US support for Clinton rises

Positive reaction to key speech and Hillary's backing buoys White House

BILL CLINTON yesterday tried to lift the storm clouds threatening his presidency when he pressed ahead with his radical political programme buoyed by new US opinion polls and fresh support from the first lady.
The President went ahead with visits to the states of Illinois and Wisconsin, addressing thousands of people following his successful State of the Union address that was watched by 120 million Americans — and screened live in Britain in the early hours of yesterday.
White House aides said the President was relaxed and even buoyant after publication of new surveys showing his rating had improved over the past few days.
The character of Monica Lewinsky, the 24-year-old former White House trainee who is alleged to have had an affair with the President, came under fierce attack after it was disclosed she had a five-year affair with one of her teachers.
Her former high school drama teacher Andy Bleiler, 32, said the affair began shortly after he met the young woman and ended last April.
Mr Bleiler's lawyer, Terry Giles, said Ms Lewinsky was "obsessed with sex" and used to twist facts, especially to improve her image.
Documents and photographs sent by Ms Lewinsky to Mr Bleiler were yesterday handed over to Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel investigating the President's affairs.
The Grand Jury probing the allegations yesterday questioned former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta at a private hearing in Washington.
Mr Panetta was in charge of staff while Ms Lewinsky worked at the White House, but has maintained he never saw anything untoward.
Mrs Clinton yesterday gave her second television interview in as many days to offer strong support to her husband and repeat claims that the campaign against him was politically motivated.
She said the President would not be talking in public about the allegations because of the legal investigation. She urged Americans to be patient until all the facts emerged.
"My husband has told the truth and he will continue to tell the truth," she said on ABC television.
"I know he has told me the whole story. I know the American people will eventually know the whole story."
Mrs Clinton urged people to take a deep breath, sit back and "ride through this".
"When the truth comes out this will fade into oblivion and the work the President has done will stand the test of time.''
Mrs Clinton said the President's State of the Union speech had been a "triumph" and her praise seemed to be supported.
An ABC TV poll showed that 56% of Americans believed Mr Clinton had the honesty and integrity to do his job while 49% said they believed he did have an affair — 13% down on a previous similar poll.
Another survey, for CNN, showed that 49% believed Mr Clinton set a good moral example and 78% thought he could carry on with his job.
Aides said Mr Clinton had decided the best thing he could do was get on with his job of promoting his agenda of improving spending on education, health care and social security rather than become more entangled in the sex scandal web.
Supporters said they hoped Americans would grow increasingly angry at the allegations against the President and the way details have been leaked to the press over the past few days.
Mr Clinton looked happy and relaxed as he arrived in Illinois to deliver his speech. He was greeted by cheering supporters.
But it was still too early to say whether Mr Clinton has turned back the tide threatening to engulf him or whether his "business as usual" approach was a temporary diversion.

Deirdre drops disillusioned mugger

by Gerry Hand
A MUGGER who thought he had found an easy victim got a short, sharp shock when the lady he attacked in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was none other than Irish World Champion boxer Deirdre Gogarty.
The WIBF Super Featherweight champion had stopped off on her way to New Orleans Airport to catch a flight home when the incident happened.
She was with her manager, Beau Williford, and a group of other boxers on their way to a tournament.
"I was walking slightly ahead of them when this black guy appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my bag and ran down the street.
"I was mad as hell because even though there was no money in it, it contained my passport and flight tickets home. I didn't want to miss the plane", the lady explained.
Luckily for the mugger, as Deirdre caught up with him her shoulder which she injured in her last fight, started acting up.
So she slowed down and let her manager and the rest of them nap him.
"The guy thought he had picked a helpless victim who was all on her own. But when Beau told him I was a world champion boxer he quickly changed his tune. He was terrified."
After she gave him a taste of what has made her a world champion, he surrendered, and even called out for the police to come and rescue him.
When they arrived they took him to hospital for treatment before bringing him down to the station.
Despite the fact her attacker is likely to be charged with the offence, Deirdre feels he got off lightly.
"I guess, if my shoulder wasn't hurting he'd have come off even worse than he did," she said.

Antrim schoolgirl (16) is youngest millionaire winner in British lottery

by Greg Harkin
A 16-YEAR-OLD County Antrim girl became the British lottery's youngest ever millionaire — then sat an exam at her school. Tracey Makin, a fifth-form pupil at Our Lady of Mercy school in Glengormley, spoke nervously yesterday of her mediocre plans for the Stg £1,055,171.
She revealed: "I've only bought two CDs up until now, but all I'm thinking of is a trip to Anfield to see Liverpool. I was over in September and I just can't wait to get back.
The amazing scoop came in Saturday night's draw, but Tracey though she had won a mere £53 when she checked her numbers.
"I only looked at the first four numbers and it wasn't until Sunday night that I double-checked. I couldn't believe it and, to be honest, I still can't."
The media frenzy at the Europa Hotel yesterday was such that British lottery operators, Camelot, had to organise a pool system as the scramble for interviews began.
But the teenager has been taking it all in her stride. She went to school on Monday as normal to take a computer exam as part of the build-up to her nine GSCE tests in June.
Her mother Maeve said: "Tracy's being very cool about it all, but inside she is ecstatic."
Tracy conceded it had left her a little stunned adding: ''I haven't really had the chance to think properly about what I'm going to do with the money, but I'm certainly going to enjoy myself,'' she said.
''I didn't really want a million. But I'm coming round to the idea now,'' she said.
However, she has plans to buy a car for her brother, a car for herself once she is old enough to learn to drive and possibly even a new family home.
She said she had been playing the Lottery since Christmas, using the same numbers every week, made up of a combination of friends birthdays and will probably continue to play.
''I never had any money before and always had to ask my daddy. I don't need to ask him now,'' she said. It's more likely to be the reverse from now on, a fact admitted by her father, a glazier, who said: "I hopes she looks after her old pop."

No mercy shown in Tucker appeal

THE Texas appeal court yesterday rejected a bid by a woman on Death Row to stay her execution by lethal injection and begin new legal hearings.
Double-murderer Karla Faye Tucker (38) is scheduled to die on Tuesday, when she would become the first woman executed in Texas since 1863.
Her lawyers pinned much of their hopes for saving Tucker on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. They said they would go to federal courts if the state motion was refused, although the US Supreme Court rejected an earlier appeal.
Tucker is seeking to have her death sentence, handed down for the 1983 pick-axe murders of two Houston people, commuted to life in prison on grounds that she has accepted religion and is no longer a threat to society. Her lawyers argued that the process used by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in considering requests for clemency is flawed because the board has never voted to commute a death sentence.
Appeals Court justice Morris Overstreet agreed ''the clemency law in Texas is a legal fiction at best.'' He said it was up to the state legislature, not the court, to change the law.
"The applicant does not have a constitutional right to mercy,'' he wrote.
Tucker's fight to avoid execution is supported by powerful religious groups and organisations opposed to the death penalty.

~ A full interview with Karla Faye Tucker will appear in tomorrow's Examiner.

Saddam to fire on Israel if US lead attack on Iraq

IRAQ is said to have enough biological weapons to arm 25 long-range missiles - an amount in line with the chief UN weapons inspector's assessment that Iraq can ''blow away Tel Aviv.''
Israel was on edge after yesterday's report in two newspapers that the CIA has warned Israel a US-led attack on Iraq would probably prompt Baghdad to fire missiles with non-conventional warheads at Israel.
Israeli's security Cabinet discussed the escalating crisis in the Gulf. It was decided not to take any action that could be interpreted by Iraq as a provocation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said ''we are closely following the developments and we are preparing for any possibility.''
Since the 1991 Gulf War, Israelis have been asked to come to gas mask distribution centres periodically to renew the filters for government-issue gas masks designed to defend against chemical attack.

More violence in Algeria

ARMED Islamic groups massacred at least 34 people in three separate attacks, Algerian security forces said yesterday, adding that 18 Muslim rebels were killed, including a local leader known as ''the throat slasher.''
The bloodshed yesterday, spread over the regions of Blida, Djelfa and Laghouat, was a continuation of the violence that has wracked the North African nation since 1992.
In the Medea region, about 60 miles from the capital Algiers, security forces killed 11 armed insurgents, including a chieftain identified by security forces only as ''the throat slasher.''
The government claims that 26,500 people have been killed and 21,000 injured since the start of the insurgency, triggered by an army decision to cancel 1992 national elections the now-outlawed Islamic Salvation Front was winning. The figure is some three times lower than most press estimates of the overall death toll.

Lack of funds for Louise

LOUISE WOODWARD is prepared to abandon her bid to win a new trial over the killing of baby Matthew Eappen, her lawyers have told a United States court.
Her supporters said yesterday the decision had been forced on the 19-year-old from Elton, near Chester, because of lack of funds to fight a new hearing.
If the prosecution in the case loses its appeal against her second-degree murder conviction being overturned, it could mean the teenager returning home to Britain free but with a manslaughter conviction against her name.
Her legal team have also told the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts it should consider ordering the exhumation of the body of eight-month-old Matthew to obtain vital evidence not available to the defence during the trial.

Somalians facing famine

A MILLION people face famine in southern Somalia because of floods that have devastated much of the area, aid agencies said yesterday.
In their weekly report, the Somalia Inter-Agency Response group, said floods in southern Somalia are largely receding. However, a big area along the Juba River and some inland villages are still under three to nine feet of water.
The worst natural disaster to hit the war-torn nation in its modern history has also killed 33,500 head of livestock and destroyed more than 148,000 acres of crops and farmland.

Winnie's affair on phone tap

A TAP of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's telephone indicated she was having an affair with an anti-apartheid activist while her husband, Nelson Mandela, was in jail, a policeman said yesterday.
Supt Louis Watermeyer told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission transcripts of the phone tap showed Madikizela-Mandela had used terms of endearment when speaking to the activist, Themba Mabotha.
Watermeyer said phrases such as ''Oh my lovey where are you?'' and ''I miss you,'' were used by Madikizela-Mandela when speaking to Mabotha.
Watermeyer said one conversation involved Madikizela-Mandela telling Mabotha she was sorry he had fallen off the bed and hurt himself.
''Over a long period of time, little bits of the puzzle gave us an indication there might have been a relationship between them,'' the policeman said.
Other police giving evidence at the hearing, which followed a more intensive inquiry in December into allegations President Mandela's former wife was involved in human right abuses, said a 24-hour tap had been put on her telephone in 1988 and '89.
Watermeyer was unable to substantiate claims made at that hearing that Mabotha had been Madikizela's ''sex slave.''
A senior police hit-squad leader, Eugene de Kock, has since admitted murdering Mabotha and blowing up his remains on orders from a superior. He is scheduled to give evidence today.