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WASHINGTON, June 22 (AFP) - Panama is defenseless against attacks by Colombian rebels and Washington should do everything it can to help Panama beef up its security forces, a top US general and a senator said Tuesday. Months ahead of a US troop pullout from the Central American nation as a century-old Panama Canal treaty draws to a close, Republican Senator Paul Coverdell and Commander in Chief of US Southern Command, General Charles Wilhelm, said they were concerned with Panama's vulnerability. "As our forces withdraw in compliance with the treaties," Wilhelm told a Senate panel, "I have concerns about the ...

As NATO-led peacekeepers warned that Kosovo remains a deeply dangerous place, evidence emerged on Tuesday that the alliance contributed to one of the most serious threats facing its troops and the civilians they came to protect. British Lt. Col. Nick Clissitt disclosed that NATO cluster bombs were to blame for the deaths of two members of the British Army's Gurkha Field Squadron Monday at a rural school, NATO's first casualties of the Kosovo occupation. The Gurkhas were trying to destroy about 60 unexploded "bomblets" from cluster bombs that NATO warplanes had dropped near the school during the 11-week air ...

Jewish World Review June 23, 1999/ 9 Tamuz, 5759 Where Israel Needs Our Help By Neil Rubin (JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, a strange convergence of events seems to have ushered in the final bizarre chapter of the 20th century. And it will all seem serene when compared to what’s about to happen in Israel and to American Jews laboring on the Jewish state’s behalf. World headlines these days reflect this: The Kosovo war – with its new precedents for NATO and reinvigoration of the phrase “never again” -- ended after a brutal several months. Russian and ...

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans said Tuesday they plan to unveil what they have dubbed an "e-contract" -- a pledge to keep the government from getting in the way of high-technology growth. Praising the high tech industry for improving economic productivity, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texas Republican, said the "e-contract" would basically tell inventors and innovators "keep up the good work and we'll try to stay out of your way." Armey gave few specifics, except to say the proposal would include Louisiana Republican Billy Tauzin's ideas about how to expand availability of broadband capabilities that now exist only on ...

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 balanced ...

The NEW YORK TIMES is preparing a story for tomorrow's editions revealing the existence of Hillary Clinton's new North Salem, N.Y. home -- in upscale Westchester County. Developing...

WASHINGTON -- William F. Buckley Jr. observed the other day that we are headed for an eventual crisis with China over Taiwan, which Communist China has never ceased claiming as its own. He notes that "somewhere down the line, whatever the policies of the Taiwan government -- short of capitulation -- the crisis will come. It can only be met by absolutely straightforward pledges, of a kind that kept the Soviet Union at bay in Europe." He adds a provocative thought: "The road to that point can best be prepared not merely by thunderous diplomatic declarations, but by giving to ...

THE SECOND COMING OF BARBARIANS Opinion In one of the most brutal acts, the Pakistan Army tortured six Indian soldiers, including a young Lieutenant, gouged their eyeballs, burnt them with cigarette butts and chopped off noses, ears and genitals.” Thus ran the news report on June 11, aptly headlined, ‘Barbarians´. That was the state of Lieutnant Saurav Kalia and five of his men from 4 Jats who had gone on a patrol on May 14 in the Kaksar area. The same morning appears a piece by a renowned columnist in which he says, “Now that the unspeakable dishonesty of ...

So how do you feel, asks an unkindly correspondent, now that you see the torture chambers and killing fields of Kosovo? How now this Hitler of the Balkans? How now the "appeasers"? Was Tony Blair not right to bomb the bastard to pieces? The answer is that I feel exactly as I did at the start. It takes a warped brain not to be sickened by war, especially "civil" war. But it takes a dangerous one to refuse to think. The present horror will run its course. The media are still revelling in atrocity pornography. Next will come the memoirs, ...

***After tossing out offers to subscribe for free with trial issues, USN&WR finally caught me putting an "X" to let them send me a few issues to look them over. In the mailbox this a.m. another one. And a camera. I am a bit embarrassed because I have no intentions of subscribing to this magazine. But in all fairness, I did thumb through its latest, and there is nothing I can find to post on this forum. Except "THE SECRETS AREN'T SAFE Another report rips DOE's nuclear security, but there's a fight over how to fix the mess as listed ...

THE Connecticut car dealership owned by labor-friendly Paul Newman is under attack from two employees who say they were fired for trying to unionize the shop. Salesman Mickey Frank was axed from his job at Connecticut's Own Mazda/Oldsmobile/Volvo dealership - purchased by Newman and two partners in 1997 - on June 11, the same day Teamsters Local 1040 reps informed the dealership that Frank was trying to organize a union. Another salesman, Howard Saks, was handed his walking papers last Friday, allegedly because he attended the union organizing meetings. "It's discriminatory, it's harassment, and it's illegal," Frank, 58 and a ...

Parental Leave Suit Filed by ACLU By MAGGIE JACKSON .c The Associated Press The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a South Carolina state trooper fired for trying to take a parental leave. The case involving Lance Cpl. David Roberts marks the second sex discrimination case under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the 1993 federal law that allows workers unpaid leaves to care for new babies or sick family members. In the first case, a Maryland state trooper won $375,000 in damages in February after a four-year legal battle against bosses who denied him ...

Could someone please post Jim Robinsons e-mail here. I cannot reply to any posts. I can only post an article. When I click on the reply box, I get a search on all of the Freepers posts and not a reply box. It happened after I posted a reply on the "Special Ed" post...Thanks, I enjoy Free Republic and would like to continue posting here now and again....

http://villagevoice.com/features/9923/vest.shtml Washington— If ever there was an example of wishful thinking being realized, President Clinton's address to graduating Air Force Academy cadets last Wednesday was it. "We cannot abandon a just cause because an adversary holds out for more than a few news cycles," Clinton said. Conveniently, a few news cycles later, the beginning of the end was announced. Although peace terms were in fact drafted by a Russian and a Finn— and although the European Union's announcement of the formation of its own military group was seen by many observers as a rebuke of U.S. hegemony in Europe— the ...

Senators Oppose IMF Gold Plan By HARRY DUNPHY .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A plan by the International Monetary Fund to sell gold to finance debt relief for poor countries would hurt many of these nations and the U.S. gold industry, two senators said today. Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Chuck Hagel, chairman of the subcommittee on international economic policy, said they have joined a bipartisan group to oppose the gold sales, which require congressional approval. In a letter to Treasury Secretary-designate Larry Summers, the senators said, ``We are unalterably persuaded ...

The United States and North Korea are holding talks in the Chinese capital Beijing, a day after a meeting between the two Koreas broke down. There are fears that the latest discussions could be threatened by the same maritime border dispute between the North and the South that stalled Tuesday's talks. Arriving for the US-North Korea talks at a Beijing hotel, US representative Charles Kartman told reporters he expected to have a good meeting with his North Korean counterparts. Mr Kartman is in Beijing to discuss the results of last month's US inspection of a suspected nuclear weapons facility ...

Clinton says NATO is ready to fight repression in Europe, Africa SKOPJE, June 22 (AFP) - Praising NATO for its campaign in Kosovo, US President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the alliance could intervene elsewhere in Europe or in Africa to fight repression. "In Africa or central Europe, we will not allow, only because of differences in ethnic background or religion or racism, people to be attacked. We will stop that," Clinton told US troops gathered at the Skopje airport. "We can do it now. We can do it tomorrow, if it is necessary, somewhere else," he said. Clinton earlier ...

Attorney General Janet Reno lied to the world Press and American public...A career U.S. Intelligence Officer tells it all. Click here. Read it now on the all new Strategic Intelligence Review.

Lieberman Nominated for State Post .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton nominated his former deputy chief of staff, Evelyn Lieberman, as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs today. From March 1997 to May 1999, Mrs. Lieberman was director of the Voice of America, the first woman to lead the broadcast operation since its founding in 1942 at the height of World War II. Prior to that, she was the first woman to serve as deputy White House chief of staff. During Clinton's first term, Mrs. Lieberman was assistant to the chief of staff in ...

China Says U.S. Wants To Become "Lord Of Earth" BEIJING, Jun 23, 1999 -- (Reuters) China compared the United States to Nazi Germany on Tuesday and said NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia reflected Washington's ambition to become "Lord of the Earth". "If you ask which country wants to become 'the Lord of the Earth' as the then Nazi Germany had tried to, there is only one answer," said a commentary in the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. "It is the hegemonism-pursuing United States." In likening the United States to Nazi Germany, the newspaper cited its massive ...