NNA Breaking News 12/21/98<<<<
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NNA Breaking News 12/21/98
US News
1. Livingston's District To Lose Clout
2. US fear as hate groups reach record numbers
3. Car deaths more likely among minorities
World News
4. Communist Targets Jews, Yeltsin
5. MP blames Jews for Russian deaths
6. Yeltsin urges ex-KGB to crack down on extremism
7. French Author Fined for Viewpoint
8. EMI stops production of German traditional folk song cassette
9. Italy flooded with illegal immigrants in 1998
10. Around 50,000 Chinese illegal immigrants in Russian far east.
11. Bomb explodes in cape town synagogue.
12. MUGABE DEFIES 'COLONIAL' PRESSURE OVER ZIMBABWE LAND REFORMS
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[Now that Livingston has decided to resign, David Duke, who carried
this district in two state wide races in the past, is poised to run
for a US House seat.]
Livingston's District To Lose Clout
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - What next in the Bob Livingston drama? Some in his
district weren't ready to speculate - they were too busy trying to
digest
what happened to the man who was to have been Speaker of the U.S.
House of Representatives.
Livingston's Thursday night confession of adultery during his 33-year
marriage was followed by his Saturday morning decision to turn down
the speaker's gavel and resign from Congress in six months.
``I have to get over the emotional reaction of hearing about the
affairs
before I can think logically about whether he should have resigned,''
Judy Wells, 56, said on Sunday as she shopped at a mall.
There was general agreement that Livingston's impending departure will
be a blow to the state. ``It will be costly to the state of Louisiana
in terms of prestige and political clout,'' said former Gov. Dave
Treen,
a fellow Republican and one time mentor to Livingston.
``Now, in six months, we're going to have the most junior congressman
in Washington - his replacement,'' said Wayne Parent, a political
analyst
at Louisiana State University. ``We'll go from having the most
powerful
person in Congress to, arguably, the least powerful.''
Gov. Mike Foster kicked off a weekend campaign to try and persuade
Livingston to stay in Congress. Other politicians hope he will stay on
even without the power of the speakership. Some noted that Livingston
had been flirting with retirement at the end of his last term.
If Livingston follows through this time, there will be no shortage of
candidates to replace him. The only one who has said he definitely
will
run is David Duke, an ex-Ku Klux Klan leader, one-time state
representative
and perennial political candidate.
Parent believes Duke's small but loyal core constituency may put him
in position to force a runoff, possibly against a Democrat, in the
election to replace Livingston - a scenario similar to one that put
Democrat Edwin Edwards back into the governor's mansion when Duke
ran for governor in 1991.
Treen, who acknowledged he will consider a run for Livingston's seat,
said he doubts Duke has that much political pull any more.
So did David Vitter, the Republican former Rhodes Scholar who now
represents the state House district Duke once represented.
``I really think David Duke's 15 minutes of fame have come and gone,''
said Vitter, who succeeded Duke in the state House and who may run
for Livingston's seat. ``People here got very tired very quickly of
his using this district as a soapbox.''
Ms. Wells said she would never consider supporting Duke. ``That's
scary.
That's the last thing this state needs, is him representing us,'' she
said Sunday.
Lena Ray, another Sunday shopper at the mall, agreed that she would
never vote for Duke.
But Christmas shopper Zack Turner, 23, refused to rule out voting
for Duke. ``I'll just judge them all on their current campaigns, not
on what they did 20 years ago. He could be a good leader and the right
man for the job.''
--
US fear as hate groups reach record numbers
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - The number of anti-government and racist hate groups
has risen sharply in the United States over the past year, according
to a study released yesterday by two agencies that monitor such
groups.
Experts from Klanwatch and the Militia Task Force documented a record
474 hate groups last year, a 20 per cent rise over 1996. The growth
of such groups could trigger a wave of bombings and other violence
as the millennium ended, the agencies warned.
While the old-style white supremacist movement continued to grow, a
new breed of far-right fanatics was being recruited by biblical
doomsayers, an underground culture featuring violent rock'n'roll
and the Internet, which allowed hate groups to reach teenagers at
home, they said.
"Mainstream America is being targeted in a way that this country
hasn't seen in decades," the director of the study, Mr Joe Roy, said
Florida had the largest number of groups with 48.
The Ku Klux Klan was still the largest hate group, but neo-Nazis,
skinheads, white Christian fundamentalists and black separatist
organisations were growing in popularity, the study said.
It was not known how many people were affiliated with the groups.
The experts said there was also an unknown number of small, extremist
cells, which could be the most dangerous.
--
Car deaths more likely among minorities
Reuters
WASHINGTON - Black and Hispanic male teen-agers are nearly twice
as likely to die in car crashes as their white counterparts,
according to a study released yesterday.
Black children aged 5 to 12 were almost three times as likely
to die as white children per mile of travel, said the findings
by Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University and the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety.
"Black and Hispanic male teen-agers travel in motor vehicles
less often than their white male counterparts, but they face
a very high risk of dying when they do travel," said professor
Susan Baker of Johns Hopkins' School of Public Health.
Reasons for the group differences were not clear although the
researchers said they could be linked to levels of child restraint
and safety belt usage.
"We need more resources directed toward increasing the use of
belts and child seats" among Hispanic and black children and
teen-agers, said institute senior researcher Elisa Braver.
Using nationally available personal travel and mortality data,
the researchers compared the fatalities of different groups per
billion vehicle miles traveled.
Among 5-12 year olds, there were 14 deaths for blacks, eight for
Hispanics and five for whites.
Among male teen-agers, the rates were 66 for blacks, 61 for
Hispanics and 37 for whites.
Among female teen-agers, blacks had the lowest fatality rates
with 14 deaths per billion vehicle miles, 25 for Hispanics and
22 for whites.
--
World News
Communist Targets Jews, Yeltsin
MOSCOW (AP) _ In the latest burst of anti-Semitism in Russia, a
prominent Communist lawmaker on Tuesday accused President Boris
Yeltsin and Jews in his office of waging ``genocide'' against the
Russian people.
Viktor Ilyukhin, the head of parliament's security affairs
committee, claimed that liberal reforms carried out by Yeltsin's
government in the 1990s have decimated Russia.
``The large-scale genocide wouldn't have been possible if
Yeltsin's inner circle had consisted of the main ethnic groups, and
not exclusively of one group, the Jews,'' Ilyukhin told a
parliamentary panel considering impeachment charges against
Yeltsin.
The Russian president has frequently reshuffled his Cabinet and
his advisers over the years. Most have been ethnic Russians, though
Jews and other minority groups have also been represented. The
Communist
Party, the country's main opposition group, has been seeking to
attract
a new generation of supporters and distance itself from abuses
committed
during the Soviet era.
But in recent weeks, party elders have expressed support for
several measures that recall some of the darkest moments of their
rule.
Communist lawmakers last month enthusiastically supported a move
to bring back the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, former head of the
dreaded Soviet secret police. His likeness was toppled from in
front of KGB headquarters in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed.
Also, Gennady Seleznyov, a Communist who is speaker of parliament's
lower house, suggested that crime could be curbed by the
re-introduction
of hard labor camps, where millions perished under Soviet dictator
Josef
Stalin.
With Russians weathering a tough economic crisis, the country's
rough-and-tumble politics have grown even more coarse. Ilyukhin, the
man
leading the efforts to impeach Yeltsin, repeated his anti-Jewish
remarks
when meeting with journalists after Tuesday's impeachment session.
``Representatives of one ethnic group have been dominant in the
president's inner circle and the government during the past seven
years. I have already named this ethnic group,'' Ilyukhin said.
``It appears to be the cause, or one of the factors that has
contributed to the genocide we have witnessed,'' he added.
Another Communist lawmaker, Albert Makashov, caused an outcry in
October
when he blamed Russia's problems on Jews and used an ethnic slur. His
comments outraged many, but the Communist-dominated Duma refused to
censure him. The government has been investigating cases of
``political
extremism,'' but has not acted against Makashov.
Jews suffered systematic discrimination in czarist Russia and
during the Soviet era. The constitution bans discrimination, but
many Russians still express anti-Semitic sentiments.
--
MP blames Jews for Russian deaths
A prominent Communist MP has attacked Russian President
Boris Yeltsin for appointing Jews as ministers.
Parliamentary Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ilyukhin said
Mr Yeltsin was guilty of genocide because his economic policies
had led to increased mortality and a fall in the population of
8 million.
Mr Ilyukhin: Accused Mr Yeltsin of premeditated "genocide"
Speaking during a meeting preparing impeachment proceedings
against Mr Yeltsin, Mr Ilyukhin said the deaths would "not
have been possible if the backbone of Yeltsin's team and the
previous government was comprised of representatives of indigenous
nations and not of the Jewish nation alone".
Mr Ilyukhin is well known in Russia for his fiery anti-western
attitudes. But BBC Russian Affairs Analyst Malcolm Haslett says
world opinion is likely to be shocked that a supposedly-serious
politician could openly resort to such racist accusations.
The remarks drew strong criticism from the government, including
First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov, himself a Communist
Party member. Mr Maslyukov was quoted by the RIA news agency as
saying remarks which criticised officials on the basis of their
ethnicity were "intolerable".
The comments warrant charges of stirring up race hatred, but as
an MP, Mr Ilyukhin is immune from prosecution.
Immunity is unlikely to be lifted. The majority of parliamentary
members have already demonstrated their refusal to condemn similar
remarks.
Only last month the parliament, or Duma, refused to censure another
Communist MP, General Albert Makashov, when he labelled Jews as
"bloodsuckers" and "yids" who should be "to be taken to the cemetery".
The Kremlin has said Mr Yeltsin intends to lead a crackdown on
"extremism" in response to Mr Makashov's and other statements,
although no concrete actions have been taken.
Some liberals have called for the Communist Party to be banned,
although Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov has said he opposes such
a move.
--
Yeltsin urges ex-KGB to crack down on extremism
Agence France-Presse
MOSCOW, Dec 19 (AFP) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin has urged the
Federal Security Service (FSB) - the former KGB - to do more to
counter
extremism and racial prejudice, Russian news agencies reported.
"It is essential to prevent all forms of political extremism and
incitement
to racial hatred," Yeltsin said at a the annual ceremony in honour of
the
FSB, on Friday.
Yeltsin also urged security services to fight terrorism and help
elucidate
contract murders.
The main duty of the FSB is "to defend our state, its wealth, its
territorial
integrity, the rights and freedoms of citizens" he said.
Russians were shocked recently when an influential deputy belonging to
the Communist Party made virulently anti-semitic remarks which the
party
failed to condemn. The media have reported a rise in paramilitary
neo-fascist
groups while at the end of November, a prominent opposition liberal
deputy
was gunned down in a contract killing ahead of elections in Saint
Petersburg.
--
French Author Fined for Viewpoint
PARIS (AP) - A French appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction
of an author for a 1996 book that called into question whether 6
million
Jews died in the Holocaust.
Roger Garaudy, 85, received a six-month suspended prison sentence and
fines worth $21,400 for disputing facts about the Holocaust in his
book,
``The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics.''
Garaudy, who converted to Islam in 1982, also received a three-month
suspended sentence and an additional $8,000 worth of fines for
inciting
racial hatred.
In his book, Garaudy questioned the number of Jews killed by the Nazis
in World War II, saying it was much lower than the 6 million agreed
upon
by historians, and denounced what he called ``Shoah business'' -
exploiting the Holocaust for money and political gains.
During his trial, he said he was anti-Zionist, but not anti-Semitic.
Garaudy's publisher, Pierre Guillaume, received a six-month suspended
sentence and fines equivalent to $5,400.
--
EMI stops production of German traditional folk song cassette
COLOGNE, Germany (AP) -- International recording label EMI says
it has stopped production of a cassette by German folk singer Heino
that contains traditiona marching songs the Nazis used during
World War II.
The cassette, titled "As We March Side By Side," was produced several
years ago but never marketed commercially because of EMI's concerns
about its content, EMI spokesman Erich Grote said Monday in Cologne.
The 60-year-old Heino, popular mostly with older Germans, has been
singing folk music since the 1960s. "As We March Side By Side"
contains
songs popular before the Third Reich but exploited by the Nazis as
propaganda about the glories of Germany.
Heino also sings the German national anthem on the cassette, including
the original first verse that was banned after the war. It begins:
"Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles," or "Germany above all."
The decision to stop production of the cassette followed a German TV
report that "As We March ..." was being offered for sale by mail order
in the extreme right-wing German National Newspaper.
"This was an unpleasant surprise," the EMI spokesman told The
Associated
Press. "We immediately informed our customers that we would not fill
any more orders (for the cassette), because we in no way want to
support
this kind of product."
Heinowas not immediately available for comment about EMI's decision.
The newspaper, published in Munich by politician Gerhard Frey, had
been running the mail-order advertisements for about a year, the
station
ARD reported.
--
Italy flooded with illegal immigrants in 1998
Agence France-Presse
ROME, Dec 17 (AFP) - Illegal immigrants fleeing lives of misery and
persecution, and often prey to international gangs of smugglers,
landed
in increasing numbers on Italy's southern shores in 1998.
Arriving in small groups or by the shipload, most were ethnic
Albanians
leaving their impoverished homeland and war-torn Kosovo, or Kurds
fleeing
Turkey and Iraq.
Sicily and the southern Italian islands also saw an influx of
thousands
Africans and Asians who arrived in vessels that were often barely
sea-worthy
and which earned the nickname "slave ships."
The voyages often ended in tragedy, with some passengers dying in
collisions between high-speed boats in the Strait of Otranto between
Albania and Italy's Puglia coast.
Smugglers do not hesitate to throw their human cargo overboard when
surprised by coastal patrols, often starting with the children.
More and more women and younger children have been risking the
hazardous
journey recently.
The plight of the illegal immigrants has touched Europeans and
prompted
Rome to call for tougher maritime controls, accusing Albania of not
taking
effective steps against smugglers' networks.
Some immigrants leave Albania in high-speed inflatable boats, but the
majority travel in much larger, overcrowded ships from Greece or
Turkey,
described by Italian coastguards as "old tubs."
Many of these delapidated cargo ships have attempted the crossing this
year, often being abandoned by their crews off the Italian coast.
Immigrants have had to spend up to two weeks crammed on board in
wretched
conditions, sometimes with insufficient food and water.
More than 15,000 illegal immigrants arrived on Italy's Puglia coastine
alone since January, most of them heading for the north of the country
or
to other European states such as France and Germany.
The interior ministry has blamed tensions in Albania and Kurdish
regions
as well as fighting in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo for this year's
rising tide of immigrants.
The ministry received 3,057 requests for political asylum in 1998 --
1,910 of them from Kurds -- compared to 1,864 last year.
Latest figures from the ministry show that more than 44,000 immigrants
were repatriated between January to November.
The former government of Romano Prodi in September offered 38,000
residence
permits to illegal immigrants.
Of these 3,000 were reserved for Albanians, 1,500 for Tunisians and
1,500
for Moroccans. The remaining 32,000 were up for grabs for those who
had a
job, a permanent residence, no criminal record, and can prove they
were
living in Italy before March 27, 1997.
By mid-December officials had received around 300,000 applications for
the partial amnesty, which drew criticism from across the political
and
social spectrum.
Franco Pittau, from the Roman Catholic charity Caritas which deals
with
immigrants, said Italy's joining the Schengen accord on free movement
between European states had contributed to the influx.
Crime gangs cash in on the free-movement agreement to smuggle the
immigrants
around Europe, charging between several hundred and several thousand
dollars.
A tough new immigration law adopted by Rome in February does not seem
to have
dented the numbers of new arrivals.
Pittau said smugglers tell immigrants to burn their passports so that
Italian
authorities cannot identify them, making repatriation more difficult.
"Smuggling immigrants has become more lucrative than drugs, which have
been combatted by tougher measures and greater international
cooperation,"
Pittau said.
The Italian mafia is also in on the smuggling racket, observers say,
often combining it with the trafficking of drugs, weapons and women
and children destined for prostitution, especially when shipments come
in from Albania.
Nicola Piacente of Brindisi's prosecutor's office said the Puglia
branch of the mafia, the Sacra Corona Unita, did not run the immigrant
traffic directly, leaving it to Albanian gangs.
However, he said there were agreements to share out criminal
activities in the region, with the Sacra Corona Unita handling
arms, cigarettes and drugs coming from the former Yugoslavia.
--
Around 50,000 Chinese illegal immigrants in Russian far east.
MOSCOW, Dec 19 (AFP) - About 50,000 Chinese are now living
illegally in Russia's Far East and their number could outstrip that
of the indigenous population within 20 years, according to Russian
border guards quoted by ITAR-TASS.
Nearly 200 illegal immigrants have been deported to China this
month alone, the frontier guards said.
The number of illegal Chinese migrants apprehended by the
Russian authorities has increased 10-fold in the past five years,
they said.
Chinese nationals are allowed to enter Russian territory for
short periods without a visa and many overstay and try to settle in
Russia. Others simply sneak across the border particularly in the
areas near Vladivostok, Khabarrovsk, the Amur river and Chita, the
border guards said.
--
Bomb explodes in cape town synagogue.
CAPE TOWN, Dec 18 (AFP) - A bomb was hurled into a synagogue in
Cape Town early Friday, possibly in protest over US and British air
strikes against Iraq, police said.
The attack on the Wynberg synagogue, which caused only material
damage, happened at 1:30 a.m. (2330 GMT), a few hours after the
United States and Britain started bombing Baghdad for a second
night.
"It is possible that it is linked to the attacks on Iraq by the
Americans and Britain," police spokeswoman Captain Anine de Beer
said.
The synagogue was packed with worshippers celebrating Chanukah
-- the Jewish Festival of Light -- two hours before the attack, but
all had gone home when the pipe bomb exploded near the door, Rabbi
Raffi Wolf told AFP.
"It could have been worse. We are very grateful to God. We had a
big function just two hours before. No one was hurt," Wolf said.
"It is very clear why they are targeting synagogues," he added.
Wolf said the synagogue had over the past few hours received
many messages of support, but "we are waiting for the Moslem
community to comment."
According to the police, the bomb blew out the synagogue's
windows and doors, causing damage of some 30,000 rand (5,000
dollars).
The attack came four months after a similar bomb exploded at a
Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town, killing two people and
injuring 25.
It is believed that the restaurant may have been bombed in
retaliation for US air strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan, which were
targeted at suspected international terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
No one has been arrested for the bombing which police have
forensically linked to 14 similar attacks on clergy, state
institutions and business leaders in Cape Town in the past year.
The pipe bomb has become the explosive device of choice in a
bitter war extremist Moslem vigilantes are waging against ganglords,
and other perceived enemies, in the Cape area.
--
[The theft of White farms is now "land reform."]
MUGABE DEFIES 'COLONIAL' PRESSURE OVER ZIMBABWE LAND REFORMS
GWERU, Zimbabwe, Sapa-AFP
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has said his government will
speed up land reforms to avert public outcry, warning that the
process would not be set back by "colonial" intimidation.
Mugabe who spoke Thursday said that government officials involved
in the process of acquiring 841 farms from whites and redistributing
them to blacks, should not give in to the racist colonial mentality
being displayed by both local and foreign whites opposed to the
reforms.
Speaking on the eve of the annual congress of his ruling Zimbabwe
Africa National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party annual
congress in this central city, Mugabe referred British media which
labelled him as a "traitor", "thief" and "tyrant" during his visit
to the former colonial power last week.
He added that a "racist colonial mentality continues to prevail ...
even here".
"Our people have now grown impatient and have, in some cases become
defiant of our authority.
"To them we seem not in a hurry to distrubute land so they go for the
commercial farm closest to them ...and make it their own by way of
immediate occupation," he said.
Zimbabwean authorities last month expropriated 841 white-owned farms
for redistribution to landless black peasants, as part of a programme
to hand over five million hectares (12.3 million acres) of prime land
for hundreds of thousands of black families.
Months prior to that, scores of farms had been invaded by land hungry
blacks in a situation that threatened to turn anarchical.
The seizure of the farms last month was greeted with consternation
by international donor representatives, who felt that the government
had reneged on an agreement reached at a land conference in September
to expropriate only 118 farms over an initial two-year phase, in
which Britian and the European Union would help in the compensation
evaluation process.
Whites make up less than one percent of Zimbabwe's 12 million
inhabitants, but some 4,000 white farmers own 30 percent of the
prime farm land.
--
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