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Nation & World__. . ' ,: Reform party split over Ventura by Ron Fournier Associated Press Washington—Re form Party chairman Russell Verney de manded Friday that Gov. Jesse Ventura re sign from the party, saying the former wrestler “brought 1/cMTinA shame” to himself with a bombastic in terview in Playboy magazine. Vemey’s letter to the Minnesota gov ernor reflects rising bitterness inside the Reform Party as its fractious members seek a 2000 presidential nominee. The list of potential candidates is long and colorful, including Republican Pat Buchanan, New York tycoon Donald Trump, former Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker, Reform Party founder Ross Perot and Ventura himself. The letter was released as a splinter group, American Reform Party, gathered in Washington. Their tiny convention at tracted Trump and Wfeicker, as Ventura’s political operatives scoured the landscape for any candidate who could block Buchanan. The governor, whose frank talk got him elected in a November upset, told Playboy that organized religion “is a sham,” the Navy Tailhook scandal was “much ado about nothing” and fat peo ple ‘'can’t push away from the table” On being governor, he said: “It’s good to be king.” \fentura says his comments were tak en out of context. He was not about to quit the party. “I don’t know why Russ Verney is concerned,” Ventura spokesman John Wodele said. “He never supported the governor when he ran for office and he isn’t supporting him now.” Verney is outgoing party chairman, soon to be replaced by a Ventura ally. “In just one interview you have man aged to severely damage the credibility and integrity of thousands of Reform Par ty members,” Vemey’s letter said. “You have brought shame to yourself and dis grace to the members of the Reform Par ty.” At the American Reform Party convention, many of the 100 delegates jumped to Ventura’s defense. “He’s a straight-talker,” said Louise Downing. The former wrestler has promised to finish his term, which expires in 2003, but the delegates said they held out hope for a change of heart. Ventura is trying to head off the pos sible candidacy of Buchanan, who may leave the GOP for a Reform Party bid. Ventura says Buchanan’s staunch anti abortion views are a poor fit for the Re form Party. Ventura has urged Trump to run. His aides met Friday with Weicker, who ad dresses the American Reform Party on Saturday. Independent candidates could run un der the ARP banner or seek the Reform Party nomination and elicit the ARP’s aid. Leaders of the splinter group said Fri day they would be willing to rejoin the Reform Party to help the right candidate; they mentioned Weicker and Trump as possibilities. Ventura and his allies defeated Per ot’s backers at the Reform Party’s sum mer convention and installed Jack Gar gan as chairman. They fear that Perot’s backers are using Buchanan to regain con trol of the party. Phil Madsen, director of Ventura’s political operation, said Perot may be lur ing Buchanan in the race to create tur moil, allowing the Texas billionaire to jump into the race and call himself a uni fying candidate. “The overtures to the Buchanan camp could turn out to be a ruse,” he said. Perot has not ruled out a third pres idential race. He and Buchanan are ex pected to talk soon by telephone about the conservative commentator’s plans. Buchanan plans to announce his in tentions by mid-October. He must de cide whether he has the stomach for a major fight that would not guarantee him the nomination. The millionaire Trump has no po litical experience and is given little chance of winning, but he’s looking more like a candidate every day. He is rushing to finish a new book to release it in time for a December announcement of his deci sion. Myanmar rebels release hostages, leave Bangkok by Matt Pennington Associated Press Bangkok, Thailand — Thailand en gineered a peaceful end Saturday to the armed takeover of the Myanmar Em bassy by five pro-democracy activists, flying the rebels by helicopter to the TM-Myanmar border, where they were allowed to go free. After holing up in the embassy for 26 hours, the raiders released all 38 hostages. Thai Interior Minister Sanan Kachomprasart said at a news confer ence. Another 51 Myanmar citizens, mostly family of diplomatic personnel, who had hidden inside the walled em bassy compound were also allowed to walk out. “Wfe don’t consider them to be ter rorists, ” said Sanan, who was one of the government's negotiators with the rebels. “They are student activists struggling for democracy. Wfe have done what we have promised them.” Calling themselves the Vigorous Burmese Student %niors, the hostage takers had demanded the release of all political prisoners in Myanmar, a mean ingful dialogue between pro-democra cy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the ' military government, and the conven ing of an elected parliament. Democracy activists say the rebels’ takeover of the embassy sprang from deep frustration that their cause is re ceiving neither international attention nor making headway in their homeland. In response, Myanmar closed its border with Thailand and reinforced its troops along the frontier, newspapers in Thailand reported Sunday. Thai bor der forces also were put on alert as a precautionary measure, the Bangkok Post said. Dissident groups, meanwhile, warned of more violence if the gov ernment of Myanmar doesn’t change its harsh, autocratic rule. “In the past 11 years the democra cy movement has consistently stood for a nonviolent solution, but this hasn’t really delivered significant progress.” said activist Debbie Stothard of the Al ternative ASEAN Network on Burma. “The students appear to have act ed out of outrage at the regime’s in creasing repression and frustration with the failure of the international com munity to respond to the plight of Bur ma’s people,” the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition said in a state ment of the take-over. Sony co-founder dies at 78 by Ginny Parker Associated Press Tokyo — Akio Mofita, the entre preneur, engineer and savvy salesman who helped give new meaning to the words “Made in Japan,” died Sunday, Sony Corp. __ said. He was 78. MORITA The co-founder of* the company, Morita had been in fail ing health since a stroke in 1993. He died at a Tokyo hospital Sunday morning of pneumonia, said Sony spokesman Aldo Liguori. Morita co-founded Sony in a bombed out department store after World War II. He was the last of a generation of Japan ese industrialists that included carmaker Soichiro Honda and electronics rival Konosuke Matsushita. ■ Under Morita’s guidance, Sony was instrumental in changing Japan’s image from a maker of slipshod products to a world leader in high-quality automobiles and electronics. In the process, his com pany became a multibillion dollar con * glomerate. A native of the western Japanese city of Nagoya, Morita retired as Sony’s chair man in 1994. A year earlier he had suf fered a stroke that left him weakened and in a wheelchair. He stayed on as honorary chairman, with current chairman Norio Ohga ap pointed as his successor. The tanned, snowy-haired Morita, who took up waterskiing in his 60s, al so pioneered new behavior for corporate Japan. He pushed his engineers to take risks with new products and criticized lavishly paid American executives. He caused a stir in 1989 by co-au thoring “The Japan That Can Say ‘No’” with current Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishi hara, then refusing to authorize an Eng-, lish translation. In it, Morita criticized U.S. corporate culture as overindulgent. He also warned that America must revitalize its electronics industry by in vesting in research and development. In the late 1980s, Morita called for many of the economic reforms now be ing carried out by Japan’s government, but he reportedly declined an offer to be come foreign minister in August 1993. Even without Morita at the helm, Sony continues to lead the world in elec tronics and computer entertainment. Ear lier this month, the company launched a new attack on rival game makers by an nouncing next year’s launch of an im proved version of its popular PlayStation system. Mammoth from page 4 an office crammed foil of mammoth bones, teeth, figurines and paintings. Agenbroad and scientists from the Netherlands, France and Russia, are removing the ice-encased animal from the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia and airlifting it more than 200 miles to the city ofKhatanga. The mammoth will be kept frozen there in an underground tunnel, where scientists will study the 11-foot-tall animal. Besides analyzing dirt, pollen, and even its stomach con tents, a primary task is to extract DNA for cloning. The cloning process involves putting DNA from the mam moth into an Asian elephant’s egg that has been stripped of ele Dhant eenes. So even thoueh an eleDhant would rive birth, the baby would be a mammoth, not a hybrid, Agenbroad said. “I don’t think [the elephant] would know the difference, though she might wonder why her baby is so hairy.” - Agenbroad said he is not counting on success. “I guess it would be a rarity, but the biologists are quite op timistic,” he said. A medical ethicist at the medical school and the depart ment of philosophy at the University of Alabama at Birming ham is among the naysayers. “You need live nuclei and live eggs, plus a host mammoth mother to gestate the fetus. Because none of these are avail able, ‘Jurassic Park’ to the contrary, it won’t succeed,” Greg Pence said, referring to the movie in which cloning was used to resurrect dinosaurs. But scientists at Texas A&M University proveddast month that live cells are not needed for cloning. The team success fully cloned a steer from the hide of another that died a year ago. Black & Decker, the world’s leading manufacturer and marketer in the power tool industry, has immediate entry level sales/marketing opportunities for highly motivated, goal orientated individuals. Successful individuals will be responsible for increasing market share within a given territory through user demonstrations, event marketing, and retail promotions. 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