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Clinton makes Oslo peace talks priority by Barry Schweid Associated Press Washington — President Clinton hopes that his quick trip to Oslo, Norway, could begin a final push toward earning a place in history ps an honored peace maker. Clinton has picked an agreement between Israel and the Arabs as his top foreign policy priority. It al so could be his best chance for a shining legacy. Israel and the Palestinians have given themselves until September to conclude an overall settlement. On Friday, they decided to get started Nov. 7. That schedule coincides with the winding down of Clinton’s second term. He has nearly 15 months left in office, time enough for the president to play the role of prodder or dealmaker. At this point, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are willing to try on their own. But if they get hung up on the tough issues, Clinton is just a telephone call away. “Wfe will be central to the peace process not on ly because the parties want us to be, but because it is a strategic interest of the United States,” Sandy Beiger, Clinton’s national security adviser, said in a recent speech. Clinton is ready after the rigorous training-ex ercise in last year’s successful Wfest Bank diploma cy in rural Maryland. At the beginning, in 1993, Clinton focused on domestic issues, such as the economy and health care, and was slow to get to foreign policy. When he did concentrate on the outside world, the most pressing matters were conflict in the Balka ns, the search for illegal weapons in Iraq and the need to set a course for dealing with Russia and Chi na. He also made some bold strokes to settle the Northern Ireland problem. An agreement he nur tured, while tenuous, essentially is holding. At this point, though, with the Monica Lewin sky scandal receding and peace prospects in the Mid dle East more promising than ever, Clinton has his sights on an overall settlement between Israel and the Arabs as a final act. He was flying to Oslo on Sunday with limited expectations on what will be a brief fling at Mid dle East diplomacy. The trip is short; Clinton departs Norway on Tuesday. He will spend part of the time in a cere mony marking the fourth anniversary of the assas sination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minis ter whose path to talks with the Palestinians was paved through quiet Norwegian diplomacy. Clinton has separate meetings set today with Barak and with Arafat. On Tuesday, he sits down with them together. At a White House news conference Thursday, Clinton said he didn’t want to raise expectations ex cessively for his talks in Oslo. His aides said there was no chance, whatever Barak and Arafat tell him, that Clinton would get into the kind of marathon mediating he did on Mary land’s eastern shore in October 1998 that helped produce a West Bank agreement between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The issues on the table are far tougher than the partial Israeli pullback negotiated in Maryland Pales tinian statehood aspirations, the future of Jerusalem, borders, the status of refugees. “It is a very important occasion.... I believe this meeting can help us resume momentum,” Barak said in an interview reported in Sunday’s editions of The Washington Post. Ironically, the Oslo accords in 1993 anticipat ed a step-by-step approach in peacemaking, not the high-eneigy drive for a final settlement approved by Barak and Arafat and endorsed by the Clinton ad ministration. Barak’s ambitious approach would go even fur ther and aim for a quick peace treaty with Syria. That track is cold now,-and without a Syrian presence in Oslo, Clinton is unlikely to make real headway on that track. EgyptAir jetliner plunges into Atlantic by David Crary Associated Press Boston—An EgyptAir jetliner with 217 people on board, including dozens of U.S. tourists, plunged into the ocean off Nan tucket Island on Sunday en route from New York to Cairo. Searchers found de bris and human remains scattered across the sea but no sign of survivors. Authorities said there was no distress call from the pilots before the Boeing 767 plummeted to the sea in two minutes from 33,000 feet. Though the FBI and other in telligence agencies began checking on the possibility of sabotage. President Clinton and other officials said there was no im mediate indication of foul play. Searchers found two partially inflated life rafts, lifejackets, seat cushions and oth er small debris, none with any bum marks, said Coast Guard Rear Adm. Richard M. Larrabee. Finding such marks on some of the debris could suggest the possibility of a fire or explosion aboard the plane. Alan Lewis, chief executive of the Boston-based travel agency Grand Cir cle Corp., said the plane was carrying a group of 54 people — all over the age of 50 — bound for a 14-day drip to Egypt and the Nile. He said most of the travel ers were from Colorado, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest. The plane, which started its flight in Los Angeles and stopped at Kennedy In ternational Airport in New York, went down about 1:52 a.m. EST roughly 60 miles south of Nantucket. The Coast Guard de ployed ships, reconnaissance planes and helicopters to search an area of about 36 square miles, in waters about 270 feet deep. A Navy salvage ship, the U.S.S. Grap ple, and Navy divers were expected to join the search by Tuesday. State-owned EgyptAir, confronted with the worst crash in its history, said the 199 passengers included 62 Egyptians, two Su danese, three Syrians and one Chilean. Most of the others were believed to be Americans. There were 18 crew mem bers, EgyptAir said. It was the fourth time in three years that a major search operation was launched in the region for a plane lost at sea. The series of crashes began with TWA Flight 800 off Long Island in July 1996, followed by Swissair Flight 111 off Nova Scotia in September 1998 and the single-engine plane carrying John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and her sister off Martha’s Vineyard in July. EgyptAir Chairman Mohammed Fahim Rayan was asked about reports that the Federal Aviation Administration had warned Crash see page e Special to The Gamecock Labib Salama, owner of the Egyptian Coffee Shop in Queens, New York, and his patrons monitor a live television broadcast from Egypt on Sunday. World Briefs ■ One dead, five injured after Halloween party MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — A group of men who were turned away from a college Halloween party early Sunday opened fire on the small house, killing one man and wounding five others. About 100 people had packed into the home after a Ball State University fra ternity party. About 4 a.m., a car pulled into an alley behind the house and began firing into the home, said Marlon Glass, 31, who was at the party. The house, in a student neighborhood near campus, was riddled with bullet holes, and a trail of shell casings still led from the back door to the alley Sunday after noon. The windows of some of the half dozen cars parked behind the house had been shot out. Drvli/^o r»fRr>nrc anrl u/itnoccoc cairl at least two people had fired as many as 40 rounds from outside, and investigators were looking into whether shots were fired inside the house, as well. Julian Brown, 28, a former Ball State student from Gary, Ind., was found dead in the kitchen, Muncie police Chief Joe Winkle said. Two people were in fair condition Sunday at Ball Memorial Hospital and two were treated and released, a hospi tal spokesman said. One person was treat ed at the scene. ■ Fugitive DEA agent commits suicide Los Angeles (AP) — A fugitive Drug Enforcement Administration agent want ed in the deadly shooting of his estranged girlfriend shot and killed himself in Louisiana on Saturday during a police pursuit. Tony Gerard Bailey, 35, had been the subject of a nationwide manhunt since Wednesday night, when he baiged into the Fullerton home where his estranged girlfriend was staying, shooting and killing her and wounding her sister. Veda Harris, 32, with whom Bailey has a 2-.vear-old daughter, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her 36-year-old sister, Wendy Campbell, was shot in the stom ach. She was hospitalized at the Univer sity of California, Irvine, Medical Cen ter. A message left Saturday for her condition wasn’t returned. 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