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I Thousands protest World Bank Washington marchers fail to keep finance leaders from meeting on motorcycles charged into a crowd that had surged toward the police line. Police used pepper spray and what they said were smoke bombs to drive back the pro testers, who were convinced they’d been tear-gassed. “Coughing, burning, numbness around the mouth, eyes watering, skin irritated,” said John Hamilton, one of the victims. But unlike the protests that over whelmed police and smashed windows in rainy Seattle at trade meetings late last year, the weekend demonstrations were largely nonviolent — and the sun beamed on them Sunday. , “I’ve seen a whole lot less property damage than after a Bulls game in Chica go,” said Han Shan, a protest oiganizer from the San Francisco-based group Ruckus. More protests were set Monday, when the resumption of the weekday rush hour threatened horrendous traffic problems. Police in America’s security-savvy capital sent buses under the cover of ear ly morning darkness Sunday to pick up world finance ministers at their hotels, and used circuitous routes and U-tums to get them to work. But some VIPs were stranded: The finance ministers of France, Brazil, Portugal and Thailand were thwarted by the crowds and sat at the Watergate Ho tel six hours after the meetings started, wondering what to do. They eventually made it to the spring meeting of the In temational Monetary Fund. “I think there is a great misunder standing,” French Finance Minister Lau rent Fabius said. Police, who estimated as many as 10,000 protesters were on the streets, blocked off a downtown area as large as 90 square blocks and let demonstrators largely have their way outside the secu rity zone. “Today we had a victory party in the streets,” said Beka Economopoulos, mem ber of Mobilization for Global Justice. “We have every right to tout this as a vic tory. I think we were up against incred ible, impossible, odds.” Protest leaders estimated their crowds at more than 30,000. Shan credited police with being rel atively restrained, if suffocating in the size of their force. “Overall, they main i (I tained their composure quite a bit,” he said. “They have brutalized a few peo ple without provocation. ” While the numbers Sunday were far smaller, the security measures were not unlike those of the giant anti-war demon strations of the 1960s and early 1970s. President Nixon’s White House was once ringed by city buses parked as a bar ricade against protesters; during the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., troops set up ma chine-gun encampments on the steps of the Capitol. The atmosphere was less tense than on Saturday, when police raided and closed the protest headquarters during the day and arrested more than 600 people in the evening. Protest seepages Airport death toll rises to 101 BY KAMANGA MUTOND The Associated Press Kinshasa, Congo — The death toll from a string of airport blasts rose to 101, the government said Sunday, as most res cuers ended the search for bodies in the wreckage of a hangar that collapsed in the explosions. Kinshasa Gov. Theophile Bemba Fun du announced the new casualty figures, while religious dirges played on state ra dio and the president called a period of national mourning after Friday’s blasts at Kinshasa’s N’Djili international airport. Hospital authorities said 216 people were injured. About 80 of these remained in critical condition on Sunday, Fundu said. By the afternoon, all but a handful of Red Cross workers and other rescue vol unteers were giving up the search through the collapsed hangar, used by customs and tax officials to handle incoming cargo from Europe. The rescue workers said they were hampered by lack of tools, water and food. One man was rescued late Saturday evening after being buried alive be neath the hangar for more than 30 hours, Red Cross worker Jean-Jacques Maluta nta said. The man had broken ribs and legs and could not speak, he said. “I don’t know if there is anyone else alive inside,” Malutama said. “It is diffi cult work. We are pulling out rubble by hand and we did not eat yesterday so it would be difficult to continue this evening.” Rescue officials had said Saturday that they feared 100 people were still trapped in the wreckage. It was not known how many people were still missing Sunday evening. The reasons for the blast remained murky. Explanations ranged from a short circuit to a soldier dropping ammunition while unloading a plane full of weapons. The explosions of fuel and army muni tions shattered windows, toppled build ings and flung deadly debris several miles away into residential neighborhoods. Some friends and family members of those still missing persisted in the search Sunday. , Mvuezolo Nsimb, an airport porter, vowed to carry on digging. A small clus ter of female family members hoping for news about missing loved ones looked on worriedly. “Some of my friends are missing. I cannot abandon them,” Nsimb said. Congolese health authorities said in ternational relief organizations had of fered medical aid and Belgium was send ing a plane with medical specialists. Yet Airport seepages News Briefs ■ Onlookers view Oklahoma City National Memorial Oklahoma City (AP) — With the opening of the Oklahoma City National Memorial still days away, hundreds of people spent a cloudless Sunday after noon gazing over its grassy, meticulous grounds, the site of the worst terrorist at tack on American soil. Some tried in vain to connect the qui et landscape, dominated by trees and a black reflecting pool, with the gritty im ages of smoke and horror they saw on their televisions April 19,1995. “It’s not the way I pictured it,” said Kristin Welbaum, a visitor from Min neapolis. “It’s been so cleaned up and made into such a monument that you don’t get a feel for the devastation until you look across to the Journal Record Building,” she said, pointing to the still scarred building near the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. For others, like Monica and Harold Swink of Oklahoma City, the memorial offered a welcome reprieve from mem ories still filled with pain. “We came down a couple times right after they stopped searching for victims and it’s not hard to remember that,” said Monica Swink. “It’s one of those things that will be burned in your mind forev er. And that’s why it’s so nice to have this calmness.” Where the explosion struck the nine story Murrah building, there is now a grassy hill with nine rows of empty bronze-and-s.tone chairs - one for each of the 168 people killed in the bombing. ■ President acts to preserve giant sequoia trees Sequioa National Forest, Calif. (AP) — Dwarfed by towering trees that are among the oldest and largest living things on earth, President Clinton set aside 328,000 acres of federal forests Saturday to permanently preserve 34 groves of gi ant sequoia “These giant sequoias clearly are the work of the ages,” the president said. “They grow taller than the Statue of Lib erty, broader than a bus.” He said they were so perfectly adapted to their envi ronment that none has ever been known to die of old age. In a decision praised by environ- < mentalists but scorned by loggers and oth ers as a federal land grab, Clinton ordered the formation of a national monument that will halt commercial timber sales, mining and some recreational activities. Motorcycles and all-terrain vehi cles will be allowed only on regular roads while snowmobiles will be restricted to well-traveled areas. Hiking, horseback riding and other recreational activities will be permitted. % Father lashes out at Miami relatives by Mark Stevenson The Associated Press Miami—Elian Gonzalez's fatter lasted out at his Miami relatives on Sunday, accusing them of “child abuse” for turn ing his son against him and insisting that the 6-year-old boy wants to return to Cuba. With the boy’s fate still before federal judges, Juan Miguel Gonzalez said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he did n’t believe a video taped at the relatives’ home in which his son said he didn’t want to go. • “This is child abuse and mistreat ment what they’re doing to this boy,” Gonzalez said. “The way they’re abusing him, turning him against his fa ther ... he’s suffering more here amongst them than he suffered in the sea.” He also accused the relatives of ma nipulating his son to believe that his mother still may show up someday - in this country. “He hasn’t had time to mourn for and feel for the death of his mother,” Gonzalez said. “Eveiythii^ they've done with him has been abusive.” Since he arrived in the United States on April 6, Gonzalez has spoken with Elian three times - all by telephone. He insisted that his son has told Km he wants to return to Cuba. “He’s told me so,” Gonzalez told “60 Minutes.” The Miami relatives are “putting a bunch of toys in front of a 6 year-old. He cannot decide for himself. The one that decides for him is me, his father.” At the home of Lazaro Gonzalez, where Elian has lived for nearly five months, protesters prayed for divine help as Easter week began, waving palm fronds and posters of the Cuban boy and Jesus. Priests joined the crowd of at least 150 to offer a religious service. “There are many people who tell us that we should give up this fight,” said Martin Anorga, an evangelical pastor. “But we will follow in the path that the Lord has shown us, despite those who want to get in our way.” He called on God to “reduce to ash es” the Castro government. Elian played in the sun and raced with other children. His father attend ed church in Washington. Both sides are waiting for a response from a federal appeals court in Atlanta, which issued a temporary injunction Thursday blocking Elian from leaving the country. That order defused a tense standoff when Lazaro Gonzalez, the ' boy’s great-uncle, refused the govern ment's demand to hand over the boy. The government wants the ap peals court to suspend the injunction and order Lazaro Gonzalez to release Elian so he can return with his father to Cuba. The relatives want the court to let them meet with Elian’s father with out being required to let Elian go. The Clinton administration has said only Juan Miguel Gonzalez can speak for his son on immigration matters. Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin. the nun and university president who presided over an earlier meeting with the boy’s Cuban grandmothers, told ABC’s “This Week” that the family will meet with the fatter but is concerned about Cuban influence. “The family is prepared to go any where at this point where adult mem bers can speak, come to grips, if they have to yell and scream, and perhaps end with a reconciliation and healing,” O’Laughlin said Sunday. “Holy Week could be the time to do this.” Fight over state legislatures could determine control of Congress by Kathy Barks Hoffman The Associated Press Ann Arbor, Mich.—At 22, Erin Carey is a foot soldier in a hard-fought but lit tle-noticed battle to control state legis latures and redraw congressional districts in Michigan and 19 other states. Come summer, the University of Michigan graduate student and a few thou sand other recruits and volunteers will be marching door-to-door here, handing out campaign literature for a Democra tic state House candidate. Carey will be paid by Democrats 2000, a Washington, D.C.-based group that is recruiting young adults nationwide to help gain or protect Democratic ma jorities in state legislatures. It’s a sign of how important those seats are in a nationwide political web that could determine everything from • state tax and welfare policies to who con trols Congress - and whether the next president will have an easy or hard time turning proposals into law. “We have an opportunity to change the course of history,” U.S. House Mi nority Whip David Bonior told Carey and other University of Michigan stu dents last month. With redistricting based on the 2000 census, state lawmakers elected this year will have a large say in how the lines di viding legislative and congressional seats look for the next 10 years. Draw the lines one way, and districts now held by Democrats could include more GOP voters. Draw them another, and it could increase Democratic voters. The results will likely decide the ma jority in the U.S. House. That’s given the parties ample reason to pour their resources into legislative races this year in Michigan, Arizona, Cal ifornia, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illi nois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mis souri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. In each state, a change of six or fewer seats would flip control in at least one legislative chamber. Seven other states have the same nar row balance, but they are considered less critical because they have fewer con gressional districts. If Democrats gain a majority in the U.S. House, there is a chance Michigan’s Bonior could become speaker. But if the Michigan House remains in Republican hands, after the 2002 elec tions, “I certainly will be out of a job ... because of the way they draw the lines,” Bonior said. Republican Gov. John Engler of Michigan is as focused as the Democrats on control of the state House. Republi cans now hold a 58-52 m<yority; in 1997 98, Democrats held a six-seat edge. Engler says GOP candidates can give voters lots of reasons to keep the state House in Republican hands. “They will have a record that is a nice contrast with the two years previous, < where things weren’t happening under Democratic leadership,” Engler said. Republicans don’t have an exact match ‘ for Democrats 2000, which was found < ed more than a decade ago to create a farm team of Democrats who could ad vance to higher office. Instead, the Republican Legislative Campaign Fund plans to funnel mil lions of dollars into states to help win GOP legislative majorities. Democrats 2000 is more concerned with giving candidates trained workers like Carey, executive director Kelly Young said. j In Michigan, more than a dozen state House races are targeted. So is the race for a U.S. House seat left vacant by De mocrat Rep. Debbie Stabenow, and her challenge of Republican U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham. Democrats 2000 is recruiting and training 2,000 field directors and vol unteers in eight states. It plans to spend $30,000 in Michigan, with field direc tors in 20 races and volunteers to knock on more than 100,0Q0 doors, Young said. < They will have a record that is a nice contrast with the two years previous, where things weren’t hap pening under Democratic leadership.’ « John Engler < Governor of Michigan by Larry Margasak The Associated Press Washginton—Thousands of marchers failed to stop world finance leaders from meeting Sunday, but paraded through the capital in a show of celebration and anger that provoked one ugly episode — a surg ing crowd met by a stinging cloud of ir ritants fired by police. Festive street theater with giant pup pets coexisted with pushy confrontations between police and protesters agitating about the plight of the poor and “deca dence” of the rich. At one point, police in riot gear and \ °ylIaT6NoANCt i \ vEzte&vs?1 \ \ *-*isSK » ** *S*. I i "U^t Nl196 2000-6Pm-12 \ \ Wednesday/Alp” latt' p.E-CenteT t ' 1 ■ r • 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament • l • Triples Sand Volleyball Tournament • \ • Intramural Floor Hockey Finals • S • Stress-free Carnival Games 9 Caricature Artist9 r • "Bone Up on Calcium" Milk Mustache Contest9 | 9 Easter Egg Hunt 9 Carolina Trivia Contest 9 ? 9 Weight Room Open All Night 9 Spin Art 9 i 9 FOOD 9 DOOR PRIZES - ALL FREE! 9 3 OFFICE OF ■— » ALCOHOL jp t All activities are fi;ee and open to USC students only| Bring your valid student ID! Actual events may change due to funding or programmatic decisions. Thw event is paid for with sHldent activity fees. —AoA_rv,A__IV-A_iv«A_IV_A_/v_ A iv_»