The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 3

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER A3 NATIONALINTERNATIONAL The Scene In the Nation and the World Tornadoes kill three in Alabama Friday, February 17, 1995 Twisters hit with little warning Mississippi Senate votes to ban slavery It's only taken 130 years, but the Mississippi Senate has finally voted Jo abolish slavery. i The House will vote next on the amendment, which senators Unanimously approved yesterday with no debate. Mississippi is the only state never to have ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery. The state held out when the slavery amendment was adopted in 1865, in part because lawmakers were angry that they hadn't been reimbursed for freed slaves.

"I don't think it's an issue many people here would want to debate," said Democratic state Sen. Johnnie Walls. ftMi iimiiiawiMr-jfittiLftiie I f- 3 7 i fc. The Decatur Daily GARY COSBY JR. Cindy Robinson collects toys that belonged to her 4-year-old neighbor, Arab, Ala.

The early-morning twister left more than 100 people injured House votes to curb Kristin Parker, who was killed when the tornado hit her hometown of in the northern part of the state. U.S. peace-keeping The GOP-backed bill faces a chilly Senate reception. Clinton opposes the measure as too restrictive. U.S.

collaboration with the United Nations to contain regional conflicts in a post-Cold War world. Clinton and his advisers have complained that the bill would handcuff him in cooperating with other nations to protect U.S. interests. But Rep. Benjamin A.

Gilman N.Y.), chairman of the International Relations Committee, insisted that it merely forces a president "to think things through before committing the U.S. to major U.N. peace-keeping operations land requires prior consultation with Congress that has been woefully lacking." The president, he said, could get around some of the constraints the bill would impose on his authority. "He would simply have to certify to us that important national security interests were involved," Gilman said, "and get our permission before spending defense dollars for such purposes." Congressional opponents, including a handful of Republicans, argued that the GOP plan would hamper the president's ability and flexibility to deal promptly and effectively, in alliance with other nations, with By David Hess INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON House Republicans yesterday pushed through their go-it-alone vision of how America should deal with an unruly world, passing a foreign-policy bill that President Clinton's chief advisers have urged him to veto. On a largely party-line vote of 241-181, the House sent to the Senate a bill that would limit a president's authority to commit to U.N.

peacekeeping operations. The final count was 41 votes short of the number needed to override a veto, assuming the same number of members vote. Eighteen Democrats, mostly Southerners, joined 223 Republicans to vote for it; four Republicans joined 176 Democrats and one independent to oppose it. All area representatives voted for it, except the three Philadelphia Democrats, Robert A. Borski, Chaka Fattah and Thomas M.

Foglietta. As an expression of policy, the bill would have no immediate impact on current peace-keeping operations. But it symbolizes the GOP's disenchantment with the frequency of the small conflicts that could spread and endanger American interests. Rep. Howard L.

Berman said the international effort to stop Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf crisis would have been blocked under the terms of the GOP bill, "leaving the world's oil supply at the mercy of Saddam." "It would cripple if not destroy financing for U.N. peace-keeping operations, having the effect of ing the U.S. either to adopt an isolationist posture or bear a unilateral burden for maintaining international peace and security," said Rep. Jim Leach (R Iowa), a former Foreign Service officer. Republican leaders argued that the bill was a direct response to voters who think the United States is ceding too much sovereignty and treasure to U.N.

expeditions. One hotly debated provision in the bill would require that the United States deduct from its annual U.N. peace-keeping dues any costs the Pentagon had incurred in global peace-keeping missions. "We're essentially paying double for each security operation," Gilman complained. "First we pay from our own defense budget and then we get assessed from the U.N.

for peacekeeping operations." i By Jay Reeves ASSOCIATED PRESS ARAB, Ala. Two tornados ripped across northern Alabama before dawn yesterday, killing at least three people and injuring more than 100. Teams looking for more victims in the rubble found a baby unharmed beneath two wrecked trailers. The dead included a 4-year-old girl, a coroner said. About an hour before the first tornado hit, lightning struck the office of the National Weather Service in Huntsville.

The service's Birmingham office was able to issue a warning at 5 a.m., minutes before the twister raced through Arab, but police did not have time to warn everyone. "Normally they give us a siren warning, but they didn't this morning," Arab resident Karen Berry said. "There was nothing." Arab (AY-rab) is 30 miles south of Huntsville and has a population of about 6,300. The first tornado touched down there after hitting a subdivision three miles to the west in the rural community of Joppa, where about a dozen injuries were reported. About 30 minutes later, another tornado spawned by the same thunderstorm touched down in Martling, about 15 miles east of Arab.

The dead in Arab were a girl and two men, all killed in separate locations, Marshall County Coroner Dempsey Hibbs said. Sixty-six injured locally Local hospital officials said 66 people were treated yesterday morning, with 13 admitted and four transferred to Huntsville for additional care. They said they knew of 40 other people treated at two other hospitals. The howling wind sent debris smashing through windows, tore off roofs, pulled trees from the soil, and demolished trailers, homes and lives. In the aftermath, rescue crews searched for people possibly trapped in the wreckage, rain pounded flattened barns, pink insulation dripped from trees, and wind shook cars creeping over littered roads.

No more victims were found, just the baby. "We found a 1-year-old baby under two trailers," firefighter Robert Reynolds said. "He was sitting there, not making a sound." The last deadly funnel cloud that struck Alabama hit on Palm Sunday a year ago, killing 22 people, most in a church about 60 miles from Arab. When the Huntsville weather service office went down, Birmingham took over watching the radar, and the weather service said there was no delay in picking up the tornado and issuing a warning. Police got the warning through deputies in a nearby county and were sending out siren vehicles to alert residents when the tornado hit, Lt.

Danny Harvell said. Senator wants answers In Washington, Sen. Howell Heflin Ala.) called for a complete accounting from the weather service. To the west in Mississippi, thunderstorms rumbled south, and much of the state remained under a Hash-flood watch. "We've had areas that received 5-plus Inches of rainfall, and any additional water will only make it worse," said Russell Pfost, science and operations officer at the weather service office in Jackson.

In Arab, a tornado lifted Ricky and Dianne Fortenberry's wooden A-frame house from its cement foundation, carried it about 40 feet, and dropped it onto a trailer while the couple clung to their bed. Like the baby, the Fortenberrys escaped serious harm. "They had to dig us out," Dianne Fortenberry said, standing atop the splintered rubble that had been her home and pointing to the mattress where she and her husband were sleeping when the storm woke them. Not far away, people picked through debris from several torn-apart trailers with some trepidation. The owner of one trailer sent word from the hospital that he had been keeping poisonous snakes, including rattlers.

22; Huntsvflle 2 1 Birmingham 9 jfelvlontgomery 50 The Philadelphtsquirer a. 1 '1 0 yALABAM A -A i (, Des Moines Register DOUG WELLS Garrett Kozik, 12, of Belle Plain, Iowa, shares a moment with his entry in the Polled Hereford Sale Parade. The event took place Wednesday at the Iowa Beef Expo in Des Moines. Taking the stairs isn't all that taxing Kurt Konig of Mlttenwald, Germany, showed his heels to 139 other athletic climbers yesterday, winning the 18th annual Empire State Building Run Up by half a minute. Konig, a 38-year-old tax auditor, ran the 86 floors to the building's observatory in 10 minutes and 39 seconds, 21 seconds off the record.

i Most light-footed among 30 women who competed was Michelle Blessing, 31, a professional triathlete, of Colorado Springs, at 13:03. Seventeen starters dropped out. The last finisher in the ascent also was the oldest, Chico Scimore, 83, an orchestra conductor from Italy who has been staying in San Antonio, Texas. ,) Billions and billions helped her win recognition If she wasn't precisely No. it was close enough, as statisticians yesterday designated Rose Valery to represent the 10-billionth motorist to use an MTA bridge or tunnel in New York, Valery, 44, a Galway-born nurse's aide from Queens, was en route to New Rochelle.

When she stopped I at a Triborough Bridge booth at i 10:30 a.m. and asked to buy a roll of tokens, she found herself amid icity officials and reporters. "She's a great customer," said Frank Pascual, spokesman for the Transportation "Authority Bridge and Tunnel (agency. "She said she uses the bridge a lot and was happier about this than if she'd won the lottery." Besides a plaque, Valery received a gift of 100 bridge tokens I and a credit for another 100 i crossings when toll collection goes I electronic. The 10-billionth motorist was 58 years, seven months and five days coming.

The Triborough Bridge opened July 11, 1936. The toll, now $3, was 25 cents back then. The Triborough and six other bridges and two tunnels opened since by the authority have collected $9.7 billion in tolls over the years. For whom the billions toll. By Thomas J.

Brady, with reports from Inquirer wire services Associated Press Ushie, a 35-year-old orangutan native to Sumatra, holds her son Robin at the Peaugres Safari Park in central France. Robin was born Dec. 27. 1 i Ji -7 Israel, PLO will speed self-rule negotiations The United States' voluntary costs for peace-keeping operations in Somalia, the Persian Gulf region, Bosnia and Haiti were $1.7 billion last year. That was in addition to its $1.1 billion share of overall U.N.

peacekeeping costs. Rep. Lee H. Hamilton senior Democrat on the International Relations panel, contended that other nations could follow America's lead and bankrupt U.N. peace-keeping efforts.

Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D Mo.) said: "There are 60,000 peace-keepers Itroops worldwide right now, and only 1,000 are Americans. If we get rid of peace-keeping, are we going to send 60,000 of our own troops around to keep the peace or are we not going to keep the peace?" The House bill now faces a chilly reception in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole Kan.) has introduced a bill to require closer consultation between the White House and Congress on peace-keeping operations. But it is much scaled-down from the House Republicans' bill.

The GOP rejects Democrats' efforts on welfare reform. A12. Funds for PBS will be blocked, Gingrich vows. A18. Associated Press 22, after two Palestinian suicide bombers killed 21 Israelis' at a bus stop.

But Arafat and other Palestinian officials have warned that the closure is strangling the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, where there are few jobs. Support for Arafat's self-governing authority has been sinking in opinion polls, and more and more Palestinians are expressing support for "military actions" against Israeli targets. Rabin's gesture seemed to acknowledge both Arafat's growing political problems and the effort that his police and security forces have made recently to foil attacks on Israel and arrest suspected militants. "The authority foiled six terrorist attacks against us," said Peres, who attended yesterday's negotiating session with Rabin. Peres said Israel is asking Arafat to take even more measures to prevent attacks on Israelis.

a i rested eight members of Islamic Jihad, the group that claimed responsibility for the Jan. 22 bombing. Palestinian police have arrested dozens of members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, another militant Islamic group, since the bombing. Rabin said he and Arafat "agreed on holding intense negotiations so as to overcome our differences on security issues, elections, redeployment, empowerment." He said that he and Arafat will meet again in a month, that Peres and Arafat will meet in three weeks, and that negotiators from both sides will continue to meet regularly, starting with a Tuesday in Cairo. Peres said the peace process is back in gear.

Israel will start easing border restrictions. By Mary Curtius LOS ANGELES TIMES JERUSALEM Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed yesterday to speed up negotiations on expanding Palestinian self-rule throughout the West Bank, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel will start easing its closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The reported progress comes one week after a meeting between Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasir Arafat produced nothing more than mutual recriminations about the deadlock in their negotiations. After last week's session, Israeli and Palestinian commentators were ueiidi tug iuki loi ucIa-PuICo tiHiuIl peace accord dead and predicting the collapse of Rabin's government. "Nothing has died," declared Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres after yesterday's session.

"There are difficulties, but we can overcome them." After a two-hour session with Arafat yesterday afternoon, Rabin said that he will allow 10,000 workers from Gaza and 5,000 from the West Bank to enter Israel next week. "All of them are workers whom we know" and who are older than 30, Rabin said. About three times as many workers were entering Israel legally before Israel imposed the closure Jan. i i 1 I t' fc I 7 -yc' i Police restrain students in Cape Town, South Africa. The students yesterday marched to a government building to protest the lack of schools for them.

Wednesday, police restrained whites trying to stop black puls from being bused to a suburbr, Cape Town school..