting the names of the Five Towns or practicing a soliloquy on the gustatory wonder of ...

AID Kosovars to Get European Help for Rebuilding By ROGER COHEN COLOGNE, Germany -- The European Union Saturday announced plans to provide $1.5 billion during the next three years for the reconstruction of Kosovo as the West tried to map out a strategy that would channel money to the war-devastated area without giving financial support to a Serbia controlled by Slobodan Milosevic. Günter Burghardt, the director-general for the European Union's Balkan policy, said the 15-nation bloc would provide $500 million annually over three years to Kosovo "irrespective of whether Milosevic is there or not." He added that the Yugoslav President, ...

THE REBELS Kosovars Said to Agree to Disband Their Forces PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- With the last Yugoslav forces streaming out of Kosovo ahead of schedule, NATO commanders here have reached a tentative agreement with leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army to disband the rebel force gradually, NATO officials said Saturday. Under the agreement, which must still be signed by both parties, the rebels will withdraw from fortified positions held during their civil war against Yugoslav forces, turn over their heavy weapons, shed their uniforms and cease any organized military activities within 30 days. NATO officials led by a British officer, ...

OHR Press Release Steering Board Deeply Concerned About Lack of Progress Sarajevo, 18 June 1999 Meeting in Brussels on June 15 at the level of political directors, the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council expressed its deep concern about the lack of progress in the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the Madrid Conclusions. Specifically, the Steering Board is alarmed by the inadequate level of functioning of the Common Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), in particular the BiH Parliament. The efficiency of these Institutions must be immediately and considerably ameliorated. In that context, the Steering Board ...

Lautenberg Rejects Party's Plea to Oppose Whitman for Senate By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI TRENTON, N.J. -- Fearing that they don't have a candidate who can defeat Christie Whitman and retain a Senate seat their party has held for almost two decades, Democrats from President Clinton on down urged Sen. Frank Lautenberg last month to cancel his plans to retire and instead run for re-election, Democratic officials say. But Lautenberg, 75, said Friday that after considering the idea, he told party officials he would not run again next year. "I made a decision that I plan to stick by," said Lautenberg, who ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: California Changes GOP Primary Plan By SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press Writer ONTARIO, Calif. (AP) -- California Republican party leaders voted Saturday to change their presidential primary from a ``winner-take-all'' system to one that would allow multiple candidates to split the state's many delegates. The party's executive committee voted 52-12 to change the system for California's March 7, 2000 primary. Backers of the change said it would make the candidates focus their campaigns earlier and thus help produce stronger party support for the eventual presidential nominee. But it was also seen as a signal to ...

A total of eight FReepers spent the better part of four hours protesting at the White House today. Warm, mostly sunny skies graced our presence, continuing a remarkable streak of fair weather that, with the exception of three Saturdays, goes back to the first FReeper WH protest on Sept. 23, 1998.First to arrive--around 10 a.m.--were Doctor Raoul, ELS, Dirtboy, and Kerm. They told me that they were enthusiastically received, but were soon forced to leave because of a bomb scare.I met them around 11 a.m. at Lafayette Park, and after a brief set-up period, we gathered at the Northeast gate ...

As Serb civilians continue to flee Kosovo with the retreating Yugoslav troops, their houses are being burnt to the ground in apparent acts of vengeance. Near the town of Prizren, plumes of dark grey smoke from hundreds of fires can be seen rising over the countryside. BBC correspondent Clive Myrie, who is in the area, says the attacks appear to be reprisals by Kosovo Albanians, seeking revenge after months of violent repression at the hands of the Serbs. Local people say they believe the fires were started by Kosovo Albanians, an accusation supported by a unit commander from the Kosovo ...