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WASHINGTON -- The year 2000 has dawned: an uneasy calm reigns in the Balkans. The bombs have stopped falling. NATO has seemingly triumphed. Serb security units have withdrawn from Kosovo, easing the heavy-handed repression characteristic of the last two years. Alas, ruins are all that remain of many Kosovar villages. Hundreds of thousands of refugees still populate camps in Albania and Macedonia. European and Russian peacekeeping forces have been unable -- and, more important, unwilling -- to suppress continuing attacks across the Albanian border by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Angry young refugees unwilling to return to a Kosovo nominally controlled ...

Students going ape at Harvard Law School CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard Law School is going to the dogs. For the first time, the school will offer a course on what some consider an emerging field: animal rights law. The elective class next year will discuss fundamental rights - why humans are entitled to them and why animals have been denied them - and whether legal rights should be extended beyond people. ``There is this thick legal wall with humans all on one side and all non-human animals on the other side,'' said attorney Steven Wise, who will teach the ...

AP News Service     AMES, Iowa (AP) _ Publisher Steve Forbes is accusing Texas Gov.  George W. Bush of relying on money from special interests groups to  win the Iowa Republican straw poll Aug. 14.   Forbes swung though a county GOP barbecue to mingle with  activists Saturday, but his mind was clearly on Bush.   A memo leaked last week showed Bush is seeking to line up 50  prominent interest groups to commit to delivering backers to the  straw poll, and that drew Forbes' ire.   The approximately 12,000 activists who show up for the poll will  not ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement showered Kabul Saturday with anti-drugs leaflets appealing for international help in eradicating the country's massive opium production. ``In the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the fight against narcotics is a legal and Islamic obligation,'' pamphlets dropped by helicopter said. The operation was part of a world anti-drugs day. ``It is the national and international responsibility of each Afghan to strongly combat this hateful and destructive phenomenon,'' the leaflets said. Afghanistan rivals the ``Golden Triangle'' of Laos, Cambodia and Myanamar as world leader in production of raw opium, the raw material of heroin. The leaflets ...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard Law School is going to the dogs. For the first time, the school will offer a course on what some consider an emerging field: animal rights law. The elective class next year will discuss fundamental rights - why humans are entitled to them and why animals have been denied them - and whether legal rights should be extended beyond people. ``There is this thick legal wall with humans all on one side and all non-human animals on the other side,'' said attorney Steven Wise, who ...

6/26/99 -- 3:03 PM Students going ape at Harvard Law School -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard Law School is going to the dogs. For the first time, the school will offer a course on what some consider an emerging field: animal rights law. The elective class next year will discuss fundamental rights - why humans are entitled to them and why animals have been denied them - and whether legal rights should be extended beyond people. ``There is this thick legal wall with humans all on one side and all non-human animals on the other side,'' said attorney Steven ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard Law School is going to the dogs. For the first time, the school will offer a course on what some consider an emerging field: animal rights law. The elective class next year will discuss fundamental rights — why humans are entitled to them and why animals have been denied them — and whether legal rights should be extended beyond people. "There is this thick legal wall with humans all on one side and all non-human animals on the other side,'' said attorney Steven Wise, who will teach the course next spring as an adjunct ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon began rebuilding Saturday after the worst Israeli air strikes in three years wrecked bridges, shattered highways and badly damaged Beirut power stations. In the war-torn south, soldiers worked through the night to set up a pontoon bridge over the Awali river to restore access to the port city of Sidon from Beirut after missiles shattered a recently-built highway linking the two cities. Troops also erected makeshift stairs for pedestrians from the jagged remains of the highway down to the river bank and up again. Israel's bombardment of Lebanon Thursday, which killed eight people and wounded 64, ...

The following senate seats are up for re-election in 2000: Jon Kyl AZ Repub Diane Feinstein CA Dem Joseph Lieberman CT Dem Roth DE Repub Chm,Finance Comm Connie Mack IL Repub Daniel Akaka HI Dem Richard Lugar IN Repub Chm,Ag/Nutr/Forestry Comm Olympia Snowe ME Repub Paul Sarbane MD Dem Ranking Dem,Bnk/Housg/Ur Aff Edward Kennedy MA Dem Ranking Dem,Labor/Humn Rsrcs Spencer Abraham MI Repub Rod Grams MN Repub Trent Lott MS Repub Ashcroft MO Repub Conrad Burns MT Repub Bob Kerrey NE Dem Ranking Dem,Intell Comm Dick Bryan NV Dem Frank Lautenberg NJ Dem Jeff Bingaman NM Dem Daniel Moynihan NY ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — The Energy Department's top official overseeing the nation's nuclear weapons programs has resigned because of differences with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson over the department's organization, administration sources said Saturday. Victor Reis, assistant secretary for defense programs, submitted his resignation in a letter to President Clinton on Friday, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Reis could not be reached immediately Saturday. Reis is one of a number of officials targeted by an internal review into the mishandling of an espionage investigation involving a Taiwan-born scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab. Officials ...

6/26/99 -- 1:34 PM U.N. nominee's approval in jeopardy WASHINGTON (AP) - Richard Holbrooke's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has hit a snag, blocked by a senator upset over the punishment of a bureaucrat who accused the State Department of waste and mismanagement. Holbrooke appeared headed for approval until the case of Linda Shenwick drew Sen. Charles Grassley's attention. Shenwick worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York until her recent transfer to Washington. Grassley, R-Iowa, said he will not allow a vote on the Holbrooke nomination until ...

Let's continue on this thread. First one was taking a while to load.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton Saturday announced the release of $1.2 billion to help local school districts hire 30,000 new teachers as part of a plan to reduce the size of classes in early grades. Linking class size to better learning and improved discipline, Clinton said in his weekly radio address that the Department of Education will begin distributing the money next week to help districts hire teachers for first, second and third grades. "Reducing class size is one of the most important investments we can make in our children's future,'' Clinton said, noting that "recent research confirms what parents ...

How will the law define "flag burning," anyway? or I know it when I see it... Those of us who trust our Government enough to allow them to alter the Constitution are making a few assumptions. One is that flag burning is wrong, and should be an arrestable offense. There's plenty of arguments on that issue, and most of them have been presented ad naseum elsewhere on these pages. A much more interesting assumption is that the Government will adequately define flag burning. Rep. Gary Ackerman did a terrific job on C-SPAN during the televised debate - he showed us ...

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JUNE 21, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz 'The income tax is voluntary for most people' Joseph R. Banister spoke June 12 in Las Vegas; he will speak again July 1 & 2 at the National Press Club in Washington. Joe Banister graduated from San Jose State University in 1986 with a degree in accounting; he became a Certified Public Accountant in 1991. After several years of auditing and tax work, he decided "bean-counting was boring" and decided to follow several relatives and friends into law enforcement. "I was sworn in on ...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India pressed on with surgical air strikes against guerrilla infiltrators on its side of Kashmir Saturday and exchanged fire with Pakistan across the military line dividing the disputed Himalayan region. While guns raged, the nuclear rivals kept up diplomatic efforts to defuse their most serious confrontation in 30 years. ``Ground operations are progressing in a deliberate manner both in the Batalik and Drass sectors and...enemy positions in the pockets of intrusion have been engaged by very effective air strikes, artillery and mortar fire,'' a defense statement said. The Indian Air Force, which launched raids exactly a ...

In the first year since the Houston Independent School District tightened the rules on TAAS exemptions, scores dropped in almost every grade and subject tested. Among third-graders, for example, 78 percent of the students passed the English reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, down from 83 percent last year. In the fourth grade, 75 percent passed the English version of the math test, down from 81 percent last year. And at the fifth-grade level, 76 percent passed the English reading test, down from 87 percent last year. In fact, about the only gains were in middle ...

"Humanitarian intervention" is the latest brand name for imperialism as it begins a return to respectability The New Statesman 28th June 1999 By John Pilger In Newsweek last week Tony Blair described the "new moral crusade" that is to follow NATO's attack on Yugoslavia. "We now have a chance to build a new internationalism based on values and the rule of law," he wrote. George Robertson was more blunt. The "Rubicon has been crossed", he said, paving the way for the end of the UN charter that protects the sovereignty of nations. Robin Cook chimed in, making threats towards ...

Recently a federal judge wrote to me. The judge enclosed a list of new citizens for whom he had conducted a naturalization ceremony. He was astounded that among almost 100 new citizens there were only four or five Europeans. Immigration policy has produced an extraordinary change in the ethnic composition of the U.S. population. Experts tell me it has been three decades since Europeans comprised a significant percentage of new citizens. In 1965 the Democrats, who lost the South, changed the immigration rules in order to build African, Asian and Hispanic constituencies that would vote Democratic. In effect, native-born U.S. ...

President Clinton plans to hit the road early and often this summer to keep the spotlight on domestic needs. Early in July, he plans to visit several underprivileged urban and rural American communities to emphasize his call for new business investment in what he calls ''under- served markets.'' Between July 5 and July 8, Clinton is scheduled to lead a delegation of business leaders and members of Congress to communities that are trying to attract businesses to their area. He plans to tour the Kentucky highlands, the Mississippi Delta, East St. Louis, Mo., the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South ...