Friday, April 23, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Section A · Page 7
NATO missiles demolish Yugoslav leader's home
The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — President Slobodan Milosevic has accepted the idea of a U.N.-controlled "international presence" in Kosovo, an Russian envoy said yesterday. Hours earlier, NATO struck directly against the Yugoslav leader for the first time, destroying his luxurious mansion.
In a diplomatic bid to end the conflict, former Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin held daylong talks with Milosevic. It was unclear whether the international force discussed would be armed, under what guidelines it would operate or whether the offer represented a real peace gesture.
NATO has insisted it must lead any armed presence in Kosovo to enforce a peace agreement. Milosevic so far has rejected NATO demands to withdraw his troops.
Chernomyrdin said after the talks that he and Milosevic had considered the possibility of an international presence led by the U.N. in which Russia would take part.
President Clinton said in Washington that he did not have details of what was discussed.
"If there is an offer for a genuine security force, that's the first time that Mr. Milosevic has done that," Clinton said.
Washington for a 50-year alliance anniversary summit, NATI's missile strike on Milosevic's mansion delivered a granite message to Rel
As allied leaders gathered in
grade that it
remains
resolved to
crush his
forces if he
doesn't pull
the troops out
of Kosovo and
commit to
peace.
Milosevic: Has refused so far to withdraw troops
Milosevic and his family were not home during the attack on the residence, according to state officials.
As refugees continued to stream out of Kosovo, where hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians remained displaced, NATO JETs rained dozens of missiles on the Pristina area, the provincial capital. The Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug called it the fiercest daytime attack yet.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said in Washington that NATO could not permit a rebirth of fascism in Europe a half-century after the Holocaust.
Missiles also targeted Yugoslavia's second-largest city.
Novi Sad, in a rare daytime attack.
But the most startling strike was the one before 4 a.m. that ripped into the white two-story mansion in Belgrade's Dedinje district where Milosevic sometimes lives.
Yugoslav officials expressed outrage about what they said was an attempt to kill their leader, saying three laser-guided bombs blasted Milosevic's bedroom, living room and dining room.
"NATO committed a criminal act without precedence — an assassination attempt against the president of a sovereign state," said Goran Matic, a government minister.
NATO and other Western officials called the building a presidential command post and legitimate military target.
American officials have insisted they are not trying to kill the Yugoslav leader. U.S. law bans assassination attempts on other countries' leaders but no prohibition exists for hitting buildings that are considered command and control centers.
Last December, several of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's palaces and a house belonging to Saddam's daughter were hit during U.S. and British air attacks.
The NATO attack yesterday signaled a new, more personal phase in its military campaign against Yugoslavia.
Propane bombs show possibility of others' help
The Associated Press
Evidence found at Columbine sparks theories, police say
LITTLETON, Colo. — The two gunmen in the Columbine High massacre were planning to blow up their school and probably had help from others, investigators said yesterday after discovering two powerful bombs in the kitchen that had been built from propane tanks.
"These subjects were not only on a killing rampage, but they were going to destroy the school," Sheriff John Stone said. "They were going to burn the school up."
The discovery of the two 20-pound propane tanks heightened suspicions that the two killers had help from other people, either with building the 32 bombs discovered so far or getting them into the high school.
"It's a feeling from our investigators that the chances are very, very good that we have more than two people involved," sheiff's spokesman Steve Davis said.
CNN reported that a note left by one of the gunmen was a suicide note that indicated the two teenagers acted alone. "This is the way we want to go out," the note said, according to CNN, which cited unidentified sources.
Davis said he had no details on a note that was found at one of the gunnens's homes.
Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, armed with sawed-off shotguns, a semiautomatic rifle, a pistol and homemade bombs stuffed with nails and shotgun shells, killed 12 students and one teacher Tuesday before taking their own lives.
The two bombs found yesterday used propane tanks similar to those on backyard barbecue grills. Nails and BBs had been taped to the tanks to create shrapnel.
"Twenty pounds of propane can create quite an extensive amount of damage." Davis said.
District Attorney Dave Thomas said: "No one saw them carry it into the school, and people did see them enter. So we have to explore how that device got into the school."
Authorities already had been looking into the possibility of additional suspects because of the amount of ammunition and explosives left behind.
Meanwhile, crews used bombsniffing dogs as they carefully picked through thousands of backpacks, briefcases and boxes strewn across the carpets, classrooms and hallways. Investigators are also working to trace the weapons to determine how the teen-agers got them.
Fourteen people remained hospitalized, eight in critical or serious condition.
Despite intermittent, heavy snow
dozens of people left bouquets, stuffed animals, cards and balloons in the school colors of blue and silver at a makeshift memorial in a park near the school. The mementos were piled 2 feet deep by early yesterday.
Columbine will be closed indefinitely. Other schools in the district reopened yesterday amid tight security. Officers and school staff members plan "sweeps" and greater security at entrances and exits, Stone said.
Officials said promis and graduations would go on as scheduled.
Columbine's prom took place earlier this month, and graduation is scheduled for early May, though officials did not say whether that will go on as scheduled. Students will finish out the year at other schools.
The attack inspired an apparent copycat act by teen-agers on Wednesday, although there were no weapons involved. Four teens were charged with trespassing in Colorado Springs after arriving at school in trench coats and masks.
Classmates said that Harris and Klebold were part of an outcast group called the Trenchcoat Mafia and that they wore black and spoke German to each other. They believe the gunmen timed the attack for Adolf Hitler's birthday.
Trench coats like the ones worn by the two gunmen have been banned in Denver and two other Colorado districts since the attack for fear they could be used to hide weapons.
Europe's largest telecommunications firm eyes United States
The Associated Press
LONDON — Having just agreed to form Europe's biggest telecommunications company, Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telekom are making no secret of their next goal — to expand across the Atlantic Ocean.
Europe, Latin America and Asia.
British vision onto fjordyur
The two firms announced a long-anticipated agreement yesterday to merge in an $80 billion deal that ranks as one of the largest corporate unions of all time. They would form a giant phone company with more than 100 million customers in
munications
"The United States will be the next area of expansion," Telecom Italia chief executive Franco Bernabe said at a joint news conference with his Deutsche Telekom counterpart. They did not offer specific targets for their push into the lucrative U.S. market.
Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia to form a pan-European phone company that can compete with giants like AT&T Corp. of the United States and British Telecom-
At the same time, the adoption by 11 European countries of the euro, a common regional currency, has made it easier for the two former national phone monopolies to finally break their old, stay-at-home habits.
"Our operation is very much in line with the integration process of Europe," Deutsche Telekom chief executive Ron Sommer said.
Deutsche Telekom also has a 10 percent stake in Sprint Corp., the No. 3 U.S. long-distance phone company. Sommer sits on Sprint's board
Sommer refused to comment when asked whether Deutsche Telekom was planning a much-rumored takeover of Sprint.
At Sprint's Kansas City, Mo., headquarters, representative Bill White said the company wasn't looking for a merger partner.
"We believe we have the size, scale and scope to compete both in the national and international marketplace," he said, adding, "Of course we have a fiduciary responsibility. If an offer would come in that was
more than we believe we could earn over the long term for our shareholders,we would have to listen to it."
The new company, which has not yet been given a name, would have revenues of $62.8 billion and an operating profit of $13.9 billion, based on 1998 figures. It would rank as the world's second-biggest telecommunications firm in terms of revenues after Japanese telephone giant NTT, which had revenues last year of $69 billion.
The deal, which would give Deutsche Telekom 56 percent of the
new company, was prompted by Telecom Italia's effort to avoid a hostile takeover bid from its smaller Italian rival Olivetti.
The new company would be run out of joint headquarters in Bonn, Germany and Rome, with Bernabe and Sommer working as joint chief executives and chairmen.
Some industry analysts have expressed doubts about the commercial logic of the merger, but Bernabe and Sommer pressed the case for growth. "To get global reach, we need to expand," Bernabe said.
U.S. won't destroy supply of smallpox
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Defying appeals from scores of nations, President Clinton has decided to retain America's stock of the deadly smallpox virus, the White House said yesterday.
Clinton concluded that the virus samples must be maintained to develop new drugs and vaccines to treat or prevent the disease, which was eradicated around the world in 1980 through an inoculation effort.
The United States and Russia are the only two nations with known small-pox stocks, but the administration fears it could have fallen into other hands, raising the threat of bioterrorism. Smallpox is highly contagious and kills about 20 percent of those afflicted.
"No one else is supposed to have it," a senior administration official said. "We don't know who else might have it. But the virus stores very easily in freezers, so it could be elsewhere. We don't know what has happened in the last 20 years ... who might still have the virus and may not be telling anyone that they have it."
"It could reemerge as a terrorist threat," said the official, who insisted on anonymity. "It could re-emerge as an accident from a laboratory that doesn't know it has it. It could start spreading very quickly from that."
The World Health Organization recommended in 1996 that the U.S. and Russian laboratory caches be destroyed in June. The United States and scores of other nations agreed that the stocks should be destroyed. But Clinton ordered that the decision be reviewed.
"Four years ago when this was last considered, the threat of bioterrorism was not nearly as defined," the administration official said.
Announcing Clinton's decision, National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said, "The president has decided to seek a delay in the destruction of declared smallpox stocks."
Russia also is opposed to their destruction
recent months they believe the virus has been distributed to spots in Russia beyond the known laboratories, perhaps in places with less effective security controls.
A study released last month by experts at the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine recommended that the surviving laboratory specimens of smallpox be kept alive as a safety net in case the disease breaks out again.
Bioterrorism experts have said in
The study warned that with much of the world's population no longer protected by inoculation against smallpox, the virus could pose a serious threat. Most Americans below 30 never have had the inoculation, and remaining smallpox vaccination stocks could treat only about 6 million people. Even those supplies are deteriorating.
"The most compelling need for longterm retention ... would be the development of anti-viral agents or novel vaccines to protect against a re-emergence ... due to accident or intentional release," the study said.
Army helicopter crash kills 7 at Kentucky's Fort Campbell
Four others aboard hurt in Black Hawk accident
The Associated Press
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — An Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed early yesterday at Fort Campbell, killing seven people and injuring the other four aboard.
An Army photo of the crash scene showed the helicopter scattered in several large pieces in a wooded area beside a road.
The UH-60L helicopter went down at Fort Campbell about 7 a.m., the Army said. The Black Hawk is the primary helicopter for air assault, air cavalry and medical evacuation units.
One victim died at the Nashville, Tenn., hospital, and two others were in critical condition, according to hospital officials.
The others injured in the crash were being treated at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital on Fort Campbell. The Army did not release their conditions immediately.
Fort Campbell, headquarters for the 101st Air Division, straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee line about 200 miles southwest of Louisville.
In 1996, two Black Hawks collided at Fort Campbell, killing six soldiers. In that crash, the Army said the air crews failed to coordinate well enough, and one did nbt warn the other that it had lost sight of the second chopper.
Three months earlier, a MH-47E Chinook from Fort Campbell crashed in a western Kentucky field, killing five people aboard.
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