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Arabs refuse to sit with Israel at UN Y2K meeting By Anthony Goodman UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Reuters) - Arab delegates refused to sit down with Israel on Monday at a U.N. meeting on the Y2K computer problem, diplomats said on Tuesday. The planned meeting was part of two days of sessions attended by national coordinators from more than 170 countries charged with heading off problems associated with the millennium computer bug, which stems from a programming glitch which makes some computers read the date 2000 as 1900. When regional group meetings were scheduled on Monday to discuss measures to ...

U.S. Jets Bomb Iraqi Defense Sites .c The Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - U.S. fighter jets bombed a military command center in northern Iraq Tuesday after Iraqi forces fired on the planes in the northern no-fly zone, the U.S. military said. The Air Force F-15s and F-16s attacked the military command and control center northwest of Mosul, a city 250 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. European Command said. The Iraqi army, in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency, claimed the planes attacked ``civilian installations.'' Iraq reported no casualties or damage. The attack came after the ...

New Military Mega-Companies: Corporate Interests or National Interests In the 1950s, when General Motors was the nation’s top automaker and its CEO, Charles Wilson, was tapped to be President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, Wilson responded to critics who were concerned that he and his company had too much power by saying "what’s good for General Motors is good for America." Today, the nation’s top weapons maker is Lockheed Martin, which was created by merging Lockheed with Martin Marietta, Loral Defense, the General Dynamics combat aircraft division, and scores of other military companies to create a $35 billion behemoth that ...

NATO Lets Serbs Carve Out Enclave By LAURA KING .c The Associated Press KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) - The ethnic Albanians of this northern industrial city, one of Kosovo's largest, had hoped they would be safe once NATO soldiers arrived. Instead, while French peacekeepers looked on Tuesday, a gang of Serb toughs menaced those who wanted to cross a bridge to the other side of town - an area containing the main hospital, many ethnic Albanian homes and almost the only open food shops. Kosovska Mitrovica is a city under effective partition - and a case study in the enormous ...

Kosovo Rebels Want To Keep Weapons By DONNA BRYSON .c The Associated Press PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Only a day after pledging to warehouse their weapons and end their fight, a top Kosovo Liberation Army leader said Tuesday the rebels never agreed to give up their guns and still hope to form an army. There also was evidence the rebels - or supporters - were continuing to take revenge on Serb civilians. Serb houses burned in the western city of Pec and a Serb power company worker was shot in the capital. British troops reportedly had to defuse a land ...

KLA Says Russians Fought for Serbs By ROBERT BURNS .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Russians fought in Kosovo alongside Serb forces, and their role will be part of an international war crimes investigation, the Pentagon's spokesman said Tuesday. ``We certainly know that Russians participated. Russian volunteers, mercenaries, we believe, did participate with paramilitary and other Serb forces,'' Kenneth Bacon said. He had been asked to comment on a report in Newsday that dozens of Russian volunteers had participated in the killing of hundreds of ethnic Albanians and the destruction of towns and villages around Prizren in southern Kosovo. ...

Republican State AGs Form New Group .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican state attorney generals are organizing a national association to seek political gains and advocate restraint in an era of high-profile lawsuits against tobacco companies and gun makers. Acting under the umbrella of the Republican National Committee, the new group will seek to promote limited government, governmental restraint and more effective crime fighting, officials said on Tuesday. In an interview, Charles Condon, the attorney general of South Carolina and chairman of the new Republican Attorneys General Association, said the group will promote those ideas while seeking to ...

It’s Elementary A Video Review Children are our future. What we invest and instill in them will determine the cultural values of generations to come. Homosexual activists understand this principle all too clearly. As a result, they released a video designed to reshape the way American children understand homosexuality. The video, entitled, It’s Elementary: Talking about Gay and Lesbian Issues in School, is a masterful work of propaganda. It is vital for people to understand that this video is not for adults. The target audience is children. Activists are after the heart and minds of the next generation It’s Elementary ...

McCain Pushes Tax Relief Plan in SC By LEIGH STROPE .c The Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain proposed a $120 billion tax relief plan for middle-class families during a campaign visit Tuesday to South Carolina, where he was compared to both Ronald Reagan and Jesse Ventura. ``It's hard to defend a system that taxes your salary, your investments, your property, your expenses, your marriage and your death,'' he said. South Carolina is considered the gateway to the South with its early primary, now set for Feb. 19. McCain's tax relief announcement followed a visit ...

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Lott Wants GOP Senators To Stay By LAURIE KELLMAN .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - With Orrin Hatch considering a White House bid, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is lamenting the prospect of having three Republican senators seeking their party's presidential nomination. ``I'd like for them to, frankly, to stay here and work on the Senate legislation rather than be out running around the country campaigning,'' Lott told reporters Tuesday. Hatch's aides said to expect an announcement from the Utah Republican in the next week. But many of his colleagues considered a Hatch candidacy a foregone conclusion. Two other ...

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN)-- In the 1960s, Vozrozhdeniye was merely a tiny island in the vast Aral Sea.Today, with the sea reduced to half its former size, and a much larger Vozrozhdeniye closing in on the shore, some U.S. researchers believe the island is a toxic time bomb set to infect central Asia with some of the deadliest germs on Earth.According to the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, Vozrozhdeniye was a secret biological weapons test site. Soviet, and later Russian, scientists routinely released deadly agents-- including plauge, small pox, tularemia and anthrax-- into the air over the island for ...

DENVER (AP) — In seven years, nearly half the workers in America will be employed by industries that either are producers or intensive users of information technology, Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday. During a campaign swing through Colorado, the vice president released a report from the Commerce Department that said new digital technologies are changing the way Americans work, live, communicate and play. "Six and a half years ago, there were just 50 Web sites around the world. Today there are more than 6 million,'' Gore said in prepared remarks. "Today, information technology is changing the way we ...

DENVER (AP) — In seven years, nearly half the workers in America will be employed by industries that either are producers or intensive users of information technology, Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday. During a campaign swing through Colorado, the vice president released a report from the Commerce Department that said new digital technologies are changing the way Americans work, live, communicate and play. "Six and a half years ago, there were just 50 Web sites around the world. Today there are more than 6 million,'' Gore said in prepared remarks. "Today, information technology is changing the way we ...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON (AP) - National Football League team and player representatives joined today in opposing legislation that would force the NFL to set aside 10 percent of its television revenues for building and renovating stadiums. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the bill would ``establish a rigid and misguided federal approach to a particularly local issue.'' He said it would have serious and negative consequences'' for local communities, sports fans and sports teams. The measure proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would condition continuation of major ...

So, what's YOUR game plan? [1st] There are many parties in this country, but most don't amount to a hill of beans, the Reform party does. You know this to be true because you are worried that the Reform party will effect the outcome of the Presidental election. [2nd] A party that can effect the Presidential election can force the Republicans to move to the "right" in order to re-gain the voters by proving in action (not talk) that they are true conservatives. [3rd] If step number 2 above fails the Reform party keeps pounding away until they take the ...

June 22, 1999 Preacher says parents, cops to blame for teen's death By DAVIS SHEREMATA -- Staff Writer HYTHE -- Police and parents must share the blame for the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old girl on his farm Sunday morning, Wiebo Ludwig said yesterday. Ludwig, whose pitched battle against the oil industry has made him a pariah in northwestern Alberta, said police have blood on their hands after the weekend shooting. He said cops have let hatred for him and the 34 other people who live on his land boil over. "They basically said it was open season on ...

Another thing. Have any of you heard how Al Gore lives a Christ centered life? He gave a speech this week about how his faith is so important to him. Well, the funny part is he said his favorite Bible verse is John l6:3. Of course, the speech writer meant 3:16, but wasn't familiar enough to catch the error. Well, John 16:3 is "And they will do this because they have not known the father or me."

Few of Cisneros Tapes Said Altered By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A woman who secretly recorded former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros' phone conversations testified Tuesday that she altered only five or six of the 88 audiotapes. Prosecutors, who want to use some of the tapes at Cisneros' conspiracy trial in September, summoned his ex-lover to the stand to explain why she edited out certain passages and later lied to FBI and IRS investigators about the tapes' authenticity. Linda Jones' explanation of her actions came as the Cisneros legal team prepared to challenge the admissibility of ...

Panel Approves Summers Nomination By ALICE ANN LOVE .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawrence Summers won a unanimous recommendation from members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday to succeed Robert Rubin as Treasury secretary. At the same time, Summers got a warning that although approval of his confirmation by the full Senate is expected to come easily - probably before the end of next week - his subsequent dealings with Congress could be more contentious. ``It doesn't guarantee that there won't be storm clouds down the road,'' said Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., at a hearing of the ...