The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, December 04, 2000, Page 5, Image 5
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Leader of Zaptistas ready to leave jungle to seek peace
by Will Weissert
Associated Press
LA REALIOAD, Mexico — The first time he
burst from the jungle it was to start a war that
shook Mexico to its core and vaulted Indian rights
to the top of the national agenda.
Now Subcomandante Marcos says he’s ready
to leave the Chiapas wilderness again in search of
an agreement that could lock those rights into
Mexico’s constitution.
Responding to offers from new President Vi
cente Fox, the ski-masked leader of the Zap
atista guerrillas announced he will travel to Mex
ico City in February to lobby for an Indian rights
bill Fox promises to introduce on Tuesday.
“We will go, and we will see what happens,”
Marcos told a news conference Saturday in this
jungle hamlet that serves as a sort of rebel capi
tal.
After Fox ordered government troops to pull
back from roadblocks, the road to La Realidad
showed only skeletons of army posts erected since
the revolt: abandoned encampments of cinderblock
and sandbags and wooden roadblocks that had been
pushed to the side of winding dirt highways.
But if the peace moves were a quick triumph
for Fox on his first full day as president Saturday,
profound complications remain.
The Zapatistas say they want further military
pullbacks before talks can resume. Fox doesn’t
have the power of earlier presidents to force a bill
through the now-divided Congress. And the rights
bill is one of only several issues on the road to
peace.
The Zapatista National Liberation Army
emeigedfromthejungleonJan. 1,1994. The over
whelmingly Indian rebel force briefly captured
six Chiapas towns.
A cease-fire took hold only 12 days later af
ter more than 145 deaths.
But with peace talks stalled, low-level vio
I
lence and instability have festered in Chiapas, with
repeated clashes between pro- an<j anti-rebel fac
tions.
The rebel demands mixed socialist econom
ics with more passionate calls for democracy, de
velopment and respect for Mexico’s long-op
pressed Indians.
The only major peace agreement came in Feb
ruary 1996, when officials agreed to more au
tonomy for Indians nationwide. It was meant to ,
be only one step toward a final accord.
Congressmen drew up a bill to enact the ac
cord. The Zapatistas quickly agreed. But Presi
dent Ernesto Zedillo balked, saying it would ere
ate legal conflicts and endanger Mexico’s sover
eignty over its land and resources.
The president’s counterproposal was reject
ed by the Zapatistas.
Fox’s July 2 election, which ended 71 years
of single-party rule, seemed to answer the rebel
demand for greater democracy in Mexico. Zedil
lo’s party also lost Chiapas’ governorship in Au
gust elections.
While campaigning, Fox quipped that he would
like to sit down with Marcos and end the Chiapas
revolt “in 15 minutes.”
Astronauts install solar wings
on international space station
by Marcia Dunn
Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
Two astronauts floated out of space shut
tle Endeavour on Sunday to install the
world’s largest, most powerful set of so
lar wings on the international space sta
tion.
It was a task as monumental as the
wings themselves: The future of space
statioi^construction hinged on the as
tronauts’ ability to pull off the job and
thus provide much needed power to the
newly inhabited outpost.
Spacewalkers Joe Tanner and Car
los'Noriega, who trained for more
than three years for die flight, were need
ed to guide the $600 million solar wings
onto space station Alpha and bolt them
down.
Canadian astronaut Marc Gameau,
working from inside Endeavour, moved
the folded wings 3 feet above the at
tachment spot with the use of the shut
tle robot ami. Then he waited for the
spacewalkers to position themselves on
either side of that spot, so they could
give him directions for closing the final
distance. With no direct view himself,
Gameau needed their eyes. He also need
ed their hands to drive the capture latch
es.
Before the wings could be unfurled
to their full 240 feet and begin gener
ating electricity, Tanner and Noriega had
to release all the bolts and pins that were
used to secure the payload for Thurs
day’s launch aboard Endeavour.
The blue- and gold-colored wings,
made of silicone cells and thin Kapton
layers, were folded like an accordion for
liftoff. They were to be commanded
to open, one by one, with a few com
puter keystrokes by shuttle comman
der Brent Jett Jr.
Each wing was expected to take 13
minutes to spread.
Alpha’s wings will be the largest
structure ever deployed in space, and
will cover half an acre. The bigger the
wings, the more sunlight that can be col
lected for conversion into electricity.
Each wing is 38 feet wide and cov
ered with 32,800 solar cells, and has
power-storing batteries and radiators at
the base. The combined wingspan —
240 feet — exceeds that of a Boeing
777 jetliner.
NASA expects the solar panels to
generate 65 kilowatts at peak power,
four times what currently is produced
by the small Russian-built solar wings
already on the space station. Without
this extra electricity, the space agency
could not launch its Destiny science lab
in January — or any other power-hun
gry pieces.
Alpha commander Bill Shepherd
and his two Russian crewmates were
mere observers to all the action 235
miles above Earth. The hatches between
the docked spacecraft remained sealed
because of the difference in cabin air
pressure.
Two more spacewalks are planned
this week by Tanner and Noriega, on
Tuesday and Thursday, to finish wiring
up the solar wings and to install other
equipment on the space station. If all
goes well, the two crews will get to meet
Friday.
Sunday’s spacewalk featured some
thing new: helmets equipped with small
cameras to provide five views of what
the astronauts were seeing. They were
dubbed “Joe-cam” and “Carlos-cam.”
“We promise to make all of our
movements nice and slow and steady so
nobody gets sick looking at the pictures,”
Tanner said before the flight.
Sierra Leone crowds praise Annan,
plead for protection from rebels
by Clarence Roy
Macaulay
Associted Press
PORT LOKO, Sierra Leone —
Sixteen times in the past six months, this
fishing and fanning town has been at
tacked by a brutal rebel army that razed
houses, raped women and kidnapped
children.
On Sunday, crowds of Port Loko
residents implored U.N. Secretary-Gen
eral Kofi Annan to “deliver us from this
bondage of war.” Local leaders crowned
him honorary successor to a legendary
19th century freedom fighter who de
fied British colonial rule.
Annan, on the second and last day
of a visit to this West African nation,
promised that “the U.N. will stick by
Sierra Leoneans in these difficult times. ”
Thousands of cheering adults and
children in school uniforms greeted An
nan, waving white handkerchiefs and
singing in the Krio language. The crowds
thronged around Annan and his wife,
asking for assurances that die U.N. peace
keeping force in Sierra Leone plans to
stay.
Since the Revolutionary United
Front rebels launched Sierra Leone’s
civil war in 1991, the renegades have
systematically murdered and maimed
tens of thousands of defenseless civil
ians in a terror campaign to increase dieir
influence. The RUF’s signature atroci
ty is cutting off the hands, legs and lips
of women, children and the elderly.
The U.N. chief flew by helicopter
to Port Loko, a town on the edge of gov
ernment-held territory some 45 miles
northeast of die capital, Freetown. Niger
ian U.N. peacekeepers are the main de
terrent preventing yet another attack by
rebels on the town, and the roads re
main unsafe.
At a ceremony in a military tent,
local traditional leaders paid tribute to
Annan’s U.N. peace efforts by pro
claiming him “honorary paramount chief
Bai Bureh Kabelai H” after Sierra Leone’s
beloved warrior who fought British im
perial rule in the late 1800’s.
Kabelai was eventually captured and
sent to prison in Gold Coast, now Ghana,
where he died.
Annan met with a few of the 20,000
refugees living in makeshift tents made
front plastic sheeting and sticks in a camp
at the edge of town. Many of them
had been driven from villages by the
rebels and some told stories of rebels
pillaging their homes, capturing young
girls as sex slaves and boys as porters.
On Saturday, Annan renewed the
world body’s commitment to the U.N.
peacekeeping force, which has been
plagued by organizational troubles and
has failed to stem rebel attacks against
civilians.
Consumer groups want government
to hold hearings ‘lemon laundering’
BY NEDR A PlCKLER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The trouble be
gan soon after Vicki and Joe Parisi bought
their used car in 1994. The radio would
go out. The power windows stopped
working. The gas gauge incorrectly read
empty.
Soon, the 1993 sedan needed a brake
job, transmission repairs and major front
end work. Then came the last straw: The
car died while the Parisis traveled in the
fast lane of a busy Ohio freeway.
When the Uniontown, Ohio, cou
ple investigated, they discovered the car
was a lemon that the manufacturer
had bought back from an owner who
had similar problems in New Jersey, a
state that required the veiiicle’s title be
stamped as a lemon.
The automaker did repair work and
shipped it to Ohio, which at the time
did not require title stamping but does
now. The dealership got a new title in
its name, effectively erasing the lemon
stamp.
Consumer advocates say this “lemon
laundering” is widespread, a claim the
auto industry denies, and want the Fed1
eral Trade Commission to require au
tomakers to tell consumers about their
duds.
‘If you are going to put your family in this car and
travel at 70 mph down the road, you want to know if
there is a history of problems.'
Rosemary Shahan
Founder of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety
“If you are going to put your fam
ily in this car and travel at 70 mph down
the road, you want to know if there is a
history of problems,” said Rosemary
Shahan, founder of Consumers for Au
to Reliability and Safety, a Sacramento,
Calif.-based group working to im
prove lemon laws.
The FTC will wait to review the
proposal before commenting, agency
spokesman Mitch Katz said. “It’s pos
sible that this could be in our jurisdic
tion, but you are talking about a major
resource investment,” Katz said.
The FTC held hearings on lemons
four years ago at the request of the con
sumer groups, but has not taken any ac
tion.
No one knows how many repur
chases all the manufactures make, in
part because different state laws make
it hard to track buybacks. States have
different definitions for a lemon, require
varying levels of disclosure when the
vehicle is resold, and offer different ways
for consumers to seek compensation.
In the Parisis’ case, they success
fully sued the automaker and the deal
er, which has since gone out of business,
after they refused to take the car back.
Some private companies, for a fee,
will search a vehicle’s history, but their
data can be incomplete because of the
differing state requirements.
Phil Nowicki, a consultant on lemon
laws who used to head Florida’s Lemon
Law Arbitration Program, estimates that
about 75,000 of the roughly 45 mil
lion used vehicles sold every year in the
United States have been repurchased by
the manufacturer under a lemon law de
cision or settlement. He believes few
consumers are aware they have
bought a repurchase vehicle.
“I’d say compared to two or three
years ago, the industry has improved to
some degree,” Nowicki said.
Congress
from page 4
his presidency nears its end, even some
Democrats say privately that he would
have little taste to spend his final White
House days fighting such an effort by Re
publicans.
But others say returning lawmakers
of both parties will be weary of the
budget battle and eager to finish it so they
can focus on next year.
Bipartisan baigainers agreed last month
to a record $7.9 billion increase in edu
cation spending—20 percent above last
year — that was later rejected by
House GOP leaders.
Clinton used his radio address Satur
day to demand that Congress make pass
ing the education budget its top priority
in the lame-duck session. Haste'rt’s
spokesman renewed GOP objections over
control of the money. “Republicans want
more education dollars to go to the class
rooms, not to Washington bureaucrats,”
John Feehery said.
Still, there were signs of possible
progress.
White House spokesman Jake Siew
ert said administration officials “recog
nize we may have to set aside some of
the more difficult disputes we were hav
ing” before Congress recessed.
Many officials saw that as a hint the
White House might drop its demand for
liberalizing immigration laws in exchange
for Republicans ending their drive to block
the workplace safety rules.
In addition, some Republicans talked
about offering a 1 percent across-the
board cut in the $ 114 billion portion of
the education-labor bill that covers pro
grams Congress must approve every year.
The rest of the $350 billion measure cov
ers automatically paid benefits like Med
icaid.
Democrats were certain to consider
that 1 percent reduction too high. Still,
its mention by Republicans under
scored that they were willing to trim the
measure by a relatively small amount that
would still allow record spending increases
for hiring teachers, Pell grants for low
income college students, after-school cen
ters and other programs.
Among the other matters awaiting
Congress:
—$30 billion in higher Medicare re
imbursements for health care providers
that Clinton wants changed because he
says it is too generous to health-mainte
nance organizations.
—Presidential transition. A House
subcommittee scheduled a hearing Mon
day on the government’s-refusal to re
lease transition funds to Bush.
Iraq oil
from page 4
to maintain stability in world markets.
“We do not interfere in Iraq’s poli
cy,” he told the Kuwait News Agency.
“But... we are concerned about this is
sue.”
He did not say if Kuwait was pre
pared to increase its oil output, which is
currently at around 2.14 million barrels
a day. But Oil Minister Sheik Saud Nass
er A1 Sabah was quoted in the AI-Rai Al
Amm daily Sunday saying there was no
need for a hike since the oil market “is
currently saturated.”
Rashid defended Iraq’s price propos
als, saying they are fair and in the inter
est of the Iraqi people. He blamed the
United States for the oil stoppage and said
U.N. overseers “are under political pres
sure.”
The sanctions committee has said oil
companies under new contracts can con
tinue loading Iraqi crude onto tankers,
but cannot pay for it until Iraq proposes
December prices that are in line with fair
market value.
Rashid also said Iraq will consider ex
tending the oil-for-food program for an
other phase once a resolution is issued at
the U.N. Security Council, but called the
deal a “failure” for not fulfilling its pur
pose.
“We have exported more than $38
billion. Only $8.5 billion worth of con
tracts have arrived,” he said. “About $3.5
billion worth of contracts are on hold
while there is $14-$ 15 billion frozen in
banks.”
Venezuela
from page 4
lan Workers Confederation vowed civil
disobedience if the government tries to
oust leaders from their offices.
Chavez insists Venezuela’s opposi
tion-affiliated union leaders belong to a
corrupt oligarchy he has vowed to dis
mantle. Over the years, many union lead
ers amassed personal fortunes wliile bank
rupting a workers’ bank created to safe
guard union members’ savings.
“What’s more democratic than a ref
erendum? When have workers here ever
been consulted about their destiny?”
Chavez said, after depositing his ballot in
a voting center near the presidential man
sion in Caracas.
A fiery nationalist and former army
paratrooper who led a failed military coup
in 1992, Chavez has stacked Congress,
the Supreme Court and most state gov
ernments with his allies through a series
of democratic elections and referendums.
His victories have left in shambles the
two traditional parties that shared pow
er in Venezuela for 40 years.
But unions remain under opposition
control, hi October, Nfenezuela’s oil unions
went on strike and paralyzed the state oil
industry for four days, forcing a reluctant
Chavez to give in to nearly all their de
mands for bigger wages.
Despite income from booming oil
prices, Chavez has yet to deliver on
promises to pay workers hundreds of mil
lions of dollars in back pay and benefits
owed by the government.
Friday, December 8,2000 • 6 pm -12 midnight
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