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The Index-Journal from Greenwood, South Carolina • Page 10

Publication:
The Index-Journali
Location:
Greenwood, South Carolina
Issue Date:
Page:
10
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

Th Indexournal, Greenwood, S.C. International Tuesday. November 11, 1997 pfeltsin touting trade with China Israeli television says agent urged killing of Rabin JERUSALEM (AP) A secret report on the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reveals that an agent of the Shin Bet security service urged the killer to carry out the shooting, Israel TV said Monday. People who have read the report say Avishai Raviy, an extreme-right activist who worked with the security agency, was a close friend of convicted assassin Yigal Amir and told him that Rabin should be killed, Israel TV said. Parts of the report are expected to be published Wednesday, Israel TV said.

The Israeli Cabinet recommended Monday that the report be opened, but the decision awaits approval of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. cal group Eyal and was known for leading some of the most virulent protests against Rabin's policies. He is said to have been a Shin Bet agent whose job was to keep the agency informed on ultranationalist circles. Whether he was on salary is unclear. The TV report said the addendum could raise questions about whether Raviv should have known about Amir's plans, and even about whether he helped drive Amir to the shooting.

It also describes Raviv's recruitment and his activities while working for the Shin Bet, such as inciting right-wingers, beating Arabs, burning tires on Arab-owned cars and distributing posters of Rabin in a Nazi S.S. uniform, Israel TV said. Last week, Cabinet ministers were allowed to read the report, an addendum to the conclusions of a state inquiry commission that investigated the November 1993 assassination. Only a few officials had seen it previously; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet recommended opening parts of the report in response to persistent -conspiracy the-, ones alleging that the Shin Bet played a role in the assassination. Netanyahu has dismissed the allegations as "nonsense." The state inquiry found that Amir, a Jewish nationalist hoping to end Rabin's land-for-peace policies, had acted alone.

He was sentenced to life in prison. Raviv was the leader of the radi at promoting world peace and prosperity, not at reviving the communist alliance of the 1950s. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Beijing, Moscow and Washington tried to play off each other for leverage in the Cold War. In the past few years, China and Russia have drawn closer as both seek to counteract Washington's pre-eminent power in Asia and Europe. U.S.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott spent today in Beijing probing Russian-Chinese intentions. He talked and lunched with Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Deguang, China's Russia expert, and met with Foreign Minister Qian Qichen. Qian apologized to Talbott for not taking a phone call this morning from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright because he was seeing off Premier Li Peng on a trip to Japan. It was unclear whether Albright wanted to discuss the Yeltsin-Jiang summit or Iraq's standoff with the United Nations over weapons inspections.

Maneuvering among Asia-Pacific powers has been feverish. In the past two weeks, Yeltsin and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto agreed to accelerate ties. Jiang, making his first state visit to Washington, got President Clinton to pledge to build another partner- Fires still burning on Indonesian islands JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) Heavy rain fell in the Indonesian capital for the first time in six months today, raising hopes that the monsoon season will help put out smog-producing wildfires. The rainy season, which usually starts in October, was delayed this year by the FJ Nino phenomenon that has contributed to drought across this nation of 200 million people. Fires in many parts of Indonesia have spread a thick haze over much of Southeast Asia, endangering the health of millions.

More rain was forecast in Indonesia, but environmentalists fear the monsoons will bring a host of new prob lems, including acid rain, soil erosion and flooding. The haze closed two airports today on the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, said Syaiful Bahri of the government's Agency for Environmental Impact Assessment. He said fires were still burning on Sumatra and the island of Borneo, which contains the Indonesian territory of Kalimantan, Brunei and Malaysia's Sabah and Sarawak territories. Three U.S. Embassy officials involved in aid projects were unable to visit a remote part of Indonesia's impoverished Irian Jaya region on Monday because of the haze, the official Antara news agency said.

BORIS YELTSIN president ship, like China's with Russia. In their joint statement signed Monday, Jiang and Yeltsin "noted with satisfaction the positive developments achieved in recent high-level meetings between China, Russia, the United States, Japan and other countries." "China and Russia believe that the time has passed when nations formed and strategic unions against third countries," said the statement, released today by the official Xinhua News Agency. The joint statement dwelled on trade more than any other subject. Aides also signed agreements for a 30-year project to pipe Siberian natural gas to China and to jointly develop long-disputed islands in border rivers. evidence so far points to the exis tence of timber circles and a ditch, or henge, the English Heritage commission said.

Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright, the group's' chief archaeologist, called the discovery the most significant in British prehistoric archaeology since the 1967 excavation of a timber temple of Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge. "We have about 3,000 stone circles in Britain, but previously only seven timber he said. "The Stanton Drew find is by far the largest twice as big as anything previously The newly discovered henge is a near-perfect circle with an outer di- itfitft CC Archaeologists find important prehistoric ceremonial site "This site complex is at least of equal significance to its more famous contemporaries," Wainwright said. Sir Jocelyn Stevens, chairman of English Heritage, suggested that the complex structure was built as a "symbol of power" by people seeking to control the supernatural.

English Heritage said it will examine only the remains of the temple posts, which may have stood up to 30 feet above ground. The rest of the site will not be extensively excavated, officials said, since it conforms to seven other timber temples in Britain. The find was made in September LONDON fAP) Archaeologists say they have found the buried remains of a prehistoric timber temple twice the size of the monument at Stonehenge and just as important. A survey of Stanton Drew in Somerset, southwest England, revealed traces of "one of the largest and most elaborate" prehistoric ceremonial sites ever found in Britain," a government commission that looks after historic, sites and buildings announced Monday. The site, concealed by a series of stone circles, was detected with sensitive instruments designed to reveal ancient remains without disturbing the land.

The HARBIN. China (AP) Russian President Boris Yeltsin promoted trade and played up historic ties with China today as a top JUS. envoy quizzed Chinese offi-oals on Beijing's warm relations jVith Russia. A day after reaffirming Russia's iand China's "strategic partner-ijship" with Chinese President Jiang 'jZemin, Yeltsin turned to business, traveling to Harbin city, once a bas-Jjion of Soviet-built heavy industry 'land now a center for trade with jRpssia. 1 Yeltsin laid a wreath at a memo-Vial for Soviet troops killed in the Vea, known as Manchuria, in the iast days of World War II.

Two 'jdozen ethnic Russians, many the offspring of people who fled the Soviet revolution, cheered and jiwjived at Yeltsin. ft Yeltsin and Jiang made boosting jeconomic ties a crucial goal of (Monday's summit in Beijing, their I fifth. They renewed a goal of $20 tb3.1ion in annual trade by 2000 and to final demarcation of their eastern border, where farmed clashes occurred as recently 1969. The two leaders publicly played tip their good rapport and the Strategic partnership" they have Icarved out over the past 20 months. They insisted relations were aimed Police raid Toshiba, Mitsubishi (AP) PoUce today raided the headquarters of Toshiba Corp.

and Mitsubishi Electric in vestigating allegations the companies made illegal payments to a racketeer Television footage showed 15 officers entering the Mitsubishi building in central Tokyo. About the same num ber of police went into head office to gather on the alleged pay-offs. The raids on the two inter- nationally-known electronics -bukers came one day after the arrests of Takeshi Watanabe, 85, a senior official in the gen-leral affairs department with Toshiba, and Yoshiki Sugiura, M7, chief of the general affairs Nivision with Mitsubishi. K' The two were arrested on Lcharges they paid off Terubo I Tel, a 53-year-old admitted racketeer, to ensure that the annual shareholders meetings ran smoothly. Spokesmen for both Toshiba and Mitsubishi said the companies would cooper ate with investigators.

i Speaking to reporters about fihe arrests, Prime Minister 'Ryutaro Hashimoto said. What a disgraceful thing it is. I This is sheer foolishness." Racketeers, or sokaiya in Japanese, buy a token amount of a company's stock and threaten to disrupt shareholders meetings by bringing up; Embarrassing information about failed investments or the personal lives of executives; Alternatively, they demand money from firms in exchange for pressuring other racke teers to keep quiet Toshiba's Watanabe was inspected of paying $16,900 to Tei over a three-year period from 1995, according to Tokyo police. Mitsubishi Electric's Sugiura was suspected of fun- neling $37,000 to the racketeer over the same period. Today, Mitsubishi Motors announced two of its top executives president Takemune Kimura and chairman Ilirokazu Nakamura.

will 'resign to take responsibility for the payoff scandal. Wc Tailor Loans Western Sahara refugees hope to return home with new peace deal We were all so happy that the peace talks have worked, with (Baker) behind theni Ma El Ainin Zawi We have about 3,000 stone circles in Britain, but previously only seven timber temples, Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright ameter of about 443 feet. Within the Great Circle are at least nine concentric circles that are thought to be burial pits. jllj But he also agreed Polisario is taking a risk by agreeing to the "all-or-nothing" vote.

Zawi has not returned home since he joined the Polisario Front in 1973, when Western Sahara was a Spanish colony. When Spain withdrew in 1975, Morocco claiming Western Sahara had belonged to the Moroccan kingdom before Spain colonized the territory a century ago sent in its troops. Sayed and many other Polisario fighters and their families fled across the border into Algeria. A long war ensued, but Morocco's army eventually sealed 'in hi hi i nii II by archaeologists using ground-scanning equipment in an attempt to learn more about the three stone circles at Stanton Drew. "The survey showed that the Great Circle was once enclosed by an enormous ditch," said Dr.

Andrew David, English Heritage's head of archaeometry. "Such enclosures named henges after that at Stonehenge are well-known but highly enigmatic features of Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain between 3200 to 2500 BC." Even though the site is located on 37 acres of private farmland, it will be open to the public, English Heritage said. ago. awi's father suggested he come home soon. Despite the 6-year-old truce, Zawi remained in the refugee camp because he felt returning would be tacit acknowledgment of Morocco's sovereignty.

He and other refugees also feared reprisals by Moroccan authorities. Dozens of Western Saharans suspected of being Polisario sympathizers have been arrested or have disappeared in Moroccan-controlled areas. Some Polisario refugees say they will renounce living in Western Sahara if voters choose to make it part of Morocco. "If Polisario lost I'd go (back) to Algeria," said Lejdeira Azman, who was caring for several children in her cloth-lined tent at Smara. Are Invited! oil the territory with a heavily guarded wal isaeaji), Moroccans in control of four-fifths of Western Sahara.

A U.N.-moni- tored ceasefire took hold six years ago, Zawi and thousands of other refugees still have family members on the Moroccan-occupied side whom they haven't seen in 20 years. "We were all so happy that the peace talks have worked, with (Baker) behind them;" Zawi said. Speaking from a plywood phone booth at Polisario's cinderblock headquarters, Zawi recently discussed the new peace agreement with his 88-year-old father. Zawi last saw his father, a tribal sheik who lives in Western Sahara's seaside capital, El Aioun, 24 years you xD SMARA REFUGEE CAMP, Algeria (AP) mBAH.ihZaw1 longs for his Western Sahara Rome-land, where Atlantic breezes cool desert gardens and spring waer burbles underground. i For two decades, home for the 50-year-old agronomist has been a tent camp on salty farmland surrounded by stony desert.

He raises tomatoes, green beans and other crops for fellow refugees, supplementing food provided by international aid agencies. Zawi and 120,000 other people fled Western Sahara during a war between Moroccan troops and an independence movement. They have lived in Smara and three other tent cities so long an entire generation has grown up in the camps, never setting foot on the land their parents left. Now, with a breakthrough in long peace talks, the refugees in the camps along the Algerian border are hoping not only to go home, but also to vote on the future of their Colorado-sized territory. The Polisario Front independence movement and Morocco's government agreed Sept.

16 to conditions for a U.N.-sponsored referendum on whether Western Sahara should become independent or be absorbed by Morocco. Morocco also agreed to U.N. control of the territory during the referendum and unrestricted access for foreign observers and journalists. Moroccan troops and Polisario's estimated guerrillas are supposed to stay in their barracks before and during the vote. No demobilization is yet contemplated under the peace plan.

Under the accord, tribal chiefs are to help the United Nations determine who is a genuine resident of To Fit 229-8082 1-800-854-5898 1430 E. Burton Plaza Hwy. 72 Bypatf wM Western Sahara and thus eligible to vote. The territory's population was largely nomadic before Morocco took over the territory when Spain, the colonial ruler, withdrew its forces in 1975. U.N.

special envoy James Baker, the former U.S. secretary of state who mediated in the peace talks, predicts the referendum could be held as early as next summer. Polisario's foreign minister, Bachir Mustafa Sayed, is buoyant over the accord. "Morocco is now under pressure," Sayed said with a grin in an interview with The Associated Press. .41 1 milium ii i nOThpt 5J wen Join your friends at the.

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