Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 4

A4 The Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, July 21, 1999 World n. nn George Mitchell will 'facilitate' new review of ill-fated Good Friday peace agreement AlLEEN MCCABE Southam Newspapers London Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell is back in Northern Ireland today, once again answering a call from Britain and Ireland for outside help to solve one of the world's most intractable problems. Mitchell, a close friend of U.S.

President Bill Clinton, agreed Tuesday to "facilitate" a "tightly focused" review of the Good Friday peace agreement after it collapsed last week in a flurry of recriminations. It means that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish leader Bertie Ahem will temporarily step back from the leadership of a peace process in which they are also key players. Mitchell told reporters he couldn't solve the impasse, but he hoped to facilitate a solution. "It is the political leaders, acting on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, who must reach their way forward to keep this process moving," he said. "Clearly the whole process involves risks, but for the political parties who supported the agreement, the major risk has already been taken in that support and therefore I believe it is now time to move forward with implementation." Work implementing the Good Friday accord foundered when David Trimble, the Protestant Unionist desig nated to be first minister in a new power-sharing assembly refused to form a government until the Irish Republican Army first began decommissioning its arms.

That precondition is not in the agreement and the Catholic nationalist designated to be deputy first minister, Seamus Mallon, quit in protest Angry words followed on all sides, but so far the shaky paramilitary ceasefires are surviving the crisis. Blair made it clear Mitchell's review will not reopen the hornet's nest of issues that were supposedly settled in the accord but are still causing problems, things like the early release of paramilitary prisoners. He said its "only focus" will be to Britain in their battle to remain part of the United Kingdom. Nationalists and Republicans welcome outside intervention, however. They want to reunite Ireland and claim a British leader can never be considered "neutral" when dealing with Northern Irish problems.

Mitchell, along with de Chastelain and former Finnish leader Harri Holk-eri, acted as independent chairmen of the talks that led to last year's Good Friday accord. Where de Chastelain stayed on in the British province to oversee the dis-' arming of the paramilitaries, Mitchell made a graceful retreat and has since written a book about his experience. Southam News find a method to set up a power-sharing executive and achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons by May 2000, while adhering to a schedule established by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the independent body overseeing disarmament Blair said Mitchell will meet this week with the Northern Ireland parties to discuss "the style, the format and the location" of the review, then break for August, and resume work in early September "with the aim of reaching a speedy conclusion," Trimble, who has resisted calls for his resignation, made it clear last week he would not be happy to see Mitchell involved. Unionists have always opposed relying on anyone outside Space Program Revisited Apollo 1 1 astronauts recall historic flight 30th anniversary of first walk on the moon -v 0 A If ye Recovered capsule like 'ghost' from past The Associated Press Cape Canaaveral, Fla.

Filled with stinking muck after 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule was brought to the surface Tuesday along with seven Mercury dimes the astronaut carried into space as souvenirs. Liberty Bell 7 emerged from the black ocean in the middle of the night under the glare of floodlights. It was in remarkably good condition. "It almost appeared like an apparition or like a ghost" expedition leader Curt Newport said. "When we were diving on it, it was on the bottom, it was still 1961.

When we got it up to the surface, all of a sudden it was 1999. So it was almost like having this thing punch to the surface through some type of time portal or something." The 2.3-metre aluminum-and-tita-nium capsule sank after splashdown on July 21, 1961, when its hatch blew open prematurely and the spacecraft filled with water. Grissom narrowly escaped drowning, and insisted until his death in a 1967 Apollo launch pad fire that he did nothing to cause the hatch to blow. The capsule had lain on the ocean floor five kilometres down, even deeper than the Titanic ever since. It was recovered just one day shy of the 38th anniversary of the 15-minute suborbital flight that made Grissom the second American in space, and exactly 30 years to the day that man first landed on the moon.

Newport's team did not find the capsule's hatch, which could have shed light on whether the explosive bolts malfunctioned or whether Grissom activated them prematurely Newport found some of the shiny dimes when he rummaged through the spacecraft. The capsule was placed in a special container filled with sea water to prevent corrosion. The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center will disassemble and clean the capsule. Then the Discovery The Assoc iated Press Reuters Washington They do not remember being scared exactly 30 years ago when they first headed for the moon, but Apollo 11 astronauts acknowledged Tuesday feeling worried and aware of what might go wrong. "Scared, no; worried, yes," said Michael Collins, who orbited above the lunar surface as Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin made the first footprints on the moon July 20, 1969.

"Space flight is just kind of an awareness in the back of your mind that a lot of things can go on," Collins said at a televised forum with Armstrong and Aldrin at an Apollo 11 anniversary event Aldrin recalled being "apprehensive, maybe to the point of wanting to drill yourself to be as attentive as possible," while Armstrong acknowledged worrying about human errors. "With that much equipment, always there are some things that go wrong, but it really wasn't the equipment we were worried about," Armstrong said. "We were concerned that we might somehow make a mistake that would not allow the flight to continue." The Apollo 11 astronauts, who have rarely appeared together in the years since their mission, gathered earlier Tuesday at the National Air and Space Museum, where they each received the Langley gold medal, named for American aviation pioneer Samuel Langley Vice-President Al Gore, who presented the medals, praised the three as heroes who brought Americans together at a time of great division, during the Vietnam War and following the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. "With your first step into the Sea of Tranquillity, you brought tranquillity to the millions waiting here at home," Gore said. "And in that moment we became a truly United States, united in pride and grati-tuda" Gore and others at the ceremony j.

Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, holds the the Langley Gold Medal for aviation presented to him by Vice-President Al Gore Tuesday recalled fellow moon-walker Pete Conrad, who was buried Monday after dying in a motorcycle accident, as well as Donald Engen, a decorated navy pilot who headed the Air and Space museum, who died in a glider accident July 13. Armstrong spoke for all three Apollo 11 astronauts, who were seated in front of the rusted Columbia spacecraft that took them to the moon, and beneath such legendary aircraft as Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and the fragile-looking plane flown by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. "We the Apollo 11 crew are enormously appreciative of being asked to receive this Langley medal and we do so on behalf of all the men and women of the Apollo program," Armstrong said. The solid-gold Langley medal was first awarded to Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1909.

Other recipients include Lindbergh and astronaut AlanShepard. The Associated Press Expedition leader Curt Newport inspects the exterior of Liberty Bell 7, which his team pulled from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean early Tuesday Channel, which financed the expedition at a cost of millions, will take it on a three-year tour before returning it to the Kansas museum for display NASA never tried to recover it because of the cost and because it had more important things to do at the time, like launching John Glenn and getting men on the moon. Anything made of aluminum, like the control panels, had deteriorated. But the capsule was in surprisingly good condition, particularly the fab ric, Newport said. "I can still see the actual straps that Grissom wore during his fl'iht inside," he said.

"The personal parachute inside the spacecraft is perfectly intact" Newport, a salvage expert who spent 14 years in the search, found the spacecraft on May 1 about 500 km from Cape Canaveral. But a cable snapped in rough seas. Newport and his team went back to get the capsule this month. ti. viz' the G.S.T.

.1 mat is Man with two cell phones was driving car with elbows Bad driving and cellular phones are so prevalent in Israeli life they're part of the national stereotype. But both at the same time? A man was pulled over Monday after a policewoman nabbed him driving through the coastal town of Netanya with a mobile phone in each hand. Engrossed in his conversation, he was operating the steering wheel with his elbows, the daily Haaretz reported Tuesday The volunteer policewoman flagged down the unidentified man when she saw his grey Mitsubishi meandering from side to side. In Israel it is illegal to hold even one cell phone while driving. Violators are usually given a stiff fine and sent on their way In the Netanya case, the policewoman sent the talkative driver to traffic court Envoys solve deadlock on top post at world trade body World Trade Organization envoys agreed effectively today to three-year consecutive terms by the rival two candidates for the top job, breaking a months-old deadlock in the leadership contest trade officials said Under the plan, agreed to at an informal meeting of the WTO's ruling General Council, former New Zealand prime minister Mike Moore would take up the post of director-general from Sept.

1, followed by Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi three years later The plan must be formally endorsed at a meeting of the General Council to be called later this week, diplomats said. peacemaking with the Arab world. "We do intend to implement" the Wye accords reached last October, Barak said after meeting with Vice-President Al Gore. In a weekend meeting with U.S. President Bill Clinton, Barak obtained Clinton's agreement to set a 15-month timetable for reviving the peace process.

U.S.-Israel committees would review the process every four months and would report directly to the two leaders. "We don't accept this," Arafat said, returning from a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "We accept only the immediate and speedy implementation of Wye River Memorandum and the Hebron Protocol and the other agreements." "We lost enough time with Netanyahu and it is not logical to waste more time with the new government" Arafat said, referring to former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Man held in death of woman crammed into suitcase A 24-year-old man was being held Tuesday as police continue to investigate the death of a Montreal woman found crammed into a small suitcase in a parking garage at Heathrow Airport Fatima Kama, 28, was stabbed a number of times in what London newspapers called a "frenzied attack," hours before she was to board a plane for Montreal on the weekend Of Moroccan descent she carried a Canadian passport but had been living off and on in London for several months. Her mother, who lives in Montreal said Kama had recently broken up with a boyfriend whose temper frightened her.

"He was very jealous," Hasna Kama told the National Post. Hasna Kama said her daughter met the man on a trip to London. She returned to London at his urging and tried to find work. She said the man became violent when her daughter tried to end the relationship. "He came and banged on her door because she wouldn't let him in.

She was afraid of him." Digest Fugitive Soliah returns home after friends post $1 bail Friends of a Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive posted her $l-million bail Tuesday, allowing her to return to Minnesota to await trial on charges she planted bombs under police cars during the 1970s. "I'm just looking forward to going home and being with my family and experiencing with my daughters the trauma of everyday teenage life, cooking food for my friends, saying hello to my dog Emma," Kathleen Ann Soliah said as she left a Los Angeles county jail and was hugged by her usband. Defence lawyer Susan Jordan told a judge that 250 people including artists, lawyers, doctors, bankers, bakers and landscapers had contributed large and small amounts to raise the $1 million, and Soliah would not violate their trust. "If she absconded, one of these 250 people would know about it before the electronic monitoring people," Jordan said Soliah, 52, had been underground for 23 years before she was captured last month in St PauL where she had been living as Sara Jane Olson, a doctor's wife, a mother of three and a local stage actress. Arafat, Barak agree to act quickly on peace deals A U.S.-Israel 15-month timetable for making peace deals with the Arabs is "unacceptable," Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Tuesday, saying that signed agreements should be acted on immediately Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in Washington for talks with U.S.

officials, responded: "I agree with him. It won't take that long." Barak said there's "no reason to wait" to implement the agreement with the Palestinians to withdraw from the West Bank despite his 15-month goal for comprehensive In addition to incredible savings store-wide. take off the" G.S.T. all sale i (up to 60 Hurry in, this offer end 1 31." 1 t. jv I More World stories: Military ceremony sparks German protestR 10030 104 Street 428-9119 c5v' (arAiftj store.