Section B·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday. October 6, 1999
Nation/World
Tropical depression engulfs Mexico
Thousands evacuate because of flooding
The Associated Press
VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico—With a new tropical depression hanging in the lower Gulf of Mexico, officials warned thousands of people to abandon their homes in expectation of more storms and flooding that already have killed at least five people.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the season's 11th tropical depression was nearly stationary on Monday, centered about 150 miles east of Veracruz in the Gulf of Campeche.
In Tabasco state, four rivers have flooded their banks and 53,000 people have had to flee their homes since Saturday. Officials said that dams along the rivers were full and could not be used to cut the flow of floodwater.
"Due to the situation, the population is alerted to take extreme precautions and if necessary, evacuate the areas," said Tabasco state spokeswoman Addy Garcia Lopez.
reach 600 shelters on higher ground. Schools were closed indefinitely in 144 communities along the two rivers.
The army deployed troops along the Grijalva and Usumancita rivers in Tabasco to help refugees
Three people died in Tabasco, including a 6-year-old boy who fell into a swollen river in a town near Villahermosa, the state capital. In Veracruz, a teen-ager and a taxi driver were killed while trying to ford a river on foot.
Mexico's transportation secretariat said Monday that 16 ports along Mexico's eastern coast were closed to small vessels while the port of Dos Bocas in Veracruz state was closed to large vessels as well.
Jason Williams/KANSAN
Link to be established in West Bank, Gaza
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM—Ayman Lubedeb hasn't been home to the Gaza Strip to see his parents and siblings in six years.
Lubedeh, 29, lives with his wife and son in the West Bank, where he works at a hospital in Ramallah. Israel has refused to let him cross its territory to get to Gaza, citing security concerns, and Lubedeh has had to make do with frequent phone calls home. His family even missed his wedding two years ago.
That will soon change. Israel and the Palestinians agreed yesterday to establish a land link between the West Bank and Gaza.
The 28-mile route through Israel will enable Palestinians to travel relatively freely between the two areas they control for the first time.
boosting prospects for eventual statehood.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators signed an agreement yesterday on how to operate the so-called safe passage that is to open next week. Despite last-minute disputes and delays — the route was to have opened last week — both sides said the agreement helped improve relations after three years of deadlock.
The land route is part of the latest interim peace accord reached in September under which Israel must give 11 percent of the West Bank to Palestinian rule and release 350 security prisoners, in exchange for Palestinian security measures.
Israel's Prisons Authority said yesterday it was set to release the second group of prisoners — a total of 151 inmates — by tomorrow, one day ahead of schedule.
The safe passage will give the Palestinians, especially the 1 million residents of fenced-in Gaza, greater freedom of movement.
Jason Williams/KANSAI
Until now, permits to travel through Israel were difficult to obtain and were usually valid for
only a few days. Large groups of peo ple were ineligible, including young single men and those once held on suspicion of anti-Israeli activity.
Under the new arrangement, everyone is eligible in principle, though Israel reserves the right to turn down applicants. Former Palestinian security detainees, who in the past would have been unable to make the trip, can now travel twice a week in special buses, under Israeli police escort.
Palestinians also will be allowed to use their own cars for the first time.
The route, extending from the West Bank village of Tarkoumiya to Gaza's Erez Crossing, will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Palestinian will apply for one-year permits to the Palestinian Authority, which will present the names to Israel for final approval.
Fed leaves interest rates alone with no sign of an increase
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve, faced with a booming economy but no signs of inflation, decided yesterday not to raise interest rates but left open the possibility of a third rate increase later this year.
The Fed policy-makers moved their policy directive, which signals the future course of interest rates, from neutral to one tilting toward a rate increase.
The Fed's action was conveyed in a brief statement after the closed-door meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's interest-setting panel.
By leaving interest rates unchanged, the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans, continues to stand at 5.25 percent.
The decision to leave rates unchanged had been widely expected. Wall Street has staged a strong rally during the past two days on investors' expectations that rates would remain steady.
Investors reacted nervously to the announcement. The Dow Jones average lost an earlier 106-point gain almost immediately and was sliding downward a half-hour later.
For the second time this year, the central bank decided not to raise rates while announcing a switch in its policy directive from a neutral stance to one leaning toward a rate increase in the future.
"The growth of demand has continued to outpace that of supply as evidenced by a decreasing pool of available workers willing to take jobs. In these circumstances, the Federal Open Market Committee
will need to be especially alert in the months ahead to the potential for costs to increase significantly," the Fed said in a statement.
The brief statement emphasized that the switch did not signal an imminent increase. A decision to raise rates in the future would be based on upcoming economic data on growth and inflation, the policymakers said.
Many private economists were expecting the central bank to take a pass on raising interest rates at yesterday's meeting. But they aren't ruling out the possibility of higher rates before year's end.
Many analysts believed the Fed would leave rates unchanged, because inflation had remained well-behaved despite strong economic growth and an unemployment rate remaining at a 29-year low.
They also noted that Greenspan and other Fed officials had given no solid sign of an impending interest rate increase, something that's usually done. Instead, they have struck a more dovish tone, indicating they have seen few signs of inflation even with rapid economic growth.
Although growth slowed in the second quarter to an anemic 1.6 percent annual rate, many economists believe that was a temporary lull. They are looking for a growth rate of 4 percent in both the third and fourth quarters.
Given that, many economists believe the Fed may raise rates this year by a quarter of a point when it meets on Nov. 16, depending on what a fresh round of economic data released between now and then.
The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program 1999
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