Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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'Che (5am eco ck Governors barnstorm for Bush as Gore campaigns in Texas by Tom Raum Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas —Twenty-eight Republican governors opened a 25-state barnstorming tour on Sunday designed to help put Geoige W. Bush in the White House. Gov. Bush called it “the good beginning of the final sprint.” A1 Gore also campaigned in his rival’s home state as both sides dispatched surrogates to rally support in the homestretch. Some of the exchanges became nasty, as De mocrats waged a coordinated attack on Bush’s competency and Republicans pressed their chal lenge of Gore’s trustworthiness. The race remained tight in some polls, with Bush maintaining an edge in others. He had 44 percent to 42 percent among likely voters in a CBS News-New York Times poll released Sun day. An ABC News tracking poll gave Bush 48 percent to 45 percent for Gore. The latest CNN-USAToday-Gallup survey on Sunday showed Bush 9 points ahead. Even in polls where the race remains close, Bush had a decided advantage in enthusiasm of his supporters, which has increased since the debates. The enthusiasm of Gore’s supporters dropped off, which can affect voter turnout. All but one of the nation’s Republican gov ernors joined Bush here to launch the cross-coun try tour. The governors, traveling in seven teams, will visit 48 cities in 25 states this week. Missing was West Virginia Gov. Cecil Un derwood, who had conflicting campaign events as he wages a d'fficult re-election effort. “Simply put, George, we believe in you,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge at the ceremony. “It’s going to be the good beginning of the fi nal sprint. And I’m glad I’m sprinting with these good folks,” Bush said. The Bush campaign hopes the traveling GOP governors, who encouraged Bush to run and supported him throughout the campaign, can help rally undecided voters and address Democratic statements belittling Bush’s experience as a two term governor of Texas. Groups of both Republicans and Democrats were hitting the road this week to appeal to a dwin dling, but electorally critical band of independent voters. Gore strategists said they’ll cap the campaign with “a relentless focus” on the issues in a series of seven speeches on topics ranging from health care to the environment. “Right up until the last minute of the last day, he’ll be talking about the issues,” said spokesman Chris Lehane, even as aides debated in Nashville whether Gore should intensify his criticisms of Bush. On Saturday, Gore criticized Bush for advo cating a diminished U.S. peacekeeping role in Eu rope, saying it demonstrated a “lack of judgment and a complete misunderstanding of history. ” The vice president held back on Sunday, however, from any personal criticism of his rival. At Potter’s House Ministries in Dallas, Gore shared the stage with Coretta Scott King and de livered a scripture-packed speech focusing on his agenda for families. “An aburdance of prosperity in the spirit can not be measured in dollars and cents,” Gore said. He said he was underscoring “something more basic than all our budget debates.” Democrats intensified efforts on the Sunday talk shows to challenge Bush’s competency. The Republican held a 20-point lead over Gore in the CBS News-New York Times poll among those who put a candidate’s personal qualities ahead of where they stand on issues. “My white, male friends tell me he is a good old boy just like me. But I want a good president,” Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” When Americans look at Bush, they see “a person who’s unsure of himself, and therefore a person who is unacceptable to become president of the United States,” Sen. John Breaux, D-La., told “Fox News Sunday.” The harsh words went both ways. GOP activist Bill Bennett said he believed Gore to be a “habitual liar.... It’s not easy to say, but the record says it,” the former education sec retary and author of a best-selling book on ethics told NBC’s “Meet the Press. ” On the same show, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a one-time Democratic presidential contender, dismissed Bennett as a “Re publican hit man” and issued a warning to both parties. “It does not serve any of us well for us to be calling these men liars because one of these men will be our next president,” Jackson said. Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, asked how much Clinton would cam paign for Gore, said the president can “play very much a supporting role” in key places and try to motivate core Democratic voters. - “But it’s the vice president and his voice that’s going to convince voters to take the course he’s laid out....” he said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” Gore is striving to be seen as his own man, but Clinton has indicated a willingness to campaign, and some top Democrats want him to have more of a role. In Austin, New York Gov. George Pataki said he and the other governors hoped to try to respond to Democratic criticism of Bush’s capacity togov em.“To me it’s just sad, that instead of being abie to unite and inspire, all the Gore campaign is left with is to try to frighten and divide,” Pataki said in an interview. Mike Glover contributed to this repon Russian, Norwegian divers seek to enter sunken sub by Ivan Sekretarev Associated Press MURMANSK, Russia — With the seas around them increasingly rough, Russian and Norwegian divers Sun day pierced the inner hull of the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine in a labori ous, precarious bid to recover the bod ies of 118 sailors inside. Winds above the Arctic site mount ed throughout the day and were ex pected to pick up overnight, threaten ing to curtail the operation. Working nonstop in teams since Friday, the divers carved into the outer hull Saturday, the first step in the planned recovery operation. The divers hope to cut seven holes through both hulls of the submarine to retrieve bod ies or body parts from their tomb in the Barents Sea. After some struggle overnight, the divers sliced through the sturdy rub ber layer between the hulls, said Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky, chief spokesman for the Russian Navy’s northern fleet. Later Sunday, they cut a four-inch hole in the steel of the inner hull lead ing to compartment No. 8 in the rear of the submarine, Navrotsky said. Throughout the day, they gradually en larged the hole a few millimeters at a time. Russian navy spokesman Vadim Ser ga said cutting into the two-inch inner hull could be completed by Tuesday. The divers also were dismantling and removing pipes, wires and other equipment in the six-foot space be tween the hulls that could tear diving suits. The operation was focused outside the submarine’s rear end, less damaged than the front, which suffered explo sions and hit the sea floor first in the Aug. 12 accident. Top Russian military officials have warned that safety concerns, including fears about the Kursk’s two nuclear re actors and threats to divers front jagged metal debris inside the wreck, might force the Navy to call off the complex underwater work 330 feet below the surface. Radiation levels at the site, moni tored by Norwegian experts, were reported normal Sunday. Navrotsky said the weather was steadily getting worse, but the divers would continue working unless the winds reached light gale force. Russian officials have not deter mined what caused the accident that destroyed the Kursk during naval ex ercises in which all 118 seamen on board died. Possible causes include an internal malfunction or a collision with a Western submarine or World War 11-era mine. Possible corn mix-up leads to plant shutdown I Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Kellogg Co., the maker of Frosted Flakes and Special K cereals and other products, has shut down a plant because it couldn’t guar antee com used in production would be free of a genetically modified grain ap proved only for animal consumption, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Two food industry sources familiar with the situation told the Post the food giant, based in Battle Creek, Mich., had stopped production at the plant at midweek, and one said it remains closed. The location of the plant was not spec ified. Kellogg officials would not confirm the shutdown. Spokeswoman Chris Ervin told the Post the company “doesn’t dis cuss production schedules for compet itive reasons.” Big grain suppliers are unable to cer tify that their com is not mixed with the gene-altered com linked to a nationwide recall of taco shells. Called StarLink, the com apparently was mixed with non engineered com in multiple sites around the country, in violation of federal reg ulations. The com was not approved for hu- < man consumption because of ques tions about its potential to cause aller- 1 gic reactions. Federal officials describe < the health risk as remote; Starlink is ap- i proved only for animal food or indus- i trial uses. I Aventis CropScience, which makes the com, is trying to recover 9 million 1 bushels cf the grain that may be headed 1 to food companies. j The Food and Drug Administration < is testing a variety of other corn prod- 1 ucts. Officials said StarLink has been found only in taco shells so far. i Kraft Foods issued a nationwide re- I call Sept. 22 of taco shells it sells under I the Taco Bell brand name after similar I tests confirmed the presence of the com. < Safeway Inc. removed taco shells from 1 its stores Oct. 11 after learning of test results showing they may contain the 1 biotech com. i Subsequently, Texas-based Mission ( Foods Co. voluntarily recalled all its tor- 1 tillas, taco shells and snack chips made l with yellow corn. A sister company, < Azteca Milling, announced it was re- s calling all its flour made from yellow i :om. Government officials said the Star Jnk problems have begun to prevent exporters from fulfilling contracts with iverseas companies, which often de nand that products be free of engineered oods. The White House has been in regu ar contact with officials from the four ederal agencies involved in overseeing ;enetically engineered food. Their lat sst conference call was Thursday, the ’ost said. An array of issues were addressed, ncluding if the substance is traceable, he food supply infiltration and the po ential impact on exports. The adminis ration is hoping for a meeting Mon lay so agency officials can brief European Jnion officials. One possible solution is to approve or human consumption the StarLink iow in the food chain if it falls below a ertain level. Because an application for luman consumption was being reviewed iy regulators when the problems began, ifficials said any new scientific data pre ented to support claims that the com s safe for people might be reviewed now. USS Cole from page 4 mooring operation was completed just minutes before. This last point is of particular sig nificance to investigators because it would seem to undercut the theory previously advanced by Navy officials that the small boat seen sidling up to the Cole at the time of the explosion used the mooring operation as a means of masking its at tack. Navy officials had said the attacking boat did not raise suspicions because it appeared to be part of the mooring op eration, in which small harbor boats take the ship’s lines to secure it to the float • ingdock. The Navy has said the Cole and its crew were at the second-highest level of alert observed in the Fifth Fleet, of which the Cole was a part at that time. Crew members would have been assigned to watch through binoculars for boats ap proaching the Cole, and others keeping watch would have been armed with weapons. Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, said the revised timeline was established this week by using more precise information from the Cole’s records, information collected in response to an inquiry by the Navy Times news paper, a nongovernment publication. The Navy Times said an unidentified source associated with the port of Aden told it the Navy’s original timeline was incorrect. On the day of the attack, Adm. Vent Clark, the chief of naval operations, told a Pentagon news conference the ex plosion happened at 12:15 p.m. local time, that the Cole had just finished being tied up at the fuel dock mid that the refueling had not yet begun. He also said this in formation was based on initial reports from the scene and that he couldn’t be sure it was ”100 percent accurate.” Pentagon and State Department of ficials canceled planned appearances Fri day before a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The committee heard Thursday from retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, who said he made the decision to refuel at Aden, largely because there was no good alternative. The administration told the com mittee Friday it needed more time to pre pare for the hearing, said committee chair man Sen. John Warner, R-Va. Asked if Aden should have been used for refueling Navy ships, Winter said, “I don’t think any of us has had sufficient facts to reach any conclusions.” 4 killed, 43 injured in attacks on Islamic militants in Pakistan by Zahid Hussain Associated Press KARACHI, Pakistan —An explosion ripped through a rally of Islamic militants in southern Karachi on Sunday, killing three people and injuring 30, some of them critically, police and hospital offi cials said. Several hours after the attack on the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba rally, unidentified gunmen opened fire on another group of militant Muslims, killing one person and injuring 13 others, police said. In the first attack, a grenade was fired with a launcher from outside the rally site, which was surrounded by tight se curity, said Yahya Mujahed, a spokesman for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a hardline Islam ic group. It hit a stage where the group’s leadership was scheduled to sit. But members of a bomb .unit at the site said they were investigating the pos sibility that it was a homemade bomb. Mujahed said the casualty figure could have been much higher, but most of the rally participants had left the area to say their prayers. Devout Muslims pray five times a day. In the second attack, members of the militant Sunni Muslim group, Sipah-e Sahaba or Guardians of the Friends of the Prophet, were traveling in an open truck when gunmen roared up alongside their vehicle and opened fire. No one has taken responsibility for either attack, but Lashkar-e-Tayyaba officials blamed neighboring India. India gave no immediate response to the ac cusation. No arrests in the incidents have been made. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, which is holding a two-day convention in Karachi, is one of the main Islamic guerrilla groups fight ing Indian soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region. India accuses Pakistan of fomenting violence on its Kashmir territory, a charge denied by Islamabad, which says it mere ly provides guerrillas with political and moral support. Arafat from page 4 “One would have to be blind to se curity and political needs to continue as if nothing has changed,” he said. A statement issued by Barak’s office didn’t say how long the “time-out” would last. Israeli negotiators would refuse to meet with their Palestinian counterparts until the time-out was lifted. Arafat, speaking after returning Sun day from a two-day Arab summit in Cairo, said the Palestinian state would come with or without the peace process, or Barak’s approval. “My response (to the time-out) is, our people are continuing their road to Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state,” he said. Whether Barak accepts that or not, Arafat said, “Let him go to hell.” The rising intensity of the rhetoric came despite efforts by Egypt and the United States to salvage the peace process. Both countries convened the sum mit last week at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh that ended with a cease fire declaration. The Americans said they would continue to work toward bringing the sides together. President Clinton was trying to reach Barak, said a White House spokesman traveling with him in New York. Clin-. ton is still focused on getting the parties to stick to the Sharm el-Sheikh agree ment “to get us pa$t the immediate vi olence,” spokesman Elliot Diringer said. Egypt, meanwhile, headed off an Arab summit declaration that would mandate breaking off ties with Israel, effectively declaring the peace process dead. Arab nations “hold Israel responsi ble for any steps taken in regard to rela tions with Israel by Arab countries, in cluding their cancellation,” said the final declaration of the Cairo summit. That fell short of efforts by radicals for a clear-cut call for ending ties with Israel and left intact Egypt’s moderat ing role in the region. Barak thanked the Egyptians for mod erating the summit but rejected the over all tone of the gathering. “Israel rejects, truly categorically, the language of threats which emanated from the summit and condemns the call, implicit in the resolutions, for continu ation of the violence,” he told reporters. Barak has indicated that if the peace process fails, he would take unilateral steps to separate Israelis from the Palestinians by building a border between Israeli-held portions of the West Bank and those areas controlled by Palestini ans. The Palestinians say that shows bad will.. “We got his message and, in spite of the balanced, peaceful method of the Arab summit, he sent a message of war — unilateral solutions,” said Arafat’s in formation minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo. The United States, Israel’s main backer, warned against unilateral acts. “Israelis and Palestinians are bound, condemned, to live together, side by side,” said U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk. Israeli officials said any peace break down was Arafat’s fault for not adhering to the latest cease-fire. “We returned home; the violence only increased,” Gilead Sher, Barak’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press. “We found ourselves faced with a Palestinian Authority that does not want, or is not able, or both, to take control of the mob.” Barak accelerated efforts to bring the hard-line opposition leader Ariel Sharon into his teetering government before par liament reconvenes next week, an al liance that would likely chill for months efforts at reviving the peace process. It was Sharon’s Sept. 28 visit to a Jerusalem shrine holy to Muslims and Jews that sparked the violence. Albright from page 4 of a national missile defense, partly out of concern that North Korea may one day direct ICBM’s at American cities. North Korea has for years ignored American efforts to stop exporting mis siles, and the possibility that the Pyongyang regime may now be listening to these concerns lias generated excitement among arms control advocates. “North Korea may be the most his toric and important trip of (Albright’s) tenure,” says Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In Clinton’s quest for a foreign pol icy legacy worthy of the history books, his initiative with North Korea seems more promising than any other, a turn of events few would have predicted six years ago when the two counties seemed close to war. Clinton has shown patience and dili gence in seeking an accommodation with North Korea. His initiative has prospered, at least for the time being, because of a surprise willingness of Kim to recipro cate. Kim, perhaps motivated by economic catastrophe, has scrapped North Korea’s policy of reclusiveness and has been reach ing out not only to the United States but to other countries, most notably South Korea. In the process, Kim has shed what has become his stereotypical image. Don Oberdorfer, a Korea expert at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, said Kim was depicted in intelligence re ports as an awful man who was “intro verted and strange.” But he showed himself to be “very confident and very poised” when in June he had his historic encounter with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Joel Wit, a former State Department official who has visited North Korea 14 times, agreed that Kim has not lived up to his reputation as being “a little bit crazy.” Still, conservative groups are con » cemed that Clinton may be taken in by the newly amiable North Korean leader. The Center for Security Policy cites a classified Pentagon report leaked last month asserting that there is no evidence that North Korea is changing fundamen tally and that there has been no reduc tion in North Korea’s military. After two days of discussion in Py ongyang, Albright will fly across the De militarized Zone to Seoul to report on her talks to senior officials from Japan and South Korea, both of which contin ue to be nervous about North Korea’s military. As a deterrent, the United States maintains 37,000 troops in South Korea. Just two weeks ago, Kim dispatched to Washington his right hand man, Vice Marshall Jo Myong Rok. The visit pro duced a communique in which the two sides pledged “to take steps to funda mentally improve their bilateral relations in the interests of enhancing peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.” The two countries do not have diplo matic relations, but have discussed the possibility of opening liaison offices in each other’s capital.