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GOP Debate a Yawner Hatch gets in dig at Bush, lots of laughs 12.34 a.m. ET (0544 GMT) December 7, 1999 By John P. Martin WASHINGTON — Just four days after sparring in New Hampshire, the leading Republican presidential candidates met Monday in a different state and under a different debate format, but with largely the same outcome: Texas Gov. George W. Bush stuck to his campaign script while his rivals searched for ways to close the gap on the front-runner. Republican presidential candidates from left; Gary Bauer; George W. Bush, Sen. Orrin Hatch; Alan Keyes; and Steve Forbes. Sen. ...

December 7 1999 BY CHRISTOPHER WALKER, CHIEF IRELAND CORRESPONDENT MEMBERS of the Northern Ireland Assembly met in plenary session at Stormont yesterday for the first time since power was devolved from Westminister, and immediately voted themselves a 30 per cent pay rise of nearly £9,000 to £38,036 a year. Officials admitted the move was poor public relations but argued that the 108-strong Assembly was simply adopting a recommendation of the Government-appointed Senior Salaries Review Body. One Assembly member claimed that the extra amount would leave Northern Ireland politicians paid slightly less than their counterparts in Scotland, but slightly more than ...

Election factor THE chaotic collapse of the World Trade Organisation talks has cast fresh doubts on the future of the newly signed trade deal with China. The big unions and activist groups who protested against the WTO in Seattle are now vowing to take their fight to Washington ahead of a key vote in Congress on US-China trading relations. Many conservatives, who resist any normalisation of relations with China, are already opposed to the deal and they are expected to be joined by Democrats anxious to support the interests of labour groups and environmentalists, their core supporters. The deal ...

Disabling the System Justin Frankel's Winamp threw a monkey wrench into the music business. Now he's going mainstream. Will digital music follow? Red-haired Justin Frankel, all big-boned and gangly, is cranking out code in warp mode. It's 1995, and the high school sophomore is sprinting through a programming contest at the University of Northern Arizona. Frankel, 16, is so far ahead of his nearest competitor that, just for yucks, he decides to write a little "fork bomb" -- a program that splits itself repeatedly until it swamps a computer system. He uploads it, and one by one the machines ...

In 1973, the Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, defined "abortion," thus, legalizing it in all 50 states. This precedent happened because the Democratic Congress relinquished its sovereign and defining powers to the Supreme Court. In last November, the Republican Congress refused to exercise its sovereignty and relinquished its defining powers to the executive branch of government (to the International Development Agency -- IDA), the bureaucrats of which will define what " abortion" is. And we know how this branch defined what "is" is. Will we let 'em to define for us what "abortion" ...

WASHINGTON -- The Miranda decision, a 33-year-old landmark of the Warren Court's criminal procedure revolution, headed Monday for its most important test, as the justices announced that they would decide whether Congress had effectively overruled it with a law that was enacted for that purpose in 1968 and then was ignored almost ever since. The question for the court, in an appeal by an indicted bank robber who made self-incriminating statements without having first received his Miranda warnings, is whether Miranda vs. Arizona itself established a rule of constitutional law or whether it merely expressed the Warren Court's preferred method ...

I had'nt seen in a US news source that the Chinese were using the south end of their embassy to electronically transmit instructions for Zeljko Raznatovic ( an indicted war criminal, who goes by the name "Arkan" ) to serb death squads in Kosovo, called "Tigers", to eliminate people. The rebroadcasts from this office were a problem to NATO. On May 7 the US sent a B2 from Whiteman air force base in Missouri, across the Atlantic to drop JDAM's, a bomb so precise it can hit a target within a 2 meter diameter. Among the targets hit was the ...

December 7 1999 FROM MICHAEL DYNES IN JOHANNESBURG IN THE comfort of his private bed in Johannesburg's Garden City Hospital, Mengistu Haile Mariam, 62, the former Ethiopian dictator and mass murderer, is watching the fading blooms of the jacaranda trees sway in the breeze as he recovers from heart treatment. A young receptionist does not recognise the name of the patient when I inquire about him. "There's no one here with that name. Is he a relative?" she asked. "Er, not exactly," I mumbled. "He is the man who is reputed to have personally throttled Emperor Haile Selassie before going ...

December 7 1999 FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME VATICAN officials protested yesterday against the use of the term "Jubilee" or "Holy Year" as the brand name for the latest 12-bore, doublebarrelled Beretta shotgun, declaring that the Pope was against the use of firearms and had not given his blessing to "this marketing ploy". Italians call the millennium Il Gubileo (the Jubilee), a reference to the fact that the Pope has declared 2000 a "Holy Year". The Vatican has allowed the use of the papal logo on officially sanctioned Holy Year or Jubilee souvenirs for sale to the 30 million visitors ...

President Reagan's first inaugural address, January 20, 1981 Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens: To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the ...

Only one useful decision the Republican Congress managed to make in the last November, and it was a limitation of federal spending on groups that promote abortions abroad. Yet the way the American contribution is spent in the developing countries largely depends on local laws than on the laws, propagated from the Capitol Hill. Presently, the biggest recipient of the American birth control aid is a Muslim country, Bangladesh, that is considered by the UN demographers among the world's populous, sickest, and poorest. On one hand, the government of Bangladesh prohibits abortion (except to save a mother's life), on ...

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - A doctor who went public with his belief the Navy may have misdiagnosed hundreds of sailors exposed to potentially lethal mineral dust says he was fired late Monday for insubordination. Dr. Philip Jajosky, an outspoken medical investigator and 23-year veteran of the U.S. Public Health Service, was ordered to pack up his belongings, then escorted out of his office at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health here. The termination was characterized as an "involuntary retirement," Jajosky said. His firing comes more than two months after closed hearings in Rockville, Md., where a panel ...

BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR MI5 is investigating more than 100 individuals suspected of having been covert agents for the Stasi, the former East German espionage service, Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, announced yesterday. The scale of the investigation took MPs by surprise. Until now, only a handful of suspected Stasi recruits have been named. Mr Straw told the Commons: "The Security Service has investigated and continues to investigate British citizens and some others recorded in the East German intelligence service's records as having worked for the Stasi. The records have revealed many leads involving the investigation of over ...

BALTIMORE (AP) -- A suspect was arrested Monday night in the killing of five women, including a grandmother, her daughter and granddaughter, who were found shot to death in a home. Police identified the man as Ismael Malik Wilson, 27, and said arrest warrants had been issued for three other men. Police said one person was able to escape the house and witnesses led them to identify the four, but did not say if the person who escaped identified the four. Authorities also said they believed the house where the killing took place was used for drug activity, but ...

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) -- Patricia Kay McCleary married, gave birth and died -- all in less than a day. The Lutheran Church of Bigfork was nearly full Saturday afternoon as friends and family members said goodbye to the 42-year-old McCleary, who died early Nov. 28. She married Rick McCleary on Nov. 27, and suffered a brain aneurysm soon after. She was airlifted to Duluth, where her baby was delivered by caesarean section the next morning after his mother was pronounced brain dead. The boy, Rocky, was born premature just six months into the pregnancy, and relatives said he was doing ...

Businesses to fix Y2K after bug hits Kent Hoover Up to 500,000 small businesses have decided to wait until Jan. 1 to see if they have Year 2000 computer problems, figuring they can address any glitches after they occur, says the White House's Y2K czar. That "fixing on failure" strategy enables businesses to avoid the cost of Y2K testing, but it's risky, says John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. Because so many small firms won't be prepared, the demand for Y2K fixes likely will exceed supply in January. Small businesses with computers that malfunction may ...

Panafrican News Agency December 2, 1999 by Vuyisile Hlatshwayo Mbabane, Swaziland (PANA) - Jason Carter, a grandson of former US president Jimmy Carter, wishes to become a chief in Swaziland. Jason, an American Peace Corp volunteer based in South Africa, expressed the wish recently in the presence of his grandfather, who was paying a courtesy visit to the Swazi Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Khoza. His only regret, however, was that his wish may not see the light because the former president has openly said he misses him a lot since they separated in 1998. Jason, a fluent siSwati speaker, ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- A militia member told an informant he wanted to bomb several Northern California targets to force authorities to declare martial law, potentially whipping up public unrest and helping the militia overthrow the U.S. government, documents released Monday show. Kevin Ray Patterson's militia activities included joining other members in surveillance of the Yellowstone County Jail in Billings, Mont., in summer 1998 in hopes of breaking the Montana Freeman out, the federal affidavits say. The affidavits and other court documents outline the findings of a yearlong FBI investigation of Patterson, 42, of Camino, who is suspected of ...

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is in the Middle East this week, and -- true to fashion -- Yasser Arafat is trying to make the most of the situation. Which means that he and his aides are trying to foment a crisis designed to bring about American pressure on Israel to make drastic concessions. Will Albright fall for this ploy? Top Palestinian negotiators yesterday announced they would no longer negotiate with their Israeli counterparts. Why? They complain that Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government has approved construction of more than 3,000 new homes in Jewish settlements, saying it would "lead to ...

PRESIDENT CLINTON 11:20 a.m. -- Makes an announcement on health care, White House Rose Garden. 7:15 p.m. -- Makes remarks to reception of Sen. Tim Johnson, South Dakota Democrat. Westin Fairfax Hotel. 8:25 p.m. -- Make remarks to the Keep Hope Alive reception, Hotel Washington, 515 15th St. NW.