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Democrats vote for Clinton impeachment investigation

A SOMBRE US House of Representatives last night authorised a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton, making him only the third chief executive in history to face the threat of being removed from office.
The investigation was approved by a 258-176 vote, with 31 Democrats joining majority Republicans.
''We want to get this behind us and behind the country and move on,'' said Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde. Republicans touted their open-ended Watergate-style inquiry in a debate that stretched far beyond the planned two hours. Democrats argued in vain to limit the investigation to the Monica Lewinsky affair and finish it by year's end.
The controversy ''has hurt our nation and it has hurt our children,'' House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt declared in a final plea for limits. ''We must not compound the hurt.'' Democratic leaders were resigned, however, to the idea that conservatives in their party and those with tough election races only a month away were defecting to the Republican plan. Republicans rejected Democratic arguments that Clinton's attempt to conceal an affair with Ms Lewinsky was not impeachable conduct, saying the issue was not sexual conduct but lying under oath. ''The purpose of this process is to examine the public trust, and if it is breached, to repair it,'' said Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican from Arkansas.
The White House could only stand by and watch the inevitable vote, offering a plea to set aside politics.
''To date this process ... has been infected with politics,'' presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart said. ''It should be a serious constitutional effort and it's our hope that the seriousness and the constitutional nature of it returns.''
The Republicans resolution directs the Judiciary Committee to investigate ''whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach William Jefferson Clinton.'' The House rejected by a mostly party-line vote of 236-198 a Democratic alternative that would have limited the scope, set a December 31 deadline and asked that the Judiciary Committee first consider the historical standards for impeachment before deciding Clinton's fate.
Democrats displayed their divisions in the debate.
''The president betrayed his wife; he did not betray the country,'' said Rep. Robert Wexler, a freshman Democrat from Florida. ''God help this nation if we fail to recognise the difference.''
But Rep. Paul McHale of Pennsylvania, the first congressional Democrat to call for Clinton's resignation, said the president was guilty of ''repeated deceit under oath'' in the Paula Jones lawsuit and ''deceived the American people'' about his conduct.

Allies still split over air
strikes on Yugoslavia

FOREIGN ministers were in London last night for a key international meeting on Kosovo amid deep divisions over whether to carry out air strikes against Yugoslavia.
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was briefing the six-nation Contact Group at a hastily arranged meeting at a hotel near Heathrow Airport on the latest developments in Kosovo.
But the meeting comes against a background of firm resistance to military action from some member states.
While the US and Britain are determined to mount air strikes if the Serbs do not end their bloody crackdown on Albanians in the rebel province, some other members of the international community are reluctant to act.
Yesterday Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Western leaders that there must be no backing down in the face of Serbian refusal to withdraw troops from Kosovo.
He suggested that Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic may be encouraged to engage in ''brinkmanship'' because he was not convinced that threats of military action were serious.
''I hope the international community faces up to its responsibility to send a united and strong message that we won't tolerate the atrocities carrying on,'' Mr Blair told reporters travelling with him by plane in China.
''I'm sure it is only the delivery of that message, backed up by the will to use force, that will make Milosevic come back into line.
''I think there is brinkmanship because he's not been given a strong enough message.''
Meanwhile, Ms Albright warned Milosevic yesterday that ''time is all but gone''. She told a news conference in Brussels that ''in the next few days'' the North Atlantic Council, the political arm of NATO, would agree on an activation order which would give NATO's commander in Europe the power to order an attack on Yugoslavia.
''I am confident we have the legitimate grounds,'' Ms Albright said.
And she swept aside objections from the Russians — long time allies of Serbia — who have warned they will use their seat on the United Nations Security Council to try to block any UN-sanctioned attack on Yugoslavia.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who met Milosevic in Belgrade yesterday, last night gave the Contact Group his view on the Yugoslav leader's stance. But Ms Albright declared: ''If force is necessary, we will not be deterred by the fact that the Russians do not agree with that.''
She also insisted there was no need for a new UN resolution to permit air strikes, even though some countries have demanded one, pointing out that the current UN resolution does not explicitly provide for the use of force.
However, Ms Albright said the US would still prefer a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and she was sending the senior US envoy Richard Holbrooke back to Belgrade for a fourth meeting with Milosevic.
But, she criticised Milosevic's claims to have withdrawn troops from Kosovo, saying that although there had been ''a televised show of soldiers leaving Kosovo'', most troops had stayed put.
''Time and again, Milosevic has promised us to do things he had no intention of doing,'' she said at a news conference in Brussels after meetings with Mr Holbrooke, General Wesley K Clark, supreme commander of Nato in Europe, and Nato Secretary-General Javier Solana.

Conservatives insist on
IRA handover of arms

by Aidan Hennigan
THE Conservative Party, yesterday, demanded an end to prisoner-release and a denial of ministerial roles for Sinn Féin until guns and Semtex are surrendered in the North.
This particular policy, long-articulated by Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Andrew MacKay was overwhelmingly endorsed by Tory delegates attending their annual party conference in Bournemouth. Party leader William Haig, in his keynote address, did not dwell on the peace process, but he did speak of the work done by John Major, who had made decommissioning a central issue of his policy on the North.
And while Andrew MacKay and delegates insisted that they fully supported the Good Friday Agreement, it was clear that he, and very many delegates, opposed the government's handling of decommissioning, and insisted that it was part of the overall package of the agreement.
"There can be no compromise between democracy and terrorism," Andrew MacKay told cheering delegates.
He declared: "The Conservatives and Unionist Party will continue to uphold the Belfast Agreement, but reasonable law-abiding people, myself included, are not prepared to see the further early release of terrorist murderers and Sinn Féin taking ministerial positions when not one gun or one ounce of Semtex has been decommissioned.
He also received sustained applause when he declared that Conservatives were committed to preserving the union, and a United Ireland could only ever be achieved through consent on both sides of the border. One delegate, John Strafford, vice-president of the Northern Ireland Conservative Area Council, produced a union flag to drape across the conference podium.
He declared: "This is my flag, this is our nation's flag — this flag which bears the blood of those who have died for our nation and the tears of those who cried for their loved ones and who gave their lives for this nation."

Paula Jones considers
£437,000 Clinton offer

PAULA JONES is standing firm in her bid to make President Bill Clinton pay to get rid of her sexual harassment lawsuit against him — but she is considering a package pay-off less than her one million dollars (£625,000) demand.
Jones and her husband, Steven, are considering whether they could accept a combination of $700,000 (£437,000) from Clinton — the last offer from presidential attorney Robert Bennett — plus as much as one million dollars from New York real estate tycoon Abe Hirschfeld, according to a source familiar with Jones's legal strategy.
Hirschfeld, meanwhile, said yesterday that his one million dollar offer to settle Jones's lawsuit still stands even if Jones insists on a separate payment from the president.
But he said both sides in her sexual harassment suit against Clinton have been non-committal on his offer and have not engaged him in any negotiations.
Hirschfeld called his offer ''a first step in ending this national nightmare,'' referring to the impeachment inquiry on which the House of Representatives was voting last night.
On October 1, Hirsch-feld offered Jones the money to settle her claim against Clinton, which was dismissed by a federal judge in Arkansas, but is now pending before court of appeals. A federal judge said yesterday she would ease her gag order in Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton and begin releasing evidence from the case within two weeks.
Transcripts of depositions will be posted on the court's Internet site beginning October 19, US District Judge Susan Webber Wright. Videotapes, including one showing Clinton, would remain under seal.
The judge said Congress could do what it liked with a copy of the Clinton tape given to the House Judiciary Committee last month.
Clinton's lawyers initially objected to Wright's lifting her gag order in the case, saying it could jeopardise a fair trial if Mrs Jones' lawsuit were reinstated. But since early September, they have raised no objections to her plan to open the files.
Wright imposed the gag order last October, complaining that leaks might taint a jury.
Media groups asked Wright to lift the gag order last winter after allegations were raised that Clinton might have lied in his January 17 deposition.
The judge ruled against the media but, after tossing out Mrs. Jones' lawsuit on April 1, agreed to reconsider the decision as suggested by a panel of the 8th Circuit US Court of Appeals.

Linda's death put cancer
fear into women

LINDA McCartney's death from breast cancer had a ''staggering'' impact on women living in fear of the disease, a leading patient charity said yesterday.
During the week after the wife of ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney died in April the number of daily calls to the CancerBACUP charity doubled. There was a 64% increase in the number of calls relating to breast cancer.
Data collected by BT showed that the number of calls peaked at 1,262 in one day.
The figures, published for the first time yesterday in the British Medical Journal, were said to be evidence of the huge impact caused by the death of a celebrity.
Jean Mossman, CancerBACUP chief executive, said: ''When Linda McCartney died the level of response we recorded was staggering.
"It seems likely that fear and anxiety may not be far from the surface in women with breast cancer and seeing someone in the public eye die from the disease brings it to the surface.''

20 die as excursion boat sinks in lake

OVERLOADING may have caused an excursion boat carrying some 140 French pensioners to sink in a tranquil Spanish lake yesterday, killing at least 20 of them.
''Police are working on the theory that the boat was overloaded,'' said a spokeswoman for north-east Spain's regional government rescue operation centre in Barcelona. ''Initial reports suggest the boat had a maximum capacity of 80.''
The 20 who died in the accident on Lake Banyoles, just north of Barcelona were all French. Thirteen people drowned and seven people died after being taken to local hospitals.
Another two people were reported missing and it was not known whether they had been on the boat trip or not, said the spokeswoman, who in keeping with custom, declined to be identified.
A total of 38 people were treated in hospital following the accident and 81 others, including the boat's Spanish captain, were said to be uninjured.
An employee at the ticket sales counter at the lake said 141 tickets were sold. So far only 139 people, including the pilot, have been accounted for.
Police underwater divers scoured the water and the wreckage of the electrically-powered catamaran craft this afternoon for the possibility of more bodies.
National television images showed bodies covered in blankets lining the small pier at the lake in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

Iranians are attacked by Taliban 

IRANIAN forces yesterday exchanged fire with Afghanistan's Taliban militia on Iran's north-eastern border — but the Taliban denied any clash occurred.
Reports in Tehran said Taliban forces attacked Iranian border posts in Khorasan province with mortars and machine guns and Iranian border guards returned fire, forcing Taliban fighters to retreat.
The Taliban suffered heavy casualties during the three hour clash and three of the militia's border posts were destroyed, Brigadier General Azizollah Jaafari, commander of the ground forces of Iran's elite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, said.
"The situation in the area is currently calm," Jaafari said.
There were no immediate reports of any Iranian casualties. Tensions between Iran and the Taliban have been high since the militia, which controls 90% of Afghanistan, admitted that its fighters killed eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist in northern Afghanistan in August.
"The attack was confronted with responses by the forces stationed at our country's border posts, and as a result the Taliban forces were forced to ... retreat," Iranian television reported.
But Shakeel, a Taliban spokesman who uses only one name, said no clash had taken place.
He branded the Iranian report as propaganda against Taliban.
"We received this information and we checked from our people and it is wrong," he said when contacted at the Taliban headquarters in southern Kandahar.
Iran wants an apology from the Taliban for the August killings of its citizens and wants the culprits handed over for trial in Tehran. Taliban leaders have refused both demands.

De Burgh's Swiss stalker is
released and returns home

A SWISS woman who stalked singer Chris De Burgh was flown back to her home country yesterday.
The move was approved by the Dun Laoghaire District Court after the woman, Katharina Schneider, was earlier this week found in the grounds of the star's home in Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Schneider, 34, described as a "fixated fan," was said to have bombarded De Burgh with telephone calls and faxes.
The court also heard that Schneider had a history of mental illness.
She was found on Monday night in the garden of the singer's house in Dalkey, an area known for its proliferation of well-known personalities.
The cost of the woman's flight to Switzerland was covered on medical grounds by travel insurance, after she was diagnosed in Dublin as being a paranoid schizophrenic.
Schneider's legal spokesman in Dublin said his client was "happy to return home."
The charge against her was dropped on condition that she left the state and did not repeat the alleged offence.

Portuguese novelist wins Prize

PORTUGUESE novelist Jose Saramago was showered with roses amid cheering crowds yesterday after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The tanned and balding 75-year-old was heading home from the Frankfurt Book Fair and already at the airport when he learned he had won the prize.
His publisher told him to go back to the fair where he received a tumultuous reception. ''I'm personally very happy for myself,'' he said. ''I'm also happy for my country.''
After years of being nominated and not winning, Saramago had seen no reason to stick around and wait for the Nobel announcement from Stockholm.
Saramago was beaming with pride when he returned to the fair, but gracious and poised by the time he began answering journalists' questions - even those that irked him.
Asked what he would do with the £600,000 prize, Saramago questioned why star athletes were never asked what they will do with they money they earn.
''I don't plan to spend it in a casino, buy three cars, or four video recorders. I intend to solve the situation of some people who are close to me, and I am always open to any suggestions you have.''
As the first winner from Portugal, Saramago said he felt a special, patriotic pride and hoped ''more people will read Portuguese'' now.
Saramago is one of Portugal's most popular contemporary novelists and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages.
The Academy said it gave the award to Saramago for work that ''with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us to apprehend an illusory reality.''

Woman lived on yoghurt for 20 years

A WOMAN forced to live on soup and yoghurt for 20 years after her jaw was smashed in a car accident is looking forward to a meal of steak and chips, thanks to revolutionary surgery.
Linda Holroyd received terrible facial injuries after being thrown through a windscreen in 1977.
Her cheekbone, jaw and eye socket were all smashed and she had her teeth removed.
So severe were her injuries that she was left unable to eat normal food. But now surgeons are undertaking a revolutionary procedure in order to grow a new bone inside her mouth to form a jaw.
Mrs Holroyd said: ''The first time I looked in a mirror after the accident I cried my eyes out, my face was just a mess.
''The first thing I'm going to do when my new jaw has grown is tuck into a huge meal of steak and chips. I can't wait.''
The operation is being undertaken at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, by consultant maxillo-facial surgeon Richard Loukota.

© Examiner Publications Ltd, 1998