Section B · Page 10
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, November 15, 2000
Nation/World
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole at 864-4810 or e-mail editor@kansan.com
Bush still has lead after manual count; lawsuits waging on
The Associated Press
One week into America's election limbo, Florida counties officially reported their presidential votes after a Tuesday deadline was upheld by a state judge, even as thousands of disputed ballots were counted by hand into the night. Democrats rejected George W. Bush's potential compromise to cease the ballot-by-ballot fight for the White House.
"When is it going to end?" asked Bush aide James A. Baker III. There was no answer in sight.
With lawyers and judges front and center in the presidential election, nerves began to fray and adjectives failed to serve.
"When is it going to end?"
"It's like the seventh day of being held hostage," stammered Jeb Bush, governor of Florida and
James A. Baker III
aide to Republican candidate George W. Bush
harried brother of the GOP presidential hopeful. The latest margin for Bush was 286 votes, according to an informal AP tally.
Judge Terry Lewis ruled that counties could file new vote totals after the state's 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline to certify ballots. He gave Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush supporter, authority to reject or approve them using "the proper exercise and discretion."
it was a setback for the vice president, who wanted a clear order lifting the Tuesday deadline, but his lawyers found solace in ruling language urging Harris to consider "all appropriate facts and circumstances."
Gore decided to hold off an appeal and press forward with recounts in four Democratic-leaving counties. He hopes Harris will approve the hand-counted ballots and is prepared to appeal if she does not.
"If the secretary of state arbitrarily refuses to accept the amended returns based on the recount and violates what this court has ruled ... which is to accept those results unless she has good reason not to, then we will be back in court," said a new member of Gore's massive legal team, David Boles.
The race tumbled to the courts after a statewide machine recount trimmed Bush's lead from 1,784 votes to 388, prompting Gore to push for painstaking manual recounts and Bush to fight them in courts of law and public opinion.
Shoving matches and shouting fits punctuated the action inside and outside Florida's courtrooms. Jeb Bush said things were getting "nerveracking" throughout his state.
"Ican't even walk around outside now," he said at a town hall meeting 60 miles northwest of Tallahassee.
With the razor-thin lead in ballots counted so far, Baker said presidential candidate Bush would accept the results of manual recounts collected by close of business Tuesday and the overseas absentee ballots due in Friday. Both sides would also drop their dueling lawsuits, Baker said.
Fed not expected to increase interest rates
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve will almost certainly remain on the sidelines today in its battle against inflation, given the jitters on Wall Street about the unresolved presidential election, analysts said.
Some economists did not rule out the possibility that the central bank could be forced down the road to start cutting interest rates if the election uncertainty escalates into bigger problems.
The longer this election stays unsettled, the more likely we are to get volatile financial markets, including a weaker dollar," said David Jones, chief economist at Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., a New York bond firm.
Jones said if the U.S. currency starts falling it could trigger a rush for the exits by foreign investors, pushing U.S. stocks and bond prices down sharply.
In that event, he said, the central bank would feel compelled to ride to the rescue, as
it did in the fall of 1998 during the height of the global financial crisis, with interest rate cuts to calm market concerns.
Unless there are some dramatic developments in financial markets, Jones and other analysts said they expected Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues to leave interest rates unchanged until next spring.
"Barring any dramatic financial market seizure, the Fed will be on hold for another six months," said Richard Yamarone, an economist at Argus Research Corp.
These analysts believe, based on statements from various Fed policy-makers, that the central bank thinks it is close to achieving its hoped-for soft landing, in which the sizzling economy slows to a more sustainable pace that will keep inflation under control.
Wall Street, which hates uncertainty, has been unsettled by the election stalemate, which has come on top of a string of weaker-than-expected earnings reports by a number
ON THE NET
Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov
of major corporations.
U. S. companies are having trouble making their sales goals as overall economic growth slows under the weight of previous interest rate hikes by the Fed.
The government offered more evidence of a slowdown yesterday with a report showing that retail sales rose by just 0.1 percent in October as overall activity was held back by a big drop in auto sales.
A minority of economists believe the Fed may have overdone its rate increases, raising the prospect of not a soft landing but an outright recession next year. These analysts are concerned that the big jump in energy prices will make inflation worse while the sell-off in the stock market will trigger a sharp cutback in consumer spending.
Kenyans may have contracted Ebola
The Associated Press
KAMALPA, Uganda — Health officials trying to contain an outbreak of Ebola said yesterday that a group of people from neighboring Kenya may have come into contact with the deadly virus at funerals in Uganda.
The seven Kenyans were among 150 people Ugandan authorities believe may have come into contact with Ebola at funerals for three victims of the disease in central Uganda, said Dr. Samuel Okware, head of Uganda's task force on Ebola.
Health officials are trying to track the outbreak, which has killed 110 people in Uganda since it was first identified in mid-October.
The Kenyan Health Ministry said it was notified Monday about the seven, and that they had been traced and quarantined in their homes. They have shown no signs of Ebola, but will be monitored for 42 days before they are declared free of infection, the ministry said in a statement yesterday.
The statement also said that more than 20,000 people crossing the Kenyan-Ugandan border had been screened since the Ebola outbreak was discovered, and no cases of the virus had been found.
Experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders as well as health ministry officials were investigating whether the disease had spread to other points.
The fever caused by the Ebola virus is transmitted through body fluids. The disease can cause severe hemorrhagic fever and is often fatal.
Health Ministry officials said Monday that 323 cases of Ebola have been recorded and that 191 people have recovered.
There is no cure for Ebola, but patients aggressively treated with reverse dehydration have a good chance of survival.
Violence breaks out in Egypt
The Associated Press
EL-AMAR, Egypt — Police fired live ammunition and pummeled opposition supporters with batons and tear gas in clashes yesterday that left five people dead and 40 injured during the final round of parliamentary voting.
In the Nile Delta village of El-Amar, 20 miles north of Cairo, fighting erupted when supporters of an independent candidate broke down the doors of polling stations after they were not allowed to enter to vote, according to residents and police speaking on condition of anonymity. Four people were killed and five injured there.
Hundreds of voters in Shubra El Kheima, in northern Cairo, also clashed with police yesterday when polls did not open on time. Police,
some on horseback, fired into the crowd after attacking the protesters with batons, dogs and tear gas. That clash left one dead and 35 people — including children — injured.
Police also blocked polling stations and fired tear gas at would-be voters in the southern Cairo district of Maadi. In Hawamydiwa, another district south of Cairo, police detained 75 people for election-related disturbances, according to the police officials.
Many of those who have complained about a lack of access to polls and police harassment were supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates are running as independents.
The Brotherhood calls for turning Egypt into an Islamic state, but unlike more radical Islamic groups, has forsworn violence to achieve that end.
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