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Mid East peace deal
back on track, says Clinton

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton failed yesterday to persuade Israel to resume the West Bank troop withdrawals called for under the Wye River peace accord, but he declared the Mid East peace process back on track.
The US President held out hope the withdrawal would take place very soon. “We will have fits and starts but we will get through this just fine,” he said after a 90-minute border post meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Clinton called his three-day trip to the Mid East to meet Netanyahu and Arafat a success.
“I think we are back on track again and we’re going to see this thing through,” he said. “I have achieved what I came here to achieve.”
Sandy Berger, the president’s national security adviser, qualified Clinton’s remark about the peace process being on track.“It’s a bumpy track,” he said with a smile.
And Marwan Kanafani, an adviser to Arafat, accused Netanyahu of doing away with all the hopes that Palestinians and Israelis had in Clinton’s visit.
President Clinton said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would return to the region soon for further talks.
In their meeting at a Gaza border post, the leaders discussed the work of committees set up under the October accords negotiated at Wye River, Maryland, to work out sticky issues such as weapons confiscation and the size of police forces, President Clinton said. “We now have to decide practical means to go forward,” he said. Arafat left without speaking to reporters, but Kanafani accused Netanyahu of intentionally crushing all efforts that Clinton exerted and is stopping the implementation of an agreement he personally signed.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, the only leader to hold a formal news conference, described the meeting as an open exchange.
The Israeli leader repeated his insistence that he would only withdraw troops in the West Bank if the Palestinians fulfilled their obligations under the Wye River deal. Mr Netanyahu said they would have to confiscate illegal weapons, stop inciting to violence against Israel, publicly drop plans to declare a state unilaterally in May and agree to Israel’s criteria for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
“When they do this, we will do what we are required to do,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that the faster the Palestinians fulfilled their obligations, the faster Israel would withdraw troops.
This phase of the withdrawal is supposed to begin on Friday. Netanyahu was asked at his news conference whether his tough stance wasn’t sacrificing Israel’s relationship with the United States for his own political considerations, such as appeasing hard-liners in his governing coalition. “We are not engaged in a confrontation with the United States and President Clinton,” he replied.
“There is no toughening of our positions in the last few days.” “It would be unfortunate if we get too far behind schedule,” Clinton said.He stressed that Netanyahu had reaffirmed Israel’s obligation to complete the agreed troop withdrawals, even as he refused to go ahead now. It was the first time that Netanyahu and Arafat had met since signing the Wye accords in Washington.
Netanyahu said revocation of anti-Israel language in the Palestine charter would lead to a real peace, a lasting peace, not a minute-long peace. But at the same time, he said Arafat must renounce plans to declare statehood and take steps to end the violence in the region.

US President battling tidal wave
to stave off impeachment vote

PRESIDENT CLINTON flew back to Washington last night with the chances of staving off an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives dimming by the hour.
He got more bad news as a moderate Republican who previously opposed removing Clinton from office abruptly reversed course.
"My decision is based on the clear evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice as presented by the House Judiciary Committee in the last week," Jack Quinn said in announcing he will now vote for impeachment.
Joining Quinn is fellow New York Representative John McHugh, who announced yesterday he will vote to approve at least two of the four articles of impeachment sent to the House by the Judiciary Committee last week.
The White House has been counting on some 20 moderate Republicans, mostly in the Northeast, to buck their party and provide enough votes to block impeachment. But as Clinton returns home from the Middle East peace mission, the number of potential defectors was quickly dwindling.
More than a half dozen on the target list came out for impeachment on Monday night.
An Associated Press telephone survey of House members demonstrated that it was impossible to make a prediction. The results: 124 lawmakers said they would support impeachment, 151 said they would oppose it, 104 remained undecided, and 58 wouldn't answer.
White House advisers said they were increasingly pessimistic about Clinton's prospects of avoiding impeachment.
"It's like a tidal wave moving against him," said Democratic consultant Harold Ickes. Nevertheless, the former White House aide held out hope that the trend could be reversed.
In the Gaza Strip, Clinton was asked yesterday whether he can separate his impeachment problems from other work like the Mid East peace agreement that took him to Israel and Palestinian territory this week.
"Absolutely," the president replied. How? "Show up for work every day," he said. "It isn't a complicated thing."
Several advisers inside and outside the White House complained that the president has made matters worse with ill-advised statements, saying he is surprisingly tone deaf to his critics and unusually reluctant to turn advice into action.
Clinton has said he was open to any reasonable compromise with Congress short of impeachment — but Republican leaders have united in opposing a censure resolution in the House.
The extraordinary House session starting tomorrow morning will be the chamber's first presidential impeachment vote since Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. Approval of just one of the four articles approved by the Judiciary Committee could trigger a Senate trial.
The articles accuse Clinton of perjury in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit, perjury before a federal grand jury, obstructing justice and abuse of power — all related to efforts to conceal the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Bill feels the heat as Hillary
employs the silent treatment

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S Mid East triumph was overshadowed for some sections of the US media by claims that his marriage is becoming increasingly strained.
The New York Post reported yesterday that First Lady Hillary gave her husband the cold shoulder in Israel, the latest chill in a relationship increasingly strained by Sexgate.
The newspaper said Hillary turned and pulled away from President Clinton as he tried to hold her arm by the grave of murdered Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin.
It is the main story in yesterday's Post under the headline The Silent Treatment.
TV network NBC showed film of the president trying to lock an arm with his wife — only to watch as she turned and pulled away, leaving his arm dangling.
The network reported that Mrs Clinton flew in a separate compartment from her husband on the presidential jet Air Force One last week — with friends saying she is more distant than ever from the president.
The marriage became strained in the summer when Clinton was forced to admit he misled the country, and his wife, about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. 

Guards lie on Mandela to
save him from storm

PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela narrowly escaped injury in a tornado that killed 13 people in South Africa yesterday.
His guards ordered the 80-year-old leader to the ground and lay on top of him as the twister tore through the town of Umtata, near his country home.
It killed 13, most of them when a wall fell on a bus queue, left 150 people injured and uprooted trees in the town about 30 miles from the Indian Ocean.
Mr Mandela, whose home in Qunu is about 12 miles outside Umtata, was shopping at his favourite chemists on the main street when the storm hit, the shop, said his spokeswoman Priscilla Naidoo.
''The impact was so great that the windows shattered and the roof caved down,'' Naidoo said.
Mandela was told to lie on the ground by his guards, who covered him with their bodies while the tornado raged, Naidoo said. ''The president and his bodyguards escaped unharmed and they went home afterwards.''
Mr Mandela is on holiday at his home. ''When he's on holiday he likes to pop over to the store to buy some odds and ends,'' Naidoo said.
The tornado tore off roof tops of houses and of a local hospital and blood bank.
''Big trees and traffic lights have been blown over. We have managed to get police to many areas but the trees are blocking traffic flow,'' police spokesman Mzukisi Fatyela said.
A witness said electricity was cut to the town.
''I was in a car, when a cloud covered the town. I couldn't see anything. There were large hail stones,'' said Lawrence Nkosi. Another tornado touched down Tuesday about 155 miles west of Umtata in Hogsback, where ten people went missing but were later found. There were three injuries in Hogsback.
Heavy rain and storms have plagued South Africa since Sunday.
Searchers have recovered ten bodies and presume another four were drowned on Sunday after the vehicle they were travelling in was swept into a river from a bridge near Badplaas, 155 miles east of Johannesburg.
In the Cape Town region, on the west coast, heavy rains on Monday forced the evacuation of 500 people from their homes in Caledon.
Lightning in Cape Town shut down the signals of trains and set ablaze the roof at the home of Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Chechnya declares state of emergency

CHECHNYA declared a one-month state of emergency, yesterday, to combat rampant crime in the virtually lawless breakaway Russian territory.
Hundreds of people have been kidnapped in recent years, but nothing matched the gruesome beheading last week of three Britons and a New Zealander who were kidnapped at the beginning of October.
''The time for talking has passed and it is no longer possible to tolerate the crime wave,'' said Chechnya's Security Minister Aslambek Arsayev.
Chechnya's security forces are trying to mobilise many of the young men who served as rebel fighters in the war against Russia, which saw the Russian forces depart in humiliation two years ago. However, with Chechnya's economy shattered, many of the young men have turned to crime and armed gangs roam operate freely throughout the mostly Muslim territory.
''We do not want to shed blood of the young and innocent people,'' Arsayev said. ''But if they do not go home and defend their leaders, they will be eliminated.'' Any attempt to crack down on crime could provoke battles with heavily armed outlaw groups. In this lawless environment, kidnapping has become one of the most lucrative businesses in Chechnya. Hundreds of people, many of them ethnic Russians and foreigners, have been kidnapped for ransom.
Chechnya's President Aslan Maskhadov, widely respected as a military commander during the war, has been unable to impose his authority since winning a landslide election almost two years ago.
His impoverished government barely functions, and many of the young rebel fighters who served under him during the war have since turned against him.
The parliament turned down a request by President Maskhadov to mobilise army reservists as part of the anti-crime effort. MPs said reservists can only be mobilised in the face of an external threat. But Maskhadov proceeded with the mobilisation anyway, said presidential spokesman Mairbek Vachagayev. ''No compromise is possible with criminal groups, and Maskhadov advocates tough measures to destroy gangsters,'' Vachagayev said.
More than 1,500 reservists have arrived at mobilisation centres. The reports did not say what new powers the government would have under the state of emergency.

Lockerbie bombing trial will
be sooner rather than later

LIBYA'S parliament, yesterday, gave its conditional approval for the trial of two suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, saying that obstacles must be overcome before the men are handed over.
Western diplomats in Libya said the parliament's statement appeared to be a major step toward a trial. It means that they will hand over the suspects sooner rather than later, said one diplomat.
''It looks like they've made a clear decision, but we don't know if this is the final line or what the time scale is,'' he added.
The General People's Congress, Libya's parliament, expressed satisfaction with the agreement of the Libyan, British and American sides on trying the two suspects in the Lockerbie incident in a third country.
But a statement, read on State-run television during a televised meeting of the parliament, made no mention of whether Libya would hand over the two suspects. The parliament ended its eight-day meeting, yesterday afternoon.
The congress also asked these sides to work on removing any obstacle preventing the two suspects from standing trial as soon as possible.
It did not say what the obstacles were, but the disupte as to where the two men will serve prison sentences if comnvicted has been the major stumbling block.
Britain and the US say the Netherlands trial, agreed by the UN is non-negotiable, and that means the two would be imprisoned in Scotland.
Libya already has accepted in principle to the trial of the two suspects before a panel of Scottish judges in the Netherlands. The handover of the men has been held up because of Libya's demand for guarantees that the two men, if convicted, would be jailed in Libya.
Libyan media had earlier suggested that Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi did not have the authority to hand over the suspects and indicated that any such decision should be approved by the People's Congress.
Britain said the Libyan statements were encouraging.
''We have seen the very limited reports based on Libyan television and, if true, then it is very encouraging,'' said a Foreign Office spokesman.
The United States and Britain insist that the two suspects — Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah — serve any prison terms in Britain.
Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Gaddafi to discuss a possible handover of the suspects. No agreement was reached, but Annan said Libya was expected to reach a decision soon.
The Pam Am blast over Lockerbie, Scotland killed 270 people.
Dr Jim Swire, father of one of the bombing victims, said he was heartened by the Libyan decision, but that the families prefer that if convicted, the two Libyan suspects serve their jail terms in Britain.
''I can say unequivocally that I don't believe the members of our group will accept incarceration in Libya as the appropriate punishment for these two,'' Dr Swire said.
At the UN headquarters in New York, the ambassador of Slovenia, which is a member of the Security Council, said Libyan Parliament's decision was welcome but incomplete.
''It doesn't go all the way. It doesn't explain when the handing over of the two suspects would take place,'' said Danilo Turk. He said the ball was still in Libya's court.
''I don't think that there are any obstacles left on the side of the United Nations. The Security Council has adopted the decision. What is needed is the transfer of the two suspects,'' Turk said. Turk was president of the Security Council in August when it adopted the resolution endorsing the US-British proposal for trial of the suspects in the Netherlands. 

Royal delivery list may be
earliest known writing

A GERMAN archaeologist claims to have found what could be the earliest known writing by mankind — records of linen and oil deliveries made about 5,300 years ago during the reign of a king named Scorpion in southern Egypt.
The discovery throws open for debate a widely held belief among historians that the first people to write were the Sumerians of the Mesopotamian civilisation sometime before 3000 BC, or 5,000 years ago.
While the exact date of Sumerian writing remains in doubt, the Egyptian discoveries are carbon dated with certainty to between 3300 BC and 3200 BC, said Gunter Dreyer, head of the German Archaeological Institute. The writings — in the form of line drawings of animals, plants and mountains — are the first evidence that hieroglyphics used by later-day Pharaonic dynasties did not rise as Phoenix from the ashes, but developed gradually, Dreyer said.
''Linguists now have a larger history (of writing) to regard,'' he said. The bulk of Dreyer's discovery was from the tomb of a king called Scorpion in a cemetery in the Suhag province, 300 miles south of Cairo. Kings in pre-Pharaonic times used to take names of animals and many records have been found of chieftains named Mouse, Falcon, Double Falcon and Elephant. The first Pharaonic dynasty began in 2920 BC with King Menes and the Great Pyramid was not built until nearly 400 years later.
Since 1985, Dreyer and his team have unearthed about 300 pieces of written material on clay tablets barely bigger than postage stamps and clay jars and vases with ink impressions.
Two-thirds of them have been deciphered as documentary records of linen and oil delivered to King Scorpion in taxes, short notes, numbers, lists of kings' names and names of institutions. Apart from the academic question of who came first, the Egyptian writings prove that the society then was far more developed than previously thought, Dreyer said. He said man's first writings was not a creative outpouring but the result of economics: when chieftains expanded their areas of control they needed to keep a record of taxes, which in those days were in the form of commodities.
Fish, the word for delivery, appears on many tablets against the names of settlements. For example, the city Ba-set was written with a throne, known as Ba, and a stork, called Set.
It is also possible that writing was invented in Mesopotamia and Egypt simultaneously, Dreyer said. While the fact remains uncertain, it is clear that the Suhag writings are far more developed than Sumerian examples, he said.

Liner beached after striking reef

CRUISE LINER struck a Caribbean reef and started taking on water, yesterday, forcing the evacuation more than 2,500 tourists.
''The fortunate thing is that no one was hurt,'' said Royal Caribbean International spokesman Rich Steck on the island of St Maarten where the 74,000 ton Monarch of the Seas was beached. Fishermen and boat owners helped ferry the 2,557 passengers off the liner. It took about four hours, Steck said. ''It was quite a drama this morning,'' said hotel auditor Nicolaas Martina, who watched the rescue from the Dutch side of the island. The other side is the French territory of St Martin.
The Monarch of the Seas ran aground near the harbour pier before dawn.
Steck said the ship, with 831 crew, was on its way from St Thomas to Martinique when a passenger developed a heart problem and the captain diverted to St Maarten to drop the patient off. As the ship was leaving the island, it struck a reef and began to take on water in the forward compartments. ''It wasn't sinking or anything, but we decided the best thing to do was to run the ship aground on purpose, to get it on soft sand in the harbour,'' Steck said.
Crew members offloaded passengers' luggage and the company was arranging to fly the tourists home.
A US Coast Guard helicopter crew planned to survey the area to determine whether there was any threat of pollution from the ship.
The six-year-old Monarch picks up passengers in San Juan and cruises the southern Caribbean on week-long trips.

Britt tells how man
snatched her watch

FORMER Bond girl Britt Ekland told a jury yesterday how she was left bleeding and in pain after a robber ripped her £10,000 gold and diamond watch from her wrist.
The Swedish-born actress said she immediately recognised her attacker as a man who had been shopping in the same London supermarket as she had minutes earlier.
''I just felt this like burning on my wrist and like a pull, and I just looked and there was the man.
''The whole thing took that fast,'' she told London's Southwark Crown Court with a snap of her fingers.
''My wrist was bleeding and he was running.
''I was just screaming, 'Stop him, stop him, he's just taken my watch.'
''There was a man dressed in a white and black T-shirt and I screamed again: 'Stop him, stop him,''' the blonde Seventies sex symbol recalled.
But her assailant fled down an alleyway next to the supermarket and disappeared. Miss Ekland (55) said she then recognised a woman with a young boy who had been shopping with the man in the store.
After telling the woman she was making a citizen's arrest, she began to feel faint and was taken by staff from Somerfield's supermarket on the King's Road, Chelsea, to the back of the premises.
The jury of six men and six women heard that a few weeks later, she picked out shaven-headed Carl Hutson as her attacker.
The 20-year-old of Rutford Road, Streatham, south-west London, denies the robbery on September 6 this year.
Miss Ekland, currently rehearsing for a pantomime appearance as Cinderella's Fairy Godmother at Wimbledon Theatre, told the court that she had been staying with a couple of friends opposite the supermarket when she decided to do some Sunday afternoon shopping.
The actress said she finished her shopping, paid and then left.
Seconds later, she was attacked and her Rolex, which she said had a diamond bezel and a diamond face, was torn from her wrist.
When asked about the value of the watch she replied: ''I'm not a jeweller. I've had the watch 24 years but I guess if I was going to buy a new one today I would probably have to pay maybe £10,000.''The hearing was adjourned until today.

Croat Nazi puppet is accused of crimes against humanity

DINKO SAKIC, a commander of Croatia's most notorious Second World War concentration camp, was indicted, yesterday, for crimes against humanity.
The indictment charged that Sakic (76) ''by his acts, caused the deaths of more than 2,000 people'' in Jasenovac during part of 1944, when he ran the camp. Sakic is accused of maltreating, torturing and killing detainees and of allowing his subordinates to do the same, leading to more than 2,000 deaths between April and November 1944. Tens of thousands of people were tortured and killed in Jasenovac, as the Croatian state was implementing racist and Nazi laws, the indictment said.
No date for the trial has yet been set. If convicted, Sakic faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Sakic has been in prison in Zagreb since June, when he was extradited from Argentina. He had previously lived there peacefully since the end of the war, after the wartime Croatian Nazi puppet state was crushed.
Sakic's arrest followed an interview he gave in April to an Argentine television station, in which he admitted running Jasenovac, but claimed that nothing happened there.
The number of Jasenovac victims — Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats — has never been ascertained.

Yeltsin in brief return to Kremlin

PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin, still recovering from his latest illness, held a welcoming ceremony yesterday for new ambassadors to Russia.
Yeltsin travelled from his country residence to the Kremlin and greeted new ambassadors from China, India, Qatar, Luxembourg, and 10 other countries, according to the Interfax news agency.
"Russia is interested in developing and stepping up relations with Latin American states, Mideast countries and states situated in the Gulf," Yeltsin said. "We firmly favour turning this region into a zone of peace and stability."
Yeltsin also met the head of Russia's Federal Security Service, Vladimir Putin, to discuss last month's killing of prominent MP Galina Starovoitova, said presidential spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin.
After the meetings, Yeltsin returned to his Gorky-9 country home just west of Moscow, according to spokesman Yakushkin.
Despite his repeated ailments, Yeltsin insists he will serve out his term, which runs until 2000.
He has looked healthy and animated in public appearances since his release from hospital.

© Examiner Publications Ltd, 1998