Wednesday September 23,1998
Nation/World
7A
Soldiers meet opposition
South African troops killed
The Associated Press
MASERU, Lesotho South African soldiers invading Maseru yesterday met unexpected resistance, and five soldiers died in heavy fighting, the South African military said.
The troops secured military bases and the royal palace, but battles with Lesotho soldiers persisted throughout the day. At least nine soldiers were wounded.
In addition, the bodies of five Lesotho citizens were brought to the capital's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which also treated 54 people for bullet wounds.
At the border, supporters of the rebel troops set a barricade on fire and taunted the South Africans that crossed into Lesotho, bringing attack helicopters, mortar units and armored personnel carriers.
The action follows weeks of opposition-party demonstrations about allegations of election-rigging and an army rebellion. It is South Africa's first major post-apartheid military intervention.
Lesotho, an impoverished kingdom slightly smaller than Maryland with a population of 2 million people, is surrounded by South African territory and dependent on its economy. The intervention follows fruitless weekend efforts by South African mediators to bring the government and opponents together.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi,
South Africa's home affairs
minister said Lesotho
Prime Minister Pakalitha
Mosisil called on regional
powers to intervene
because he believed a coup
was imminent.
Yesterday, protesters fire
bombed government buildings, looters rampaged downtown and cars with South African license plates were stoned in wake of the military intervention.
The 60 to 70 American citizens living in Maseru were told to stay indoors, U.S. Ambassador Katherine Peterson said.
Officials said the South African force secured Lesotho military headquarters, the main air force base, the central business district and neighborhood where most diplomats and Cabinet members lived.
Under apartheid, South Africa's rulers sent troops to take part in wars and to pursue government opponents, particularly in Lesotho and Botswana. But because all-race elections in 1994, South Africa had stuck to a policy of peaceful mediation in African conflicts.
The mobilization caps weeks of unrest by opposition demonstrators who claimed May elections swept by the Lesotho Congress Party were rigged.
A report by a commission of representatives from South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe last week cited pressing concerns about the voting but did not suggest the election be invalidated.
The Congress party won 79 of 80 seats but scored only 61 percent of the vote because of voting rules, to which the opposition par-
U.S.-Japan talks bring promises, hopes
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — In a show of sympathy for Japan's economic predicament, President Clinton said yesterday that while the world wanted Tokyo to kick-start its long-slumping economy, he was willing to give the Japanese government leeway to do "what is politically possible."
Clinton remarked to reporters after a one-hour private conversation with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. It was their first meeting since Obuchi took office July 30 with promises to spur Japanese economic growth and stabilize its weak banking system.
"They have to work out what is politically possible," Clinton said, alluding to disagreement in Tokyo about how to stimulate the economy and to the shaky state of Obuchi's compromise with opposition parties last week to deal with billions of dollars in bad bank debt.
Reporters also tried to question Clinton about the Monica Lewinsky affair. He responded merely, "I don't have anything
to add to whatever the White House is saying." Clinton said, as he has often recently, that he is focusing on official business.
For a second day in a row, Clinton
Clinton: Says he will support Japan's government.
sought to keep his focus on foreign policy. Yesterday's U.S.-Japanese talks lasted about three hours, including a working luncheon and produced no breakthroughs. The two sides issued joint statements pledging to cooperate on civilian uses for Global Positioning System satellites and on the Year 2000 computer conversion problem.
Aides said the two leaders got on well, agreeing quickly to call each other by their first names.
In recent weeks,
both Treasury
Secretary
Robert Rubin and
U.S. Trade Representative
Charlene Barsheshsky have delivered urgent
messages from the administration that Japan, mired in its worst recession in 50 years, must deal more aggressively with its own economic problems to help lift its troubled Asian neighbors from their own steep recessions.
Obuchi: Makes no promises about banking reforms.
In Tokyo, Japanese stocks rebounded on hopes Obuchi would promise Clinton more forceful steps to boost the economy. In their talks at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in midtown Manhattan, the leaders agreed that effective action by Japan was essential, but Obuchi offered no assurances that new remedies were in the near future.
Presidential press secretary Mike McCurry said that while Clinton stressed urgency in his private discussions with Obuchi, the president wanted the American public to appreciate Jaan's difficulties.
"They have unique challenges" that Americans need to understand, Clinton told reporters.
In his brief remarks, Obuchi was noncommittal about prospects for getting banking reforms passed.
"I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic on this," Obuchi said. He added: "I am convinced that we will be able to do something."
Clinton invited Obuchi to visit the United States early next year, and Obuchi accepted.
Minimum-wage increased denied by U.S. Senate
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday rejected a $1 election-year increase in the federal hourly minimum wage pushed by Sen. Edward Kennedy and other Democrats.
By a 54-44 vote, senators killed the proposal, which would have raised the minimum wage earned by some 12 million Americans to $6.15 Jan. 1, 2000. The first 50-cent increase would have taken effect next New Year's Day.
The House has not acted on such an increase.
Kennedy: Pushes for $1 increase in minimum waage.
Kennedy, D-Mass...
had pushed to have his proposal adopted as an amendment to legislation to overhaul the personal bankruptcy laws and make it harder for people to sweep away their debts.
The strategy was similar to the one used by Democrats in 1996, when they held up action on other legislation until Republicans agreed to vote to raise the federal minimum, then $4.25 an hour, to $5.15 by September 1997.
Kennedv said a new increase was needed
to help "hard-working Americans who deserve a living wage." At a time of unparalleled prosperity, people who work in factories, restaurants, hotels, retail businesses and in other modest jobs actually have seen their purchasing power eroded, he said.
Workers earning the minimum wage make an average $10,700 a year — $2,900 below the official poverty level for a family of three. Kennedy noted.
"Giving low-wage workers an additional 50 cents an hour can make all the difference," he said. "It can help to buy groceries or pay the rent or defray the cost of job training courses at the local community college. The need is real. Raising the minimum wage can keep families out of soup kitchens and homeless shelters."
Opponents said an increase would hurt small businesses and cause unemployment.
It "could actually have an adverse impact upon our economy" and could cause unemployment "that hurts the low-income workers the hardest," Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., said before the vote.
Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., cited statistics showing that more than half of minimum-wage workers lived in families with annual incomes exceeding $25,000 and that the majority of the workers were young, single and childless.
But Democrats countered that since the last federal wage increase took effect a year ago, new jobs have blossomed.
Boeing wins air force base
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Divvying up the spoils of a closing air force base in California, the Pentagon on Monday announced its intention to award the depot's repair missions to a government-private sector consortium that plans to shift the work to Texas and Utah.
A partnership of the Boeing Co. and Hill Air Force Base near Ogden, Utah, won the contract valued at $1.1 billion in nine years, including a three-year option. The partners prevailed against a team led by Lockheed Martin Corp., which would have kept in California the work now performed at McClellan AFB near Sacramento.
Boeing will do its share of the work at its new aircraft maintenance center in San Antonio on the grounds of the closing KLYF AEB. Maintenance of the Air Force's KC-13 tankers, in a contract Boeing valued at $500 million in nine years, could mean as many as 800 jobs to the city.
HILL AFB will gain repair of the A-10 attack jet and perform maintenance on aircraft hydraulic, electronics and instrumentation subsystems.
The Utah base would gain a similar number of jobs.
The competition for McClellan proved sensitive for the Clinton administration, which was accused of meddling in the process by enticing Lockheed Martin to enter the bidding, presumably to save jobs in vote-rich California. Campaigning in 1996, President Clinton had vowed to protect the California jobs.
Darleen Druyan, the Air Force official in charge of acquisition and management, said that politics was not a factor in selecting the Boeing-Utah bid.
The contract calls for a one-year transition, beginning immediately, followed by a five-year contract with the potential of an option for three more years.
The contract award remains in provisional status, however. A formal award will not be granted until the General Accounting Office completes a review of the circumstances surrounding the McClellan competition.
Druyan said the contract would result in savings of $638 million in nine years, freeing money for much-needed weapons modernization and readiness improvements.
LAWRENCE AUTOMOTIVE DIAGNOSTICS
Welcome Back...
Now Go Away!
Nice people.
Great deals on airfares, hotels, rail passes, study, work and volunteer programs,
backpacks, travel accessories,
International identity cards,
Eurail passes issued on the spot!
842-8665 2858 Four Wheel Dr.
1. (3 marks) Determine the volume of a cube with sides 2 cm.
Council Travel
CEFES: Council on International Educational Exchange
www.counciltravel.com