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  June 14, 1999 Cox Report Details Damage to U.S. National Security By Congressman Curt Weldon          Last month, the Select Committee on Technology Transfers to China released our bipartisan, unclassified report detailing the tremendous damage done to United States national security by Chinese espionage.  As the report details, the damage was compounded by a conscious and unprecedented effort by the Clinton-Gore Administration to allow the export and sale of our nation's most sensitive technologies -- benefitting major Democratic campaign contributors --  to foreign nations, including China.           I was privileged to serve on the Select Committee, also referred to ...

World's top sweetener is made with GM bacteria By Marie Woolf, political correspondent The most widely used sweetener in the world, found in fizzy drinks and sweets, is being made using a secret genetic engineering process, which some scientists claim needs further testing for toxic side-effects. The use of genetic engineering to make aspartame has stayed secret until now because there is no modified DNA in the finished product. Monsanto, the pioneering GM food giant, which makes aspartame, insists that it is completely safe. But some scientists fear that not enough is known about the process of making it. ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California State University, Northridge flunked more than half the freshmen who took remedial English and mathematics classes this year. Out of 1,157 students who were admitted on the condition that they pass the two classes to advance, only 562 will go on to their sophomore year without additional coursework. "We're going to stick to our standards," California State University Chancellor Charles Reed said. The remedial program was aimed at ensuring new students had the skills needed to succeed in college courses. Students had three chances to pass the classes by the end of their freshmen ...

There have been several reviews of Joyce Milton's hard-hitting, no-holds-barred biography of the First Lady of Corruption, but none of them has mentioned the favorable comments about FreeRepublic. Well, this should set the record straight. JimRob, this one's for you! "It was no secret that Hillary and the spin doctors of the White House counsel's office were hardly fans of the Internet. In 1995, the White House had issued a strange 300-page document called "Stream of Conspiracy Commerce," which proposed to instruct reporters on how conspiracy theories about the death of Vince Foster and related subjects made their way from ...

It's hard to hear the word Kosovo these days without being perplexed by two trusty aphorisms from the past: From Yogi Berra: "It ain't over till it's over." And from Shakespeare: "All's well that ends well." The problem is that you can't really apply the second bit of wisdom until you're sure of the first one. It's awfully tough to jump into prudent evaluations of the peace agreements until we know for certain that the war is over. A big part of the problem is that we're dealing not just with one head of state whose word nobody takes too ...

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, ...