Arafat says uprising will continue
by Mark Lavie
Associated Pressj
JERUSALEM — Israel on Thursday
didn’t rule out sending troops into
Palestinian-controlled areas, even as
Yasser Arafat warned that the Palestinian
uprising would press ahead. In renewed
clashes, four Palestinians were killed.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben
Eliezer said Israel might send forces into
Palestinian-controlled territory, a step
it has never taken, to protect Israel’s
security.
Asked about chasing militants into
Palestinian territory, he said, “Everything
for us is kosher.”
In a telephone conference with U.S.
Jewish leaders late Thursday, he said
Israel would send forces “any place we
feel... is endangering us.”
He said he hoped Arafat, the
Palestinian leader, would leam from the
“attacks that we are going to conduct”
that only negotiations can lead to a
solution.
On Thursday, Israeli soldiers shot
and killed two Palestinian rock throwers,
ages 13 and 17, near the Erez crossing
point from northern Gaza into Israel.
Eight other teenagers were wounded.
A Palestinian policeman was
killed in a clash near the isolated Jewish
settlement of Netzarim, south of Gaza
City.
Also, a Palestinian was killed and
another wounded when Israeli forces
opened fire as they tried to enter Gaza
by climbing a border fence that divides
a refugee camp between Gaza and Egypt,
Palestinians said The Israeli military said
it was unaware of the incident.
Returning from a two-day Arab
summit in Jordan, Arafat inspected the
ruins of his Force 17 guard headquarters
in the West Bank city of Ramallah, hit
in a nighttime raid by Israeli helicopter
gunships. Arafat said the Palestinian
uprising will continue despite Israeli
measures.
College Press Exchange
A Palestinian soldier inspects the damage done to President
Yasser Arafat’s Force 17 presidential guard headquarters in the
West Bank. The Israeli air strikes followed a series of bombings in
Israel by Islamic militants.
Palestinian radio stations reverted
to nationalistic songs and-calls for a
popular uprising, a tone that had faded
after the first few weeks of the current
conflict, which began Sept. 28 after Ariel
Sharon, now Israel’s prime minister,
visited a disputed holy site in the Old
City of Jerusalem sacred to Muslims and
Jews and claimed by both sides.
Palestinians were defiant after the
Israeli helicopter assault, the first military
action ordered by Sharon since he
took office March 7.
Arafat said Israeli military measures
wouldn’t bend the will of his people. He
said the uprising will continue “until we
raise the Palestinian flag in every mosque
and church and on the walls of
Jerusalem.”
Ahmed Qureia, speaker of the
Palestinian legislature, charged that Israel
is “waging a war against the Palestinian
people, against its institutions, against
its security forces.”
In Israel, the mood was a mixture
of sorrow, shock and anger after a series
of Palestinian attacks this week in which
a baby and two teenagers died.
Sliaron, who said Arafat is responsible
for the violence, referred to a long-range
campaign to end the bloodshed. Sharon
appealed to his people to show patience.
“Restoring security... cannot be done
overnight or in one day,” he said.
In Hebron, where a 10-month-old
Israeli girl was killed Monday by a
gunshot from a Palestinian-controlled
hill, Jewish settlers clashed Thursday
with Palestinians and cursed their own
soldiers for trying to stop them.
Rejecting Jewish law that requires
quick burial, and rebuffing an appeal
from Sharon, the parents of the dead
baby have reftised to bury her until Israel
recaptures the Abu Sneineh hill, where
the Palestinians live.
■Bush pledges aid
in Mideast conflict
by Ron Fournier
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President
Bush pledged Thursday to help end the
Mideast’s “tragic cycle of incitement,
provocation and violence,” telling the
Palestinians to stop their killing and
uiging restraint from the Israeli military.
But he said he won’t try to force a
settlement.
In an impromptu
news conference
mixing domestic
and foreign policy,
the president also
told Congress it
must not bypass his
massive 10-year
tax cut in a rush to
BUSH short-term
reductions and
promised to reduce the arsenic levels
of U.S. drinking water.
In a 30-minute session shortly before
meeting German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder, Bush pre-empted his visitor
by rejecting calls by Germany and other
allies to back a global warming treaty.
“We will not do anything that harms
our economy,” he said.
It was the new president’s second
full-scale news conference and, like the
first, came with little notice. Advisers
say Bush hopes to avoid formal, prime
time news conferences from the White
House East Room with their
accompanying buildup of expectations.
He seemed to enjoy the session
Thursday, joshing with reporters who
tried to interrupt his answers and
pardoning one whose beeper sounded.
When Bush said Americans might
“misunderestimate” his tax plan, he
corrected himself with a chuckle.
“Excuse me. Underestimate,” he
said. “Just making sure you were paying
attention.”
Bush spoke as fresh clashes and
harsh rhetoric scarred the Middle East.
A defiant Yasser Arafat said the
Palestinian uprising will continue despite
Israel’s warnings, which were delivered
a day earlier with rocket attacks on the
bases of Palestinian forces.
Bush has been urging both sides
to end the violence but his actions have
been subdued, in contrast to former
President Clinton who personally
mediated failed peace talks.
Bush’s remarks Thursday seemed
to signal a more assertive, direct role in
the Middle East, though his outline of
U.S. policy still stressed rhetoric over
personal diplomacy.
He urged Palestinian leaders to speak
out against violence and suggested that
Arafat won’t be invited to the White
House along with other regional leaders
until he does so “in a language that
the Palestinians can understand.”
“The signal I am sending to the
Palestinians is stop the violence,” Bush
said. "I hope tliat Chairman Arafat hears
it loud and clear."
Secretary of State Colin Powell
delivered the same message later
Thursday in a telephone call to
Arafat. Bush said Powell was to contact
other leaders in the region “to urge them
to stand against violence.”
“The government of Israel, for its
part, should exercise restraint in its
military response,” Bush said. He
reiterated U.S. policy urging Israel to
ease economic sanctions against
Palestinians.
Nuclear waste convoy
arrives at German site
by Stephen Graham
Associated Press
GORLEBEN, Germany — Under
heavy police guard, a nuclear waste
shipment reached its final storage site
Thursday after a tumultuous trip across
Germany that ignited protests and
revived the nation’s anti-nuclear
movement.
Dozens were injured and protest
leaders said 1,500 anti-nuclear
demonstrators were detained as the train
struggled from France through northern
Germany to the Gorleben dump. It was
delayed for 18 hours at one point
after demonstrators chained themselves
to the tracks.
More than 8,000 police kept
protesters at bay as trucks hauled the
six containers from a rail depot through
a forest on the final 12-mile stretch of
its journey. The last leg of the trip passed
without major incident.
Preceded by armored vehicles and
water cannons, the convoy apparently
caught exhausted protesters off-guard
by taking a different route from the last
transport in 1997. Helmeted police ran
alongside.
Germany’s anti-nuclear movement,
now well into its second generation of
protesters, nonetheless celebrated the
revival of its campaign to drive up the
costs of nuclear waste transport and
force a quicker closure of German
nuclear plants. The protestors also
vowed to disrupt future shipments.
“We are here, and nobody can
overlook us,” one of the protest leaders,
Vvblfgang Ehmke, told a rally. “This was
not the end; this is just the beginning.”
The train set off Monday from near
a French reprocessing plant for spent
nuclear fuel. Protests were sporadic
along the 375-mile trip through
Germany until the train reached the
Gorleben area, where hundreds of
militants clashed with police for two
nights running.
On Thursday morning, about 200
protesters jeered and shouted in the
freezing rain as the trucks swung into
the fenced-off dump compound. Some
held up a yellow banner reading
“Stop atomic waste transports.”
Police were surprised that the last
stretch went smoothly. “Our forces
were well-rested and did their job well,
but the militants were tired out,” pQlice
spokesman Holger Wmkelmann said.
A tractor blockade and an attempted
sit-down protest by up to 300
. demonstrators in Laase, just short of
Gorleben, were cleared before they
could disrupt the convoy, police said.
Area residents who have fought the
dump for years voiced anger about
the tough police methods, but also drew
strength from the revival of protests
that were dormant since the last
shipment.
Philadelphia police covered up
top cop’s accident, reports say
by Maryclaire Dale
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Earlier this week,
Philadelphia residents woke up to news
reports alleging that in 1998, the city’s
top homicide cop crashed his car
while drunk and his underlings rearranged
the scene to cover up the wreck.
Then on Thursday morning came
word from Police Commissioner John
F. Timoney that the department’s file
on the case had been stolen.
And then later in the day, a police
spokeswoman said the file had been found
and had apparently been rifled through
by someone.
The embarrassing series of
developments has raised new doubts
about the department and Timoney, an
outspoken, independent-minded chief
who worked his way up the New York
City force and came to Philadelphia
three years ago.
“This is criminal conduct we’re
talking about here, and it has to be dealt
with more seriously than he dealt with
it,” said David Rudovsky, a lawyer who
has monitored the Philadelphia police
for the past five years under a federal
court-settlement.
Mayor John Street has also raised
questions.
“When people look and see what
happened... they think there is a double
standard,” he said.
‘Six months ago, I couldn’t do anything
wrong. Now, I can’t do anything right.’
, John F. Timoney
Philadelphia Police Commisioner
In the past year, the Philadelphia
department has been in the national
spotlight over the videotaped beating by
police of a suspected carjacker, the arrests
this past summer of 400 Republican
convention protesters, few of whom
have been convicted; and the melee that
erupted at a recent Mardi Gras
celebration, when drunken revelers
vandalized stores downtown.
“Six months ago, I couldn’t do
anything wrong,” Timoney said to
reporters Tuesday. “Now, I can’t do
anything right.”
The story of Capt. James Brady’s
crash in 1998 was first reported Sunday
in The Philadelphia Inquirer, which said
he wrecked his car and then kept on
driving with the airbag smashed
against his face.
No one was injured.
According to The Inquirer, the
cover-up was orchestrated by Joseph
DiLacqua, who was a lieutenant at the
time and has since been promoted to
captain.
Long before The Inquirerbioke the
story, the Internal Affairs Division
investigated and Timoney doled out 20
day suspensions to DiLacqua and Brady.
DiLacqua has been sanctioned for
misconduct six other times.
Brady and DiLacqua have refused
to comment.
Talk radio callers are debating
whether Brady really did wet his pants,
as the officer who stopped him reported,
or whether a beer in his lap or radiator
fluid had spilled on him.
As for the case file, police Lt. Susan
Slawson said in a statement: “The folder
has resurfaced and is now accounted for.
After examining the case files, we have
discovered that pages are disheveled and
out of place — evidence that the
formerly missing documents had been
photocopied.”
It wasn’t clear from the statement
whether the file had, in fact, been stolen.
Neither Slawson nor Timoney
returned messages Thursday.
Suspect captured in killing of abortion doctor
by Carolyn Thompson
Associated Press
BUFFALO, N.Y. - The man wanted
in the 1998 killing of a Buffalo abortion
doctor, who was cut down by a sniper’s
bullet in his kitchen, was captured in
France on Thursday.
James Kopp, a 46-year-old known
as the “Atomic Dog” in anti-abortion
circles, became one of the FBI’s most
wanted fugitives after the murder of Dr.
Barnett Siepian.
Kopp is also wanted by Canadian
authorities for allegedly wounding an
abortion doctor in 1995.
FBI agent Joel Mercer said Kopp
was arrested outside a post office in the
northwestern French community of
Dinan, where he had gone to pick up a
package from New York containing $300.
He had arrived from Ireland less than
three weeks earlier.
Two people who provided assistance
to Kopp have also been arrested,
according to federal authorities in New
York. They were scheduled to make a
court appearance in New York City later
Thursday.
“I felt greatly relieved btyausc I think
this area cries for justice. And, quite
frankly, I let out a little ‘Whoopee! ’ too,”
said Erie County District Attorney Frank
J. Clark.
One of the federal charges Kopp faces
carries a potential death penalty. He also
faces state charges, including murder.
U.S. Attorney Denise O’Donnell said no
decision has been made on whether Kopp
will be tried first in state or federal court.
Slepian, 52, had just returned from
synagogue and was healing soup in his
suburban Amherst home in October 1998
when he was killed by a rifle shot that
came through a window.
Kopp, who is from St. Albans, Vt.,
became the subject of an international
manhunt a month later.
He had used at least 28 aliases and
been arrested in more than two dozen
places in the United States and Italy for
protesting abortion. He was last seen
Nov. 3,1998, the day before authorities
issued a warrant in the Slepian shooting
in hopes of questioning him.
A month later, Kopp’s car was found
abiindoned at the Newark, N.J., mrport.
Authorities have said it was seen in
Slepian’s neighborhood in the weeks
before the shooting.
4g
Law enforcement sources have also
said Kopp has been linked, through DNA
testing, to a strand of hair found near
where the sniper fired. A scope-equipped
rifle found buried near the Slepian home
provided what authorities called a major
breakthrough.
Kopp had been in Ireland for about
a year, living in hostels and doing clerical
work, FBI agents in Buffalo said. He left
the country March 12 as Irish police
were closing in.
“It was getting a little warm in
Ireland,” said Hardrich Crawford Jr„ the
FBI’s agent in charge.
World Briefs
■ GOP pushes Bush
tax cuts for marriage,
children, inheritors
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tax relief
affecting millions of married couples,
children and people who stand to in
herit wealth is next on the agenda for
House Republicans, who are foiging
ahead with President Bush’s $1.6 tril
lion tax cut plan piece by piece.
The House was scheduled Thurs
day to vote on legislation costing near
ly $400 billion over 10 years that
would cut taxes for virtually all mar
ried couples, including the 25 million
who now pay more than they would if
they were single.
The legislation also would gradual
ly double the $500 child tax credit, in
cluding a $100 increase effective in
2001.
Later Thursday, the House Ways
and Means Committee planned to ap
prove legislation that would eliminate
estate taxes by 2011 while shifting
some of the tax burden to heirs who
sell assets above a certain value.
That bill is headed for a House
floor vote next week.
■ Lawmakers signal
support for ban
on human cloning
WASHINGTON (AP) — Con
cerned that a few researchers might try
to clone a human despite the risks,
lawmakers are planning legislation
outlawing such experiments.
The White House says President
Bush will sign the bill.
Scientists told a congressional pan
el Wednesday that efforts to clone hu
mans are ethically treacherous and
likely to produce deformed babies.
While someone might want to
clone himself, ethicists said, a resulting
baby would have no choice in the mat
ter.
The Food and Drug Administration
said any human cloning experiments in
the United States would need its ap
proval and, based on safety concerns,
the agency wouldn’t approve any ap
plications at this time.
But cloning opponents worry that
federal law might not be strong enough
to back up the FDVs authority, and
some want a ban in place even if safety
concerns are satisfied.
■ Court rules site
targeting abortion
doctors is protected
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—An
anti-abortion Web site that listed the
names and addresses of abortion doc
tors, branding them “baby butchers”
and criminals, is protected by the First
Amendment, a federal appeals court
ruled.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a
$107-million verdict Wednesday
against the activists who had compiled
the information, saying they could be
held liable only if the material autho
rized or directly threatened violence.
The ruling came two years after a
jury in Portland, Ore., ordered a dozen
abortion foes to pay damages to
Planned Parenthood and four doctors.
■ Oil tanker collides
with freight ship
off German coast
BERLIN (AP) — An oil tanker col
lided with a freight ship off northwest
Germany, spilling about 1,900 tons of
oil into the Baltic Sea, authorities said
Thursday.
The overnight crash happened in
international waters about 15 miles
northwest of the German coastal town
ofDarsserOrt.
Television pictures showed a wide
gash ripped into the side of the tanker.
Both the tanker, registered in the
Marshall Islands, and the Cypriot sugar
freighter remained afloat, and the leak
from the tanker — which was carrying
33,000 tons of oil — was stemmed.
The ship wasn’t fully loaded. The
wind was blowing the spilled oil to
ward the Danish coast, said Falk
Meier, the head of the German coast
guard office in Stralsund.