�Poison cloud engulfs Belgrade,� The London Times, April 19
An ecological disaster was unfolding yesterday after NATO bombed a combined petrochemicals, fertilizer and refinery complex on the banks of the Danube in the northern outskirts of Belgrade. Among the cocktail of chemicals billowing over hundreds of thousands of homes were the toxic gas phosgene, chlorine and hydrochloric acid.
�Ecevit, Left-Leaning Premier, Takes Strong Lead in Turkic Voting,� The New York Times, April 19
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit appeared to run well ahead of all challengers in Sunday�s national election, according to returns tabulated early Monday morning. Projections indicated that Ecevit would receive 24% of the vote compared to 16% for the Islamic-oriented Virtue party.
�India may face another general election,� Financial Times, April 19
India�s Congress party began the task of patching together a coalition government to replace the Bharatiya Janata party-led grouping ousted on the weekend. The surprise one-vote defeat of the 13-month coalition followed a last-minute change of heart by a small regional party. Early signs indicate that the Congress party will have difficulty finding enough support to form a new government.
�Officials doubt racism led to London explosion,� International Herald Tribune, April 19
Police said 39 people were treated at hospitals and 21 were kept overnight, after a nail bomb exploded on a busy shopping street in south London. The blast took place without warning and no claims of responsibility have been made, which are hallmarks of the Irish Republican Army. Officials have tried to quell growing speculation that the attack on the predominantly black neighbourhood could be racially motivated.
�Bouteflika elected Algerian president,� Associated Press, April 16
Abdelaziz Bouteflika considered the choice of Algeria�s powerful military to lead the country, was elected president today after a race in which all six opponents pulled out. Bouteflika, 64, a former foreign minister, was elected with 73.8 percent of the vote, the Interior Ministry announced today.
�Malaysia warns of protests� impact,� REUTERS, April 18
On Saturday night about 300 protestors shouting Reformasi (reform) drew the fire of police water cannons. Police arrested 118 people, including 32 students following the protests. The protests erupted after former Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim was convicted on four corruption changes on Wednesday and ordered to serve six years in prison.
�Bloody weekend rampage in Indonesia,� International Herald Tribune, April 19
Militia groups loyal to Indonesia stormed through Dili, the capital of East Timor, on Saturday. Indonesian officials said the attacks on houses and offices of pro-independence leaders had left at least a dozen people dead and many more wounded. Foreign officials worry that the violence threatens to undermine talks this week on the future of the territory.
�It�s over: Gretzky�s final game,� The Toronto Star, April 19
The Great One, Wayne Gretzky played his last professional hockey game Sunday. Gretzky collected his No.1963 assist and No.2857 point in his brilliant 20-year National Hockey League career. Gretzky leaves the game holding or sharing 61 records and his name is engraved four times on the Stanley Cup.
By Wallace Kaufman
Pittsboro, NC
April 18
(The GLOBE)
The Clinton administration seems to be edging toward a ground war in Kosovo. In the context of troop movements and political events, continued denials are beginning to sound like wishful thinking. Apache helicopters will open fire this week, their crews a few feet above the ground. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.America�s military reserves (citizens who have military experience and who are on call in case of military emergency) could be mobilized. �The details aren�t ready to be announced at this stage,� Bacon said, but Defense Secretary William Cohen hinted recently at the likelihood of a partial mobilization of both the Reserve and the National Guard (part-time military forces).
The announced reason for mobilizing these forces would be to support additional airborne forces, but added to several thousand troops already in Albania and Bosnia, many observers see this as preparation for a ground war. The administration may not have decided yet, but political pressure is mounting for a decision.
The Clinton team continues to insist that air power alone will make Milosevic accept the unacceptable-foreign troops in sacred Serbian territory guaranteeing the rule of that territory by its recent Albanian majority. Increased bombing in Yugoslavia�s cities may soon bring to television images of destruction and suffering that move the hearts of Americans as powerfully as the scenes of fleeing refugees. If that happens President Clinton could lose public support for either continued bombing or a ground war.
CONGRESS MAY GIVE PRESIDENT UNWANTED POWERS
In Congress America�s most admired military professional has intensified his call for the use of ground troops. Senator John McCain who served as an Air Force officer in Vietnam and survived seven years in captivity, justifies the use of ground troops in the same way that Lyndon Johnson justified expanding the Vietnam war-�vital US national interests� are at risk in Kosovo. The Republican Senator said, �we should commence today to mobilize infantry and armored divisions for a possible ground war in Kosovo.� McCain, a presidential candidate, was speaking on April 13 to a private group in Washington.
Elizabeth Dole, another leading Republican candidate for President, this week told an audience at the US Naval Academy that she favored ground troops. �If the NATO commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that ground troops are required to accomplish our goals, then my answer is �yes.�� Dole is the wife of Senator Bob Dole who opposed Clinton in 1996.
In sharp criticism of the Clinton team�s practice of announcing military tactics and limits, McCain said, �Hopefully, taking this overdue action will convince Milosevic that there is no self-imposed limit to our determination to liberate Kosovo from his tyranny.� Echoing military experts inside and outside the Clinton administration, McCain said, �As almost anyone with any war experience knows, you�re never supposed to show the enemy what you won�t do to win. You only make more likely the failure of whatever action you are willing to take.� While the administration officials appearing on television speak solid support for the President�s tactics, behind the scenes military and security experts are deeply divided. Clinton�s handling of the Balkan crisis is sometimes called �the amateur hour.�
McCain noted that his views were widely held among Democrats as well as Republicans. Just as President Clinton was sending to Congress an emergency request for $3-4 billion to fund the war, Congress itself was divided, but not along party lines. Many Democrats who opposed the Vietnam war, as the President did in his early career, and the bombing of Iraq, are calling for the use of ground troops in Kosovo. Many Republican conservatives who were strong supporters of both the Gulf War and efforts to stop Ho Chi Minh from taking South Vietnam are strongly opposed to the use of ground troops and to the air war itself. Conservative Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is among these critics.
The critics are calling for a Congressional resolution to require the President to get their approval before using ground troops. Senator McCain is calling for a vote to authorize the President to use, �whatever force necessary to force Serbia from Kosovo.�
A SMALL WIN COULD BE A BIG LOSS
In a ground war NATO would certainly defeat Milosevic, but might lose something much more important-Russia. The young pro-western reformers are gone, Yeltsin hangs onto office by a fingernail, practical Primakov serves at the whim of nationalists and communists. A NATO victory in Yugoslavia has already set off events that are strengthening Russia�s own Milosevic types.
Even if Russia did not send military equipment or troops to aid Yugoslavia, a NATO victory could bring to power leaders who would sacrifice both Western aid and their own people to rebuild Russia as a military superpower.
THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW HISTORY ARE BOUND TO REPEAT IT, BUT . . .
Americans like to see their politics in terms of historical models, but Kosovo has confused them. The events leading to World War I warn not to get involved in trying to settle ancient disputes among ethnic groups and the nations that support them. The events leading to World War II with the West refusing to intervene in Germany�s grab for German ethnic areas in other countries, warns that ruthless expansionists should be stopped sooner rather later. Which model should guide US policy toward Milosevic and his attempt to build a greater Serbia? Neither, at least not now.
America and Europe already intervened very late in the process when they confronted Milosevic in Bosnia. Croatia and Slovenia had already stopped him and Bosnia was in ruins. President Clinton promised US troops would be out in a year, then two years. Now no end is in sight. Bosnia has now become an indefinite protectorate of Europe. Kosovo will almost certainly demand similar status.
NATO could still declare victory and withdraw from the fray. That would mean absorbing the Kosovar refugees into Europe and America and letting the Kosovo Liberation Army fight it out with Milosevic. Montenegro and Macedonia would also be at risk. Finally, NATO�s credibility and President Clinton�s attempt to leave office with a foreign policy triumph would both be forfeit. Everyone would survive the Presidential disgrace, but a NATO incapable of defeating a small and brutal dictator would be little deterrent to new tyrant�s. Senator McCain predicted that national boundaries in the Balkans would have to be redrawn along ethnic lines, presumably to separate Kosovo from Yugoslavia. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott recently wrote that dividing the Balkans into ethnic enclaves would be a recipe for future conflicts.
The one history lesson that Americans have learned well only serves to haunt both the administration and its critics. During the Vietnam War graduate student William Jefferson Clinton joined protestors condemning American actions as immoral. Protests and the backlash against them tore American society apart and left scars that have not yet healed. The lesson of Vietnam is clear: the most certain outcome of a war Americans don�t understand or can�t win will leave Americans fighting each other.
By Alessandro RAIMONDI, Bern, April 16 (THE GLOBE)
There are in Switzerland reasons to smile, now that the Police Federal Bureau has released datas concerning crimes committed in the Confederation in 1998.
Matter of fact after 2 years of increased criminal activity, last year people of the trade seem having taken a break. Not an extremely extended one, of course, since Switzerland is so attracting for that kind of �professionals�, but encouraging as for a tendency somewhat reletad to the improved economic situation of the country.
Last year have been recorded some 332,387 offenses, 1.5% less than in 1997. To this positive result has contributed a decline of car thefts. Humorists say that the nationwide parking problem takes its toll on this peculiar segment of criminal activity too�
Apart from joking � Swiss cops are very sensitive on this issue � the Police has identified some 58,285 crime authors, more or less the same level of the previous year. Among them 86.4% were men and 13.6% women. Good to know women�s delinquency decreased of 0.5%. There will be a boom of wedding ceremonies this year?
On the teenager side youth criminals shrinked of an encouraging 0.7% making, however, a still preoccupying 20.5% of the total.
The most frequent kind of crime is theft with a rock solid 91.2%, while at the end of the statistics sits �sexual harassments� with a tiny 1.1%. Are we starting to behave?
Worrying, specially considering that from time to time Switzerland is crossed by a sort of �xenophobic euphoria�, is the percentage of crimes committed by foreigners in the country: 54.8% of all crimes has been committed by the foreign population of the Confederation which accounts for only 19.4%! This result marks a negative +3.3% compared to the year 1997. Out of 31,964 charged foreign subjects, 78.6% are living in the Confederation and 21.4% abroad, of whom many are commuting criminals and some belong to the unfortunate category of asylum applicants.
Zinetulla ISEPOV, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics,
Professor of Kioto University,
Kioto, Japan (Specially for THE GLOBE)
From the editorial staff: we present for your attention a series of articles about Japan. The author is a Kazakhstani professor who has worked for several years at one of the leading Japan universities. For most of its history, the country of the rising sun had been isolated from the whole world, until it was discovered by chance by a Spanish corsair. Though for many Kazakhstan citizens Japan is still a mystery and is associated with yakudza and �Sony�. At the same time, the culture of Japan and the traditional life of its people are fraught with many interesting things and contribute to one�s understanding of the nation�s rapid economic growth. As the author, we hope that this series will promote the strengthening of friendly links between Kazakhstan and Japan.
Hilary Skeels
LONDON, April 18 (the GLOBE)
As the NATO air attacks on Kosovo continue, the strong initial support for the action seems to have quietened as a more complete story filters through to the British press.
The fact that the air raids do not seem to have had the desired effect on Milosevic has made people contemplate the effectiveness of the NATO actions. The strong patriotism seen by Serbians, even those opposed to Milosevic, has come as a rather a shock to much of the British public, who like many NATO countries perhaps naively assumed the attacks would quickly bring Milosevic into line. Instead his support seems stronger than ever, and not only the Serbs - the possible involvement of the Russians could put the war on a scale far larger and more dangerous than ever intended.
Hilary Skeels
LONDON, April 18 (the GLOBE)
50 people were injured in Brixton, South London, on Saturday afternoon after a nail bomb exploded in a crowded market street. The bomb, whose casualties included a 23-month old baby and two policemen, had been placed to cause maximum casualties - directly opposite the busy Brixton Underground station and on a jam-packed street of shoppers. The injury count would have been much higher if a market-stall holder had not seen the blue bag holding the bomb and quickly moved it away from the main crowd. It exploded shortly afterwards. One witness said �The floor just shook when this huge explosion went off. Hundreds of people were running down the street for their lives. I saw two men lying in the road by the traffic lights opposite the Tube station. I just sprinted down the road. People were screaming, crying, and looking around for their children.
One man who lives 25 yards from the bomb site saw all the windows in his house blow out. He said �The street must have been absolutely packed at the time. On a Saturday you can�t find anywhere more heaving with people than Electric Avenue [the street where the bomb went off] with all the market stalls and the shops.�
The Metropolitan police quickly ruled out the possibility of republican terrorism related to the IRA (A Northern Irish terrorist group) but say they are �keeping an open mind�. However, speculation on the identity of the bombers has already begun. The simplicity of the nail bomb means it could be virtually anyone - many beleive it to be related to gang war, which is relatively common in the area, or attribute it to tensions in the highly cosmopolitan area. The bomb could also be linked to a rally against air assaults on Yugoslavia which was meant to take place nearby.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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