Voice of America, 99-12-13

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From: The Voice of America <gopher://gopher.voa.gov>

CONTENTS

[01] TUDJMAN FUNERAL (L) BY RON PEMSTEIN (ZAGREB)

[02] FRANCE / OIL SPILL (L-ONLY) BY PAUL MILLER (PARIS)

[03] NORTHERN IRELAND (L-O) BY LAURIE KASSMAN (LONDON)

[04] NY ECON WRAP (S&L) BY ELAINE JOHANSON (NEW YORK)

[05] MONDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

[01] TUDJMAN FUNERAL (L) BY RON PEMSTEIN (ZAGREB)

INTRO: Croatia has buried its first elected President, Franjo Tudjman, who died late last week at the age of 77 after a long battle with cancer. V-O-A's Ron Pemstein attended the funeral services and sends this report from Zagreb.

TEXT:

[02] FRANCE / OIL SPILL (L-ONLY) BY PAUL MILLER (PARIS)

INTRO: French authorities are asking for international help in dealing with an oil spill off the coast of Brittany. A tanker broke in half in heavy seas and part of its cargo of diesel fuel has spilled. The entire crew of 26 was rescued. Paul Miller in Paris reports the French hope the threat to the beaches of Brittany is minimal.

TEXT: French officials say the diesel oil is heavy enough, and the seas are rough enough, that the oil will break into small parts -- reducing the chances of a large slick being pushed toward the coast. However, some pollution experts are concerned that the thickness of the oil means it will be more difficult to disperse. In any case, it will take a couple of days for any oil to move to the beaches. A port official in Brest estimates there are perhaps four-thousand tons of oil in the water as a result of the tanker Erika's break-up. But the ship carried a total of 20-thousand tons, and authorities are trying to determine how to deal with the rest of it. An attempt was made to tow the tanker's stern and superstructure farther from shore -- but the wreckage sank in heavy seas. The Cross Maritime Rescue Center said the bow of the ship was floating vertically, but it also sank, killing hopes of pumping its oil into another tanker. Officials in Brittany are particularly nervous about oil spills because the worst supertanker accident ever, when the Amoco Cadiz ran aground in 1978, fouled their beaches with more than 150-thousand tons of oil. Despite the stormy weather, what caused this ship, the Erika, to break up is not known. It was on its way from the Netherlands to Italy and was reported to have already made an unscheduled stop in a French port because it was listing. (Signed)
NEB/PPM/JWH/WTW 13-Dec-1999 13:58 PM EDT (13-Dec-1999 1858 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

[03] NORTHERN IRELAND (L-O) BY LAURIE KASSMAN (LONDON)

INTRO: The Northern Ireland peace process is moving forward again with the first joint meeting of cabinets from both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. V- O-A Correspondent Laurie Kassman reports from London.

TEXT: The Irish Republic's prime minister, Bertie Ahern, sounded an optimistic note when he opened the summit and underlined the shared responsibilities of north and south.

[04] NY ECON WRAP (S&L) BY ELAINE JOHANSON (NEW YORK)

INTRO: Stock prices in the United States were mixed today (Monday) in a rather quiet trading session, as Wall Street awaits the release of some key inflation data. V-O-A correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York:

TEXT: The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 32 points, a fractional loss, closing at 11-thousand-192. The Standard and Poor's 500 index lost one point. But the Nasdaq composite gained one percent, setting a record high. A general sense of optimism pervaded Wall Street because the U-S central bank is not expected to raise interest rates when it meets next week, its final meeting of the year. That helped drive the technology-dominated Nasdaq market. But the rest of the stock market drifted, with no real conviction. More stocks declined than advanced.

[05] MONDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

TEXT: Major papers in the U-S comment on issues that many dealt with last week. Among them are: resuming peace talks between Israel and Syria; Turkey's tentative membership offer to join the E-U; potential of Iranian terrorism; the World Trade Organization Seattle meeting; protests over bio-engineered food; the Cuban rafter-boy controversy; and bidding final farewell to the Panama Canal. Now, here with a closer look, including some excerpts, is ___________ and today's Editorial Digest.

TEXT: U-S papers continue to hail the prospect of resumed, high-level peace talks between Israel and Syria, scheduled to get underway later this week in Washington. We begin with Oklahoma's "Tulsa World".

VOICE: Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak seems to be making good on his promise to pursue peace. Last week [Mr.] Barak made peace with the Palestinians even more possible by freezing most new construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. . Later in the week, he said . he would resume direct peace talks with Syria. . It will be the first time the two countries have talked of peace together since 1996. . both developments -- especially the talks with Syria -- represent a welcome step forward in the continuing march toward peace .

TEXT: Taking a more somber view of the region as a whole, "The Orlando Sentinel" says:

VOICE: Middle East peace prospects appear slim as the year closes out. . And yet, to cast the Middle East aside as hopeless would condemn the region to a horrible fate. Appropriately, the Clinton administration has begun a new push for negotiations between Israel and Syria. . without peace between them, peace in the broader Middle East cannot occur. Text: Turning to one of Syria's neighbors, Turkey has finally won tentative invitation to join the European Union, and "The New York Times" heralds the move as "a historic step beyond restrictive old rivalries and power alignments."

VOICE: . for decades the European Union denied serious consideration to Turkey's bid for membership. Legitimate misgivings about human rights abuses, thinly disguised prejudices against the Muslim faith of most Turks and narrowly nationalist objections from Greece, Turkey's regional rival, combined to keep Ankara outside Europe's most important economic and political organization. With Europe at last ready to welcome Turkey, Ankara could not afford to walk away.

TEXT: The "New York Post" is complaining that, despite a number of conciliatory gestures toward the West, Iran is also -- ratcheting up its support of terrorism, shipping guns and explosives to Palestinian terror groups and working to reconcile [various] alienated .. terrorist factions. The paper says, given the increase, current U-S policy toward Iran needs review. After more than a week, The World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle is still a hot [popular] editorial topic. On Long Island, New York, "Newsday" faults President Clinton's handling of the trade conference, and wants to know where U-S trade policy is going from here.

VOICE: . the meeting of trade ministers from around the world ended in disarray... It is hard to imagine an outcome more damaging to expanding global trade. The question now is, what next? Washington must continue to pursue the goals of increasing the wealth of the world's peoples and of expanding trade opportunities for American businesses and workers. But how?

TEXT: And in California, where trade with the Orient is big business, "The Los Angeles Times" worries that another casualty of the failed W-T-O conference will be the U-S deal with China that includes this country's support for Chinese membership into the world body. Unless, "The L-A Times" says -- the White House can avoid repeating the blunders it made on the run-up to Seattle. But "The Chicago Tribune", reminding us that expanding world trade in a vast array of products is a fact, despite the recent conference failure.

VOICE: The ruckus in Seattle changed that not a whit. Regardless of whether the World Trade Organization launches a new round of negotiations to further liberalize trade, that growing global market is a fact. It is not an option.

TEXT: Still with trade related matters, the "Detroit News" is castigating the latest attack on bio- engineered foods in Congress, led by Michigan's own Representative David Bonior.

VOICE: Genetically modified crops make up a growing share of agricultural output. . And the ability to breed desirable traits -- or eliminate problematic ones -- is yielding spectacular benefits. . Researchers, meanwhile, are exploring the genetic transfer of vaccines to crops, a development that would protect millions of Third-World children from disease and death at an affordable cost. But any manipulation of "nature," no matter how advantageous, is anathema to environmental extremists who evidently prefer malnutrition and pestilence to technology.

TEXT: Africa figures in today's editorials, as "The Houston Chronicle" calls for further study of a British journalists newly-advanced theory that testing a 1950's polio vaccine in Africa, which used chimpanzee tissue, may be the possible source of the AIDS virus.

VOICE: A decade worth of exhaustive research has led [him] to propose that chimpanzee tissue contaminated with an ancestor of the AIDS virus may have been used to make an experimental version of the polio vaccine. . Less an attempt to lay blame for the creation of an epidemic virus and more than for the simple satisfaction of scientific curiosity, testing the vaccine stores might shed some light on how to combat the scourge of AIDS .

TEXT: In Maine, "The Portland Press Herald" is extolling the benefits of increasing local trade with Africa.

VOICE: . Africa . offers Maine business people opportunity. When thinking of trading partners, it is not the place Mainers think of first. . A group of Mainers wants to change that. They will be participating this February in the National Summit on Africa. . It is an effort to raise awareness in this country about Africa and strengthen ties between African countries and the United States.

TEXT: Lastly, on the pending turnover of the Panama Canal, "The Los Angeles Times" notices a lack of pervasive nationalistic rhetoric as the changeover date approaches.

VOICE: This week the United States begins . handing over control of the . Panama Canal Zone to the Panamanian government. The historic turnover is being widely celebrated in Latin American countries, which historically viewed the waterway as a colonial outpost, despite the trade it developed in the Central American isthmus during almost a century under U-S authority.

TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of comment from the editorial columns of Monday's U-S press.
NEB/ANG/RAE 13-Dec-1999 12:30 PM EDT (13-Dec-1999 1730 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America

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