Free Republic

Dear Honorable Senators, Congressmen and Congresswomen, As leaders of the Y2K effort of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the oldest and largest international non-profit association of engineers and computer scientists in the world, we would like to offer some thoughts on the pending legislation involving Y2K liability obtained from our years of work and collective wisdom spent studying Y2K. The IEEE has drafted an Institute position on Y2K Legal Liability regarding United States federal law, to which our committee greatly contributed. We offer these additional thoughts in hopes that they may further assist your understanding as you ...

Tax-free Web goods may become thing of the past By Vicky Stamas WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The days of tax-free CDs, antiques, computer equipment, and other goods and services sold over the Internet may be coming to an end. Right now, the billions of dollars of goods bought by Web surfers annually are subject to a complex web of taxes levied by thousands of states, cities, counties, and parishes nationwide. But most of those taxes go unpaid because municipalities have no way to collect them from retailers headquartered in remote sites. What's more, consumers rarely report the purchases on tax forms ...

UN says its fund for Kosovo projects is empty By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, June 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Wednesday that a fund set up for its civilian operations in Kosovo was empty, making it impossible to pay for local civil servants or small-scale infrastructure projects. The U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, called UNMIK, is attempting to set up seven commissions among Kosovo Albanians and Serbs on such issues as health, education, public utilities, justice, trade and agriculture, finance and communications, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said. ``Trust funds have been set up but so far ...

PRESS ADVISORY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 6/23/99   Contact:    Don Adams (215) nnn-nnnn &nbsp Robert Welsh, Esq. (215) nnn-nnnn COMMON PLEAS COURT JUDGE TO RULE IN CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST MORRIS   PHILADELPHIA -- Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Rogers will announce his decision tomorrow whether or not to reverse District Attorney Lynne Abraham's rejection of a private criminal complaint brought against PA Teamster Boss John Morris by Clinton protestor Don Adams of Cheltenham. The pro-Clinton Morris led a vicious assault against Adams and his sister, Teri, last October 2, during a Presidential fundraising visit to Philadelphia's City Hall. Other Clinton protestors ...

Bush Urges Local Control of Schools By JENNIFER BROWN .c The Associated Press BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush called for greater local control of education today and challenged schoolchildren to read as he began a two-day fund-raising trip around Pennsylvania. The Texas governor urged giving states more freedom to set curriculum, allowing principals more leeway to discipline students, and instituting stricter penalties for juvenile offenders. ``Trust local people to make decisions for their schools,'' said Bush, who has 17-year-old twin daughters. He spoke to about 120 business people at a $1,000-a-plate lunch. ``We can give ...

GOP should listen closely to lessons from right June 22, 1999 BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN Only a few months ago, the international Left seemed to be flying high. Social Democratic governments were not only in power but also enjoyed a popular dominance in Germany, Italy, Britain, France and most of Europe--not to mention the United States, where Bill Clinton was the first Democratic president to be re-elected since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Columnists, attempting to explain the Left's phoenix-like rise from the ashes of Communist tyranny and Socialist economic planning, pointed to the ``Third Way'' as the explanation. By accepting a ...

U.S. troops kill one person in Kosovo - Pentagon By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Marine peacekeepers killed one attacker and wounded two others in an exchange of fire in a southeastern Kosovo village on Wednesday, the Defence Department said. Army Brig. Gen. John Craddock, commander of U.S. troops now in the Yugoslav province, told Pentagon reporters in a long-distance telephone interview that it was the second such clash in two days. He said two people were killed, but the Pentagon later changed that to a single fatality. None of the Marines, who were fired on at ...

Is it just me? Can someone fix it...

Private and public companies flock to rebuild Jezzine Mohammed Zaatari Daily Star correspondent Jezzine today is a hive of activity with workers constructing roads and repairing the area’s infrastructure. The south’s governor, Faisal Sayegh, explained that President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister Salim Hoss have given orders for the immediate rehabilitation of the area. But the scale of the work is only partly due to the government. A number of private companies have also flocked to the area to help in reconstruction. Government institutions have started to implement projects in the area, beginning with road and sewage networks and water ...

Marines Kill One Assailant in Kosovo By ROBERT BURNS .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Marines manning a checkpoint in Kosovo were shot at today by unidentified assailants and then returned fire, killing one person and wounding two, U.S. officials said. The commander of U.S. forces in Kosovo, Army Brig. Gen. John Craddock, said no Marines were injured. Craddock, speaking with reporters at the Pentagon in a telephone interview from his Kosovo headquarters, initially said two of the assailants had been killed but Pentagon officials later said the correct number killed was one. They said a full statement ...

Children Hit Hard in Kosovo By DONNA BRYSON .c The Associated Press PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Five-year-old Blerina lost her parents and her brother before arriving at Pristina's main hospital with an arm broken by a bullet or a grenade fragment. Doctors said Wednesday the bone will heal. But the future is less certain for Blerina and thousands of other children caught up in Kosovo's war. ``Every war is a war against the child,'' said Michelle Stratford of the aid group Save the Children. ``If you wanted an example of a conflict where this is true, you only have to ...

OSLO, NORWAY (NB) -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. Nera Satcom, the Norwegian satellite phone company, says it has seen sales of its Inmarsat Mini-M satellite phone systems take off in recent months, owing to Year 2000 fears among various national governments. Ottar Bjaastad, Nera Satcom's general manager, says sales have been soaring in recent times because of government agencies, particularly defense departments in the US, Canada, and the UK, are worried about their phone systems going out as a result of Y2K problems. Bjaastad is quoted in the latest issue of Telecom Revy, the Norwegian telecommunications magazine, as saying that ...

1922 GMT, 990623 – Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon announced the U.S. believes that Russian mercenaries participated in the Kosovo conflict on the Serbian side, and that they may have been involved in committing atrocities. Bacon insisted that any Russians would have been acting on their own accord, although Newsday had reported that dozens of Russian volunteers had participated in a massacre near Prizren. Bacon said that his information was based on reports from the Kosovo Liberation Army and that he was not aware of any groups of the size described by Newsday. He emphasized that the individuals were acting alone ...

One of the reasons why the Clinton administration was so desperate to keep Yeltsin in power in Russia was its fear that Serbian anti-anticraft defenses might be equipped with the "TAMARA Passive Detection System" if Yeltsin were to be evicted. The Russian military have been urging Yeltsin to allow shipments of TAMARA to Serbia, after one model "loaned" to Serbia, proved its worth. It was a TAMARA MCS-93 that enabled Serb anti-aircraft to shoot down a F-117 "stealth" fighter on March 27th. Yeltsin then ordered its immediate recall. The TAMARA was made by the Czech HTT Tesla (since bankrupted) company ...

At least 140 Serbs and Montenegrans, who are permanent residents of Kosovo, have been abducted in the past 12 days by ethnic Albanian rebels. According to Pristina information center "Media Centar", the abductions of Serbs are an everyday phenomenon in the region of the town of Urahovac, west of Pristina as in the past two weeks armed ethnic Albanians have abducted about 40 Serbs. According to eye witnesses in the town of Pec and the village of Gusica, ethnic Albanian rebels arrested 32 Serbs and led them to an unknown direction. In Urosevac, in south Kosovo, armed ethnic Albanians abducted ...

From official documents by the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms as published by the German daily junge welt on April 24. Translated by Eric Canepa of the Brecht Forum, New York. JUNGE WELT [The following internal documents from Fischer's ministry and from various regional Administrative Courts in Germany spanning the year before the start of NATO's air attacks, attest that criteria of ethnic cleansing and genocide were not met. The Foreign Office documents were responses to the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany. Although one might in these cases suppose a bias ...

Teen Abortion Bill Clears Committee By DARLENE SUPERVILLE .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Anyone who takes a pregnant teen to another state for an abortion without her parent's consent could face federal prosecution under a bill that cleared a House panel today. The House Judiciary Committee voted 16-13 along party lines to send the measure to the full House for a vote, possibly as soon as next week. Similar legislation is pending in the Senate. The bill would make it a federal misdemeanor for someone other than the girl's parent, guardian or legal custodian to take her to ...

For fair use _ Depleted Uranium: The Invisible Threat by j.j. richardson June 23, 1999 NATO's continued bombardment of Yugoslavia had several stated goals, one of which was the safe return of hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees. With refugees already pouring back over the borders, attention and concern now turn to the conditions facing returning refugees: bombed roads and bridges, burned villages, and an almost non-existent civil infrastructure. But there's another potential problem: depleted uranium (DU). The Pentagon has confirmed that it used DU in Kosovo. It has also confirmed it has no plans to clean it up. Depleted ...

Iraqi opposition asks U.S. for ``bold action'' By Jonathan Wright WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The Iraqi opposition in exile asked the United States on Wednesday for ``bold action'' to help them overthrow President Saddam Hussein. But a senior Clinton administration official said the time was not ripe for supplying weapons and its priority was to make the opposition more effective at ``political outreach.'' The two sides also blamed each other for a decision not to hold a congress of the Iraqi opposition inside Kurd-controlled northern Iraq next month. The meeting is expected to be held in a Western capital, ...

U.S. Republicans shift focus to modest tax plan By Adam Entous WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With plans for sweeping tax cuts all but dead, Republicans in Congress are shifting their focus to more modest, less costly proposals that would aid married couples, investors and retirees. The chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Archer of Texas, said Wednesday he wanted to tackle the so-called ``marriage penalty,'' which forces some married people to pay higher taxes than when they were single. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said his top priority was a reduction in the capital ...