Free Republic

NATO Struggles To Restore Order By NIKO PRICE .c The Associated Press PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - NATO is struggling to restore order in Kosovo, where U.S. Marines came under fire for a second time in three days and ethnic Albanians torched and looted Serb homes in revenge attacks. Meanwhile, Russia planned to fly about 18 technical personnel to Pristina's airport today in advance of Russian paratroopers expected to join the NATO-led force. It would be the first flight into the Kosovo capital since 200 Russian troops seized the airport June 12 - beating NATO into the province by hours and ...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas detained an alleged serial killer who is the target of an international manhunt three weeks ago, but released him because their computer system apparently failed to show he was wanted on criminal charges, federal authorities said Friday. The Immigration and Naturalization Service said in a statement that Border Patrol agents on June 1 apprehended Rafael Resendez Ramirez, a train-hopping Mexican drifter sought in eight brutal slayings, near the border city of El Paso for entering the United States illegally, but sent him back to Mexico the next day. Resendez, 39, is ...

Paris, Saturday, June 26, 1999Trade Sanctions Are a Misused ToolBy Stanley A. Weiss International Herald TribuneLONDON - He is the owner of Yugoslavia's top soccer team, the proprietor of the Serb Crown bakery chain and an indicted war criminal. His name is Zeljko Raznjatovic, more commonly known as Arkan, leader of an infamous Serbian paramilitary group that is blamed for some of the worst atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. He is a wealthy man thanks to the trade sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, which amounted to the functional equivalent of a protective tariff. They fueled the ...

Paris, Saturday, June 26, 1999Airpower Alone Didn't Force Milosevic's Capitulation By François Heisbourg International Herald TribunePARIS - Proponents of airpower, and more specifically of American airpower, have been quick to claim that for the first time, conventional bombing alone defeated an enemy, compelling Slobodan Milosevic to give up Kosovo. If true, this would be a major revolution in warfare, magnified by the complete absence of allied casualties. The hard-learned lessons of previous air campaigns would have to be unlearned. We are invited to forget the Gulf War and its vindication of ''jointness,'' whereby air operations can be successful insofar ...

This season's campaign rhetoric is stacking up as a case study in public manipulation. Based on surveys showing widespread anxiety about morals and the supposed anomie of youth culture, politicians are turning to cultural themes and proposing political solutions that limit fundamental freedoms. This appears to be equally true of Republicans and Democrats, who are wrapping such proposals as curbs on free speech and restrictions on gun ownership in the mantle of cultural conservatism. Never mind that government is the greatest enemy civilization ever faced. Never mind that no piece of legislation ever shaped up anyone's morals; to the ...

Kargil Special PAK MILITANT GROUP RULES OUT WITHDRAWAL, PRAISES SHARIF ISLAMABAD: A Pak-based militant group, which claims to have the largest number of its cadres fighting in Kargil, has ruled out the possibility of withdrawing from the area and lauded premier Sharif's tough stance in the face of U.S. pressure. "Whether American general Anthony Zinni comes to Pakistan or even president Clinton the mujahideens will not withdraw from their posts in Drass and Kargil areas," chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, said in a statement here yesterday, reports PTI. Dismissing the U.S. as "anti-Islam", the statement lauded the tough ...

0142 GMT, 990626 Yugoslavia – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reports that the Serbian government has released over 166 ethnic Albanians who have been kept in Serbian prisons. The organization will see to the safe return of the men back into Kosovo in the coming days and made it clear they intend to continue efforts to locate other ethnic Albanians being held in Yugoslavia. Questions remain though, according to the ICRC, over how many are being detained and where they are located. 0040 GMT, 990626 Russia/Yugoslavia - Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, head of the Chief Department for ...

POLITICAL MEMO: G.O.P. Looks for Ways to Seize on the Economy By RICHARD W. STEVENSON WASHINGTON -- The nation's long run of prosperity has left the Republican Presidential candidates with a crucial strategic choice: embrace the strong economy as their own, look for the dark side or change the subject. But even as they grudgingly acknowledge that a strong economy helps the incumbent party in national elections -- and grapple with why their signature economic issue, tax cuts, does not seem to be lighting any fires among the increasingly well-off middle class -- the Republicans are unwilling to cede the ...

SCIENTISTS UNVEIL POWERFUL NEW TELESCOPE IN HAWAIIHONOLULU: A powerful new telescope was dedicated in Hawaii Friday amid predictions that it will produce some of the sharpest infrared images ever and allow astronomers to look back 8 billion years in time. The Gemini North, a 8.1-meter telescope atop Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii, the state's highest point, was hailed by 150 dignitaries and scientists, including Prince Andrew of Britain and National Science Foundation Chief Rita Colwell, reports AP. Scientists with the Gemini Project, which also is constructing an identical 8.1-meter telescope on Cerro Pachone in Chile, displayed infrared images ...

Mr. Clinton Looks Home After an all-consuming detour to press the war in Yugoslavia, and with only 18 months left in office, President Clinton has returned to his domestic agenda. Its emphasis, Mr. Clinton indicated yesterday at his news conference, is to get a budget deal with Congress that shores up Medicare and Social Security, while passing gun control and protections for patients in health maintenance organizations. He will also work to alleviate poverty in parts of the country that have not benefited from the economic boom. The President's new drive on these issues is welcome. It is not clear ...

A Vote That May Haunt Congress By MICKEY EDWARDS CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It would be best for both parties if Federal lawmakers revisited the issue of gun control before the 2000 elections. After the House of Representatives voted last week to kill the latest gun-restriction proposals, some analysts suggested that the issue would move out of Congress and instead be part of next year's battle for the White House. But with their votes against the measure, liberal and moderate Democrats missed a chance to add a few additional controls on gun sales, and the Republican Party looked as if it ...

THE PRESIDENT Clinton Underestimated Serbs, He Acknowledges By JOHN M. BRODER WASHINGTON -- President Clinton acknowledged Friday for the first time that he had underestimated Serbia's ability to withstand the NATO bombing campaign. In a lengthy news conference, Clinton said he had believed that President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia would submit to allied demands after "a couple of days" of bombing and halt the Serbian assault on Kosovo. NATO and the administration were initially criticized for that miscalculation of Serbian stamina, and then for failing to have a strategy for a prolonged air war, a campaign that ultimately lasted 78 ...

THE PRESIDENT Clinton Underestimated Serbs, He Acknowledges By JOHN M. BRODER WASHINGTON -- President Clinton acknowledged Friday for the first time that he had underestimated Serbia's ability to withstand the NATO bombing campaign. In a lengthy news conference, Clinton said he had believed that President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia would submit to allied demands after "a couple of days" of bombing and halt the Serbian assault on Kosovo. NATO and the administration were initially criticized for that miscalculation of Serbian stamina, and then for failing to have a strategy for a prolonged air war, a campaign that ultimately lasted 78 ...

Ladies and Gentlemen: There has been little or not mention about the fitness of Richard Holbrooke to be appointed as U.S. ambassador to the U. N. First of all, opinion states that the position should have been abolished long ago, --but we must not allow Holbrooke to be rubber-stamped as the Senate is trying to do right now. Richard Holbrooke was Bill Clinton's personal choice to represent him at the Paris Serbia-Albania peace talks, and who lives, by the way in a $27,000 a month apartment in New York and he is unfit for public service. This man engineered the ...

NATO Chief Urges Police Force for Kosovo By CARLOTTA GALL PRISTINA Yugoslavia -- Refugees are flocking back to Kosovo, which has been increasingly plagued by deaths and violence, leading the top NATO commander to call for an international police force to keep order in the province. "NATO is doing all that it can to grip the situation on the ground," the commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, told Reuters in an interview in which he called for an acceleration of plans to bring in United Nations police. "We're very much aware of the challenges in an environment in which whatever authority ...

ET At Home One Month-Old SETI Program Is Swamped by Volunteer Alien-Seekers 8.08 a.m. ET (1208 GMT) June 23, 1999 By Amanda Onion   NEW YORK — The other day, Ross Schaack's computer detected something unusual. So, while Schaack was away at work, the computer dialed a connection to the Web and reported its data to a main computer in Berkeley, California. Days later, Schaack's user name appeared in a top ten list for detecting one of the most interesting finds of the month. High peaks in SETI's program indicate strong signals while a counter above records long, unusual radio ...

I couldn't find this late night breaking story on NY Times at all, did anyone else?...Two of the three Chinese killed in last month's Chinese Embassy bombing in Belgrade were not journalists -- but intelligence officers! So claims a report in late editions of Friday's NEW YORK TIMES. (Now this is what I'm referring to...this happens frequently, a story is 'suppose' to break & does not) The American bombs that struck the embassy destroyed the compound's intelligence-gathering nerve center. The highly sensitive nature of the parts of the embassy that were bombed suggests why the Chinese insist the bombing was ...

Sad...but true. THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER ORIGINAL VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building is house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold. MODERN AMERICAN VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs ...

Opposition's Egos Block United Push to Oust Milosevic By BLAINE HARDEN BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- For opposition politicians in Yugoslavia, this should be the showtime. President Slobodan Milosevic has lost his fourth war in a row and surrendered the sacred Serbian homeland of Kosovo to heavily armed foreigners. He has been indicted as a war criminal, the Swiss are swooping down to close any bank accounts he might have and the United States has offered $5 million to anyone who helps nab him. A third of Yugoslavia is out of work, incomes are down 40 percent this year and, according to ...

I'm glad the POTUS has put an emphasis on the National Agenda. After 2000 the issues that were addressed by the POTUS will still need to be dealt with, baby boomers and health care. I hope that the discussion on these issues can be at the level where the candidates state positions with 'details' on where they compare and contrast on the 'details.' I would hate to see the media "dumb down" the issues and allow any politician to enter office without stating how they stand on: National Defense Gun Control Abortion Health Care And removing the Social Security from ...