GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

June 26, 98 United Nations Commission on Global Governance: ".The exercise of sovereign power must be linked to the will of the people. Unless the abuse of sovereignty is stopped, it will be impossible to increase respect for the norms that flow from it. In an increasingly interdependent world, old notions of territoriality, independence, and non- intervention lose some of their meaning. National boundaries are increasingly permeable--and, in some important respects, less relevant. A global flood of money, threats, images, and ideas has overflowed the old system of national dikes that preserved state autonomy and control. .It is now more difficult to separate actions that solely affect a nation's internal affairs from those that have an impact on the internal affairs of other states, and hence to define the legitimate boundaries of sovereign authority. .For all these reasons, the principle of sovereignty and the norms that derive from it must be further adapted to recognize changing realities. States continue to perform important functions, and must have the powers to fulfil these functions effectively. But these must rest on the continuing consent and democratic representation of the people. They are also limited by the fundamental interests of humanity, which in certain severe circumstances must prevail over the ordinary rights of particular states. . The readiness of the Security Council to authorize UN action, including military action, in support of humanitarian purposes represents a proper and necessary evolution of the exercise of international responsibility.."

Sovereignty International 7/8 98 "On July 14, Kofi Annan released Maurice Strong's initial plan to begin reforming (read: restructuring) the United Nations. The 95-page document, entitled Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform, is a step-by-step program to implement many of the recommendations advanced by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance in its 1995 report entitled Our Global Neighborhood. The reform plan comes as no surprise. Maurice Strong was a member of the Commission on Global Governance and a lead author of its report. He was the first appointment of Kofi Annan, just days after Annan's selection as UN Secretary-General. As Executive Coordinator for Reform, Strong was hired specifically to restructure the sprawling UN system into the mechanism for global governance described in Our Global Neighborhood. .The plan puts into motion a fundamental shift of purpose for the existence of the United Nations. The United Nations was created, and heretofore, has functioned to serve its membership of sovereign nations. The market, or service area for the United Nations is now shifting away from sovereign nations to focus directly on the citizens of those nations. The UN is no longer limiting its activities to providing services for nations, but is now gearing up to provide "security for the people" within those nations."

WorldNetDaily,sm 4/23/99 John Doggett "...Summit leaders will discuss an American initiative that will allow NATO to respond to threats of nuclear weapons or non conventional terrorism from countries outside Europe or the United States, officials said. The initiative will develop joint logistics and improve interoperability command, control, and communications facilities, and develop detection of chemical and biological weapons. According the Thursday's New York Times: "Kosovo has brought NATO into the never-never land," said David Gompert, vice president of Rand who was on the National Security Council in the Bush administration. "It has brought us into a situation where a regime that slaughters its own people is no longer sovereign and where the United Nations Security Council is no longer a requirement." .....In 1992, Strobe Talbot, who is now Clinton's No. 2 National Security Advisor, said the idea of a nation-state didn't make sense anymore. Once he became president, Clinton supported the Convention on Bio-diversity that they produced at the U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The treaty treated America as an ecological miscreant and protected third world countries that are destroying their rain forests. In 1995, Hillary lead a delegation to the U.N.'s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. This conference proposed new U.N. guaranteed rights for children. One of these "rights" would allow the U.N. to remove your child from your home if your 10-year-old didn't want to obey you. In 1997, the Clinton Administration supported the Kyoto global warming treaty...In 1998, the Clinton Administration supported creation of an International Criminal Court in Rome. The International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty says that the U.N. can enter any nation and remove its leader if the U.N. decides that the leader is a "war criminal." It also creates a permanent criminal prosecutor's office. Clinton's reps backed away from the treaty when supporters of the ICC claimed that it could overrule decisions of the United States Supreme Court. ...They have supported creating a global income tax, taxing all international banking transactions, taxing all stock market transactions, and taxing all proceeds of underseas mining. The tax on international banking transactions alone would generate a trillion dollars for the U.N.....If the move to change NATO's charter succeeds, it wouldn't take much for it to become the military arm of the U.N. If the move to give the U.N. independent taxing authority succeeds, the U.N. would become a global government with unprecedented power and wealth. And Bill Clinton could be in charge of the whole ball of wax...."

WorldNetDaily.com 6/23/99 Henry Lamb "...Two primary targets are now in the cross hairs of the global tax-mongers: carbon and currency exchange. Carbon taxes are being designed to modify social behavior while the tax on currency exchange is designed to increase U.N. revenue from about $11 billion per year to $1.5 trillion per year. A revenue stream, independent of the voluntary contributions of member states, is all that prevents the United Nations from imposing, and enforcing, its vision of global governance. Momentum is building for global taxation schemes to provide that independent revenue stream. More than two-thirds of the American people support the idea of a global tax on foreign currency exchange, and a whopping 79 percent want a global tax on carbon. These numbers were collected by the ATI Foundation, and reported by the Washington-based Commission to Fund the United Nations. The numbers likely reflect the pollster's skill at asking misleading questions, rather than a true reflection of the American attitude toward global taxation. Nevertheless, support for various forms of global taxation is growing, pushed by well-funded organizations such as the Commission to Fund the United Nations; the United Nations Association U.S.A., Friends of the Earth; and a host of other environmental organizations...."

AP 8/14/99 Edith Lederer "...The issue that dominated three weeks of negotiations on the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal wasn't even on the agenda: What will it take for the United States to join the court? With the answer hanging in limbo, more than 100 countries made "good progress'' on key legal issues during the second round of preparatory negotiations for the International Criminal Court, said Philippe Kirsch, chairman of the preparatory commission. The meeting ended Friday. But it was the private talks between U.S. Ambassador David Scheffer and national leaders that generated the most interest. Scheffer is trying to find a legal solution that will enable Washington to sign the treaty creating the tribunal. The United States was one of seven countries that last year voted against establishing the tribunal. The treaty was approved by 120 other countries and has since been signed by 84 of those and ratified by four. American officials felt the treaty yielded too much prosecutorial power to the new court, leaving U.S. troops and citizens vulnerable to politically motivated prosecutions..... The Clinton administration wants an exception from investigation or prosecution by the court for personnel involved in official military actions. Richard Dicker, associate counsel for Human Rights Watch, said an exception for official acts would render the court "null and void'' and allow the Saddam Husseins of the world to get away with crimes against humanity. "It is a loophole the size of the Grand Canyon that any rogue state would drive right through,'' he said....."

Links:

Books:

Our Global Neighborhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance may be obtained from Oxford University Press. Call (919) 677-0977; paperback, $14.95, ISBN 0-19-827997-3, 410 pages.

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6/28/98 Washington Post Thomas Edsall reported "President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are seeking to take advantage of the unprecedented number of Western governments controlled by center-left parties to turn their "third way" political strategies in the United States and Great Britain into an international movement.In the United States, Sidney Blumenthal is the Clinton aide working most closely with the Blair government and with center-left parties in France, Germany, Italy and Brazil. "We are sharing our experiences on the issues that confront us in all advanced industrial nations," Blumenthal said, describing the discussions as informal. .But the emergence of trans-Atlantic, one-nation politics of a new third way makes it increasingly clear that far more than personality is at stake."

U.N. World Court - Virginia
Miami Trials, Italian Court
International Criminal Court (June/Rome)
U.N. Rapidly Deployable Mission Headquarters (RDMHQ)
One Nation Politics
U.N. World Heritage Sites (UNESCO)
Specialist New (Blue Beret Incident, Allegience to US not UN)

Summarized from 7/2/98 Manchester Union Leader Patrick Buchanan. Ralph Nader wrote to the 100 largest U.S. corporations, urging that, at their next shareholders meetings, their CEOs lead the company in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States, the reactions include: Arco, Amoco and Delta said no. Allstate said it would not be appropriate. Busch, Aetna, Dayton-Hudson and 3M were concerned about offending global participants. Hewlitt-Packard, Kodak and Caterpillar said it would not be productive. Boeing said it was not necessary. Coca-Cola and Bristol-Myers said they might consider it. AT&T said it would consider it.

March 11, 1998 International Criminal Court proposed crimes (Article 5 draft): Genocide="causing serious . . . mental harm to members of [a national, ethnic, racial or religious] group;" Enforced Pregnancy does not refer to the act of rape; and Persecution="the wilful and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law [carried out with the intent to persecute on specified grounds]" . "against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural or religious [or gender] [or other similar] grounds."

June 26, 98 United Nations Commission on Global Governance: ".The exercise of sovereign power must be linked to the will of the people. Unless the abuse of sovereignty is stopped, it will be impossible to increase respect for the norms that flow from it. In an increasingly interdependent world, old notions of territoriality, independence, and non- intervention lose some of their meaning. National boundaries are increasingly permeable--and, in some important respects, less relevant. A global flood of money, threats, images, and ideas has overflowed the old system of national dikes that preserved state autonomy and control. .It is now more difficult to separate actions that solely affect a nation's internal affairs from those that have an impact on the internal affairs of other states, and hence to define the legitimate boundaries of sovereign authority. .For all these reasons, the principle of sovereignty and the norms that derive from it must be further adapted to recognize changing realities. States continue to perform important functions, and must have the powers to fulfil these functions effectively. But these must rest on the continuing consent and democratic representation of the people. They are also limited by the fundamental interests of humanity, which in certain severe circumstances must prevail over the ordinary rights of particular states. . The readiness of the Security Council to authorize UN action, including military action, in support of humanitarian purposes represents a proper and necessary evolution of the exercise of international responsibility.." Lee Casey a former US Justice Department law counsel said of the ICC: "As it is currently conceived the ICC will continue in one institution the functions of investigation, fact-finding, prosecution, judgment, sentencing, appeal and pardon." A United Nations human rights summit will hear welfare-reform critics describe Idaho's policy (recipient must spend 20 hours a week working or looking for work) as an international human rights violation, under Articles 23, 25, 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

7/2/98 Washington Times Gaedig Bonabesse reports "Several European companies with investments in the United States are under pressure to withdraw them from states where capital punishment is enforced, members of the European Parliament warn. The state of Texas, which executes more criminals than any other state, has been put on particular notice that such sanctions are possible.."The governor took an oath of office to uphold the laws of our state, including the death penalty" .In Europe, the death penalty is . forbidden in the 15 member states of the European Union. "

The Ammunition Panel met at the United Nations in New York from April 27, to May 1,1998. The UN cites the relatively limited shelf life of ammunition and its large consumption during conflict as reasons for stringent control and limits on possession. The Panel's long term goal is to substantially increase regulation of international commercial shipments to completely ban civilian possession of military caliber rounds ( .308, .30-06, .223, 6.5X55mm, .303 etc ).

"There are a lot of very brilliant people who believe that the nation-state is fast becoming a relic of the past. "-- President Clinton, New York Times, November 25, 1997

Washington Times, Greg Pierce 7/9/98 "As the world gets smaller, the U.S. Supreme Court will be drawing on judgments from other countries in its own deliberations, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said yesterday in Brussels."

7/9/98 AP Daniel Wakin on the International Criminal Court ".Agreement is near on most of the nuts and bolts issues, such as rules of procedure and cooperation between governments, the court's composition and administration. However, the draft will leave unresolved some of the fundamental political issues that have been the subject of contentious debate: the independence and power of the prosecutor."

Clinton at commencement address at Pennsylvania State University 5/10/98 - urged all public schools to make community service mandatory by requiring high school students to volunteer for a certain number of hours in order to earn their diplomas ...

7/10/98 AP Daniel Wakin "A U.N. conference Friday produced a draft treaty on a world criminal court that would grant the prosecutor sweeping authority, a measure vigorously opposed by the United States. The draft also did away with proposals to declare the use of nuclear weapons, blinding lasers and anti- personnel mines as war crimes. It said the court could have jurisdiction over internal conflicts, now the major source of crimes against humanity. The draft also allowed including state ``aggression'' as a crime -- if delegates could decide on what that means by Monday."

7/12/98 AP Oslo: "Delegates from 21 countries will meet in Oslo on Monday to draft a strategy to keep small arms like machine guns out of the hands of terrorists, criminals and countries on the brink of war. Among the countries expected at the two-day session are the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Brazil, Mali, South Africa, Indonesia and Zimbabwe.."

7/13/98 UPI "The United States is sending a strong message of caution at a U.N. conference on the creation of an International Criminal Court, urging delegates to ``recognize the potential and realistic limitations'' of such a court. In a statement to the conference, the United States reaffirmed its disapproval of the ``universal jurisdiction'' of an International Criminal Court over crimes against humanity and war crimes _ two of the three ``core crimes'' agreed upon when the conference began a month ago. The United States supports automatic ICC jurisdiction only over the third core crime, genocide, but it wants to be able to ``opt-in'' in cases of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Opting-in means that a nation would have to approve before the ICC could have full jurisdiction."

7/16/98 Reuters via Fox "Some 60 like-minded democracies rejected Thursday a plan that would have allowed states to opt out of the jurisdiction of a world war crimes court, leaving key differences with the United States unresolved.U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson was so disturbed at the turn of negotiations that she wrote to all delegates expressing her "deep concern'' and pleading for the court to have automatic jurisdiction on all three core crimes.."

AP 7/17/98 Candice Hughes "Over strong American opposition, a draft treaty creating the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal emerged early today from marathon United Nations' negotiations. Delegates from 160 countries have until midnight to endorse the treaty, and several said the draft had a good chance of winning approval.Despite weeks of arm-twisting, U.S. diplomats failed to block the creation of an independent prosecutor and insert a loophole that would allow American citizens and soldiers an exemption from the court's jurisdiction. Most of Washington's closest allies opposed the U.S. position."

REVIEWING THE RHODES LEGACY By William F. Jasper ".. However, it is not idealism per se, but a particular kind of idealism, of which Rhodies are typically imbued, that is the problem under consideration here. And it is certainly not an idealism proceeding from an "ideological vacuum." If that were the case, we would expect to see idealism manifested and expressed in a diversity of shapes and forms, as for instance: Christian idealism versus humanist/pagan/atheist idealism, individualist versus collectivist idealism, libertarian versus totalitarian idealism, nationalist versus globalist idealism, etc. The Oxonian idealism, however, seems to run almost invariably along the humanist/pagan/atheist, collectivist, totalitarian, globalist, elitist lines. Perhaps Beinart's peers do not explicitly subscribe to such a nasty idealism, but, apparently, it is implicit - at least in the formative stages - in their collective world view, and it is this which makes him "uneasy."As he says, they have a passionate "commitment to government," but, "above all, they believe "in themselves" in government." Which is exactly the kind of "idealism" British empire builder Cecil John Rhodes intended to foster when he established the Rhodes scholarships at the turn of the century.."

World Net Daily 7/20/98 "The trouble with nailing President Clinton on anything is that as soon as you start closing in on him for one example of high treason or criminal insanity, he is embarking on a dozen head-spinning new ones. The latest scandalous illustration is his Pentagon's plan to have U.S. Special Forces soldiers train China's People's Liberation Army troops. I'm not kidding. Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon confirmed for the South China Morning Post the possibility that the Green Berets and Navy SEALS would share their famed fighting secrets with America's most likely military adversary for the foreseeable future.Once again, the question of motives arises. Stupidity could not possibly explain such monumental treacheries. Money flows in to the Clinton campaign and technology and vital national security secrets flow out. How much can this administration get away with before Americans rise up in anger and demand some accountability? A few months ago, a nuclear physicist in Los Angeles was convicted of providing national defense information to the Chinese and lying about it to U.S. investigators. Peter Lee was sentenced to a $20,000 fine, one year in a halfway house and 3,000 hours of community service. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter thought he was making an example of Lee."

7/6/98 The New American 7/6/98 "A delegation from Red China's Ministry of Public Security was recently hosted by Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services and met with an FBI official for a briefing at FBI headquarters, accoriding to a report in the Washington Times . FBI spokesman Frank Scafidi said that the agency has "been trying to establish an office in Beijing to accomplish our goals of having better access in China for law enforcement activities, such as following up leads in China that affect cases we have going on." Of course, the visit of the Chinese delegation also fits well with the Clinton Administration's potentially treasonous coddling of the Red dictatorship.

CNS 7/24/98 Michael Carney - "The recent approval by members of a United Nations conference in Rome of a proposed International Criminal Court (ICC) has several members of Congress very concerned about its possible encroachment on U.S. sovereignty. The Washington Times is reporting a bipartisan coalition of Sens. John Aschcroft (R-MO), Rod Grams (R-MN), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joseph Biden, Jr. (D-DE), and Jesse Helms (R-NC) have asked Secretary of State Madeline Albright for assurances that "not one soldier" take part in any NATO or other international mission without an agreement that no U.S. soldiers be prosecuted by the international court. In a letter to the Secretary of State, Helms wrote, "Madam Secretary, I am unalterably opposed to the creation of a permanent U.N. criminal court because any permanent judiciary within the United Nations system would be totally inappropriate, inasmuch as, like the creation of a standing army, or the power to collect taxes, it would grant the U.N. a principal trapping of sovereignty." .."

8/1/98 End Times Web Site William Blase ".The original concept for the UN was the outcome of the Informal Agenda Group, formed in 1943 by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. All except Hull were CFR members, and Isaiah Bowman, a founding member of the CFR, originated the idea. .Since that time the CFR and its friends in the mass media (largely controlled by CFR members such as Katherine Graham of the Washington Post and Henry Luce of Time, Life), foundations, and political groups have lobbied consistently to grant the United Nations more authority and power. Bush and the Gulf War were but one of the latest calls for a "New World Order." Through executive order, Clinton has attempted to give the U.N. authority to command U.S. troops. Many American historical sites are now U.N. "World Heritage Sites," such as Independence Hall, Carlsbad Caverns, and the Grand Canyon. The administration is moving forward with the Biodiversity Treaty (though not ratified by Congress) and the Wildlands Project, developed by convicted eco-terrorist Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First! and present director of the Sierra Club. It would convert much of the area of the U.S. to wilderness areas, connected by corridors for the free movement of species (except for humans, who would be confined and "concentrated" into enclaves...)."

Sovereignty International 7/8 98 "On July 14, Kofi Annan released Maurice Strong's initial plan to begin reforming (read: restructuring) the United Nations. The 95-page document, entitled Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform, is a step-by-step program to implement many of the recommendations advanced by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance in its 1995 report entitled Our Global Neighborhood. The reform plan comes as no surprise. Maurice Strong was a member of the Commission on Global Governance and a lead author of its report. He was the first appointment of Kofi Annan, just days after Annan's selection as UN Secretary-General. As Executive Coordinator for Reform, Strong was hired specifically to restructure the sprawling UN system into the mechanism for global governance described in Our Global Neighborhood. .The plan puts into motion a fundamental shift of purpose for the existence of the United Nations. The United Nations was created, and heretofore, has functioned to serve its membership of sovereign nations. The market, or service area for the United Nations is now shifting away from sovereign nations to focus directly on the citizens of those nations. The UN is no longer limiting its activities to providing services for nations, but is now gearing up to provide "security for the people" within those nations."

Honolulu Star Bulletin News Pat Omandam 8/12/98 "Hawaii's annexation by the United States could be declared invalid, according to a United Nations report. The report said the situation of native Hawaiians now takes on a "special complexion" because of, among other reasons, President Clinton's November 1993 Apology Resolution to native Hawaiians. The study recommends Hawaii be returned to a U.N. List of Non-Self Governing Territories - a list of indigenous peoples colonized by another country. Such action could make Hawaii eligible for decolonization as well as a U.N.-sponsored plebiscite. The 73- page unedited final report, submitted after nine years of reviewing treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between nations and indigenous peoples, was filed July 30 in Geneva."

Miss Kelly 8/27/98 World Net Daily ".It appears the Third Wayers are realizing that perhaps Bill Clinton is too severely crippled to continue with the agenda with any success. As such, when it is clear he is dead in the water agenda-wise, Bill will be chucked overboard and a new Third Wayer placed at the helm. Several things have happened in the last 24 hours that are, in my view, extremely significant. Thomas Friedman at the NY Times wrote yesterday: "But if there is no hope for the agenda, what need is there for the man?" .Add this to Clinton going out for a sail with Walter Cronkite. Cronkite is a major globalist who believes in world government and said so very plainly in his book. "If we are to avoid [a World War III] catastrophe, a system of order -- preferably a system of world government -- is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, YIELD UP THEIR PRECIOUS SOVEREIGNTY, just as America's colonies did two centuries ago. When we finally come to our senses and ESTABLISH A WORLD EXECUTIVE AND A PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS. ..." [p. 128, A Reporter's Life] Remember when the "statesmen" of the Republican Party visited the White House and said, "Dick, for the sake of the country and the Republican Party, you need to resign,"? Some have waited for the Democratic big-wigs to do the same with BC. But it will never happen because BC is not beholden to the Democrats. He takes his orders from the Third Wayers. ONLY when the Third Way bails out on Bill -- or their "greymen" have that same chat with Bill, will he resign. I suspect "Uncle Walter" and Bill had such a "chat" on his boat yesterday ... about how the AGENDA transcends the man, and as such BC needs to step aside and be replaced with someone who can move the agenda forward.."

AP 9/2/98 Karin Davies "The women told their stories in voices that cracked with the pain of remembering: Gang rape of a pregnant victim. Being forced to parade naked. Mutilation. Months after the harrowing testimony, an international tribunal for the first time has defined rape as a genocidal crime. U.N. judges also said Wednesday that sexual violence is not limited to "physical invasion'' of the body and may not even require physical contact.."

Sunday Times of London 8/20/98 Robert Harris "Blair's third way to elected dictatorship The prime minister has written a pamphlet. And tomorrow, in what must rank as one of the more ill-timed and unfortunately named summits in recent history, he flies to America to talk about "the third way" to, of all people, Bill Clinton. As Frankie Howerd would have said: titter ye not. It was, therefore, with a heavy heart that I picked up Mr Blair's thin pamphlet. Prime ministers are not usually given to writing works of political philosophy while in office; offhand, I can't think of a premier who has done so since Gladstone. It was bound to be dull, I thought. And, in some ways, it is quite dull.. But the blandness of the prose is deceptive. Again and again, on the point of slumber, you realise you have just read something unexpectedly interesting, potentially even revolutionary. Consider, for example, this passage: "My vision for the 21st century is of a popular politics reconciling themes which in the past have wrongly been regarded as antagonistic - patriotism and internationalism; rights and responsibilities; the promotion of enterprise and the attack on poverty and discrimination. . ." Well, you think (your heading nodding forwards onto your chest), nobody could argue with that. And then you realise that that is precisely the point: nobody could argue with it. What is striking about that sentence is its inclusivity, its pre-empting of all serious opposition, for who but knaves or fools could attack such sentiments? This is the essence of the third way, and it goes far beyond the tactic of stealing your political opponent's clothes. As Blair's pamphlet makes clear, it is no longer merely a question of saying, "Oh, this bit of Thatcherism is good, so well keep it". What we have here is synthesis as ideology - synthesis as an end in itself - a concept I have never before seen advocated so openly in democratic politics. It is either breathtaking, or sinisterly Orwellian, or both, depending on your point of view..."

South China Morning Post 10/21/98 Agence France-Presse "A second round of defence consultations between China and the United States ended in Beijing yesterday with both sides agreeing the talks had improved mutual understanding, Xinhua reported. Senior officials from the PLA said the discussions, which began on Monday, had laid solid ground for further exchanges and co-operation between the two armies. Defence Minister General Chi Haotian , in a meeting with US Under-Secretary of Defence Walter Slocombe yesterday, said that the regular consultations mechanism was "a hotline for the Sino-US armed forces" which could help reduce divergence and increase common ground between the sides.. safety consultation next year. The first defence consultations were held last December in Washington. This month, China attacked tentative plans for Japan and the US to develop a theatre missile defence programme, denouncing some of the clauses in a related US defence spending bill as "anti-China".."

Financial Times - London 11/24/98 Gerard Baker ".When Bill Clinton, US president, was asked during his Tokyo visit what was the most important economic challenge facing the world, he replied without hesitation: "To adapt the international economic systems to the realities of the 21st century".."

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation 8/4/98 ".The Clinton Administration has filed arguments with the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that no union should be required to provide workers with an independent audit of union political activities. Moreover, it argues that unions should be permitted to force workers to pay for union activities around the world - from Mexico to Indonesia - as a condition of employment. The National Right to Work Foundation has been served with a copy of U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman's arguments urging the Supreme Court to reject the Foundation's petition for a writ of certiorari in Strang v. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Also in the petition, Clinton's Justice Department argued that American workers should be fired for refusing to pay for a union's national and international union collective bargaining costs, no matter where in the world they are incurred. .."

12/2/98 Rep Bob Barr "."While this ruling does allow our Committee some access to these memos, Judge Johnson's decision raises fundamental Constitutional issues, specifically, regarding separation of powers. "Under our Constitution, the judicial branch is not allowed to interfere in impeachment proceedings. By limiting access to materials requested by our Committee, Judge Johnson may have crossed that line. If we set a precedent that judges can deny evidence in an impeachment investigation, we risk rendering the impeachment power meaningless, because the process could be impeded by any federal judge at any time. "Given the Clinton Administration's concerted efforts to block our access to these memos, it is very likely they contain important information that could bear directly on our Committee's work. It is unacceptable to limit our access to them."."

Jewish World Review 12/8/98 Linda Chavez Excerpts by Marcellus ".Bill Clinton has attacked the integrity and independence of the judicial system, and if he gets away with it, the separation of powers with its checks and balances ---- which is fundamental to American democracy -- will be irreparably weakened. The president lied under oath in court proceedings, not once but many times, not just in a civil deposition but before a grand jury investigating possible criminal wrongdoing. He also induced others to provide false testimony to the grand jury and to a federal court trying a civil case. The president's actions do not merely constitute perjury or obstruction of justice as they would if anyone else had committed them. They are the willful assault of the chief executive on the judiciary. If the president can, with impunity, lie under oath in a judicial proceeding, the judiciary becomes subordinate to his power. In effect, he places himself above the law and not subject to it...."

The New York Times 12/24/98 William Safire ".Not since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran has American territory been so egregiously invaded as last week -- and nobody in the distracted Clinton Administration seems to care. In Damascus, where the Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad rigidly controls the populace, tens of thousands massed in protest, ostensibly about our bombing of Iraq. A selected part of the mob -- about 1,000 drawn from the ruling Baath Party -- was permitted to march at night where demonstrators are never allowed to go: through the upscale al-Rawdha neighborhood, where the United States Embassy and the Ambassador's residence are located.."

World Net Daily Joseph Farah ".From where do our rights descend? The Bill of Rights? No. The Constitution? No. The Federal government? No. The United Nations? Certainly not. But, apparently, that's what Bill Clinton thinks. For earlier this month, Dec. 10 to be exact, he issued another one of his infamous executive orders -- this time on "the implementation of human rights treaties." In Executive Order 13107, Clinton sets up a new federal bureaucracy for the purpose of implementing U.N. treaties, whether ratified by the U.S. Senate or not. And that federal bureaucracy will implement the treaties on the U.N.'s terms..Who is the sovereign that imparts such blessings upon the populace of the world? The answer to that question is stated unequivocally in article 29 of the U.N. document, which states: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." That pretty much explains who the "massa" is and where the plantation boundaries end. What a stark contrast between the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, and the founding documents of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution both make it clear that basic human rights are inalienable, meaning they descend from the ultimate Sovereign, the Creator, God. Therefore, no human authority, no government, no criminal, no individual can abrogate or abridge those rights. Remember, any right government can bestow upon a people, it can just as easily take away.."

Reuters 2/3/99 ".United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson on Wednesday appealed to the U.S. authorities to stop the execution of convicted murderer Sean Sellers by the state of Oklahoma. Sellers was sentenced to death in 1986 for the killing of his mother, stepfather and a shop assistant when he was 16 years old and suffering from mental disorder...In her statement Robinson said if sentence were carried out it would "run counter to established international principles and the international community's expressed desire for the abolition of the death penalty"..."

EWTN News 2/5/99 CWNews.com Freeper marshmallow ". A United Nations commission investigating discrimination against women called on Colombia on Thursday to end its legal ban on abortion to bring the country into compliance with international conventions. The 23-member commission, which monitors compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, said Colombian women were receiving illegal abortions despite the ban... "

Wall Street Journal 2/3/99 Holman Jenkins Jr. ".On that day, a week after being surprised by the question of Monica in his Paula Jones deposition, the president with deliberation and forethought did walk into a meeting with his cabinet and tell them a lie about his personal relationship with Ms.Lewinsky. Thereupon, each of the above cabinet secretaries went out on the White House lawn and, with all the spontaneity of a Soviet May Day parade, affirmed for the cameras that each believed the president's lies. As anyone familiar with the televised presidency can readily grasp, these performances are not left to chance. They are highly scripted. Another cabinet secretary, arguably a more important one, Treasury's Robert Rubin, appeared on CNBC to tell the financial markets "I absolutely believe" the president. Thus the apparatus of governmental communication was employed by a knowing president to spread a lie about his personal indiscretions...In lying to his cabinet, Mr. Clinton was in essence blackmailing them to provide the country with examples of knowledgeable persons of stature who affirm his lies. He did this with premediation. These ranking members of the government, confirmed by the Senate and sworn in by the judiciary, fell upon their swords to protect Bill Clinton's personal interest..."

State Department 2/16/99 James Foley ".Foley announced that Vice President Gore will host the first-ever international conference on fighting corruption at the State Department February 24-26. Over 300 justice and security officials from more than 70 counties are invited. The conference is part of a broad Clinton Administration approach to battling the rising tide of international crime, Foley said.."

USIS Washington File 2/16/99 ".The first session of the preparatory commission for the International Criminal Court convened at UN headquarters February 16. The commission will discuss fundamental issues such as the court's rules of procedure and evidence the types of crimes over which it has jurisdiction once it comes into force. The court was established by the UN Diplomatic Conference in Rome on July 17, 1998. It will actually come into being after 60 states have ratified the statute. Although 75 states have signed the statute, only one country -- Senegal -- has ratified the statute so far. Participation in the preparatory commission is open to all states that were invited to the Rome conference, including those states that have not yet signed the statute. The United States, which did not sign the statute, is participating in the commission meeting. The US delegation is led by Ambassador David Scheffer, chief US envoy for war crimes issues, who headed the US delegation at the Rome conference..."

Washington Post 2/23/99 Charles Trueheart "..."Great nations who understand the importance of sovereignty at various times cede various portions of it in order to achieve some better good for their country," she said. "We are looking at how the nation-state functions in a totally different way than people did at the beginning of this century." ...Madeleine Albright talking about Kosovo

Freeper Brian Mosely Associated Press 2/26/99 By KEVIN GALVIN "... President Clinton today outlined a foreign policy of active involvement overseas -- from China to Kosovo -- for the final two years of his administration, saying Americans ``must embrace the inexorable logic of globalization.'' ..."

All Texas News 3/11/99 Freeper Newskeeper reports "…Donald, an, aircraft mechanic at McAllen Airport who would not reveal his last name stated: "The UN guys have been over there for months and months. You mean to tell me that the news media is just now aware of this?: Donald was incredulous, "Hell they have landed planes here for fuel. They won't buy fuel on the mexican side of the border. They have never been unfriendly, but something tells me not to trust them. They are not Americans, I can guarantee you that. Most appear to be Europeans, most all have heavy accents." Donald also believes that although no UN trucks or any uniformed men have been spotted on the Texas side of the border, it is common knowledge that many of the UN personnel stay at the McAllen Holidome. Donald says: "Go there and ask them for yourself what they want" Tomorrow http://www.alltexas.net/news/txnews1.html …"

Newsmax.com 3/12/99 Reynosa Mexico----AllTexas News 3/11/99 "…NAFTA, Borders 21, and American heritage Rivers Initiative are all falling into place now. On Tuesday our reporters followed up on leads about U.N. personnel stationed at the United States-Mexican Border. Upon arriving in McAllen, TX we began to follow leads and make contacts with our sources. Ready to get on the move, we jumped into the a truck and headed for the Mexican Border about 10 minutes due south of McAllen. We arrived at the busy border crossing at Hidlago Texas/Reynosa, Nuevo Leon, Mexico and parked on the US side of the border. We trekked on foot across the international bridge. It did not take us long to find what we came to find: United Nations personnel complete with UN symbol and blue beret. A United Nations truck sat close by but without the usually large UN painted on the side. One must wonder why they are there. Is it to protect Mexico from unseen threat or is it a direct threat to the sovereignty of the United States? We were there to find out. American-educated Mexican Federal Police Officer Enrique Santa Maria Guerrero says The UN has been here for months. But he doesn't know why. They sit in our building, smoke and do nothing but watch us. When questioned about why there were stationed in Reynosa, Officer Enrique says: "It's NAFTA. We were told in the summer of last year the UN observers would be coming, and now they seem to be here to stay. We don't need UN men on our border, we need UN Men to watch our elections!!!" Enrique continued: "Each shift fills out a report which we are not allowed to see…."

The Daily Oklahoman 3/17/99 John Mallon Freeper deepsixx "…The United Nations Population Fund calls for grade school teaching of sex education and omits parental supervision entirely - also they want $25 million from the US to implement this - Hillary approves of their agenda…"

The American Cause 2/26/99 Pat Buchanan "…The sovereignty issue is roaring back… Up at the United Nations, the carpenters of the New World Order are busy constructing the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. Modeled on the Nuremberg court that convicted the Nazis, the new tribunal claims jurisdiction over all nations, including the United States. Last July, America rejected the court, fearing U.S. soldiers could be prosecuted. Yet, American diplomats are beavering away alongside U.N. bureaucrats who envision the tribunal as a world court that shall sit above the claims of any and all nation-states…."(W)hat makes a state sovereign," Rabkin writes, "is that it need answer to no outside authority." For us, sovereignty means the primacy of our own Constitution. The people of the United States, by their own sovereign authority, have made the Constitution supreme over the government, and no outside agreement can challenge that supremacy." Yet, both NAFTA and Al Gore's Kyoto treaty on global warming supersede our Constitution and imperil that sovereignty, putting America on the same fatal path being trod by Europe. Writes Rabkin: "(T)he Common Market ... has expanded in size and ambition to emerge as something like a federal superstate. ... The European Union has undertaken ... to remove tariff barriers ... to standardize products and services, to ensure common protections for labor and the environment, and to reallocate wealth from richer to poorer regions. In total, such 'integration' is far more ambitious than the aggregate of policies undertaken by the federal government in the United States. ... (T)he European Court of Justice claims and exercises the authority to invalidate statutory enactments of parliaments ... "No one seriously pretends," he adds, "that the member states of the EU are still sovereign in the way they once were." …."

LifeSite Daily News 3/31/99 "…Speaking with LifeSite News just moments after stepping off the plane from New York, veteran UN diplomat Gilles Grondin told LifeSite that the UN Cairo+5 prepcom which was scheduled to end yesterday continues today despite sessions that went till 1:30am. The reason for the delay, says Grondin is that the G-77 countries are rejecting efforts by the West, particularly the European Union, the US and Canada to have an anti-family agenda dictated to them. "At every turn," reports Mr. Grondin, "sexual and reproductive rights are pushed on the G-77 countries." He confirmed that by these terms the West was referring to 'rights' to homosexuality, abortion, contraception, sterilization and sex-education to be granted from the age of 10. According to Mr. Grondin, the G-77 nations are demanding that the UN articles be chapeaued, thus allowing them to exercise national sovereignty, but the US and Western delegates are fighting sovereignty proposals with the help of the UN Secretariat. Mr. Grondin recalled that at the conference the Vatican delegate noted that whenever world "health" was mentioned only "reproductive health" was discussed. Furthermore, it was made clear that there was no end of money from the West available for reproductive health but that there were definite limits on funding for other health concerns. Mr. Grondin, a pro-life lobbyist at the conference and himself a former Western UN diplomat involved in human rights in the Third World, said, "I was ashamed to be from the West."…"

Helen Chenoweth "...In the run-up to our war with Yugoslavia, Congress was permitted by its leaders to carry out an impotent charade of debate. On March 11th, the House approved a non-binding resolution endorsing the use of American troops to enforce a peace agreement between the Yugoslav regime of Slobodan Milosevic and secessionist leaders in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province. On March 23rd, just hours before Solana issued the order to begin the bombing, the Senate approved a resolution supporting the military campaign. But Clinton Administration officials, including the President, had by that time made it clear that while they sought approval of the military action from Congress, they did not consider it necessary for Congress to authorize the military strike on Yugoslavia.....In order to appreciate the depth of the Administration's deception regarding the war over Kosovo, it is necessary to understand that the war was "authorized" by NATO long before the bombing began on March 24th. The day after the war began, the London Telegraph reported that General Clark, NATO's supreme military commander, "received his activation order for hostilities last October. The order was the official moment when authority over the forces to be used was transferred to him from the top brass of the member countries supplying them. The supreme commander does not need new permission from politicians or diplomats whenever he wishes to change tactics, or increase or scale back operations." At 1:43 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on March 24th, with American bombers en route to Yugoslavia and just minutes before the first explosions were reported on the ground in Kosovo, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart explicitly admitted that the power to take our nation into war had been surrendered to a foreign official - namely, the NATO Secretary-General. Lockhart was asked by correspondent Helen Thomas, "Who gives the green light on this now? Is it the President himself, or the Supreme Commander of NATO...?" Lockhart replied, "The Supreme Commander of NATO acts on the authority of the political leaders of the NATO countries, and he has that authority." In brief, the power to declare war in Kosovo was exercised by NATO Secretary-General Solana; the power to make war was given to NATO's Supreme Commander; the President of the United States played the role of "selling" the war to the public, and Congress was tacitly told that its duty was to rubber-stamp the decision to take our nation into war, and to authorize payment of the resulting expenses...."

Townhall.com Phyllis Schlafly "...Does Sovereignty Matter? Bill Clinton's threats to enter the Kosovo conflict are a direct attack on national sovereignty, our own as well as Yugoslavia's. The foreign policy gurus of the Clinton Administration don't believe in the concept of sovereignty and are trying to replace it, piece by piece, with their global utopian vision. In trying to force the sovereign state of Yugoslavia to kowtow to a U.S.-dictated "peace" agreement, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is demanding that Yugoslavia allow foreign troops to occupy a portion of its territory where they would exercise authority backed by force. It is, of course, a critical element of sovereignty that foreign troops must not be allowed jurisdiction over a nation's soil. So Albright cut to the core of the argument with a demand that Yugoslavia surrender a piece of its sovereignty. She said: "Great nations who understand the importance of sovereignty at various times cede various portions of it in order to achieve some better good for their country. We are looking at how the nation-state functions in a totally different way than people did at the beginning of this century." That ominous ultimatum sounds like a double entendre. Yugoslavia is not a "great nation," but the United States is. And it's becoming more and more evident that the Clintonites are pursuing an incremental plan to cede various portions of U.S. sovereignty in order to achieve what they believe is the "better good ..."

John Birch Society/The New American Magazine 4/26/99 Helen Chenoweth Freeper Sandy "...When the order was given for American military personnel to attack Yugoslavia, it was not issued following a declaration of war from Congress. Nor was the order given by the President as a means of repelling a sudden attack on America by a foreign aggressor, or as a measure intended to rescue Americans abroad from unexpected peril. In fact, the order to attack Yugoslavia didn't even follow the pattern set in Korea and Vietnam, in which our nation was committed to protracted foreign wars through unilateral presidential action. On March 23rd, the order to commence hostilities was given to an American general by a Spanish Marxist - NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana..."

AFP 4/3/99 "...NATO, created 50 years ago in response to a perceived Soviet threat, has seen off Russian communism but is now engaged in a debate on its future spectacularly highlighted by the Kosovo crisis. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, formed on April 4, 1949, is celebrating its half-century with bombs rather than candles. Since March 24, the 19-member pact has been waging an air campaign against Yugoslavia. The aim is the freedom and security of the ethnic Albanians who make up 90 percent of the population of the Serbian province of Kosovo, and whose autonomy has been denied them by Belgrade...."

London Observer 3/28/99 Andrew marr "...This war is not a modern war. It is the last episode in Europes twentieth-century War of the Nations. The nationalist fuel burning Kosovo villages in 1999 is chemically identical to the stuff that set the first Belgian and French villages aflame in 1914. What began in the Balkans is ending there. ... For Europe's long war has become, inexorably, a war against the nation-state. The story of our century is in part the story of how nation-tribes failed to live together. Slowly, agonisingly, the old lies about national destiny, race and absolute sovereignty have been tested and exposed. And slowly, fitfully, a new political idea has struggled to replace them. It was present at the short-lived League of Nations. It spoke at the Nuremberg trials and, more confidently, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention of 1948, then at the Geneva Conventions of 1949. ....And what is this idea? It is world government. That may sound wild. But its starting assumption is that there are universal humanitarian values which matter more than national sovereignty. And in this limited way, at least, it has already been accepted. This, after all, is why we are today attacking a sovereign nation, Yugoslavia, which has a legally elected government and which threatens none of its neighbours. This is why Pinochet, who has broken no law in Britain, is under house arrest in Surrey....."

The Nation 4/19/99 Michael T. Klare "….President Clinton's decision to use military force against the Serbs was not simply a calculated response to Slobodan Milosevic's intransigence. A careful reading of recent Administration statements and Pentagon documents shows that the NATO bombing is part of a larger strategic vision. That vision has three basic components. The first is an increasingly pessimistic appraisal of the global security environment….. The second component is the assumption that as a global power with far-flung economic interests, the United States has a vested interest in maintaining international stability…..The third component is a conviction that to achieve global stability, the United States must maintain sufficient forces to conduct simultaneous military operations in widely separated areas of the world against multiple adversaries, and it must revise its existing security alliances--most of which, like NATO, are defensive in nature--so that they can better support US global expeditionary operations. Combined, these three propositions constitute a new strategic template for the US military establishment….. Less public, but no less significant, is the US effort to convert NATO from a defensive alliance in Western Europe into a regional police force governed by Washington. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright first unveiled this scheme this past December at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. Claiming that missile-armed "rogue states" pose as great a threat to Europe as the Warsaw Pact once did, Albright called on NATO to extend its operational zone into distant areas and to combat a wide range of emerging threats. "Common sense tells us," she said, "that it is sometimes better to deal with instability when it is still at arm's length than to wait until it is at our doorstep." …"

NewsMax 4/13/99 "... When challenged on China's human-rights record, Zhu testily replied, "I not only regard that as unfair but also take it as an interference in China's internal affairs." Little wonder that China, Russia and India (representing 60 percent of the world's population) are stridently opposed to our war on Yugoslavia. They have watched as we chose to ignore the argument that Yugoslavia has a right to use force to prevent one of its provinces from seceding. They watched as NATO, on behalf of its 19-member nations, decided that the human rights violations in Kosovo justified its decision to intervene with military power. Obviously, what worries China and Russia and a host of other nations is that America is setting in place foreign policy principles that would ultimately motivate and justify military intervention in their internal affairs. We are in the incipient stages of globalism. The precedents are being set in place. On a small scale, such as will not stir too much opposition, we have modeled the future by turning over to a third party, NATO, not only our military resources and personnel, but also military decisions, even the decision to commit America to a war. The American people are being conditioned to accept the transfer of national power to a central world authority for the noble purpose of fighting man's inhumanity to man...."

Los Angeles Times 4/11/99 Raymond Garthoff "...The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 50th anniversary had been expected not only to celebrate its successful contribution to keeping the peace throughout the Cold War, but also to herald its expanded role, as Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said, in keeping the peace for its next 50 years. The Washington summit, on April 23-25, will display all the pomp befitting the occasion. It will reflect the enlargement of membership in Central Europe and reaffirm an open-door policy to more expansion. It will issue a new "vision statement" for the post-Cold War world. What had not been expected was that the fireworks for the 50th would pale beside a month of NATO's nightly bombing of Yugoslavia. Suddenly, the alliance's new mission, blandly described by Albright at the last NATO summit in December, sounds less reassuring. She spoke of a "new and better" NATO "committed to meeting a wide range of threats to our shared interests and values," and acting "to ensure stability, freedom and peace in and for the entire transatlantic area." Commendable aims, but is it a realistic policy prescription? The question is whether NATO is to remain an alliance for collective defense or be transformed into a collective security "enforcer," initiating military action against other countries deemed to threaten "the interests and values" of member states...."

Los Angeles Times 4/11/99 Raymond Garthoff "...Its actions over Kosovo, for better or worse, herald the new NATO. The alliance initiated military action not in defense of its 19 members, but of their "interests and values." This makes a mockery of arguments only recently made to Russia that it had nothing to fear from NATO enlargement, because, after all, NATO was merely a defensive alliance..... The new NATO mission may be intended to expand international law, but an alliance decision to override traditional interpretations and circumvent the United Nations risks undermining that very international law. If one group of states can assume rights of unilateral military intervention vis-a-vis other members of the international community, so can any other. Is that a pattern we wish to encourage? The new NATO clearly has constructive aims and a laudable new "vision," but it has not resolved some fundamental issues. If NATO assumes the right to place limits on the sovereignty of nonmember states, without a mandate from the United Nations or consensus of the world community, it should at least have a clear understanding of the repercussions of its actions...."

The Time UK 4/12/99 James Landale "...TONY BLAIR today calls for a "new internationalism" in which the world community never again tolerates the brutal repression of an ethnic group by a dictator struggling to remain in power. In an article for Newsweek magazine, the Prime Minister suggests that Nato's action in Kosovo could be a model for future international relations. Mr Blair says: "This is a conflict we are fighting not for territory but for values, for a new internationalism where the brutal repression of whole ethnic groups will no longer be tolerated, for a world where those responsible for such crimes have nowhere to hide." He adds: "We are fighting for a world where dictators are no longer able to visit horrific punishments on their own peoples in order to stay in power." Establishing the principle that outside countries can intervene in a sovereign state to halt "ethnic cleansing" would mark a radical shift in the basic norms of international relations and Mr Blair's remarks will provoke unease among many countries...."

CNN Transcripts 4/10/99 Sam Nunn (D) Former US Senator "... NELSON: Let's take a look at the public relations war for a minute. Has Mr. Milosevic won that one? NUNN: Oh no, I don't think so. I think he's antagonized his neighbors; I think he's alienated everybody around him; I think he's lost world opinion. He's got some countries rallying behind him, because some countries resent any invasion of sovereignty. Of course, the Russians and some other countries that are Orthodox and Slavic are more favorable toward him. But, no, I don't think he's won any kind of population... NELSON: Next question, probably the last one we'll be able to get in: Are we in -- is NATO in danger of losing Russia? NUNN: I think that's a big, big danger here, and that's when you have to distinguish between vital interests and important or humanitarian interests. Russia's emergence as a part of the community of nations, avoiding the proliferation of mass -- of weapons of mass destruction out of Russia today as their economy crumbles is a vital interest to the United States. We are alienating Russia. They feel isolated; they feel humiliated; they feel not listened to. Now, we can't give them a veto, nor should we, but we should have had them in the loop, at least communicated with them on a regular basis and gotten their views, listened to them every now and then. We still should do that. And as we accelerate bombing, we need to accelerate diplomacy, and we need to involve the Russians. They've got an election coming up at the end of this year. They've got an election next year for the president, parliamentary this year. If those elections end up being affected adversely here, we could have a Russia that really is difficult to deal with in the future...."

Associated Press 4/12/99 Nicole Winfield "...Russia asked the International Court of Justice on Monday to determine the legal consequences of NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia. Moscow has argued that NATO action over the Kosovo dispute is illegal because the U.N. Security Council didn't explicitly authorize it. Russia also says the strikes against its Serb allies violate the fundamental goal of the United Nations, which is to maintain peace in the world. The draft request doesn't mention Kosovo, NATO or Yugoslavia by name, but diplomats said the intent of the resolution was clear: to give Russia another chance to formally object to the NATO assault on its allies in Belgrade. The draft cites the U.N. Charter in saying individual nations and regional organizations cannot use force against sovereign states without the authorization of the Security Council. "No considerations, whether political, economic, military or of any other kind, may be used to justify the threat or use of force in violation of the Charter of the United Nations,'' it says...."

www.conservativenews.org 4/15/99Ben Anderson "...Legislation has again been introduced both the House and Senate to prohibit U.S. lands from being used as part of the United Nations' "World Heritage" sites or biosphere reserves, programs which some say threaten the power of the United States to govern its own land. The current effort follows similar legislation in 1997 which died in a Senate subcommittee. The stated purpose of the American Land Sovereignty Protection Act is "To preserve the sovereignty of the United States over public lands and acquired lands owned by the United States, and to preserve State sovereignty and private property rights in non-Federal lands surrounding those public lands and acquired lands." ..."

Jane's Defence Weekly 4/14/99 Marc Rogers Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...The new 'Strategic Concept' will restate that the defence of members' borders remains the alliance's core function. However, a US desire to include in its revision a new commitment by the alliance ­ to protect common interests and to act jointly against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) ­ is seen as opening the door to further out-of-area missions. In the early 1990s some members of the US Congress urged NATO to go "out of area or out of business". More recently, President Clinton has said that tomorrow's alliance must "defend against threats to our collective security from beyond [NATO] borders ­ [including] the spread of weapons of mass destruction, ethnic violence, and regional conflict".....There are some indications, however, that NATO is paying more attention to security issues in Asia: US-led NATO military exercises have been carried out in Kazakhstan; former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezsinski has urged a broad NATO-European Union security system with Asia...."

Christian Science Monitor 4/21/99 Benjamin Schwarz Freeper Stand Watach Listen "...EXCERPTS "Advocates of US intervention in the Balkans label their critics with the dreaded "I" word - isolationist. It's the latest in a trend started four years ago, when President Clinton's then National Security Adviser Anthony Lake branded those who objected to US globalism "neo-know-nothing-isolationists." Such name-calling squelches reasoned debate and mischaracterizes a view many of America's wisest thinkers embraced. First, it's important to define what neo-isolationism is not. That vocal sector of the Republican right, which holds that the UN presents a challenge to US sovereignty, is hardly "neo-isolationist." These Republicans, like the foreign policy establishment of both political parties, believe the US must continue to dominate international politics. Their view is therefore triumphalist; and in its chauvinistic assertion of US power is the opposite of a neo-isolationist perspective. "..."

National Journal 4/17/99 Stuart Taylor Jr. Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "It is inarguable that NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia-- provoked by atrocities in a civil war in a sovereign nation that has not attacked any NATO member--is hard to square either with the United Nations Charter or with the 1949 treaty that created NATO itself. But for Americans, there is a more fundamental question: Can it be squared with the Constitution? That document reserves the power ''to declare war'' to the Congress. And although the meaning of this phrase has evolved over time, the framers clearly intended to bar Presidents from doing what President Clinton has done: sending U.S. forces into hostilities abroad without explicit votes of approval from both House and Senate. (The Senate, in a nonbinding vote on March 23, approved U.S. participation in NATO ''military air operations and missile strikes''; the House, in a March 11 vote, authorized only a ''peacekeeping operation, implementing a Kosovo peace agreement,'' which later fell through.)" ..."

stratfor.com 4/22/99 Freeper henbane "...British Prime Minister Tony Blair's assertion that NATO would defend Montenegro against Serbian aggression raises some interesting questions. . . .Blair's comments, coming just days before the Washington NATO summit, seems to have created a new policy for NATO by treating Montenegro as a separate nation subject to aggression. If that is the case, then NATO has clearly shifted from a policy of protecting the Albanians to a policy of both toppling Milosevic and dismembering Yugoslavia. That won't fly with much of NATO, let alone the Russians. Blair and Clinton seem to be constantly expanding NATO's mission. At some point, the danger is that the locomotive will uncouple from the train...."

Electronic Telegraph 4/23/99 Hugo Gurdon Freeper Prince Charles "...In a talk entitled Doctrine of the International Community, Mr Blair hinted at a new role for Nato, turning it into the military arm of a new world order rather than a purely defensive alliance. He said: "If we can establish and spread the values of liberty, the rule of law, human rights and an open society then that is in our national interest too...."

Chicago Tribune 4/23/99 Rob D. Kaiser and Michael McGuire "...Setting forth a new foreign policy framework for a post-Cold War world, British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday unveiled a bold international doctrine to justify Western military intervention against renegade regimes such as those in Iraq and Yugoslavia..... "We may be tempted to think back to the clarity and simplicity of the Cold War," he told his audience of 1,400 business and financial leaders, academics and local officials at the Hilton Hotel and Towers. "But now we have to establish a new framework." ....Labeling his approach a "Doctrine of International Community," Blair also proposed a set of new international rules to ease the world into the 21st Century. He called for an overhaul of the world financial system and a drive toward free trade. He also argued for a more efficient United Nations, organizational changes in NATO, better cooperation on the environment and a re-examination of Third World debt. As the NATO leaders prepared to address the Kosovo problem during their summit in Washington, Blair said that on some occasions, human rights are more important than national sovereignty. "Non-interference has long been considered an important principle of international order. And I do not suggest we jettison it lightly," he said. "One state should not feel it has the right to change the political system of another or foment subversion or seize pieces of territory to which it feels it should have some claim. But the principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects. "Acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter," Blair said, citing the Serbs' forced expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and white minority rule in South Africa as examples of threats to international security....Blair said the world has changed in a more fundamental way, and while globalization has transformed economies and working practices, the process is not just economic. It also is a political and security phenomenon, he said. "We live in a world where isolation has ceased to have a reason to exist," he said. "By necessity we have to cooperate with each other across nations." ..."

WorldNetDaily,sm 4/23/99 John Doggett "...Summit leaders will discuss an American initiative that will allow NATO to respond to threats of nuclear weapons or non conventional terrorism from countries outside Europe or the United States, officials said. The initiative will develop joint logistics and improve interoperability command, control, and communications facilities, and develop detection of chemical and biological weapons. According the Thursday's New York Times: "Kosovo has brought NATO into the never-never land," said David Gompert, vice president of Rand who was on the National Security Council in the Bush administration. "It has brought us into a situation where a regime that slaughters its own people is no longer sovereign and where the United Nations Security Council is no longer a requirement." .....In 1992, Strobe Talbot, who is now Clinton's No. 2 National Security Advisor, said the idea of a nation-state didn't make sense anymore. Once he became president, Clinton supported the Convention on Bio-diversity that they produced at the U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The treaty treated America as an ecological miscreant and protected third world countries that are destroying their rain forests. In 1995, Hillary lead a delegation to the U.N.'s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. This conference proposed new U.N. guaranteed rights for children. One of these "rights" would allow the U.N. to remove your child from your home if your 10-year-old didn't want to obey you. In 1997, the Clinton Administration supported the Kyoto global warming treaty...In 1998, the Clinton Administration supported creation of an International Criminal Court in Rome. The International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty says that the U.N. can enter any nation and remove its leader if the U.N. decides that the leader is a "war criminal." It also creates a permanent criminal prosecutor's office. Clinton's reps backed away from the treaty when supporters of the ICC claimed that it could overrule decisions of the United States Supreme Court. ...They have supported creating a global income tax, taxing all international banking transactions, taxing all stock market transactions, and taxing all proceeds of underseas mining. The tax on international banking transactions alone would generate a trillion dollars for the U.N.....If the move to change NATO's charter succeeds, it wouldn't take much for it to become the military arm of the U.N. If the move to give the U.N. independent taxing authority succeeds, the U.N. would become a global government with unprecedented power and wealth. And Bill Clinton could be in charge of the whole ball of wax...."

Reuters 4/24/99 Randall Mikkelsen "...As the air war against Yugoslavia enters a second month, NATO leaders Saturday will adopt a new mission for the alliance that draws on the example of the Kosovo conflict while its outcome remains in doubt. The leaders are to spend the second day of their three-day summit adopting a new ``strategic concept'' that enshrines NATO's broader job of intervening beyond its borders to halt regional crises or to meet other threats to its members' security....``The new concept is going to talk about NATO's core mission, but recognizing new challenges such as regional conflicts, such as weapons of mass destruction, such as (nuclear) proliferation and transnational threats such as terrorism,'' Hammer said. ``We're not creating a global cop here ... there is a basic understanding that NATO will act in a greater European area,'' a U.S. official said...."

NewsMax 4/24/99 JR Nyquist "...The Western alliance is inching toward an abyss -- either a confrontation with Russia or a split within NATO. These are the dangers courted by President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Their strategy? To bomb the Yugoslav army until it can no longer offer effective resistance to a ground invasion. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, his country under bombardment, is given no alternative but to withdraw the Yugoslav army from Yugoslav territory, making way for a NATO occupation. Milosevic now appears willing to accept an international peacekeeping force on Yugoslav soil, providing that NATO pulls back from the border and stops the air assault. But President Clinton will not agree to Milosevic's compromise. What is wrong with that compromise? It appears that President Clinton wants the crisis to continue, if not intensify....Blair further declared that NATO forces would enter Yugoslavia with or without Milosevic's permission. "We are all internationalists now," said Blair, "whether we like it or not."....Meanwhile, Russian mobilizations continue on land and sea. The Ukrainian and Russian navies are presently engaged in training exercises. Dozens of warships have been mobilized. At the same time, Russian diplomats are courting Israel, Greece and France -- feeling out weaknesses in the West's global position. Russia's ally, President Jiang Zemin of China, has once again called on the People's Liberation Army to brace for a possible war. There is "regional tension and unstable elements," he said earlier this month. "The world is not safe."..."

USIS 4/24/99 "...President Clinton says the North Atlantic allies have reached a consensus to consider military intervention in regional and ethnic conflicts outside the territory of NATO members. "For five years now, we have been working to build a new NATO, prepared to deal with the security challenges of the new century," Clinton told reporters in Washington April 24, the second day of the NATO summit. "Today we reaffirmed our readiness in appropriate circumstances to address regional and ethnic conflicts beyond the territory of NATO members." The President refused to say how far NATO would consider projecting its power, saying it was not a geographical issue.

AP 4/25/99 "....NATO promised a larger and more flexible military force ready for the first time to engage in conflicts in problems areas beyond the boundaries of the alliance's members. NATO's new blueprint, its first update since 1991, will prepare the organization ``to deal with the security challenges of the new century,'' President Clinton said. ``We have reaffirmed our readiness ... to address regional and ethnic conflicts beyond the territory of NATO members,'' Clinton said....."

4/28/99 Henry Lamb: Worldnetdaily.com Freeper Thanatos "...The NATO Summit brought together the chief executives of 19 nations who assumed the authority to ignore the NATO Charter and the U.N. Charter and inflict war upon a sovereign nation. Milosevic's inhumanity to the Kosovars is despicable; it is, however, far less threatening to the future of civilization than the unauthorized action taken by NATO. The American experience has demonstrated to the world that the first principle of self-governance should be that government power arises from, and is limited by, the consent of the people. Milosevic does not recognize this first principle; neither does NATO. The U.S. Congress, the voice of the people, did not declare war on Yugoslavia; NATO did. Mr. Clinton's election to be the chief executive officer did not empower him to become the voice of the American people. His election empowered him only to execute the laws enacted by the U.S. Congress. He has usurped congressional authority by committing American troops to the illegal war in Yugoslavia...."

WorldNetDaily 4/30/99 Alan Keyes Freeper laz "...I hope we will be able to awaken those Americans particularly who are in the Republican Party and conservative ranks to the true nature of this war. Clinton, Blair and the rest have put a false humanitarian face on it, but under the phony mask of humanitarianism is the reality of a globalist objective -- the establishment of global sovereignty in derogation of our national sovereignty and to the destruction of the Constitution. If we want to live under the system of self-government the Constitution provides, then we have to defend against this assault -- the abdication of our national sovereignty involved in this undeclared and illegitimate war...."

Omaha World-Herald 4/29/99 "...Javier Solana, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, made a provocative statement on NATO's 50th anniversary: "We are moving into a system of international relations in which human rights, rights of minorities are . . . more important even than sovereignty." If true, that would be a dramatic departure. A policy of respecting the sovereignty of the nation-state has most of the time governed relations among nations for more than three centuries..... NATO was formed to keep the Soviet Union from infringing on the free nations of Europe. The Soviet Union trampled on human rights. An estimated 10 million Soviet citizens were killed during the reign of Josef Stalin. People in its puppet states were suppressed and brutalized. A wall was built to keep people in East Berlin, and those who tried to escape were killed. But as bad as the human rights situation was in the Soviet empire, NATO's policy did not include bombing or invading the Soviet Union to make it change its human rights policy. Its sovereignty was respected. Likewise, the sovereignty of China is respected, despite its appalling human rights record. There's also the question of practicality. It's one thing to start a human rights war with Yugoslavia, quite another to engage a superpower, as the Soviet Union was, or a major regional power, as China still is...."

Stratfor Inc 4/27/99 "...What has emerged from the NATO summit concerning Kosovo is pure gridlock. Three basic decisions were made: first, there will not be a ground war; second, there will not be a major redefinition of negotiating terms; and, third, there will be an intensified air war. Having bluffed and been called, NATO, rather than reshuffling the deck, has decided to keep pushing in money, hoping that Milosevic will eventually fold his hand. The only new element to emerge is an agreement to embargo oil shipments to Yugoslavia. That decision in itself was shocking. Consider the extraordinary fact that NATO even considered going to war with Serbia without having established a blockade. That absurdity was compounded when it looked for a few days like NATO could not generate unanimity on the subject of a blockade...."

Stratfor Inc 4/27/99 "...This is not to say that the NATO officials and its military officers are in denial. They are painfully aware of the deep problems they are facing. The denial is being generated by the institution itself. What is now obvious is that there will not be an institutional solution to the crisis. By this we mean that NATO, as an institution, which involves decisions by nineteen governments and operates on the bases of consensus, cannot generate a vision for either winning or concluding the war. NATO can neither shift its military strategy nor diplomatic strategy without losing the consensus its decision-making is predicated upon. Therefore, NATO is locked in to the existing policy that isn't working because flexibility has become impossible...."

Stratfor Inc 4/27/99 "...Try as Prime Minister Blair might to brand Milosevic, he is not a threat to civilization. If every charge leveled against him were completely true, then he would be a vicious, genocidal thug. But he would still not be a threat to civilization in the sense that Hitler or Stalin was. He just doesn't have the battalions. Since he is not a fundamental threat to the whole, NATO simply doesn't have the political consensus, decision making structure or flexibility to craft strategies, operations and tactics in real- time. That is the weakness of any multinational grouping and why NATO cannot function as the speechmakers in Washington might wish. To put it simply, since NATO is not sovereign, it cannot make sovereign decisions...."

International Herald Tribune 4/30/99 Joseph Fitchett "...Concern about the conflict in Kosovo helped to spur decisions at the NATO summit meeting last weekend to help Europe prepare itself, at least on paper, to fight such wars on its own. A series of decisions by the 19 allied leaders pushed ahead an agreement that would allow the European allies to borrow expensive military equipment from the United States, including spy satellites, cargo planes and perhaps even precision-guided cruise missiles, for independent use in conflicts in which Washington did not want to get involved. If this spurs Europeans to step up military cooperation and develop more mobile, better-equipped armed forces over the coming decade, Europe would gain military clout to back up its diplomatic ambitions in smaller Kosovo-type conflicts or peacekeeping operations. ''That would be the most important step in the balance of power in and around Europe since the collapse of Soviet military strength,'' a French diplomat said Thursday. The United States would still dominate global issues, but a NATO that contained a stronger European component, and yet did not threaten the alliance's character as a trans-Atlantic venture, would give Washington a powerful regional ally....The deal, which alliance leaders described as ''building the European Security and Defense Identity within the Alliance,'' turned on a fundamental trade-off between Washington and the key European capitals. The United States plays a central role in this evolution because it is the only country with the sophisticated military equipment that enables NATO to perform in Kosovo and that the Europeans would need to borrow for independent missions. As spelled out in documents issued by the summit participants, NATO - in practice, the United States - recognizes a ''presumption'' that Europeans, operating as the European Union, will get the U.S. military capabilities needed for an EU-led operation...."

Chicago Sun-Times 4/29/99 Robert Novak "....The "new strategic concept" adopted by the alliance at its 50th anniversary celebration propels the U.S. military into unlimited responsibilities for policing a new world order. Without consulting their parliaments, governments of 19 democracies committed themselves to intervene by force in any sovereign country whose government NATO does not like. Having embarked on its first full-scale military operation, what was created as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union now is set for multiple Kosovos--all depending on American military prowess. This breathtaking transmogrification of NATO into global police officer hardly was noticed by members of Congress. An exception is Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who ponders whether the NATO treaty has been changed so much that it requires Senate ratification....A peculiarity of the summit was Bill Clinton's passivity compared with Tony Blair's ebullience. The British prime minister, reflecting Western Europe's left-of-center tone, spelled out "a new doctrine of international community." Blair made it clear that the West now recognizes no bar to intervention in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country. Michael Mandelbaum of Johns Hopkins University asserted on PBS this week that "in order to carry on these missions, NATO would have to engage regularly in the kind of war it's now fighting in Yugoslavia, and not just in Europe but elsewhere." ..."

Washington Post 5/04/99 Graham Fuller "...The world had better get used to what's going on in Kosovo, because it represents the wave of the future. We require drastic reconsideration of policies as we rethink issues of minorities, borders and national sovereignty. The simple reality is that in the next century minorities will be increasingly unwilling to live within borders -- to which they have been arbitrarily assigned by history -- when the conditions seem intolerable. More than ever before they will demand a voice over what peoples will rule them and how. Lots of states simply employing force are destined to founder. But the key will be good governance: If the states cannot provide good governance, their minorities may expend some blood or treasure to gain maximum autonomy or independence. The challenge for the world then becomes: How hard will the community of nations fight to preserve borders and territorial sovereignty of states that are brutal, incompetent or failing? Our international order since the Treaty of Westphalia has rested on the basis of sovereignty of nations and "sanctity" of borders -- that is, until the borders are changed by one or another event. Borders are generally treated with reverence. Yet how does one explain to a Tibetan that he is required to live within the borders of a China that practices culturicide simply because the British Empire signed a treaty with the Ching Dynasty forming a buffer against the Russian Empire? Such arguments are quite surreal to people abused or denied rights by despotic leadership....."

Agence France Presse 5/6/99 "...Nelson Mandela used one of his final addresses as South African president Thursday to call for a "new world order" and justice for the poor, but avoided references to China's human rights violations. Security was tight as a frail-looking Mandela addressed a capacity crowd at Beijing University for almost one hour, touching on issues ranging from economic globalization to the NATO bombing of Kosovo. "The interdependence of our economies and a global economic system...sees a widening gap between the richer and poorer parts of humanity," he said. "We must ensure that globalization benefits not only the powerful but also those whose lives are ravaged by poverty," he said, to applause from the audience, of which just a small minority were students. He stressed his hope that Asia and Africa would shape a "new world order" to promote equality, safeguard world peace, and reflect "democratic norms of our age in the decision-making structures of world bodies."..."

stratfor.com 5/10/99 "...2119 GMT, 990510 Western European Union foreign and defense ministers have agreed to work toward the establishment of a European defense organization within the next 18 months. Next month a plan for the organization will be submitted to European Union leaders for their approval. The notion of a strong WEU has always been tied to and often overwhelmed by the question of its relationship to NATO, but in this case the proposal apparently has NATO's blessing. At the meeting, NATO secretary General Javier Solana said, "An important factor in ensuring a more equitable transatlantic partnership will be the development of the defense capabilities of the European allies." As STRATFOR reported last November, the idea of integrating the Western European Union as the full-fledged military arm of the European Union gained steam when British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the UK was willing to consider means by which Europe could react to crises when the U.S. was reluctant to commit itself [see STRATFOR's Nov. 17, 1998 Global Intelligence Update]...."

5/14/99 Interfax Freeper Thanatos "...Russia "is greatly worried about an actual division of countries into categories, with one group of select nations that loves to describe itself as 'the world community' imposing its conditions on the others," acting Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Gusarov said in Moscow on Friday as he was opening a roundtable discussion of 'The NATO Operations in Yugoslavia and the International Security System'. The recent notion of "clubs of countries" has been transformed into "groupings," Gusarov said. This is inconsistent with the construction of a Euro-Atlantic security system without division lines, Gusarov said. "What is going on in Yugoslavia is leading to consolidation of division lines and the erection of new barriers," he said...."

Christian Science Monitor 5/14/99 Kevin Platt "...Nato's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia and its accidental targeting of Beijing's embassy in Belgrade are triggering calls by the Chinese Army for increased defense funding. Last Friday's attack, which killed three Chinese journalists and wounded 20 diplomatic personnel, "is reinforcing China's sense of vulnerability in the face of overwhelming US and NATO military might," says a senior Chinese official. Fear mixed with rage animated four days of often violent protests outside US diplomatic outposts across China. During virtually every Chinese newscast this week, waves of Chinese troops are shown angrily punching the sky as they denounce the Belgrade bombing. The state-controlled media here are still calling the bombing a premeditated attack, after delaying for three days publishing President Clinton's explanation of the incident as a tragic mistake and his apologies for the loss of life. On Monday the Chinese leadership said that it was suspending high-level military contacts with the US and participation in international talks on weapons proliferation. The embassy bombing, says a Western military analyst who asked not to be identified, "is throwing fuel on the fire of Chinese fears of NATO's expansion and its new military doctrine of intervening in a sovereign state on human rights grounds."..."

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years.... It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectuals elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national determination practiced in past centuries." -David Rockerfeller: 1990, Baden, Baden Germany at a UN conference (MRC 5/16/99)

The Daily Republican/LA Times 5/17/99 Michael Lind Freeper hope "...Through the smoke of villages burned by Serbs in Kosovo and cities bombed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization across Yugoslavia, a conflict over the basic norms of world order can be discerned. The U.S. and its allies claim that the right of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to a high degree of self-determination justifies foreign interference in Yugoslavia's domestic affairs. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic insists this is an invasion of a sovereign state. Belgrade is backed by Russia and China, both fearful of a precedent being set for outside intervention in rebellious provinces like Chechnya and Tibet. The fight in the Balkans, then, is more than a war between nations; it is a war between the principles of self-determination and sovereignty....."

NewsMax 5/18/99 Linda Bowles "...Chinese ambassador Li Zhaoxing looked like a prison camp commander extracting a written confession from a prisoner as he stood over Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. His scowl was menacing as he watched the president sign a book of condolences for victims of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade..... Given China's domestic tyranny and repression of its own people, the brutalization of Tibet, the persecution of Christians, the theft of U.S. nuclear and military secrets, armed threats against Taiwan, the transfer of nuclear and missile technology to rogue nations who hate America, the trashing of the American embassy in China, the terrorization of our ambassador and his family, and the illegal funneling of millions of dollars to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, you have to wonder why we are not the ones demanding an apology and breaking off negotiations. By our actions, we have effectively ceded the moral high ground to one of the most tyrannical dictatorships on the planet Earth. What happened to us? How did we wind up in this weak and humiliating posture? The answer is simple. What happened to us was "collateral damage."... It is the damage done to international relationships and to the image of America as the moral leader in the post Cold-War world. On April 25, following a 50th anniversary summit, NATO issued a Washington Declaration. In effect, NATO formally announced its intention to preemptively deal with human rights violations and perceived threats beyond the borders of its member nations. Surely, it was no surprise that the non-NATO world reacted with apprehension and resentment. Why would they not? NATO had just thrown down the gauntlet.....Throughout the non-NATO world, America is increasingly seen as an aggressor nation, the new "Evil Empire," demonstrably unfit to preach to other nations about human rights and democratic freedoms. The perception grows that America has fallen from grace and lost its image as the light and hope of the world. The view is taking hold that the American people have scrapped their Constitution, abandoned their founding principles, and put themselves in the heavy hands of an elite band of liberal globalists....."

www.scmp.com 5/18/99 Reuters "...President Bill Clinton has outlined his views on US military intervention, saying mass ethnic violence must be stopped but smaller conflicts or wars fought for different reasons were out of bounds. "We can't stop every war. People have a right even to fight sometimes," Mr Clinton told a group of Democratic supporters on Sunday. "But on the eve of the 21st century, we should say: 'You know, you don't have to like each other around the world, but we won't tolerate mass killing based on religious and racial and ethnic differences,' " he said. ..."

The Deccan Herald 5/20/99 New Delhi "...China has stated that a new international order has to be established on the basis of five principles of peaceful coexistence. To this end it suggests commonality of views with India on the crisis in Yugoslavia, and its opposition to the NATO airstrikes. "China and India share extensive common views and interests on many regional and international issues. Both stand for the establishment of a new international political order on the basis of the five principles of peaceful co-existence and oppose NATO's airstrike against Yugoslavia.".... That this view is being taken seriously by the government of India is evidenced from the fact that India is now considering taking the initiative on the issue. Senior level meetings have forced the conclusion that this statement requires some action..... It brought together ambassadors from six (five actually, the Chinese Ambassador was in Beijing), Libya, Cuba, Iraq, Russia, China and Yugoslavia on a common platform to discuss and elaborate individual country's views on the Kosovo crisis...."

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpwh19.htm 5/20/99 AP Freeper Thanatos "....The House moved Thursday to give Congress veto power over U.N. land designations, with supporters saying that such international actions threaten the property rights of Americans. The bill, opposed by the administration and with poor prospects in the Senate, would require congressional consent before any federal land can be included in an international land reserve. It is aimed specifically at two U.N. programs -- biosphere reserves and World Heritage areas...."

EWTN 5/23/99 Freeper marshmallow "...Donor countries promised more than US$6.2 billion in "humanitarian aid, soft loans, and debt relief" to the stricken nations of Central America * In this round of meetings, it is expected that donor nations and multilateral organizations will ask for a variety of concessions from the Central American nations. These could take the form of concessions on the environment, social questions like women's rights, and on population reduction...."

The Washington Post 5/28/99 Charles Krauthammer "...But at the very core of this scandal lies a policy and an idea. The policy is euphemized as "engagement." (Seven years ago, candidate Clinton called it "coddling.") It is a policy of openness, embrace, trade, exchanges by an administration that trumpets China not as a potential rising adversary, not as a source of instability in the Pacific, but as a "strategic partner" of the United States. And underlying that policy is an idea: globalism, the notion that we are entering a new era -- a high-tech, Internet, info-highway, McDonald's-in-every-capital era -- in which borders and sovereignty are becoming obsolete. In such an era, the old power politics of the nation-state are equally obsolete. Under the new dispensation, to view other great powers as potential enemies is to be mired in Cold War old-think. Rising powers such as China are to be seduced into civility by a welcoming, nurturing, supporting American embrace..... The power of this fanciful new-era globalism has allowed the Clintonites to be insouciantly lax in every aspect of their dealings with China: espionage, technology transfer, open unregulated trade. They find it hard to understand that other nations, in particular those with histories infinitely longer and richer than ours, could have a worldview that might differ...."

Iran Daily News 5/29/99 "...European socialist leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, were meeting here Thursday to boost their campaign for the European elections, AFP reported. "This meeting will illustrate what we socialists want to accomplish together for Europe, a Europe in favor of jobs and improved social conditions," French Socialist Party secretary-general Francois Hollande said. In addition to Schroeder and Blair, the other socialist heads of government expected to attend the meeting were French Premier Lionel Jospin, Italy's Massimo d'Alema, Portugal's Antonio Guterres and Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima. Jospin was to meet separately with Blair prior to the congress. They along with their counterparts were each to deliver a speech beginning at 1800 GMT on their party platform ahead of the June 13 vote, preparations for which have been overshadowed by the Kosovo crisis...."

San Jose Mercury 6/1/99 Charles Krauthammer Freeper hope "...The power of this fanciful new-era globalism has allowed the Clintonites to be insouciantly lax in every aspect of their dealings with China: espionage, technology transfer, open unregulated trade. They find it hard to understand that other nations, in particular those with histories infinitely longer and richer than ours, could have a worldview that might differ..........It is a pity that China does not share Clinton's woolly globalism. It is a scandal that he is oblivious to that reality. That is the real China scandal...."

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 6/1/99 "...The news from around the world is about war, political intrigue, and espionage. The obsession with free and fair trade, global interdependence, and economies without borders has evaporated over the past year or so.What we are experiencing is the reassertion of traditional understandings of nationalism and of national security and the decline of the ideology of globalism. The return of conflict among nations to the center stage of history and in the daily newspaper is the important news. The nation-state, far from declining, is vigorously reasserting itself, with the inevitable accompaniment of bullets and blood....Perhaps what is most startling about it is that we should be startled at all, for the return of national security at the center of global concerns is merely the return of the world to its natural order. After a decade of hearing about the decline of the nation-state and the triumph of globalism, the fact is that the nation-state and nationalism are vibrantly alive. It follows from this that concern for the security of the nation has superceded the globalist visions of "the world without borders" and the transcendence of politico-military issues by denationalized economic entities and forces.....This is startling only in the context of some of the things that were being said less than a decade ago. In the minds of some, the end of the Cold War marked the end not only of an era in history, but of a fundamental, millennial shift in how the world worked... The dynamics of economic life, this theory went, had taken us to a point where international trade had created an intensifying interdependence among nations. Markets were so intimately tied together that the disruption of any one market would disrupt all other markets. This made war and even deep-seated political conflict unthinkable, since war and conflict would inevitably disrupt economic and commercial relations which, in turn, would wreak havoc on not only the combatants, but also on third parties who would be affected by any hot or cold war.....The event that shattered this view of the world was the Asian economic meltdown....Second, and perhaps more important, was the dog that didn't bark. According to globalist theory, the integration of world financial markets meant that a major downturn in any one market would inevitably have substantial effects on all markets. That simply didn't happen....The Asian collapse challenged globalist theory while at the same time resurrecting Asian nationalism....We mean by nationalism something much simpler and more profound. First, we mean the resurrection of the idea that there is a shared fate within nations, and that being an Egyptian or Japanese or American is a profoundly important, defining component of someone's personality which, in turn, defines a shared interest and fate among compatriots. In its extreme form, it means that dying for one's country makes rational sense in a way that economists simply don't understand. Second, we mean that the nation is not simply an arena for economic activity, but is, in addition, a political and a military entity..... That means that nations do not simply engage in economic activity, but that they engage in politics, war, and espionage - a host of things. What defines a nation is its place in the world and its people. Everything, economics, politics, and security derive from the nation's geopolitical reality. A place needs to be exploited and defended. Hence economics and war go hand in hand.....When we step back and view the world carefully, it is clear that we have returned from the land of globalist fantasy. This doesn't mean that we have returned to the Cold War. That is over and buried. However, the essential characteristics of the Cold War - a dangerous place filled with political intrigue, espionage, and warfare - have returned. To be more precise, the essential reality of the world has reasserted itself. This is not a passing phase. It is the way things are. This means that every country's leadership will be asking about providing for the national security - as a precondition for providing for the national prosperity. The countries that ask that question first and best will have a tremendous advantage over those who avoid the question..."

The Associated Press 6/3/99 "...A copy of the Kosovo peace plan approved by the Serb parliament today, obtained by The Associated Press from parliamentary sources..... 1: Imminent and verifiable end to violence and repression of Kosovo. 2. Verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo of all military, police and paramilitary forces according to a quick timetable. 3. Deployment in Kosovo, under U.N. auspicies, of efficient international civilian and security presences which would act as can be decided according to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and be capable of guaranteeing fulfillment of joint goals. 4. International security presence, with an essential NATO participation, must be deployed under a unified control and command and authorized to secure safe environment for all the residents in Kosovo and enable the safe return of the displaced persons and refugees to their homes. 5. Establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo ....6. After the withdrawal, an agreed number of Serb personnel will be allowed to return to perform the following duties: liaison with the international civilian mission and international security presence, marking mine fields, maintaining a presence at places of Serb heritage, maintaining a presence at key border crossings. 7. Safe and free return of all refugees and the displaced under the supervision of UNHCR and undisturbed access for humanitarian organizations to Kosovo. 8. Political process directed at reaching interim political agreement which would secure essential autonomy for Kosovo, with full taking into consideration of the Rambouillet agreement, the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and other states in the region as well as demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The talks between the sides about the solution should not delay or disrupt establishment of the democratic self-governning institutions. ...."

6/3/99 UK Times Charles Bremner "...GALVANISED by the conflict in Kosovo, Tony Blair and other European leaders today lay the foundations for a common defence policy that will enable the European Union to mount military operations in countries near its borders. The defence accord, described by the Government as historic, falls well short of creating a combat-ready "European army". The pact to be settled at the Cologne EU summit envisages European troops being used to intervene in crises to keep the peace and offer humanitarian aid under the aegis of Nato, but without American involvement. An EU capacity to field forces separately from the American-led alliance is seen as vital to equipping the Union with the diplomatic and security muscle that it has long lacked...."

Reuters 6/3/99 "...European Union leaders on Friday appointed NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana as the EU's first foreign and security policy czar at a summit that gave the 15-nation bloc unprecedented defence powers, diplomats said...."

Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau 6/5/99 Joyce M. Davis "...``When this ends, it's the end of NATO in its current form,'' said Stephen Fischer-Galati, a University of Colorado history professor and an expert on Eastern Europe. ``I am quite convinced that the Europeans are going to establish their own security organization, keeping the United States at a safe distance.'' .....William Stuebner, a specialist in international law at the congressionally funded United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., says the bombing is bound to have an effect on conflicts around the globe and on U.S. relations with other countries. ``We can spin this all we want and say that we've won, but there will be serious repercussions from NATO's actions in Yugoslavia,'' he said. U.S. ties to China and Russia became strained, as both countries opposed the bombing, and China even suffered casualties when its embassy in Belgrade was bombed. Both Chinese and Russian officials fear that NATO has become so bold that it could decide to interfere in their internal affairs, Stuebner and other analysts say Early on, the NATO offensive stirred China's worst fears about U.S. willingness to use military power to get its way. Beijing argued that NATO was a pawn of the United States and that the Kosovo crisis was an internal matter for Yugoslavia to resolve. What really bothered Beijing, China specialists say, was the precedent set by NATO's action..... Many in Russia believe they face a more immediate threat, with NATO already at their borders....``The most important result (of the Kosovo crisis), which was foreseeable from the first day of the conflict, was that many countries who don't have nuclear weapons will take a new look at this option,'' said Martin van Creveld, professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ``They will say to themselves, `We want to make certain that nothing like this ever happens to us.' Suppose I were an Indonesian, Algerian or Nigerian: All these countries have severe ethnic problems.'' ..."

New York Times 6/7/99 William Safire ".... What are the lessons the West is learning in trying to stop national criminality? "1 Never tell the criminals what you will not do.... 2. When you decide to strike, strike decisively.... 3. Do not place a higher value on the lives of warriors than on the lives of civilians...4. Do not overestimate the courage of an army and paramilitary that kills the unarmed.... 5. Remember that in any alliance, some allies will be more allied than others..... 6. Do not let mistrust of the leadership's competence becloud faith in the rightness of a cause.... 7. Do not let the loser win..... 8. Don't try to mix oil and water in patrolling the peace.

Human Events 6/4/99 Scott Park "....Conservatives in the House, on May 20, beat back several United Nations land management programs that they say threaten property rights in the United States,by passing a bill designed to put American sovereignty before the whims of international bureaucrats. Under the American Land Sovereignty Protection Act (HR 883), which after much debate was approved by voice vote, Congress would have to first specifically approve any area in the United States that is subject to an international land-use nomination, classification or designation....."I believe Congress should not abdicate its responsibilities for land management to international groups whose members have no concern for protecting individual property rights and American interest," said former Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick. And former Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel, whose earlier casual remarks had also been quoted, said the programs represent a threat to U.S. sovereignty. "During the Reagan Administration, these programs were honorary and benign in nature," Hodel wrote to Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.). "However, like so many United Nations programs, this one has fallen subject to mission creep. It has become a proxy for international attempt to override national sovereignty. I believe [the bill] is a necessary and resonable safeguard for American citizens against overreaching, unelected, unaccountable domestic and international bureaucracies."..."

6/7/99 UK Telegraph Freeper Thanatos "...THE Clinton White House was considering its long-term commitment in the Balkans yesterday amid cautious optimism that the policy of bombing Slobodan Milosevic into submission had succeeded. Senior members of the administration began to prepare America for a drawn-out peacekeeping operation in Kosovo to stabilise a region one official called "a cancer in the middle of Europe". "We are going to stay engaged in this until this part of Europe looks like the rest of Europe," a senior State Department official said. "We are not talking about troops for two years. We are talking about a long-term engagement in the region." ..."

American Spectator 6/99 John B. Roberts II "...On the morning of March 29, 1999, the sixth day of NATO's bombing campaign against the Serbs, American diplomats throughout the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina received an unusual message from their colleague in Tuzla. It was Foreign Service officer Thomas R. Hutson's last official e-mail to his associates. Hutson's message was a bombshell. He was openly attacking Clinton's Kosovo policy. "My personal reasons for retiring now have only been strengthened by the ill-conceived decision of NATO to bomb the Serbs," Hutson wrote. "This decision has unified the Serbs as no other event I have witnessed in my observation of the area for nearly three decades." "As for its impact on Bosnia and Herzegovina," he warned, "I fear that it has driven a stake into the heart of the Dayton accords." His e-mail closed with a quote from Abba Eban: "Diplomacy should be judged by what it prevents, not only by what it initiates and creates...Much of it is a holding action designed to avoid explosion until the unifying forces of history take humanity into their embrace."...Hutson tried first to shape policy from the inside. During a briefing on resettlement of Bosnian war refugees, Hutson alerted NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark to the difficulties of dealing with the Serbs. Using a Turkish word, inat, to describe the Serb temperament, Hutson told Clark the Serbs could not be bombed into submission. Inat, Hutson says, means irrational. The Serbs' attachment to Kosovo as a symbol of national independence is like a Texan's view of the Alamo. NATO would not easily force the Serbs to allow Kosovo to secede from Yugoslavia and join with Albania, the goal of the Kosovar liberation movement since the early nineties.....When he met with Albright, Holbrooke, and Fuerth in 1995 Hutson may have thought they were simply uninterested in his political solution to preserve the Yugoslav Federation and prevent war. He didn't realize the three were leading advocates of a new and radical use of military intervention around the globe. In the early nineties, when Clinton was still governor of Arkansas, they formed part of a small foreign policy elite convened by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to change U.S. foreign policy after the Cold War. Reports signed by all three recommended a dramatic escalation of the use of military force to settle other countries' domestic conflicts. Ironically, an institution dedicated to "International Peace" set the stage for Clinton's interventionist policies in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, triggering the most widespread deployment of U.S. troops since the Second World War...."

Los Angeles Times 6/8/99 James Pinkerton "...Quick quiz: Who once sang, "Imagine there's no countries"? You're right if you answered John Lennon. Now how about this: "Nationhood as we know it will be obsolete." Was that the next line of "Imagine," the late Beatle's 1971 utopian anthem? No, those words were written by Strobe Talbott, deputy secretary of State for this particular nation, when he was still a columnist for Time magazine, on July 20, 1992. Yet, even if he can't carry a tune, attention should be paid to Talbott. He is more than a paper-pusher: He was the top U.S. negotiator in the Kosovo peace talks, spending some 50 hours negotiating last week with Russia's Balkans envoy Viktor S. Chernomyrdin and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari to strike the accord, which as of this writing is still discordant...Talbott has left a plentiful paper trail: In addition to 20 years of work for Time, he has written, co-written or edited nine books about the Soviet Union and the Cold War. One theme runs through most of them: that Ronald Reagan, described in "Deadly Gambits" (1984) as a "befuddled character," deserves most of the blame for the nuclear arms race of the 1980s. Indeed, in 1990, as his magazine dubbed Mikhail Gorbachev "Man of the Decade," Talbott credited Gorbachev with revolutionizing not just the U.S.S.R. but the rest of the planet: "The Gorbachev phenomenon may have a transforming effect outside the communist world, on the perceptions and therefore the policies of the West." ....If nothing else, Talbott expressed himself plainly: "All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances . . . they are all artificial and temporary." He pointed to the then-emerging European Union as a "pioneer" of "supranational" regional cohesion that could "pave the way for globalism." ...."

Fox News 6/8/99 "...A U.S. proposal to defend democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere was shelved Tuesday after Mexico and other nations in the Organization of American States (OAS) said it smacked of interventionism. The measure, which had been set to be adopted at the OAS's annual general assembly meeting in Guatemala, would have allowed OAS members to turn to a "Group of Friends'' to help prevent political crises such as a coup..... "Every action by the OAS has to be based on the principle that each country needs to find its own solution for its problems,'' Peru's Foreign Minister Fernando de Trazegnies told delegates Tuesday. "When somebody suddenly storms my house and comes in, I don't consider him a friend,'' de Trazegnies said...."

Xinhua 6/9/99 "....a high-ranking russian official said here wednesday that moscow opposes nato's new strategy because it means that the military alliance can meddle at will in the internal affairs of any country under various pretexts. during a meeting in the kremlin with zhang wannian, vice-chairman of the central military commission of china, vladimir putin, secretary of the russian security council and director of federal security service, said both russia and china advocate a multi-polar world rather than a uni-polar one championed by the united states...."

The Daily Republican 6/10/99 Jan Oberg "...A new Cold War is approaching.And there is a larger framework. The Ukrainian parliament has voted unanimously to revert the country to its former nuclear status. On April 30, a meeting of the Russian National Security Council approved the modernisation of all strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It decided to develop strategic low-yield nuclear missiles capable of pin-point strikes anywhere in the world. The defence ministry authorised a change in nuclear doctrine. Thus Russians feel humiliated through the 1990s, but go along with most US/Western demands because of its frail leadership, its economic weakness - it can hardly pay for its own troops to be deployed in Kosovo for years ahead - and its dependence on the West. And in Beijing, the bombing of the Chinese Belgrade embassy has resulted in a shift away from the no-first-strike principle. Add the spy accusation, human rights policies and WTO negotiations and we begin to see the contours of a new Cold War. Russia, China and India - and others - have learnt not to trust the stated peaceful aims of the West. Many countries with secessionist minorities are likely to anxiously wonder when they will get the treatment Yugoslavia did...."

UPI Spotlight 6/11/99 "...Following his nationally televised address on the Kosovo conflict, President Clinton headed (Thursday evening) to a Democratic party fund-raising dinner, where he told donors, "This is a night you can be proud of your country." Clinton also promised more such actions around the world in places where people are attacked for their racial, ethnic or religious background, saying, "If we can stop it, we intend to stop it."..."

newsmax.com 6/9/99 Carl Limbacher and Caron Grich "...In April, a new strategic concept was adopted by the NATO alliance at its 50th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C.. The new initiative "propels the U.S. military into unlimited responsibilities for policing a new world order," according to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. One Senator told Novak that the shift in NATO policy is so dramatic that it might be necessary to submit the revisions to Congress for ratification, since the move formalizes the new U.S. role as global policeman.....Novak noted that British Prime Minister Tony Blair seemed extraordinarily enthusiastic about NATO's expanding role; which is a great bargain from Blair's standpoint if the current division of labor holds. The U.S. is currently shouldering about 80% of the Balkan war effort today. Blair regaled the gathering with his own theories about " a new doctrine of international community." According to Novak, "He made it clear that the West now recognizes no bar to intervention into the domestic affairs of a sovereign country." Meanwhile, Clinton sat passively as the Brit outlined their alliance's new ambitions. Perhaps the President knew the Prime Minister had said too much, inadvertently lifting the veil on the West's designs beyond Kosovo -- which may one day lead all the way to the Caspian Sea....."

6/10/99 SCMP Willy Wo-Lap Lam "...Beijing has adopted a two-pronged policy to ensure that national security is in line with its perception of an enhanced anti-China containment policy by the West. The Communist Party hierarchy is also committed to maintaining the "multi-polar" nature of the world order, meaning putting limits on the powers of the United States. After the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, President Jiang Zemin has held marathon sessions with advisers from areas including diplomacy, defence and foreign trade. One recommendation by the experts is that China must ensure peace and good neighbourliness along its borders. The past few weeks have seen dozens of meetings between Chinese officials and their counterparts from neighbouring states. The latter range from regional powers such as Russia and Pakistan to small countries including North Korea, Nepal, Laos, Burma, as well as former Soviet countries bordering Xinjiang. Several visiting delegations, including those from Russia, Pakistan and Laos, were led by military officers. PLA generals have been active on foreign trips or meeting civilian foreign dignitaries in Beijing..."

Toronto Sun 6/11/99 Matthew Fisher "...Having gone to war over Kosovo, NATO will now be expected to intervene whenever a sovereign country misbehaves and loses the trust of its people. But given how the Kosovo experience tarnished NATO's good name among doubting Thomases such as Greece, Italy and Germany, it is difficult to see how it will be able to muster such a coalition again. Like the boy who cried wolf, it may be a case of NATO being unable to fight when the day finally comes that western geo-political interests are really at stake....."

AP 6/11/99 "...China, which vehemently opposed NATO airstrikes since they began, heaped more scorn on the alliance today and claimed credit for leading the world to a peace agreement for the Kosovo crisis. Beijing argued that sovereignty is more important than human rights. In its opposition lay a deep-seated fear that NATO had set a precedent for armed intervention without U.N. approval...."

SF Chronicle 6/13/99 Christopher Layne "....Understanding Globalization By Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 394 pages....Friedman's book is interesting, breezy and a good read. The drawback of this rather breathless account of globalization, however, is its analytical superficiality. As a journalist, Friedman lacks the deep knowledge of both history and international politics necessary to place this trend du jour in its proper context. Indeed, there is nothing new about globalization. In fact, by most measures, the international economy was more globalized before World War I than it is today. Today's so-called globalization is, as Friedman admits, really Americanization; that is, the spread of American ideals, culture, and political and economic institutions....Even in today's era of globalization, international economic relations take place within a political framework. Globalization, like any system of international economic openness, depends on a stable geopolitical environment maintained by the military prowess of a dominant power -- the United States today, England in the 19th century. To put it bluntly, globalization depends on American hegemony. .....There is a second, more profound danger lurking in this hegemonic strategy. Since the beginning of the modern international system (circa 1500), the history of world politics largely has been that of successive states striving for hegemony -- and being defeated. Indeed, if there is a single, clear geopolitical lesson, it is this: Hegemonies always fail. The reason is simple: When one state becomes overwhelmingly powerful, it threatens others. Consequently, countervailing centers of power form to balance a hegemony's unchecked, overweening power...."

6/10/99 SCMP Willy Wo-Lap Lam "...Beijing has adopted a two-pronged policy to ensure that national security is in line with its perception of an enhanced anti-China containment policy by the West. The Communist Party hierarchy is also committed to maintaining the "multi-polar" nature of the world order, meaning putting limits on the powers of the United States. After the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, President Jiang Zemin has held marathon sessions with advisers from areas including diplomacy, defence and foreign trade. One recommendation by the experts is that China must ensure peace and good neighbourliness along its borders. The past few weeks have seen dozens of meetings between Chinese officials and their counterparts from neighbouring states. The latter range from regional powers such as Russia and Pakistan to small countries including North Korea, Nepal, Laos, Burma, as well as former Soviet countries bordering Xinjiang. Several visiting delegations, including those from Russia, Pakistan and Laos, were led by military officers. PLA generals have been active on foreign trips or meeting civilian foreign dignitaries in Beijing..."

Agence France Presse 6/14/99 "...The Kosovo conflict has prompted Russia to seek "strategic partners" in the form of China and India, Russian First Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Mikhailov here Monday. Mikhailov made the comment during a visit to this far eastern port city by Chinese General Zhang Wannian, vice president of China's Central Military Commission. "The events in Yugoslavia have inevitably forced us to take steps to strengthen Russia's defensive capacity and find strategic partners," Mikhailov said noting that "these partners are China and India." .....China plans to continue buying the most up-to-date Russian military equipment, notably in the aviation and radar sectors, according to sources in the Russian defense ministry quoted by the Interfax news agency. Beijing could also purchase submarines, ships and cruise missiles from Moscow. The two countries plan to spend an estimated five to six billion dollars through 2005 in joint research and development projects in the military sector, Interfax reported. ..."

ITAR-TASS 6/14/99 Yevgenia Lenz "...Colonel-General Zhang Wannian, Deputy Chairman of the Central MIlitary Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC), who has stayed at the main base of Russia's Pacific Fleet since June 12, is due to arrive in Komsomolsk on Amur on Monday. Over there, he is to tour a number of defence plants which will probably fill orders to be placed by the Chinese army as well. Meanwhile, a source at the Pacific Fleet headquarters has told Itar-Tass that during meetings between General Zhang and Admiral Mikhail Zakharenko, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, the sides "achieved full mutual understanding on problems of mutual concern". In the second half of this year, a naval squadron of Pacific Fleet ships is to pay an official visit to one of the ports of the PRC...."

ITAR-TASS 6/14/99 Monday Yevgenia Lenz "...Nikolai Mikhailov, Russia's First Deputy Minister of Defence and State Secretary, in his remarks during talks between Colonel-General Zhang Wannian, Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Council of the People's Republic of China, and the Command of Russia's Pacific Fleet, has stated that "Russia's strategic cooperation with China and India will rise to a qualitatively new level soon". The Russian Defence Ministry official pointed out that "the events in Yugoslavia prompted the adoption of necessary measures in the strengthening of Russia's defence capability and in a quest for strategic partners in accomplishment of this important task. China and India are such partners now"...."

ITAR-TASS 6/15/99 Boris Savelyev "....Moscow and Beijing considered military cooperation issues at a Tuesday meeting between commanders of Russia's far eastern military district and a Chinese delegation led by Deputy Chairman of China's Central Military Council Col. Gen. Zhang Wannian..... The visiting Chinese delegation has been guided through the Komsomolsk company which is ready to complete a large order for modern warplanes. Although no contract has been signed yet, the company already has six aircraft on assembly line. Ishayev told reporters that in his view, "the modern world should be either multi-polar or at least bi-polar, in order to oppose the powerful NATO bloc from the deterrent standpoint, because NATO is seeking to replace the UN Security Council and other UN bodies. " ...."

Stratfor 6/14/99 "...NATO and the United States have been dealing with men like Viktor Chernomyrdin.... Their credibility there [in Russia] is nil. In negotiating with the West, they operate from two imperatives. First, they are seeking whatever economic concessions they can secure in the hope of sparking an economic miracle. Second, like Gorbachev before them, they have more credibility with the people with whom they are negotiating than the people they are negotiating for. That tends to make them malleable. NATO has been confusing the malleability of a declining cadre of Russian leaders with the genuine condition inside of Russia. Clearly, Albright, Berger, Talbott, and Clinton decided that they could roll Ivanov and Chernomyrdrin into whatever agreement they wanted. In that they were right. Where they were terribly wrong was about the men they were not negotiating with, but whose power and credibility was growing daily. These faceless hard-liners in the military finally snapped at the humiliation NATO inflicted on their public leaders.....Machiavelli teaches the importance of never wounding your adversaries. It is much better to kill them. Wounding them and then ridiculing and tormenting them is the worst possible strategy. Russia is certainly wounded. It is far from dead. NATO's strategy in Kosovo has been to goad a wounded bear. That is not smart unless you are preparing to slay him. Since no one in NATO wants to go bear hunting, treating Russia with the breathtaking contempt that NATO has shown it in the past few weeks is not wise. It seems to us that Clinton and Blair are so intent on the very minor matter of Kosovo that they have actually been oblivious to the effect their behavior is having in Moscow. They just can't get it into their heads that it's not about Kosovo. It is not about humanitarianism or making ourselves the kind of people we want to be. It's about the Russians, stupid! And about China and about the global balance of power...."

Universal Press Syndicate 6/14/99 Joseph Sobran "...William F. Buckley Jr. observed the other day that we are headed for an eventual crisis with China over Taiwan, which Communist China has never ceased claiming as its own. He notes that "somewhere down the line, whatever the policies of the Taiwan government -- short of capitulation -- the crisis will come. It can only be met by absolutely straightforward pledges, of a kind that kept the Soviet Union at bay in Europe." He adds a provocative thought: "The road to that point can best be prepared not merely by thunderous diplomatic declarations, but by giving to Taiwan such weapons as are still useful in self-defense, and by encouraging nuclear parity in Japan." Encouraging Japan to go nuclear? We've come a long way from Pearl Harbor. But Mr. Buckley has a point. In the post-Cold War world, a nation- state may soon have to possess nuclear weapons in order to ensure its own sovereignty. The reason is not far to seek. Strong countries have always attacked weak ones, and nuclear weapons have vastly increased the ratio of strength to weakness. This is why the United States can now invade and bomb small countries without the slightest fear of retaliation. If Slobodan Milosevic had nukes, does anyone think the U.S. would be bombing Yugoslavia?..."

WorldNetDaily.com 6/17/99 Jon Dougherty "…Ethnic issues have always been complicated and sensitive. As these issues are the internal affairs of a country, no external forces should interfere with them. Each country should formulate correct ethnic policies in accordance with its own national conditions and properly deal with its own ethnic issues, so as to maintain ethnic unity, social stability, and economic development."

It's been a long time since I've either heard or read about any public official speaking such words of wisdom. While you might be able to guess the origin of such a statement -- Kosovo -- you may have a more difficult time figuring out who said it. I'll tell you who it was. Those are the words of Chinese Premier Li Peng, who made the statement after discussing regional and global interests with his diplomatic counterpart from India.

That's too bad, because once upon a time you would have heard American officials making similar statements when it came to whether or not the United States should interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Not anymore, though….. When our press talks about Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs, we are subconsciously led to believe that all Serbs -- not just Milosevic -- are bad people. So it is with Americans -- if our government attacks a sovereign country for no reason other than political expediency, or undermines another nation's economic policies while talking about equality in the marketplace, the people of that nation tend to hate all of us, not just Bill Clinton and Congress…."

NewsMax.com 6/18/99 Ollie North "…Tony Blair, Bill Clinton's new best buddy, was shocked. The June European Parliamentary elections seem to have rejected the vaunted "Third Way" globalists in the Blair government. The conservative Tories overwhelmed Blair's hand-picked Labor Party liberals by a margin of 36 percent to 28 percent. This victory is all the more significant when you consider that the Labor Party has dominated the political landscape of Great Britain since it came to power in April 1997. In fact, as Brits went to the polls this month, Tony Blair's approval ratings had never been higher, thanks to his "leadership" in NATO's Balkan Blunder. But Blair's personal popularity wasn't enough to save the day when it came to standing up for the Union Jack. For the first time since Margaret Thatcher sent the fleet to win back the Falkland Islands in 1981, British sovereignty is a major issue in British politics. This conservative resurgence is based on the simple premise that national identity, autonomy and independence are more important than the New World Order policies Tony Blair has been espousing since he and his liberal Laborites came to power…."

Augusta Chronicle 6/21/99 Editorial "...In a recent voice vote, the U.S. House of Representatives struck a blow against creeping globalism by giving Americans more control over their land. The vote sharply curbs the United Nations' authority to designate certain areas of the U.S. as ``World Heritage Sites'' and ``Biosphere Reserves.'' There are currently 83 such U.N. land designations in our country and many more sites are under consideration. Although the executive branch has to approve the U.N.'s action, the land-designation pact still tramples on the rights of local communities, state elected officials and even Congress. The American Land Sovereignty Protection Act is designed to restore those rights. This was not the first time the House passed the measure. Last year a similar bill was sent to the Senate, but then it was buried by an obstinate committee chairmen. This year the outlook is far better...."

Inside China Today 6/23/99 Rueters "...China compared the United States to Nazi Germany on Tuesday and said NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia reflected Washington's ambition to become "Lord of the Earth". "If you ask which country wants to become 'the Lord of the Earth' as the then Nazi Germany had tried to, there is only one answer," said a commentary in the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. "It is the hegemonism-pursuing United States." In likening the United States to Nazi Germany, the newspaper cited its massive defense budget, the bombing of Yugoslavia without U.N. sanction and the killing of civilians during the air campaign in Yugoslavia. ...."

WorldNetDaily.com 6/23/99 Henry Lamb "...Two primary targets are now in the cross hairs of the global tax-mongers: carbon and currency exchange. Carbon taxes are being designed to modify social behavior while the tax on currency exchange is designed to increase U.N. revenue from about $11 billion per year to $1.5 trillion per year. A revenue stream, independent of the voluntary contributions of member states, is all that prevents the United Nations from imposing, and enforcing, its vision of global governance. Momentum is building for global taxation schemes to provide that independent revenue stream. More than two-thirds of the American people support the idea of a global tax on foreign currency exchange, and a whopping 79 percent want a global tax on carbon. These numbers were collected by the ATI Foundation, and reported by the Washington-based Commission to Fund the United Nations. The numbers likely reflect the pollster's skill at asking misleading questions, rather than a true reflection of the American attitude toward global taxation. Nevertheless, support for various forms of global taxation is growing, pushed by well-funded organizations such as the Commission to Fund the United Nations; the United Nations Association U.S.A., Friends of the Earth; and a host of other environmental organizations...."

South China Morning Post 6/26/99 Willy Wo-Lap Lam "...Beijing and Moscow have agreed to pool resources in the development of military-related high technology. The unpublicised accord was finalised while the Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission, General Zhang Wannian, was in Moscow this month. Diplomatic sources in Beijing said yesterday that while the leadership had turned down Moscow's invitation for forming a military alliance, the joint development of weapons technology was a big step forward in defence ties. "Both countries will co-ordinate development of a number of weapons systems," a source said. "Beijing will provide most of the funds and Moscow the bulk of the expertise, including personnel."...A PLA expert said priority would be given to development of hardware including missiles and submarines. The expert said that before the Kosovo crisis, the leadership of President Jiang Zemin had been reluctant to significantly upgrade military ties with Moscow. "After the air strikes against Serbia began, [Russian President] Boris Yeltsin told Beijing that unless China and Russia joined forces, the American military machine could not be stopped...."

London Electronic Telegraph 6/25/99 Hugo Gurdon "....Posted on 06/25/1999 07:38:09 PDT by arcane THE Supreme Court removed federal powers in three decisions seen yesterday as an historic turning point in the way America is governed. The rulings, which shocked many constitutional scholars, mean individuals cannot force a state to comply with laws made by the US Congress. The rulings reverse the expansion of federal power over the 50 states, for the court's five-to-four conservative majority has told Washington that if it wants its laws enforced it must go to court itself. .... The Supreme Court has overturned about 150 federal laws since being set up by the constitution 212 years ago. But by this week's decisions, some experts say, it has thrown into dispute the constitution's decree that the laws of the United States - that is of Congress - are the "supreme law of the land"...."

AP 6/28/99 "...Although ethnic cleansing won't be tolerated, NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia shouldn't be considered a precedent for future intervention by the alliance elsewhere, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday. "Every circumstance is unique,'' Albright told the Council on Foreign Relations. "NATO is a European and Atlantic - not a global - institution.'' Her comments reflected a subtle shift in the White House's thinking about the role of NATO in the aftermath of its 11-week bombing of Yugoslavia. Before the Kosovo crisis, the administration had been pressing NATO members to consider expanding the defensive alliance's reach beyond Europe as a way of maintaining an important post-Cold War role in the world....."

Itar-Tass 6/27/99 "...NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Wesley Clark does not exclude the Alliance's operations similar to the one in Yugoslavia in future. The success of NATO in Kosovo is a decisive precedent for the next century, Clark said in an interview with the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday. The warfare against Yugoslavia showed the central role of the North Atlantic Alliance in the provision of peace and human rights in Europe, he said. When NATO enters the new century, the might it has shown in Kosovo will help it in future ventures, the General noted. The readiness to use the armed forces will remain necessary in future to protect fundamental values of the international community, and there are values worth fighting, Clark noted. The military force is the ultimate method but it must be used determinedly and unitedly as need be, and the Alliance will do that in future, Clark said.

Stratfor 6/29/99 "...In an address to the Council on Foreign Relations on June 28, U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright said NATO's air strikes in Kosovo should not be used as a precedent for intervention in other conflicts. "Every circumstance is unique," said Albright. With regards to NATO intervention in future conflicts, Albright added, "I would caution against any such sweeping conclusions." She called NATO a European and Atlantic alliance and expressed the hope that NATO intervention in Yugoslavia would deter future conflicts. Albright's comments reflect an evolving analysis, in Washington, of the Kosovo conflict and its ramifications. Washington's public spin of Operation Allied Force was that NATO, unanimous in aim and approach, successfully bombed Yugoslav forces into submission. And while this unmitigated victory temporarily aroused hostility in Russia and China, both Moscow and Beijing have more to gain from cooperating with the West than from confronting it, and will soon come around. The reality now tacitly acknowledged by Albright is somewhat different. First, NATO most certainly was not and is not unanimous regarding either the goals of the Kosovo campaign or the methods employed to achieve it.....Washington has been forced to reconsider its official spin that NATO successfully bombed Yugoslavia into submission. Bomb damage assessment inside Kosovo has shown just how little damage NATO inflicted on Yugoslav forces, raising the question of just why Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic did capitulate. The point is, Milosevic did not capitulate, but rather accepted a compromise settlement that NATO later successfully, if duplicitously, spun into an unmitigated victory in Kosovo... Finally, Russia and China - each with a host of their own "Kosovos" in which Western involvement would be most unwelcome, are not simply "getting over" their hostility to U.S. hegemonic behavior in Kosovo. Far from it, the two have accelerated plans for their strategic alliance...."

Boston Globe 7/1/99 Michael Kelly "...WASHINGTON: The Clinton Doctrine is still barely more than a glimmer in a proud papa's eye, born as it was in the usual existential fashion of this White House on June 20, in the moment, on television. ''Mr. President,'' asked CNN's Wolf Blitzer, ''is there, in your mind, a Clinton Doctrine?'' You bet, said legacy-minded he: ''While there may well be a great deal of ethnic and religious conflict in the world ... whether within or beyond the borders of a country, if the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing.'' On June 22, addressing NATO troops in Macedonia, Clinton elaborated: ''If somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background, or their religion and it is within our power to stop it, we will stop it.'' The Clinton Doctrine is a perfectly Clintonian doctrine: It is unprecedentedly sweeping. It appears to commit the United States to the task of redressing grave crimes against humanity worldwide, even within the boundaries of sovereign states and even when no American interests are involved...."

8/22/98 Donna Bryson AP ".``Irrespective of the motive of these strikes,'' Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz told his senate Friday, ``the act of violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of these Islamic countries cannot but be a matter of grave concern to the people of Pakistan who justifiably feel outraged.'' But Aziz was also quick to note his country's firm opposition ``to terrorism in all its manifestations.'' ."

Hindustan Times 8/22/98 "No matter how outraged world opinion was over the mindless terrorist attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, there is unlikely to be widespread support for the American air strikes on supposed terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan.In this respect, Washington prefers to have it both ways-use the UN to mount such raids when it seeks a veneer of legitimacy or bypass the world body and strike out on its own when it feels that a display of its strength is needed-either to divert attention from a domestic scandal or to intimidate those, especially the Islamic fundamentalists, who are implacably hostile to it."

Sacramento Bee 7/21/99 Greg Gordon "...A senior State Department official told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that the United States will refuse to sign a treaty creating an International Criminal Court unless actions such as the recent NATO bombing of Serbian factories are immune from prosecution....."

Insight Magazine, Aug. 9th edition, P. 46 7/29/99 Walter Williams "...Last October, by nearly a sixty percent majority, Louisianans approved Amendment One to their state constitution. Amendment One declares: "The people of this state have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free and sovereign state; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction and right pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." Amendment One would be unnecessary if the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court didn't have disdain for the constitution. What the citizens of Louisiana seek already is part of the protections found in the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Tenth Amendment reads, "The powers not delegated to the united States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are held in the deepest of contempt and disrespect by the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. Why? Because these amendments were written to protect against consolidation of power by the federal government. Dismissal of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments allows Congress to control our schools, mandate speed limits and require employment and college-admissions quotas, as well as other forms of Washington tyranny. Today, little states can do nothing without Washington's permission. That was not the Framers' vision....."

Jane's Defence Weekly 8/4/99 Bryan Bender "...The US Department of Defense's (DoD's) first major study on how to adapt to defence industry 'globalisation' cannot find a consensus on necessary reforms. Even defining the concept is proving to be difficult, sources said. The defence industry exists in a new international environment in which the proliferation of technology and industrial cross-border co-operation continue to rise. The Pentagon, led by Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre, wants to fashion a new policy ­ one that safeguards security while embracing the new global environment. The Defense Science Board (DSB), a senior Pentagon advisory panel, submitted a draft of its findings to Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Jacques Gansler last week, defence officials said.The report is not expected to be complete for some time, according to a spokesman. Sources involved in the undertaking told Jane's Defence Weekly that the breadth and scope of the issue is making it very difficult for the panel to agree on a way forward...."

American Spectator 8/99 Jeremy Rabkin "...As Kosovar refugees began streaming back to their homes in June, critics of the NATO "air campaign" had to acknowledge that it accomplished more than we expected. But along with the human misery and physical devastation, there are some shredded legal principles that still need tending. There is, to start with, the question of whether we now understand international law to give open license to this sort of humanitarian intervention, when the intervening power makes no claim to be acting in self- defense nor to be repelling aggression across an international boundary. President Clinton seems to think it does. "But never forget if we can do this here," he told an audience of American troops preparing to enter Kosovo in late June, "we can then say to the people of the world, whether you live in Africa or Central Europe or any other place, if somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion, and it's within our power to stop it, we will stop it." The implication of this Clinton Doctrine is that it is all a matter of power-- "our power," as he put it. The qualification may mean that we will only act when we have the "power" to do so without taking many (or any?) casualties of our own. That, in turn, may mean we will rely on high-level bombing regardless of the "collateral damage" that might result. Oddly, much of the world now seems prepared to embrace this open-ended bombing commitment from Washington..... "

Wall Street Journal 8/6/99 Bob Davis "...During his two recent trips through Europe, President Clinton has propounded a Clinton Doctrine of military intervention that amounts to the following: Tyrants beware. "If somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion," Mr. Clinton told North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Macedonia in June, "and it's within our power to stop it, we will stop it." But the Russians and some European allies worry that Mr. Clinton is pledging to deputize the U.S. military as a global cop. Meanwhile, critics at home deride Mr. Clinton's ideas as mushy-headed idealism. "It's foreign policy as social work," says Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican running for the Republican presidential nomination.....But Mr. Clinton's open-ended embrace of humanitarian intervention has worried foreign-policy experts inside the administration and out. "We don't want to give the impression of making empty promises," says Mr. Berger, the Clinton national security adviser......Indeed, Richard Haass, director of foreign-policy studies at the Brookings Institution, warns that the administration may come up with so many qualifiers to the Clinton Doctrine that it will become meaningless. After the U.S. withdrew from Somalia in 1993 when 18 U.S. Rangers were killed, the administration released a policy document to guide future peace-keeping operations. It had so many requirements, says Mr. Haass, that it was a guide for inaction......"

Orlando Sentinel 8/8/99 Charley Reese "...The United States has 20 United Nations World Heritage sites. It has 47 U.N.-designated Biosphere Reserves encompassing 51 million acres. You are probably more familiar with these sites as U.S. national parks, U.S. historical sites or national forests. This happened because the United States signed and ratified the United Nations World Heritage Treaty in 1972. It allows a president, without congressional approval, to designate something a World Heritage site or Biosphere Reserve. Though the treaty gives the United Nations no direct authority to manage these sites, it does obligate the United States to manage them in compliance with U.N. standards.

I don't like this. Sovereignty, as a political term, means simply nothing higher. A sovereign nation, for example, answers to no one but itself. To manage parts of its own territory in accordance with U.N. standards, rather than its own, is a surrender of sovereignty. When we think about and remember all that we love about the United States, we think of it as sovereign nation. We do not think of it as merely a part of something else. It was not the United Nations that fought the British and drafted the Constitution with its beautiful Bill of Rights. It was not the United Nations that fought the wars that have kept this nation free. It was, however, the United Nations that was in charge of botched or unnecessary wars in Korea, Somalia, Iraq and now the Balkans. The United States ought to withdraw from the United Nations, and it should ask the United Nations to move out of New York City to some foreign city such as Mogadishu in Somalia or Brazzaville in the Congo. Those would be appropriate cities for a bunch of international bureaucrats whose main aim in life seems to be to live the good life at the expense of their own poor people back at home...."

Rockefeller Brothers Fund website ..."In October, 1996, at the Fund's Pocantico Conference Center, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund joined with the World Bank to host an unusual meeting of foundation executives, leaders of major humanitarian organizations, and officers of large multilateral institutions. Entitled "Building a Constituency for Global Interdependence," the meeting focused on the participants' shared concern about the erosion of American support for the policies, programs, and agencies of cooperative international engagement....The first product of the Global Interdependence Initiative is an RBF publication, Global Interdependence and the Need for Social Stewardship, which argues that at the heart of any constituency-building effort for increased global cooperation must be a model of international engagement in which military security, economic growth, and social stewardship-the promotion of health, social stability, human potential, and environmental protection-are seen as mutually reinforcing expressions of American interests and values."

ecologic magazine 11/97 Henry Lamb "...But what, exactly, is it about the American system of government that makes it the best system yet devised? If it is, in fact, the best system yet devised, why do so many people -- especially Americans -- criticize it, and constantly try to change it. The answer is simple: because they can. The bedrock on which our Constitution -- and our system of government -- is founded is the realization that people are born free. At birth, they are endowed by their creator with the right and the ability to choose individually what actions they will take. Each person is empowered to direct his own life. Each person is sovereign unto himself. Individual people, working in concert, voluntarily agree to impose upon themselves a measured limitation of their freedom. The U.S. Constitution articulates that agreement and measures the power sovereign individuals bestow upon the institution of government. Those people who wrote the Constitution, and those who subscribe to it, agree to be bound by the laws produced by the institution of government because it is they, the individual people, who are the government. Upon this bedrock realization, the people of America built a great nation because they were neither dependent upon government nor limited by it. ..."

ecologic magazine 11/97 Henry Lamb "...But the American system of government is changing. The U.S. Constitution -- even with its enumerated powers -- is being ignored. New forces, external forces, are exerting influences that challenge the bedrock realization of individual sovereignty, and are eroding the legislative process as the mechanism for the creation public policy..... The power of the American people over its government is an obstacle to the objectives and agenda of the United Nations. Therefore, a mechanism has been devised to diminish the power of the legislative branch of government at every level. Public policy is being made by carefully selected individuals, rather than by duly elected officials...."

ecologic magazine 11/97 Henry Lamb "...The UN philosophy is not invading America with black helicopters and blue-helmeted soldiers. It is invading America through the Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Chemical Weapons, Agenda 21, the President's Council on Sustainable Development, Ecosystem Management, American Heritage Rivers Initiative, Goals 2000, and an endless stream of policy recommendations that are being implemented without the benefit of legislative debate and authorization. The invasion of UN philosophy cannot be stopped by bullets or retreat to a survival community in the mountains. It will be stopped by individuals exercising their individual sovereign power to limit and control their government...."

International Herald Tribune 8/12/99 Milada Anna Vachudova "...The European Union's plans to bring peace and prosperity to the Balkans through the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe will fail if EU governments do not change the way they think about EU enlargement. During the last decade, they have not treated association and accession to the EU as a powerful tool for promoting democracy and economic reform in post-Communist Europe. Instead they have dwelled on their own domestic opposition to enlargement and on the cost of absorbing new members. But the prospect of joining the EU is already promoting reform in East-Central Europe as governments work to meet the entry requirements. The goal of membership has put Hungary and Slovakia, for example, on the road to liberal democracy and greater prosperity by helping reformers to get elected and by encouraging elected governments to pursue reform. This can work in the Balkans, too, but only if leaders and citizens come to believe that their states have a real chance of eventually becoming EU members. For stability to prevail, moderate politicians must first win power in the southeast European states. Western carrots and sticks cannot make extremists behave like moderate democrats. Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Franjo Tudjman in Croatia and Vladimir Meciar in Slovakia all drove their countries into poverty and isolation, turning their backs on the benefits of playing by Western rules....."

AP 8/11/99 "...The United Nations' chief prosecutor is pressing for joint trials of suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a move she says would help shrink a large backlog of cases. Louise Arbour, who also oversees the tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has openly criticized the pace of the Rwandan court. The court began work in 1995 and has completed only four trials. It has 38 jailed suspects awaiting trial for participating in the Hutu-dominated army's slaughter of more than half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Arbour said Monday that joint trials of four to five suspects at once would be cheaper and more efficient. It would mean key witnesses would only have to appear once in the court, located in remote northern Tanzania...."

2/25/99 Janet Reno EPF411 "...Reno, in evening remarks February 24 to an international forum on fighting corruption, said the increasing sophistication of criminal elements requires mutual access to evidence, witnesses and fugitives. New bilateral and multilateral agreements are needed "to create a seamless web for the prompt location, arrest and prosecution of international fugitives in appropriate venues," Reno told delegates from nearly 90 countries attending Vice President Al Gore's "Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity Among Justice and Security Officials." It is of critical importance that international criminals who corrupt public institutions and then exploit national borders to escape justice are denied safe havens, she added. "Corruption, especially judicial and law enforcement corruption, is one of the most invidious threats to the political and economic health of a nation and its peoples," Reno stated...."

Chicago Sun-Times 8/11/99 John O'Sullivan "...President Clinton took time off from scandals earlier this year to promulgate a new foreign policy doctrine. Exactly why is not clear.... Be that as it may, Clinton made the Kosovo war the basis of his doctrine in a series of speeches. NATO's intervention, he claimed, was not just about Kosovo. It was a new kind of war, waged not for selfish reasons of national interest but to shape a new and more benign international order. Under this proposed dispensation, most states would be multiethnic, multicultural federations in which ethnic nations would enjoy limited cultural autonomy rather than full national sovereignty. Lest you think I exaggerate, here are two excerpts from his speeches:

* "Finally, we must remember the principle we and our allies have been fighting for in the Balkans is the principle of multiethnic, tolerant, inclusive democracy. We have been fighting against the idea that statehood must be based entirely on ethnicity."

* "If we were to choose this course [either independence or partition for Kosovo], we would see the continuous fissioning of smaller and smaller ethnically based, inviable [sic] states, creating pressures for more war, more ethnic cleansing, more of the politics of repression and revenge. I believe the last thing we need in the Balkans is greater balkanization."

Since most existing states--France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic and most of central and eastern Europe--are in fact ethnic nation-states, the Clinton doctrine would seem to require considerable international upheaval. And since most multiethnic, multicultural federations are either recently defunct (the Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia) or face periodic ethnic strife or threats of secession (India, Belgium, Canada, the United States itself), there is no guarantee that this upheaval would be followed by a lasting harmony of multicultural nationhood...."

http://www.stratfor.com/asia/specialreports/special49.htm 8/13/99 "...This shift in international policy, conscious or unconscious, stems from the United States' adoption of the concept of a New World Order based on global economic cooperation and prosperity that would overshadow and eventually outweigh regional conflicts. The argument is that as countries work toward economic unity in the global marketplace, living standards will rise and the triggers of conflict will fade..... In Asia, there are several examples of this strategy being played out. The example of the Pakistan-India clash in Kashmir earlier this year demonstrates this tendency to adopt the idea that the belligerent is always wrong.....The current China-Taiwan tensions are another indication of this way of thinking. The U.S. sided with China, despite strained relations, when Taiwan issued its state-to-state remarks. However, as China reportedly began building up its military forces and preparing for a possible invasion of the smaller outlying islands of Taiwan, the U.S. was quick to state its support of Taiwan in the event of a military action by China. Interestingly, the U.S.'s own policy of siding with the aggrieved party made it necessary to kowtow to China following the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade...... However, while the long-term goal is the cessation of conflict in favor of economic growth, the New World Order concept fails to take into consideration the legitimacy of deeper divisive issues. As it is founded on the concept that economics outweighs all other concerns, it results in the delegating of long-standing border disputes, blood feuds, religious and ethnic differences and even political differences as problems that will simply fade away with the dawning of a globalized market system. The resulting foreign policy becomes more inclined to be reactive, stamping out aggression whenever it appears, regardless of whether the aggressor is the traditional ally or enemy. However, in putting out all these brushfires, the real problems aren't solved, but instead remain smoldering, ready to flare up again.

This trend also places the foreign policy of the United States and other nations in a position to be more easily manipulated by a good PR campaign. Whoever appears to be the victim gets the support..."

WorldNetDaily 8/13/99 Anne Williamson "...Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a valuable, a most sacred right -- a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. -- Abraham Lincoln ...The talented con man that is Bill Clinton and his downmarket Lady MacBeth, Hillary Rodham, have further presumed to bribe the electorate by unleashing the greatest expansion of cash, credit and government favor in U.S. history, thereby debasing the population generally. With the citizenry distracted by plenty and the concomitant rise in both personal debt and taxation levels, and the media's post-Cold War transformation into Big Government propagandists nearly complete, liberty's gates have been left open to tyranny. It is into this very breach that on Aug. 7 the SNC rallied. And this nascent band of businessmen and former RNC activists find themselves well armed with but a single piece of paper -- the U.S. Constitution. "For 134 years the American people have been led to believe that the right of secession had been overturned by a 'verdict of arms,' but that isn't true," SNC Chairman George Kalas remarked. "It is true the shot fired at Fort Sumter was a mistake since it provided the pretext for the Southland to be invaded by foreign troops, but the right of secession realized through the ballot box remains an essential part of our constitutional order." American liberty and federalism gain definition only by virtue of the right of secession. In its most elemental meaning, the Constitution is an assertion that "yea" can legally have no binding meaning if "nay" is forever disallowed. Without that, the 50 states' relationship to the union would be one of perpetual servitude. Instead, the Constitution affirms that only the dispersion and division of power flowing from the people upward through the sovereignty of each of the 50 states can provide a proper check upon the federal government. Clyde C. Wilson, a University of South Carolina historian and editor of the John C. Calhoun Papers, has stated the case with eminent clarity: Federalism is not when the central government graciously allows the states to do this or that. That is just another form of administration. True federalism is when the people of the states set limits to the central government. Fundamentally, federalism means states rights. The cause of states rights is the cause of liberty. They rise or fall together....History is full of riddles and ironies, and what could be more true to the quixotic nature of mankind's story than formerly defeated Southern secessionists saving a federal union by their very presence having made it once again harmonious and accountable? A mostly satisfied Quebec attests to just that possibility, and explains why this Yankee was more than glad to leave a sizeable chunk of her heart in Dixieland. Anne Williamson has written for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Spy magazine, Film Comment and Premiere. An expert on Soviet-Russian affairs, she is currently working on a book, "Contagion: How America Betrayed Russia." ..."

AP 8/14/99 Edith Lederer "...The issue that dominated three weeks of negotiations on the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal wasn't even on the agenda: What will it take for the United States to join the court? With the answer hanging in limbo, more than 100 countries made "good progress'' on key legal issues during the second round of preparatory negotiations for the International Criminal Court, said Philippe Kirsch, chairman of the preparatory commission. The meeting ended Friday. But it was the private talks between U.S. Ambassador David Scheffer and national leaders that generated the most interest. Scheffer is trying to find a legal solution that will enable Washington to sign the treaty creating the tribunal. The United States was one of seven countries that last year voted against establishing the tribunal. The treaty was approved by 120 other countries and has since been signed by 84 of those and ratified by four. American officials felt the treaty yielded too much prosecutorial power to the new court, leaving U.S. troops and citizens vulnerable to politically motivated prosecutions..... The Clinton administration wants an exception from investigation or prosecution by the court for personnel involved in official military actions. Richard Dicker, associate counsel for Human Rights Watch, said an exception for official acts would render the court "null and void'' and allow the Saddam Husseins of the world to get away with crimes against humanity. "It is a loophole the size of the Grand Canyon that any rogue state would drive right through,'' he said....."

Newsweek 8/15/99 Michael Hirsh Gregory Vistica "...Bill Clinton really didn't want to get involved, not in another Asian hot spot, not over another disputed province, Kashmir. But when Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif flew to Washington last month to plead for U.S. help, the president decided that relations between the world's two newest nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, were so edgy they needed closer attention. His concern grew last week, when Indian MiG-21s shot down a Pakistani plane, killing 16. Though U.S. officials deny they are "mediating" - India refuses to consider Kashmir an international issue - Clinton plans to visit South Asia early next year to take what he calls a "personal interest" in resolving the tensions. Sharif got his wish - and his man. Like it or not, America is being cast as the world's globocop, especially since its mighty display of air power in Yugoslavia. But those who imagine that the U.S. emerged from Kosovo as the unquestioned enforcer of world peace haven't been watching Asia. Simultaneous crises are erupting in a 4,000-mile arc from South Asia to Taiwan and the Koreas in the east, and U.S. officials are finding the tensions more intractable than ever. Worse, even the Asians are beginning to wonder how ready or able Washington is to quell them...."

Boston Globe 8/19/99 Mark Weisbrot "…In just a few months thousands of environmentalists, steel workers, longshoremen, AIDS activists, farmers and others will descend on Seattle in a ''mobilization against globalization.'' They will hold marches, protests, teach-ins, and conferences. The occasion? The World Trade Organization is holding a meeting of ministers from its 134 member countries to talk about launching a new round of trade talks…. The new bureaucracy of the WTO was given the authority to determine whether national laws on such matters as environmental protection and food safety violate international trade rules. In other words, the burden of proof has shifted: for example, if our Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate the content of gasoline in order to reduce pollution, it must be careful not to infringe upon the rights of foreign producers. This principle was actually tested when Venezuela, on behalf of its gasoline producers, challenged EPA regulations on gasoline quality at the WTO. In 1997 the WTO ruled in their favor. The EPA subsequently changed its regulations, weakening its ability to enforce federal air quality standards. Another WTO ruling last year undermined our Endangered Species Act. We have attempted to protect endangered sea turtles from extinction by requiring that shrimp fishing boats install devices that allow the turtles to escape the nets. The law applied to all shrimp sold in the United States, but the WTO ruled that this was unfair to other countries…."

Original Sources 8/17/99 Mary Mostert "…Clearly the unspoken concern here is that the International Criminal Court, which is designed to do on a international basis what the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has been doing - targeting military and elected leaders of the former Yugoslavia for war crimes - could end up a indicting and trying Bill Clinton. Moves to indict him, Madeleine Albright and Tony Blair for their bombing of Yugoslavia and for allowing the KLA to implement its long held desire to seize control of Kosovo and evict or kill all non-Albanians, are gathering steam. On 22 February 1993 the Security Council, on the insistence of and with the promised financial support of the Clinton Administration, decided to establish the 'International Tribunal for Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia Since 1991' (short: International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia). Its task is to try people "suspected of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991." Based at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Netherlands, the tribunal "passes judgment, on behalf of the world community, on crimes which by their nature and scope are a concern to the entire world. The Tribunal will investigate a matter, if necessary in the absence of the accused, in a manner which is both independent and authoritative." Now why, do you suppose, the United States is against a concept on an international basis that it was demanding implementation of a mere six years ago where Yugoslavia and Slobadan Milosevic were concerned? US Senate Foreign Relations Committee spokesperson Marc Thiessen explained. He warned that the Clinton administration wants an exception from investigation or prosecution by the court for personnel involved in official military actions. The United States wants "a clear recognition that states sometimes engage in very legitimate uses of military force to advance international peace and security," he explained…."

Original Sources 8/17/99 Mary Mostert "…'Articles 18.1 and 18.4 of the International Tribunal for Serious Violations of Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia created in 1991. Article 2 of the statute gives the Tribunal the power "to prosecute persons committing or ordering to be committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention including the following:(a) willful killing;(c) willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health;(d) extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." Article 3 .gives the Tribunal "the power to prosecute persons violating the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to:(a) employment of poisonous weapons or other weapons to cause unnecessary suffering;(b) wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;(c) attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings;(d) seizure of, destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science." Article 7 provides for individual criminal responsibility of "A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute, shall be individually responsible for the crime. "2. The official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve such person of criminal responsibility or mitigate punishment. …"

Original Sources 8/25/99 Mary Mostert "…On my website there is a petition, The Call to Preserve the Natural Family. It will be presented in November at the World Congress of Families II in Geneva, Switzerland. While many people are beginning to realize that the disintegration of the family is a major cause of many of the serious social ills, crime and misery afflicting all parts of the world, including the scourge of AIDs, few understand that there is a well organized effort going on internationally to stop the creation of families altogether. One of the few people who have seen the rapid growth of the anti-family movement is Susan Roylance. I met Susan soon after she got back from attending the UN Beijing Women's Conference in 1995. She has been at UN conferences at key points in the past four years, representing the traditional family and the importance of the mother in the traditional family. I received the following e-mail from her yesterday, explaining the extraordinary, and rapid growth, of a movement intended to reduce population by trying to convince women that they do not want to be mothers and encouraging "other forms" of sexual gratification besides normal heterosexual relations within the bonds of matrimony. This has led to the determined effort on the part of some to teach acceptance of bizarre new definitions of, and acceptance of abnormal sex that does not produce offspring as not only "normal" but superior to heterosexual relations which produce babies……"

AFP 8/21/99 "…Amnesty International Saturday called for measures to ensure the punishment of high-ranking officials ordering human rights violations. At an Amnesty International Council Meeting, the international human rights watchdog adopted a four-year plan to "end the impunity enjoyed by high-placed officials who order the wholesale violation of human rights." Some 400 members from nearly 80 countries attended the session near here. The scheme will cost the equivalent of 59.4 million euros, financed by subscriptions and appeals for funds. Amnesty said it also wanted to "bring to justice the lesser-known perpetrators who commit political killings, torture and arbitrary arrest." ….It would also support the early establishment of and cooperate with the future International Criminal Court…."

Human Events 8/27/99 Joseph A D’Agostino "…Delgates working in New York to hammer out the last details of a treaty designed to create a new International Criminal Court (ICC) have made two radical proposals recently. The first would give the court the power to declare "keeping a woman pregnant" a violation of international law. The second would strip priests, pastors, rabbis and other religious counselors of the attorney-client type privilege they now enjoy in most civilized nations regarding the content of conversations they have while counseling members of their congregations. The forced pregnancy language-an Orwellian inversion of the inalienable right to life mentioned in the U.S. Declaration of Independence-would apply only in time of war (it is place under the heading of "war crime"), but observers of the ICC deliberations say it would set an ominous precedent that could be extended. …"

National Post 8/31/99 Maude Barlow "….The dominant development model of our time is economic globalization, a system fuelled by the belief that a single global economy with universal rules set by global corporations and financial markets is inevitable. Everything is for sale, even those areas of life once considered sacred. Increasingly, these services and resources are controlled by a handful of transnational corporations that shape national and international law to suit their interests. At the heart of this transformation is an all-out assault on virtually every public sphere of life, including the democratic underpinning of our legal systems. The most important tool in this assault has been the creation of international trade agreements whose tribunals and enforcement measures supersede the legal systems of nation-states and supplant their judicial processes by setting up independent dispute resolution systems that exist outside the confines of their courts and their laws. For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement gave American corporations Chapter 11, the first "investor state clause" in any international agreement. For the first time, a corporation can sue a foreign government if that government enacts any law, practice or measure that negatively affects the company's profits or reputation, even if that law, practice or measure has been enacted by a democratic legislature for legitimate environmental, social, health or safety reasons….. The other major global institution that is swiping national legal jurisdictions is the World Trade Organization. The WTO enforces a number of international trade agreements on goods, services, intellectual property rights, food safety, animal and plant health, financial services, food, agriculture policy, investment, technology and telecommunications. What makes the WTO so powerful is that it has both the legislative and judicial authority to challenge laws, policies and programs of countries that do not conform to WTO rules and strike them down if they are seen to be too "trade restrictive." Cases are decided -- in secret -- by a panel of three trade bureaucrats. Once a WTO ruling is made, worldwide conformity is required. A country is obligated to harmonize its laws or face the prospect of perpetual trade sanctions or fines. …"

International Forum on Globalization Published: Siena, Italy 9/98 "…In the midst of the rapidly growing global financial crisis that has already reached unprecedented proportions, the following statement was prepared by the Board of Directors and the Committee on Global Finance of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), an alliance of leading scholars, activists, economists, researchers, and writers representing over 40 organizations in 20 countries. The meeting was held in Siena, Italy, in September 1998. The document is now being circulated for additional signatories, and will soon be publicly released…. 1. The undersigned have long predicted that corporate-led economic globalization, as expressed and encouraged by the rules of global trade and investment, would lead to an extreme volatility in global financial markets and great vulnerability for all nations and people. These rules have been created and are enforced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Maastricht Agreement, the World Bank and other global bureaucracies that currently discipline governments in the area of trade and financial investment. This volatility is bringing massive economic breakdown in some nations, insecurity in all nations, unprecedented hardships for millions of people, growing unemployment and dislocation in all regions, direct assaults on environmental and labor conditions, loss of wilderness and biodiversity, massive population shifts, increased ethnic and racial tensions, and other disastrous results. Such dire outcomes are now becoming manifest throughout the world, and are increasing daily…."

AP 9/1/99 "…The world has a chance to turn over a new leaf in the new millennium by adopting a planetary approach to curing society's ills, according to a manifesto endorsed by philosophers and scientists around the world. "Humanist Manifesto 2000" was conceived and drafted by University at Buffalo Professor Paul Kurtz, president of the International Academy of Humanism and editor-in-chief of "Free Inquiry" magazine. Built around basic humanist principles of nontheistic, rationalist thought, the manifesto being released today stresses the need for people to rise above "narrow tribalism" to find common ground. "Ethnicities are the result of past social and geographical isolations that are no longer relevant in an open global society where interaction and intermarriage among different ethnicities are not only possible, but are to be encouraged," the manifesto says. Although commitments to country and race will continue, "our commitment to humanity as a whole becomes our overriding obligation," said Kurtz, who worked on the manifesto for more than a year. Rather than accept gloom and doom visions of the future, he said, he wanted to advance his belief that a better world is possible. "For the first time in human history we possess the means - provided by science and technology - to ameliorate the human condition, advance happiness and freedom, and enhance human life for all people on the planet," Kurtz writes. The manifesto urges people to embrace science and technology to solve social problems like pollution and overpopulation. It urges an end to spiritual and theological world views in favor of new moral principles based on reason and science, which it says are more appropriate for the post-industrial, information age The document is endorsed by more than 100 people from 26 countries, in the fall issue of "Free Inquiry."…."

New Statesman UK 9/6/99 Ralf Dahrendorf "....The recent paper by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder entitled Europe: The Third Way - Die Neue Mitte begins with a bold statement: "Social democrats are in government in almost all the countries of the [European] Union. Social democracy has found new acceptance - but only because, while retaining its traditional values, it has begun in a credible way to renew its ideas and modernise its programmes. It has also found new acceptance because it stands not only for social justice but also for economic dynamism and the unleashing of creativity and innovation." It was perhaps unfortunate that this document was published a week before the European elections in June, which allowed us to check the statement that "social democracy has found new acceptance". The result of this check is telling. In six of the 15 EU countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands), social democratic parties had 20 per cent or less of the vote; in two others (France and Luxembourg) between 21 and 25 per cent; and in five others (Germany, Greece, Britain, Austria and Sweden) between 26 and 33 per cent. Only in Spain (35 per cent) and Portugal (43 per cent) did democratic socialists get more than a third of the vote. And in only four countries (including France, where Lionel Jospin's socialists got 22 per cent) did they emerge as the strongest single party....."

The Economist 9/18-24/99 ".... The tragedy of East Timor, coming so soon after that of Kosovo, has focused attention once again on the need for timely intervention by the international community when death and suffering are being inflicted on large numbers of people, and when the state nominally in charge is unable or unwilling to stop it. In Kosovo a group of states intervened without seeking authority from the United Nations Security Council. In Timor the council has now authorised intervention, but only after obtaining an invitation from Indonesia. We all hope that this will rapidly stabilise the situation, but many hundreds-probably thousands-of innocent people have already perished. As in Rwanda five years ago, the international community stands accused of doing too little, too late....... State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined-not least by the forces of globalisation and international co-operation. States are now widely understood to be instruments at the service of their peoples, and not vice versa. At the same time individual sovereignty-by which I mean the fundamental freedom of each individual, enshrined in the charter of the UN and subsequent international treaties-has been enhanced by a renewed and spreading consciousness of individual rights. When we read the charter today, we are more than ever conscious that its aim is to protect individual human beings, not to protect those who abuse them. These changes in the world do not make hard political choices any easier. But they do oblige us to think anew about such questions as how the UN responds to humanitarian crises; and why states are willing to act in some areas of conflict, but not in others where the daily toll of death and suffering is as bad or worse......"

WorldNetDaily 9/22/99 Jon Dougherty "....In a speech delivered to the U.N. body on Monday, Annan said state sovereignty is being redefined by the forces of globalization and international cooperation and declared, "The state is now widely understood to be the servant of the people, and not vice versa." In his dreams. Traditional considerations of national sovereignty will no longer be taken into account, Annan said, and governments "must not allow divisions within the Security Council to derail legitimate intervention in places such as Rwanda and Kosovo," according to the Washington Times. "Legitimate intervention?" Who decides what this is? President Clinton -- the ever consummate "compassionate" man and globalist -- agreed, telling U.N. delegates, "Regional groups of nations should have the right to launch collective military action to stop mass killings in their part of the world." There are several things wrong with this mental illness. First, who in Sam Hill is Kofi Annan to elevate himself to the level of global arbiter? If he personally believes it is appropriate to "intervene when necessary" in another nation's sovereign business, then he ought to be outfitted with the latest military uniform and gear, provided with a weapon and a few magazines full of ammunition, and sent on his way. He can take Clinton the draft dodger with him, but I won't wait up for them. Secondly, who gave the U.N. -- or the U.S. government, for that matter -- permission to send my son and your son to Rwanda, Kosovo, or East Timor on behalf of a global organization that was established to work out solutions through diplomacy, not weaponry? Our leaders are supposed to decide when it is in this country's best interest to fight, not the United Nations' king. We don't always agree with our leaders, but it is their job -- not Kofi Annan's job or fat cat bureaucrats sitting around some globalistic "security council" table. To heck with that. Can you believe the kind of arrogance it must take to make such proclamations about the fate of billions of people over whom you were never elected to serve? What kind of "brass" does it take to tell billions of people you have the "right" to sentence their sons and daughters to death fighting on your behalf for a cause that doesn't affect you or your country (our own politicians do this enough already)? What kind of hubris must a man have to assume that he has a "right" to order an attack on your country if the leadership doesn't follow his beliefs or fit into his personal agenda? Yes, there is horror in this world. Yes, there is pain and suffering. Yes, there should be people speaking out against it. ....."

Christian Science Monitor 9/22/99 M Shane Smith "....From Sierra Leone to Rwanda to Kosovo - and now East Timor - innocent civilians are being targeted for systematic displacement, rape, torture, and murder. And, as usual, the world helplessly looks on. Only after a humanitarian crisis or genocide has ravaged an entire population does the international community respond. Little known to the American public, however, efforts are under way to develop a tool to combat these atrocities before they occur: an International Criminal Court (ICC). It will be a standing tribunal, unlike the ad hoc Rwanda and Yugoslavia war crimes tribunals administered by the United Nations. The court, which is still in the planning stages, will be tasked with investigating and prosecuting the most grievous of war crimes - crimes against humanity and genocide. In July 1998, 120 nations signed the ICC treaty and confirmed that individuals could be held accountable for state-sponsored campaigns of terror. The United States - joining such exemplars of justice as China, Iran, Iraq, and Libya -voted against the statute. Critics argue that an international tribunal would be ineffective, and could be abused by foes of the US to launch litigious vendettas against it. However, the White House should see the benefits offered by an ICC and engage US allies in making treaty changes that will garner its support....To be sure, the current treaty is not perfect. There are legitimate concerns about the chance of politically motivated abuses of the court - highlighted by the reckless suggestions by Serb and Russian authorities that NATO committed war crimes during the Kosovo conflict. But the ICC is potentially too important a tool against tyranny for the US to simply chuck it in the waste bin. The US should express its provisional support for the court and vigorously engage its allies to ensure that the ICC cannot be turned against those who fight for peace....."

The Economist 9/19/99 Kofi Annan ".... THE tragedy of East Timor, coming so soon after that of Kosovo, has focused attention once again on the need for timely intervention by the international community when death and suffering are being inflicted on large numbers of people, and when the state nominally in charge is unable or unwilling to stop it. In Kosovo a group of states intervened without seeking authority from the United Nations Security Council. In Timor the council has now authorised intervention, but only after obtaining an invitation from Indonesia. We all hope that this will rapidly stabilise the situation, but many hundreds-probably thousands-of innocent people have already perished. As in Rwanda five years ago, the international community stands accused of doing too little, too late. Neither of these precedents is satisfactory as a model for the new millennium. Just as we have learnt that the world cannot stand aside when gross and systematic violations of human rights are taking place, we have also learnt that, if it is to enjoy the sustained support of the world's peoples, intervention must be based on legitimate and universal principles. We need to adapt our international system better to a world with new actors, new responsibilities, and new possibilities for peace and progress......State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined-not least by the forces of globalisation and international co-operation. States are now widely understood to be instruments at the service of their peoples, and not vice versa. At the same time individual sovereignty-by which I mean the fundamental freedom of each individual, enshrined in the charter of the UN and subsequent international treaties-has been enhanced by a renewed and spreading consciousness of individual rights. When we read the charter today, we are more than ever conscious that its aim is to protect individual human beings, not to protect those who abuse them. These changes in the world do not make hard political choices any easier. But they do oblige us to think anew about such questions as how the UN responds to humanitarian crises; and why states are willing to act in some areas of conflict, but not in others where the daily toll of death and suffering is as bad or worse. From Sierra Leone to Sudan, from Angola to Afghanistan, there are people who need more than words of sympathy. They need a real and sustained commitment to help end their cycles of violence, and give them a new chance to achieve peace and prosperity. The genocide in Rwanda showed us how terrible the consequences of inaction can be in the face of mass murder. But this year's conflict in Kosovo raised equally important questions about the consequences of action without international consensus and clear legal authority. ...."

The Washington Times 9/20/99 Thomas Elias "....Interior and Justice department officials are preparing to open hearings on a thorny question here that has plagued this island paradise for more than a century: Should Hawaii return to a sovereign state? "We should be completely independent," said Keaki Keali, a native Hawaiian living near Hanapepe on the island of Kauai, whose home is just eight miles from the spot where the English Capt. James Cook landed in 1778 and opened Hawaii's contact with the outside world. "They took it away from us by force and we should get it back." The dicey subject -- around since the U.S. military forcibly ousted Queen Liliuokalani from her ornate Iolani Palace more than 100 years ago -- has picked up steam since President Clinton proferred an apology in 1993. Mr. Clinton's apology, written by Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, conceded the U.S. was wrong to have its Navy stand offshore with guns bared and wrong for having backed an uprising by mostly American landowners on the sovereign nation The apology encouraged a spate of Hawaiian sovereignty movements, none of which have gained anything close to majority support in the islands, which became the 49th state in 1958, 60 years after their official annexation to the United States....."

Bob Lonsberry 9/21/99 Bob Lonsberry "...Any more than we know why a string of international peacekeeping missions is allowed to plunder an already tight American defense budget. Or why the president made a deal with North Korea, a country which has twice humiliated him by violating previous agreements. Or why we bombed the hell out of Kosovo, spawning killing fields and destabilizing a legitimate foreign government. Or why he quietly has escalated the American air war over Iraq. Or why he insisted that American combat troops be flown into East Timor. Or why we continue to funnel billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars into the pockets of corrupt Russian politicians and gangsters. Each of these things has occurred recently. Each threatens world stability, American dominance and domestic peace. Each works directly contrary to America's self-interest and instinct of self-preservation. And yet he has done them. And it either happened accidentally or on purpose. Either they're idiots, or they've decided to begin dismantling the United States. That may sound implausible, but it is the bedrock of a political philosophy popular at the White House and most often verbalized by Strobe Talbot. He and others - including the president - have over the years said that the era of the nation-state is passing. That soon a higher authority, a global community of peoples, would predominate. No longer would people worry about being American, they would see themselves as citizens of the world. Some nations would subside and some would arise, so that all might be fair...."

CNSNews.com 9/21/99 Justin Torres ".... Claiming that the UN Charter protects human "rights beyond borders," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Monday articulated a new policy of international intervention that places universal human rights over national sovereignty. "If states bent on criminal behavior know that frontiers are not the absolute defense; if they know that the Security Council will take action to halt crimes against humanity, then they will not embark on such courses of action in expectation of sovereign impunity," Annan said in his opening day speech before the General Assembly. Annan also said that a wide range of forms of intervention, "from the most pacific to the most coercive," should be considered, and should be applied fairly in all regions: "If the new commitment to intervention in the face of extreme suffering is to retain the support of the world's peoples, it must be . . . fairly and consistently applied, irrespective of region or nation. Humanity, after all, is indivisible." ...."

Wall Street Journal 9/21/99 Alam Kuperman "...Australian peacekeeping troops are already on the ground in East Timor but the debate over responsibility for the recent atrocities there continues to simmer. Human-rights groups blame 25 years of Western coddling of Indonesia. If only the U.S. had applied more pressure on Jakarta, they say, the violence could have been avoided. The reality, however, is almost exactly the opposite. Today's suffering in East Timor is a direct result of too much Western human-rights pressure without any precautions against the tragic, and predictable, backlash. This lesson should have been learned in Rwanda. In the early 1990s, the international community applied intense diplomatic pressure on Rwanda's Hutu government to share power with Tutsi rebels. Threatening to cut off aid, the West compelled the Hutu president to sign an agreement to hand over power. But the West could not compel the Rwandan president and his cronies to honor the pact, which would have cost them the benefits of rule and left them vulnerable to retribution from new leaders. Instead, Hutu extremists decided to retain power by killing the opposition and its civilian supporters. In three months, at least a half-million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed--more than 100 times the number of civilian victims in the two decades prior to Western meddling. Militias and extremist soldiers led the killing. Many in the Hutu army initially stayed neutral, but as fighting continued they too inevitably sided against the Tutsis. The United Nations withdrew its peacekeepers and returned only after the killing was over. The parallels in East Timor are chilling....... After the Cold War, however, the U.S. began applying human-rights conditionality over East Timor, including suspending military cooperation with Jakarta. Pressure grew in 1996, after Timorese independence leaders won the Nobel Peace Prize and became media darlings. In 1997 the Asian financial crisis increased Indonesia's need for aid and thereby boosted Western leverage. Finally, this year, Indonesian President B.J. Habibie relented, agreeing to hold a referendum in East Timor and to accept last month's vote for independence. As in Rwanda, however, the ruling elite in East Timor (transplanted Indonesians and their local allies) had much to lose and much to fear if they handed over power, so they chose to resist with deadly force. Militias spearheaded the violence, and the army predictably sided with its long-time allies. The U.N. withdrew, and peacekeepers are being sent only now that the blitzkrieg of killing, ethnic cleansing and looting is mostly complete. As in most recent cases--including Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Rwanda--the bulk of the latest violence in East Timor was perpetrated in a matter of days, long before an adequate force of peacekeepers could arrive. ...."

Drudge Report 9/26/99 "…..Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott believes the United States may not exist in its current form in the 21st Century -- because nationhood throughout the world will become obsolete! Talbott, who is profiled in the NEW YORK TIMES on Monday [for the second time in six months], has defined, shaped and executed the Clinton administration's foreign policy. He has served at the State Department since the first day of the Clinton presidency. Just before joining the administration, Talbott wrote in TIME magazine -- in an essay titled "The Birth of the Global Nation" -- that he is looking forward to government run by "one global authority." "Here is one optimist's reason for believing unity will prevail ... within the next hundred years ... nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority," Talbott declared in the July 20, 1992 issue of TIME. "A phrase briefly fashionable in the mid-20th century -- 'citizen of the world' -- will have assumed real meaning by the end of the 21st." Talbott continued: "All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary." ….."

International Herald Tribune 9/25/99 William Pfaff "….The Australian-led peacekeeping force in East Timor is in a delicate and dangerous situation, complicated by the confusion that exists concerning what UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called the new era of humanitarian interventions. There seems no logical consistency in what has been done, no governing principle. The United Nations intervenes in Kuwait and East Timor but does nothing about Rwanda, Afghanistan, Chechnya or Tibet. The reasons are obvious but the inconsistency bothers people. East Timor and Kuwait are small and accessible, and the latter has oil. Nobody would have known what to do in Afghanistan. The Chechen affair and Tibet are legally internal questions (but so was Kosovo). Russia and China have UN vetoes and nuclear weapons. Africa is off the geopolitical map….."

Cato 9/23/99 David Isenberg "…..George Orwell and Franz Kafka could not have crafted a more cunning character than President Clinton. Orwell and Kafka, who devoted so many of their writings to warning of the dangers of centralized governmental control and thought police, would find the president's new International Public Information (IPI) system eerily familiar. Back in April, while NATO was dropping bombs on Kosovo, Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 68, ordering the creation of the IPI, a new multiagency plan to closely control the dissemination of public information abroad. The initiative was designed to ensure that all U.S. government agencies disseminating information abroad presented a single message. The reported purpose of the IPI is to "prevent and mitigate crises and to influence foreign audiences in ways favorable to the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives." The White House seems to be concerned that the public is not sympathetic enough to the president's noble foreign policy aims. Thus, the IPI will also reeducate Americans while "educating" non-Americans……. But the IPI initiative, coming from a White House that has blamed criticism of it on a "vast right-wing conspiracy," and whose sense of paranoia rivals that of Richard Nixon, makes perfect sense. After all, as Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz detailed in his book Spin Cycle, for the Clinton administration spinning is a way of life……In other words, it will be next to impossible to prevent the pro-administration information from seeping back into the United States. That is because U.S. media outlets frequently repackage foreign news reports or just repeat the information within them. So these "foreign" stories that appear in your morning paper or on the evening news across the United States may actually originate within the halls of the U.S. government's information apparatus. According to the former White House source in the Washington Times report, this is just what the Clinton administration intends with the IPI. The potential for blowback and the de facto propagandizing of the American people is enormous. The IPI may not have yet reached the level of Orwell, but even Big Brother had to start small. Americans owe it to themselves and their nation to learn about the IPI and call for a halt to it -- before the information they can receive is controlled for them by the White House spin machine….."

Investors Business Daily 9/24/99 "….As the limousines surround the International Monetary Fund offices in Washington, D.C., this week for the group's annual meeting, the bureaucrats there showed once again how out of touch they are. Their bad ideas are matched only by their arrogance. In its view of the world, the IMF has presumed once again to tell the U.S. fiscal and monetary policy-makers what to do. The agency, which has helped devastate the economies of dozens of countries, says the Federal Reserve must be ready to raise interest rates to stanch pesky economic growth. IMF Chief Economist Michael Mussa puts it this way: ''My personal preference would be to take another step of tightening before year-end and then to be on hold through the year 2000 uncertainties and then review the situation in March or May of next year.'' …."

San Diego Union-Tribune 10/4/99 James Goldsborough "....The armed interventions in Kosovo and East Timor are unprecedented. Neither of these places represented a threat to international stability. Both were civil wars with local groups fighting for dominance. Both created refugees, but that is not something that normally brings armed intervention. Think of all the nasty little wars of recent years that have failed to provoke outside intervention: Angola, Ethiopia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Rwanda, Sudan, to name a few. Outside powers stayed out because these were domestic wars, national groups slugging it out without threatening their neighbors. The intervention in Somalia was undertaken to feed, not fight. The U.N. Charter prohibits outside intervention in internal disputes, stating in Article 2 that nothing "shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state." ..... During the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly last month, and in several articles, Kofi Annan has explained the new rules of internationalism as he sees them. His views have been echoed by numerous world leaders, including President Clinton. "State sovereignty," says Annan, "in its most basic sense, is being redefined -- not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are now widely understood to be instruments at the service of their peoples, and not vice versa. At the same time, individual sovereignty, by which I mean the fundamental freedom of each individual, enshrined in the charter of the U.N. and subsequent international treaties, has been enhanced by a spreading consciousness of individual rights." This is new. The emphasis on individual rather than state sovereignty, reflecting the triumph of democracy over collectivism, has powerful implications for international order. Further, as Annan states, the forces of globalization provide tools nations once did not have....."

Detroit News 10/4/99 "....United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan treated foreign leaders to a lecture recently about the need to intervene earlier and more effectively in bloody national disputes.....There is even less of a case for arming the United Nations to perform such missions, however. While Mr. Annan and others have argued for a permanent UN military force, on grounds that it could be used to head off trouble before it starts, that's a recipe for disaster. The UN has neither the will nor the power to act effectively in a military capacity. And precisely because it has no "self-interest," beyond the jobs of a few thousand bureaucrats, its judgment about when and where to intervene is likely to be deeply flawed. But that hasn't prevented Mr. Annan from putting forward an even worse idea - that the UN should be given authority to override national sovereignty. "If states bent on criminal behavior know that frontiers are not an absolute defense, if they know that the Security Council will take action to halt crimes against humanity, then they will not embark on such a course of action in expectations of sovereign immunity." But this is a total rejection of the UN Charter itself, which specifically says nations should respect each other's sovereignty and that UN military action is only justified in defending sovereignty. What the framers of the United Nations had in mind, of course, was defending countries from invasions by the likes of Nazi Germany. They thought sovereignty was in general a good, not a bad, thing. That's not to say bad guys don't often hide behind the principle of sovereignty. But who knows if an all-powerful UN, many of whose constituents are far from nice guys themselves, would always act wisely or in the interests of freedom and democracy? In the long run, it's better to have many different sovereigns......"

New York Times 10/14/99 Linda Greenhouse ".....A Supreme Court argument in the first of the new term's federalism cases demonstrated convincingly on Wednesday that the states'-rights majority on the Court had lost none of its energy over the summer recess......The question was whether Congress validly bound the states to the Federal law that protects older workers against discrimination on the job. The answer appeared almost certain to be "no," by the 5-to-4 margin familiar from the trio of decisions last spring by which the Court carved out new immunities for the states from the application of Federal laws. What was less certain by the end of the argument was the route the Court would take to that outcome, and how many other Federal laws might be curbed in their application to the states as a result. ...."

Agence Grance-Press, via News Plus 10/14/99 "....President Bill Clinton on Thursday blasted what he termed a creeping "new isolationism" for the rejection of a nuclear test ban treaty and vowed to keep up the fight in the face of opposition from conservative lawmakers. At the same time, the president, speaking less than one day after the Senate voted to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, urged other countries not to resume nuclear testing and warned India and Pakistan that the vote did not mean the United States had lost interest in non-proliferation. "Even more troubling (than the vote) are the signs of a new isolationism among some of the opponents of the treaty," he said. "You see it in the refusal to pay our UN dues," Clinton said. "You see it in the woefully inadequate budget for foreign affairs that includes meeting our obligations in the Middle East peace process and the continuing efforts to destroy and safeguard Russian nuclear materials." "We (are) in a battle with the new isolationists and the Republican Party," he said. ....Senate Republican leader Trent Lott took extreme issue with Clinton's characterization. "Absolutely not," he said when asked about new isolationism, but he added: "We don't want to be the international community's cowboy ... We're not a rubber stamp for the president." ....."

CNSNews.com 10/14/99 Ben Anderson "....The so-called "New Democrats" of the early 1990's now see themselves in a newer, international role called the "Third Way" and are seeking to make the United States a leader in global trade, a necessity they believe to sustain economic growth at home and expanded economic growth in less developed country. At the Democratic Leadership Council's annual conference in Washington on Thursday Vice President Al Gore and DLC Chairman Al From espoused a new approach to globalized trade, or a "Third Way" approach. ..."

NewsMax 10/10/99 John Perry ".... Bill Clinton is reputedly eaten up with angst over having no legacy to leave. He should lean back, light up a virgin cigar and relax. He'll go down in history all right, not so much as the president who gave oral sex a bad name but as the serial killer of collective security. .....

Step One: Expanding NATO Eastward Clinton's first step was to manipulate the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary...... If Clinton accomplished nothing else, he gave America's enemies within Russia all the propaganda ammo they'll ever need. They are real and they are mean as hell. Russians know there's not a blessed thing Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary could contribute to the defense of the North Atlantic area. There were only two conceivable purposes in expanding NATO eastward toward Russia - to serve as an implied aggressive threat against Russia or to become an implement of extended U.S. hegemony over the economies in Eastern Europe......

Step Two: Co-opting NATO Clinton was now ready to put his new NATO to work. What's the good of receiving a gun for Christmas if you don't get to chance to shoot it? ....... Without seeking advance permission from Congress, as required by law - not to mention failing to obtain a declaration of war, as required by the Constitution - and under the pretense of a NATO military exercise, Clinton then initiated and carried out the war against Yugoslavia, a sovereign nation that had invaded no other.

Step Three: Reversing NATO's Role It wasn't until he was well into that war that Clinton acknowledged it had been conducted in violation of NATO's own charter when he persuaded his allies to rewrite it so as to turn NATO, after the fact, from a defensive into an offensive instrument. In doing so, Clinton paid a terrible price. He turned on its head the entire framework of collective security, within a carefully weighted balance of power, that had maintained the peace for half a century on the European land mass.

Step Four: Globalizing NATO Next, Clinton, echoed by Blair, advised the world that NATO was now free to roam the map, using its military power wherever it felt the need to insert itself in the domestic affairs of smaller states such as Yugoslavia. ......The precedent of NATO as an aggressive military entity that could intervene in sovereign states anywhere it wished - and get away with it - was established.

Step Five: Co-opting the U.N. ......An idiotic, despotic, collapsing government of Indonesia gave him the opportunity. When the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence from Jakarta, pro-Indonesian militias - trained, incidentally, by the U.S. - pounced upon them like ducks on june bugs. There's no question it was terrible - and just what Clinton was looking for.....

Step Six: Erasing National Boundaries Enter U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to introduce Clinton's ultimate aim: the eventual atrophy of all national sovereignty. The hardest-working, best-informed foreign correspondent today is Georgie Anne Geyer, whose rational, reliable columns are distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.

She reported that when Annan "unveiled his new world-shaking doctrine at the opening session of the United Nations this fall - that international troops should now ignore national borders and intervene in sovereign countries when citizens are being oppressed by their own governments . . . his words broke the sacred taboo of 50 years, that the United Nations would authorize the use of force within a country only when that country's government authorized such action." This is exactly the reversal of the concept of collective security among like-minded sovereign states to which the Clinton administration has been edging closer and closer. .....

Step Seven: Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament It was not by accident the Department of Energy of Clinton and his vice president, Al Gore, took the attitude that there are no such things - and there should be no such things - as American nuclear secrets. ......

Step Eight: Opening Up Fort Knox to the World It's scary enough visualizing a nuclear-disarmed America in a world ever more hostile. How about a pocket-picked America in a world ever more improvident? It made no big splash in the press when Clinton announced recently - almost an "oh by the way" - that he is ready to cancel all debts owed to the U.S. by the world's poorest countries - around $6 billion. And he commended the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for agreeing to forgive some $70 billion of the $241 billion they have loaned the 40 poorest countries. Ten guesses where most of that funding comes from originally......"

NewsMax.Com 10/20/99 Steve Farrell diane Alden "....Disturbingly, consideration of the Third Way presents not only links to foul political thought in far gone times, but highlights the unsettling possibility that the fall of communism and socialism was not the result of the victory of capitalism or Reaganism, but rather a Communist vote of confidence that the West was dumbed down , disarmed and ripe and ready for the long ago predicted comfortable merger. The Third Way wants this merger, and wants a removal of all stop-gap reform tactics in favor of a radical new approach; one befitting our fast paced and rapidly changing world. Pathetically the Third Way has succeeded in attracting a crowd of fanatical followers both in Europe and in the United States, who really think they are on to a fresh Jeffersonian formula. It's utopian Woodrow Wilson's holy 'Lets make the world safe for Democracy all over again' minus sensible opposition from the US Senate....."

China Times 10/22/99 AFP "....International military intervention in internal conflicts is increasingly being seen as legitimate and the recent trend, which began in Europe, is likely to spread across Asia, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said Thursday. .....The IISS said 110,000 people died between August 1998 and August 1999 in 10 international conflicts and 25 civil wars, 11 of them in sub-Saharan Africa. It said NATO intervention in Kosovo paved the way for a new consensus. "Intervention in Serbia increased the perception that, at least in Europe, a formal international law is emerging where normal protection against intervention is suspended when leaders commit atrocities against their own population," Chipman said. "The trend is there beyond Europe, especially in Asia, where leaders have had to deal with the pros and cons of allowing external intervention in what was previously considered a domestic issue. "The crises in Kashmir, East Timor, across the Taiwan strait, all have brought a measure of external diplomatic interest, and in the case of East Timor, military involvment," he said....."

Associated Press published by Washington Post 10/16/99 Bob Egelko "...U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy warned Saturday that European courts were gaining too much power. "European nations are surrendering their sovereignty on a scale never seen before," said Kennedy, who shared a Stanford University podium with fellow alumni Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer. "They've committed a tremendous amount of confidence, a tremendous amount of power ... I think, too much, to the judiciary. "All of the weight of developing this (democratic) consensus is being put on the courts, and this is dangerous for courts. You cannot overload a judicial structure with basic economic and social decisions." ...."

World Net Daily 10/18/99 Joseph Farah ".... President Clinton accused Republicans in the U.S. Senate of advocating "a new isolationism" in opposing the nuclear test ban treaty. I wish. "Isolationism" is apparently the new dirty word that Clinton and the Democratic Party will use to demonize political enemies.....Clinton doesn't like Americans who believe our country is a unique experiment in freedom and independence. He and his political allies prefer a world of "interdependence." Listen carefully and they will tell you this. They'll admit it. The trouble with "interdependence" is that it is still dependence. Look it up. It is not in America's best interests to be dependent on any other country, any other leader, any other people -- even if they are dependent upon us as well. It is for this ideal of independence that our revolutionary forebears fought and died in the fields of Lexington and Concord and at the battles of Bunker Hill and Trenton. Are concepts like independence and sovereignty now outdated? Have they outgrown their usefulness? Have they been scrapped in favor of some other vision without so much as a national debate? ...."

World Net Daily 10/18/99 Joseph Farah "....There is a role for U.S. foreign intervention. There is a time and place for military involvements. But, on those rare occasions we, as a nation, must be certain that those commitments are in our vital national interests. I do not advocate retreating from the world. In fact, I believe in the case of the Panama Canal that we are making a mistake by withdrawing -- leaving a strategic national interest unprotected. That's what Bill Clinton wants to do. It's funny, but he seems always to choose the option most detrimental to America's national security. Is this a coincidence? Or is it a pattern that should alert Americans to his true intentions and motivations? But the Panama Canal is the exception today. The rule, in recent years, has been for America to be involved everywhere in everything. That's not healthy. That's not good. That's not constitutional. That's not smart. That's why I say America could use a dose of isolationism....."

Dallas Morning News 10/18/99 Richard Estrada ".....Maintaining, and in some cases regaining, control of the Mexican border is a never-ending proposition. But it's a sign of the Clinton administration's gelatinous posture on issues tied to American nationhood that it has now decided to address the situation by - what else? - moving the border northward. Not literally, of course. One can be reasonably confident that ceding a portion of U.S. territory back to Mexico without the consent of Congress would not pass the smell test even among White House advisers....... fears have apparently been insufficient to keep the administration from allowing the Immigration and Naturalization Service to decide on a course of action that may undermine territorial sovereignty, albeit subtly. That agency has now scheduled Dec. 1 as the starting date for a pilot project that is raising eyebrows among veteran observers of the U.S.-Mexico border: On that day, Mexicans without visas who cross the border with special temporary permits at Nogales, Ariz., will have the right to travel 65 miles into the interior, as opposed to the traditional limit of 25 miles..... At issue is a document known as the border crossing card. Colloquially known on both sides of the border as a "mica," the card is eagerly sought after by Mexicans, and worshipped by chambers of commerce in places like Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, Eagle Pass, El Paso, Nogales and San Diego....."

Fox News 10/24/99 Reuters ".....Top environmental officials from 150 countries are holding a two-week conference aimed at getting nations to reduce gas emissions such as carbon dioxide which cause global warming that threatens the Earth in the long term. A milestone in recent negotiations came in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, where developed countries promised to cut emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012. But Zammit Cutajar said that much-hailed agreement left many key questions unanswered. "Kyoto was incomplete; Kyoto wasn't as definitive as it seemed when the hammer came down,'' he said....."

TEXAS EAGLE FORUM 10/25/99 Cathie Adams "....As a Texan, let me explain to outsiders that it is rude to ask a Texas rancher how many cattle he owns or how many acres are on his ranch. When the United Nations asks, then, how many cattle a rancher owns because they want to figure how much methane gas they produce, it's beyond insult; it's outrageous! The UN is worried that cattle produce one of the "global warming" gases: methane. Delegates from 150 countries are meeting to negotiate the implementation "rules" for the UN Kyoto Protocol in Bonn, Germany through November 5. They are considering a "rule" that would force Texas ranchers to declare how many cattle they own and what they feed them in order to estimate how much "global warming gas" they produce! ....."

The Center For Security Policy 10/26/99 "….. as William Kristol and Robert Kagan pointed out in a thoughtful op.ed. article in yesterday's New York Times, the choice is not between isolationism and internationalism. Rather, it is a struggle between Reagan-style hard-headed realistic internationalism on the one hand and "utopian internationalism" on the other. ….. This is the debate between the internationalism of Theodore Roosevelt and that of Woodrow Wilson, between the internationalism of Ronald Reagan and that of Jimmy Carter. The Clinton Administration has placed itself squarely in the tradition of Presidents Wilson and Carter, and never more so than in Mr. Berger's speech, entitled "American Power: Hegemony, Isolationism or Engagement." Mr. Berger is opposed to American hegemony and decries Republican calls for increased defense spending. The true test of leadership, he argues, is not whether the United States remains militarily powerful, but whether it signs onto international conventions such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Climate Change Treaty, provides enough money to global poverty programs and supports the United Nations. It is on these matters, Mr. Berger argues, "that our most fundamental interests are at stake." Mr. Berger derides those who worry about the threat posed by China or Russia as "nostalgic" for the cold war. In the Clinton Administration's world, there are no enemies or even potential enemies. There are only potential partners in the search for what Mr. Berger calls an international "common good." …."

International Herald Tribune 10/28/99 Jim Hoagland Washington Post "….Three times in the past seven months a national government has gone to war against its population, etching in blood its sovereign ''right'' to kill as many of its people as it sees fit. Serbia and Indonesia were halted by international outrage and reaction. Kosovo and East Timor were detached from their control and taken over by the United Nations. A doctrine of humanitarian intervention seemed to sink roots. But Chechnya shows that it is still two steps forward and one back. Russia pursues a rain of death on a defenseless regional capital without important foreign constraint or meaningful criticism……"

Yahoo - Reuters 11/2/99 Adam Tanner "....An international conference on global warming moved into high gear Tuesday as environment ministers from around the world gathered in Bonn to hammer out details of a deal on cutting emissions of polluting gases. The two-week conference seeks to follow up on an incomplete 1997 deal agreed in Kyoto, Japan, in which industrialized nations pledged to cut emissions blamed for global warming by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The goal of the 168-nation Bonn conference is to decide when the world will start reducing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide to avoid a steady warming of the planet that could lead to major environmental problems....."

Wall Street Journal 11/2/99 Max Boot ".....Rumors of colonialism's demise have been much exaggerated. In recent years the United Nations has taken over the administration of Cambodia (1992-93), Bosnia (1995-present), Kosovo and now East Timor. Nowhere is this process further advanced than in Kosovo. Here, unlike in Bosnia, there has been no indigenous government at all (at least none that is officially recognized) since the Serbs left in June. So how is colonialism, U.N.-style, going? That question was on my mind as I tried to concentrate above the thacka-thacka-thacka of a big Chinook helicopter ferrying a group of journalists and policy makers from Macedonia into Kosovo. Although the Italian crew members--part of KFOR (Kosovo Force)--diligently manned their heavy machine guns as we swept in over the countryside, our journey last week was a peaceful one. Pristina, Kosovo's capital and main city, turns out to be in better shape than I expected...... Much of the blame goes to U.N. members that have failed to deliver on their pledges of support. Although the U.S. often gets castigated for not paying U.N. dues, here it is the Europeans who are deadbeats. Without their promised donations, the U.N. is unable to pay the day-to-day expenses of government. Public employees, from school teachers to former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas enrolled in the Kosovo Protection Corps, are not getting paychecks, and they are getting restless, as demonstrations in front of the U.N. headquarters attest. "You can't feed a guy with pledges," grumbles Klaus Reinhardt, the white-haired German general who commands KFOR....."

Cox News Service 11/1/99 Howard Kleinberg "....As October began its waning week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was off in Nigeria, telling her hosts that crime and corruption are hampering Africa's economic potential. Not content to lecture the world on human rights, the United States now is in the business of moralizing on corruption...... There are some things the United States, despite its military and financial clout, cannot accomplish. One of them is the elimination of corruption...... Coincidentally, an anticorruption organization -- Berlin-based Transparency International -- just last week released its "Bribe Payers Index," a ranking of nations according to corruption. It was based, according to the report, on how exporting countries commit bribery in order to close a deal. The Chinese, along with South Korea and Taiwan, were listed as the greatest villains. Sweden, Australia and Canada were the cleanest. But the United States ranked only 18th, in the middle of the pack, a tad ahead of Chile. This corruption barometer is based only on exports, not on the commonplace day-to-day political and bureaucratic stealing that goes on behind closed doors in American cities....."

STRATFOR.COM 11/1/99 George Smiley "….About one-quarter of Swiss and Austrian voters cast ballots for right-wing nationalist parties. This shift in public opinion during a period of relative prosperity is startling and seems to make little sense if we think in terms of traditional, economic-based politics. However, if we think in terms of a new dynamic, in which nations are increasingly trying to preserve their national identities in the face of mass migrations and multi-national institutions, then what happened in Switzerland and Austria might be seen as a harbinger of things to come….."

Financial Times 11/1/99 "….While the Third Way has been a great success for Tony Blair - even if few people know what it really means - the German equivalent resulted in a plunge in the popularity of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder…… Thanks to the healthy state of the economy and public finances, Mr Blair has been able to build up his pro-business credentials, while also spending much more on boosting the incomes of the working poor. In so doing, he has successfully shifted his party to the centre ground of British politics without losing all his leftwing credentials. Germany, on the other hand, needs a period of fiscal consolidation, because the costs of reunification have pushed up the ratio of debt to gross domestic product to 61 per cent, exceeding the Maastricht criterion….."

Fox News-Reuters 11/1/99 "….About 300 anti-American demonstrators clashed with Norwegian riot police in Oslo Monday near where President Clinton attended a banquet at King Harald's palace. They protested U.S. use of the death penalty and the American role, they said, "as the world's police.'' "Several people were arrested,'' police spokeswoman Liv Merete Wiker told Reuters. One policeman was slightly injured by a stone thrown by one of the demonstrators..."

WSJ 10/29/99 Daniel Akst "…. Last year Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a serious message to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, asserting that without a strong civil society, we risk succumbing to unbridled materialism. "We are creating a consumer-driven culture that promotes values and ethics that undermine both capitalism and democracy," she warned. Mrs. Clinton's comments were well-timed. They came well before she and the president settled on a $1.7 million house in Chappaqua, N.Y., but many years after she had made a $98,537 profit on a $1,000 investment in the commodities markets. Thus did the first lady assume her place in the great tradition of well-heeled hypocrites bent on saving the rest of us from the horrors of consumption. ….."

United Nations 10/26/99 "…..Globalization was in many ways a new form of economic colonialism and represented the success of ravenous capitalism, the representative of Pakistan told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) this afternoon as it began its consideration of globalization and interdependence. The fact was that the world economy was not global, he continued. Trade, investment and financial flows were mostly concentrated within the developed blocs. ..."

WorldNetDaily 10/29/99 Jon Dougherty "…..A professor at Texas A&M University says sometimes there is "an ethical justification" for placing American troops under the command of supranational organizations such as the United Nations. In his study, published on the United States Air Force Academy website, Dr. Manuel Davenport said "two kinds of conditions are logically possible" in considering subjecting U.S. forces to supranational authority. "First, there could be conditions such that basic American values, including survival, could not be maintained unless American forces submitted to supranational control," Davenport wrote. "Secondly, there could be conditions such that basic human values could not be maintained unless Americans were willing to submit to supranational control even at the cost of sacrificing their own national interest." …..Because improvement in the quality of life for all humans is more important than serving our selfish, national interests," he concluded, "we should not hesitate when necessary to place our forces under supranational control, but we should realize also that doing so cannot be an inflexible policy and that it will not always succeed." His findings come at a time when President Bill Clinton's earlier directives and executive orders regarding command and control of U.S. troops are coming under fire. Some of the president's orders allegedly have already provided the impetus for placing U.S. troops under the control of foreign commanders, and some U.S. lawmakers are uncomfortable about it……"

The Ayn Rand Institute Medialink 10/26/99 Robert Tracinski "….America's foreign policy is threatened by the return of an old evil: "isolationism." The threat, however, is not "isolationism" as a policy - but the smear tactic for which the word stands. The accusation of "isolationism" has been revived recently by President Clinton, who condemned Senate Republicans for voting against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, calling them "new isolationists." These Senators, the argument goes, want us to withdraw from all forms of international cooperation, sticking our heads in the sand and ignoring the rest of the world. This is an absurd attempt to construct a straw man. No serious opponents of the treaty believe that America can safely ignore the rest of the world. Rather, they oppose it because it is not in America's interests. They oppose it because they reject the idea of sacrificing those interests for the sake of diplomatic "cooperation." The treaty deprives the U.S. of the means to test the reliability of its nuclear weapons, while leaving no means to verify that other countries are not testing……"

CNSNews.com 10/27/99 Justin Torres "…..The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is facing a budget shortfall that could limit its ability to carry out reproductive health and contraception-based programs around the globe. UNFPA's income has dropped $71 million in the past two years to $248 million, a 14 percent decline. UNFPA spokesperson Corrie Shanahan told CNSNews.com that the drop is attributable to worldwide cutbacks in overseas aid, especially in the United States. The U.S.'s $20 million contribution - which has held up in budget negotiations in Washington - accounts for 10 percent of the UNFPA operating budget. UNFPA is supported by voluntary contributions from world governments…..Sadik claimed that the funding gap will cause 1.4 million unwanted pregnancies around the world due to lack of contraception in developing nations, 3300 maternal deaths, more than 43,000 cases of serious post-labor illness, nearly 41,000 infant deaths and about 15,000 child deaths….."

WorldNetDaily 10/28/99 Jon Dougherty "….That said, U.S. leaders now have a dilemma -- what to do with all this power? Do we conserve it and guarantee our own survival, or do we squander it away on senseless imperialistic ventures? Though the kind of global prowess the U.S. currently enjoys has rarely been seen throughout history, there are a few examples from which American leaders -- and would-be leaders -- can draw when deciding how best to "handle" our affairs of state. Historically speaking, the best "solution" to this dilemma can be summed up in this way: Don't abuse the power you have or you'll lose it. For reference, see, "Roman empire" or "British empire." In their day, each of these empires succumbed to the desire to constantly use the power they had acquired. They often justified their intervention into the matters of sovereign nations on the flimsiest of reasons, claiming -- as the U.S. claims today -- "moral" and "ethical" concerns that left their respective populations little choice but to feel obligated to respond. As the process repeated itself -- and as the imperial victors gained more power and trust -- interference into the affairs of other sovereign (and less powerful) nations became reflexive among the nation's leaders. "Intervention" became a way of life, and anyone who dared oppose this common knowledge was chastised as some unenlightened neophyte with no sense of reality. But the "Chicken Littles" of the day proved correct: With each rise of a new empire there was a fall. And when they fell, they fell hard….."

Defense Daily 10/27/99 William Arkin "….France has come in for vigorous reproach by U.S. military leaders in the initial after action review discussions for Operation Allied Force. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Short, combined air forces component commander (CFACC), told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) last week that Paris had played "the red card ... on many occasions" to constrain target selection (Defense Daily, Oct. 25). Short joined his immediate boss, Adm. James Ellis, commander-in-chief Allied Forces Southern Europe, and the supreme commander Army Gen. Wesley Clark before a SASC lessons learned hearing on Oct. 21. The three bemoaned alliance constraints on bombing "politically sensitive targets" such as Serb television and electric power network, targets in Montenegro (particularly Podgorica airfield), and most essential, targets "set in and around Belgrade." "There were targets in Belgrade that I believed to be of strategic importance... that I thought were near the head of the snake that the French forbid us from striking," Short said. The implications of the powerful indictment is that interference prolonged the war……"

WorldNetDaily.com 10/27/99 Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. "…..In the last election season, the media gleefully reported that the socialist left was resurgent all over the world. The Socialists came to power in France, the Social Democrats took over in Germany, the Labor Party won a massive victory in Britain, and the Clintonites didn't do half bad in the U.S. The great right-populist revolt of the mid-1990s had fizzled, not only at home, but all over the world. The Third Way -- socialism without the ideological edge -- was the wave of the future. So they told us. This season, however, matters are shaping up differently, and we are already seeing the first signs that the establishment is panicking. The People's Party of Switzerland, for example, which departs radically from the establishment's position on a wide range of issues, has made impressive gains in the recent elections. It won 44 seats in parliament, which means that it is second only to the Social Democrats, who lost three seats and now hold only 51…… In Austria, Joerg Haidar's Freedom Party has also made electoral gains, coming in second in recent national elections. The platform is similar….. …. In times of relative peace and prosperity, however, the reverse threatens: people begin to see the political elite as arrogant and overextended, and demand that their power be curbed, even overthrown. We live in such times…"

CNSNews.com 10/26/99 Bruce Sullivan "....In response to a United Nations report that recommends a "bit tax" on US e-mail to finance telecommunications operations in underdeveloped countries, the House of Representatives passed legislation by a vote of 423 -1 Tuesday that condemns worldwide internet tariffs. "Information should not be taxed," Rep. Chris Cox, (R-CA), told CNSNews.com....."

Washington Weekly 11/8/99 Reverend Canon Kenneth Gunn-Walberg "…..On July 8, 1999 IEA filed a formal indictment with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia charging President Clinton and others with War Crimes against the people of Serbia. The indictment was drafted by the Chairman of our Board of Directors, Jerome M. Zeifman. "Jerry" (of whom I am a quasi-father confessor) is a life-long Democrat. (I am not.) At the time of the Nixon impeachment inquiry he served as Chief Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee. As was first reported by Insight Magazine, and then by Matt Drudge on Fox TV, the indictment IEA filed with the ICTY has five prongs. First, it charges defendants Clinton, Cohen, and other leaders of NATO countries with "non-defensive aggressive military attacks on Yugoslavia, which have not been necessary to defend the national security of the United States ... and are proscribed inter alia in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, Aug. 8, 1945, and the 1947 Charter of the United Nations……. I am pleased today to inform you that (as was also first reported by Insight Magazine) IEA's indictment has already had a modicum of success. Of the five Tribunal members for whose disqualification IEA had petitioned, by now three have resigned before the expiration of their terms. On September 6, 1999, Justice Antonio Cassese of Italy (whose term was not up until 17 November 2001) announced his retirement and plans to resume an academic career at Florence University. On September 15, Louise Arbour resigned….. As of November 17 the Tribunal's Chief Justice McDonald will be also vacating her unexpired term. As her replacement, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has appointed Patricia Wald, currently a Judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia….."

Jane's Defence Weekly 11/3/99 Bryan Bender "…. With NATO preparing for future out-of-area operations, the US-led Exercise 'Bright Star' in the eastern Mediterranean provides a glimpse of how future alliance training efforts may increasingly be cross-regional in nature, according to senior US officials. Due to end this week, 'Bright Star', involving 11 allied nations from North America, Europe and the Middle East, has been described as one of the largest naval exercises ever. It includes nearly 75,000 sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines and focuses on air, land and sea operations as well as command and control interoperability. When it was first held in 1981, 'Bright Star' was a US-Egyptian military exercise, but this year it has expanded into a major war game on a scale not seen since the 1990-91 Gulf War. It brings together forces from NATO members and some of their key allies in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region……US defence officials believe such cross-regional training will increase in the future as NATO and its allies prepare to counter common threats outside the NATO sphere……"

Democracy in America 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville Volume II, Part B, Fourth Book, Chapter 6 What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear:

International Herald Tribune 11/19/99 Flora Lewis "….Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made an extraordinary apology for the United Nations' failure to prevent the massacre of nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by local Serbs at Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. It is an accusation against the underlying UN policy of ''impartiality and nonviolence,'' which Mr. Annan calls a ''totally improper philosophy in the Bosnian conflict.'' This is something new, this re-examination of what has been done, or rather not done, and the admission ofa terrible mistake….."

Newsmax 11/17/99 James Hirsen JD PhD "…. Executive orders are presently being used at the domestic level to promote a broad international agenda. The current administration has an unfortunate pattern of using executive orders to circumvent the Senate ratification process and enact individual provisions of treaties bit by bit. As an example, in 1993 President Clinton signed an executive order setting up the President's Council on Sustainable Development. Sustainable development is a notion that sprang forth from the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development. It reached a pinnacle of prominence in a document called Agenda 21, a consensus statement that came out of the Earth Summit of 1992. This document, along with the unratified Biodiversity and Global Warming Treaties, created an expansive, international legal platform that seeks to modify the fundamental habits, customs, and culture of American life. Agenda 21and an assortment of international documents are being used as templates to formulate local, state, and federal policy. The ultimate goal is to set up a lifestyle that is "sustainable within environmental strictures" in order to achieve conformance with extreme elements of the environmental movement….."

yahoo! news/reuters 11/15/99 "….Europe must bolster defence capabilities and rebalance its security relationship with the United States, officials attending a gathering of legislators from NATO member states said on Monday. Washington should no longer have to shoulder the bulk of security needs in Europe, the alliance's newly installed secretary-general, George Robertson, said in a speech to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Amsterdam. Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok took a similar view, saying that Europe should be able to intervene in its own backyard without the United States if necessary. The need for a separate European defence became starkly evident during the alliance's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia earlier this year, said Robertson, who was Britain's defence secretary at the time. …."

Cato Daily Dispatch 10/29/99 J M Orvetti "…. Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, president of the World Court, said Wednesday that a 1962 case before the International Court of Justice set a precedent that means that the United States is obligated to pay its past dues to the United Nations, AP reports. The United States may lose its seat in the UN General Assembly if it does not pay at least $350 million of its $1.8 billion debt by the end of the year. In the 1962 case, Schwebel said, several member states including the United States asked the court to clarify whether General Assembly members were obligated to pay assessments for peacekeeping operations. Cliff Kincaid disagrees in the Cato Policy Analysis "The United Nations Debt: Who Owes Whom?": "Claims that the United States owes the United Nations more than $1 billion are false. No legal debt exists or can exist. The UN Charter does not empower the organization to compel payment from any member state. Even the notion that the United States owes money in the sense of a moral obligation is fallacious. It ignores the military and other assistance that the Clinton administration has provided the UN and for which the United States has not been properly credited or reimbursed. Over the past five years, that assistance has amounted to at least $11 billion, and perhaps as much as $15 billion. The administration has been diverting funds from federal agencies, especially the Department of Defense, to the United Nations….."

UN 12/10/48 "…Universal Declaration of Human Rights …. Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948….. PREAMBLE ……Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty….."

WorldNetDaily 11/12/99 Joseph Farah "…. Earlier this week, Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he largely plagiarized an earlier address by his National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger to the Bilderberg Steering Committee. Clinton liked Berger's Bilderberg talk so much the White House posted it on the official presidential website. Very unusual, given the secretive nature of the Bilderberger meetings. This particular meeting was announced in advance by only one news agency in the world -- this one. What did Clinton say? For one thing, somewhat ironically, he pointed to the foreign policy leadership of President Reagan in challenging the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire as an inspiration for future U.S. interventionism around the world. Imagine that. I never realized Clinton was a Reaganite. I never realized the man who protested the Vietnam War on foreign soil was a rabid anti-communist at heart……"

New York Times 11/11/99 Craig Whitney "….France drew up a list of lessons on Wednesday that it had learned from the allied bombing of Yugoslavia last spring. One of them was that some missions were not really allied at all, but 100 percent American. "The conclusion cannot be avoided that part of the military operations were conducted by the United States outside the strict framework of NATO and its procedures," said the Ministry of Defense in a 55-page report approved by France's highest civilian political authorities…."

Newsday 11/11/99 James Pinkerton "….IN THE twilight of his presidency, Bill Clinton seeks to brighten his legacy. To do so, he has angled the mirrors of his rhetoric to reflect the radiant glory of his predecessors onto himself. And so, on Monday, in a speech commemorating the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he sought to sandwich himself into the pantheon of Cold War heroes, linking his policies now to their policies then. But to do so, Clinton had to airbrush not only his own personal history, but also the recent history of his party. His speech confirmed the historical consensus that has emerged now that the Cold War has thawed out, but it displayed also a startling personal switch-a reversal that cut off the whole left-isolationist wing of the Democratic Party at the shoulder. Clinton began by rebuking those who asserted that the collapse of the Soviet Union was inevitable -usually a way of pretending that the dovish, even defeatist, policies they favored would have yielded the same result as the more hawkish policies that in fact prevailed….."

Austin American-Statesman 11/7/99 Bob Deans "….. The collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in both profound disruptions and remarkable new possibilities for a whole generation of American investors, interventionists and diplomats…… In each of those areas -- managing the collapse of the Soviet Union, reckoning with China's rise as a world power, reducing the threat of nuclear war and building a global marketplace -- progress has been limited and even threatens to stall. Largely missing amid the celebration, self-congratulation and talk of boundless potential that has come to characterize the age, the world has arrived at a dangerous moment. The path forward is anything but clear. Many blame President Clinton. "He and his administration are great underachievers," said Richard Haas, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "He has been president at a time of unprecedented American primacy and we simply don't have much to show for it." ….."

Reuters 11/11/99 "….The spread of Western-style economics could destabilize governments and trigger the bloody birth of new states in the early years of the new century, a security consultancy said Thursday. More than 30 new countries could declare independence by 2020 as multiethnic nations break up under pressure from global economic forces, Control Risks Group said. Asian and African nations' pursuit of foreign investment and International Monetary Fund loans will force them to adopt Western economic ideas like smaller governments and reduced public spending. But that will undermine the means by which they have maintained political stability, giving more democracy to separatist groups whose struggles for new states may trigger violence and military conflict, said Control Risks senior analyst David Lewis….."

The Weekly Standard 11/29/99 William Kristol Robert Kagan "….George W. Bush's November 19 speech at the Reagan Library represents the strongest and clearest articulation of a policy of American global leadership by a major political figure since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. In his call for renewed American strength, confidence, and leadership, Bush stakes a claim to the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Like the other major Republican presidential candidates, Bush unequivocally rejects isolationism….."

Electronic Telegraph 12/5/99 Charles Clover "….PRESIDENT CLINTON instructed negotiators to allow world trade talks in Seattle to collapse at the weekend, sources said yesterday. This has infuriated, among others Stephen Byers, the Trade Secretary, who led the British delegation and other European Union ministers. Discussions between 135 countries foundered because Mr Clinton decided the likely result would not have been favourable for the United States or have won support from the labour unions who are backing Al Gore's presidential campaign, according to EU sources. Mr Clinton's miscalculation in trying to use the talks, as he has used so many other international treaty negotiations, as a grandstand for scoring domestic political points infuriated many delegations from the EU and developing countries….."

Stratfor 11/26/99 "…..The World Trade Organization (WTO) is meeting in Seattle this week. The participants are so divided that they could not even develop a formal agenda for the meetings. While everyone is focused on China's admission, the fact is that the WTO is moribund, only a few years after its creation. Its failure is rooted in the fundamental reality of today's global economy: de-synchronization of regions of roughly equal bulk. Ever since the Asian meltdown, the world's economic regions have been completely out of synch. Indeed, individual nations within regions are out of synch. That means that the creation of integrated economic policies is impossible. What helps one region hurts others. Thus, organizations like the WTO cannot function. Instead, regional institutions are emerging. The,y too, face conflict among constituent nations, but are more likely to create coherent and beneficial policies for their regions. This points to increased tension among and within regions. Such de- synchronization has been seen in the past. It is, over the course of a generation, a warning of the potential for serious international conflict….."

Worldnetdaily 11/30/99 Joseph Farah "…The man once described as the "most trusted in America" has come out firmly, boldly, explicitly -- and stupidly -- for the formulation of a global government at the expense of U.S. national sovereignty. And, somehow, Walter Cronkite did this at the United Nations last month in near total media blackout. Let us now shed some light on this never-ending, elitist utopian pipedream for a one-world government that will ensure global peace forever and ever. On Oct. 19, Cronkite accepted the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalists Association at the United Nations in New York. He told those assembled, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, that, as a newsman for CBS, he once had to keep his views on such matters to himself. Today, as a private citizen, he is speaking out. The first step toward achieving a one-world government, he said, is to strengthen the United Nations….."

New York Times 12/4/99 David Sanger "….In the end, there were no victors in the globalization battle of Seattle. Everyone just went home angry. As the negotiations to rewrite the rules of world trade for a new millennium collapsed in bitterness and discord this week, President Clinton's economic team belatedly realized the magnitude of their miscalculation about how the Seattle talks would turn out. They boarded planes to Washington Saturday morning fuming at nearly everyone: at developing countries like India and Brazil and Egypt that refused even to discuss workers' rights as part of the negotiations; at old allies in Europe and Japan that dug in their heels on long-running trade disputes over agriculture and steel; at Seattle's police for, in their view, wildly mishandling the chaos on the streets. Ministers from developing nations were equally angry -- at the United States. Once again, they said, Washington had tried to use its enormous economic power to benefit Amazon.com and Boeing and the United Steelworkers, at the expense of weaker nations. …."

Washington Post 12/5/99 Steven Pearlstein "....The collapse of negotiations at the World Trade Organization meeting here Friday night stunned political and business leaders who had argued they were so crucial to expanding trade and boosting living standards around the world that they were simply too important to fail..... "The complexity and novelty of the issues strained the collective capacity of delegations to make decisions," said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. "Governments were just not willing to take the leap." ...."

Washington Post 12/3/99 Charles Krauthammer "…..In a neglected part of his recent and notorious "isolationism" speech, national security adviser Sandy Berger acknowledged that the United States is often seen abroad as an overbearing "hectoring hegemon." But he concluded that, given the disparity of power and influence in the world today, there is not much we can do about it. Well, one thing we could do is keep President Clinton home and his mouth shut. Instead, he goes around the world smugly telling other people how to improve themselves. Clinton has this irresistible urge to pronounce himself on--and thus thrust the United States into--disputes that are none of our business. …."

Reuters 12/3/99 "…..Developing countries Friday threatened not to sign a trade liberalization deal under discussion here, saying rich countries had shut them out of talks and rejecting efforts to set labor standards. India said it rejected any efforts by the United States for a study group on minimum labor standards among World Trade Organization (WTO) countries and also an EU-Japan proposal for a study group outside the WTO. ``We are totally opposed to it and have no intention of yielding,'' Shipra Biswas, joint secretary of information at India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry, told Reuters. ``It is a Trojan horse for protectionism and our political mandate is to oppose it.'' ….."

The New American 11/22/99 Thomas Eddlem "…. It's open season on the right to keep and bear arms as UN globocrats gear up for international gun controls. The United Nations is very troubled that the United States has retained its Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Radical new UN proposals treat free people with the means to effect their own self-defense as a vital threat to the United Nations and its quest for what it calls the "peace-building process."…."

The Associated Press 11/21/99 Terence Hunt ‘….President Clinton, worrying about ''people and places that are completely left behind,'' called on prosperous nations Sunday to spread global wealth by helping poor countries with Internet hookups, cell phones, debt relief and small loans. ''How can we continue to grow the economy?'' Clinton asked. ''You can bring investment to the places that are left behind.'' In a spectacular 14th century Renaissance palace with frescoed ceilings, Clinton spoke at a ''Third Way'' gabfest with five like-minded world leaders. They talked for hours about how to spread the benefits of the 21st century's global economy and technological marvels. The Third Way is billed as a middle ground between the politics of the left and the right - a system of governance that promotes entrepreneurs and trade and protects the less fortunate. Joining Clinton were Italian Premier Massimo D'Alema, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. ….."

McGraw Hill AvDaily 11/17/99 "…. In a paper issued yesterday, IATA expressed concern about the apparent expanding role the World Trade Organization (WTO) is playing in international air transport; it also stressed IATA's belief that ICAO should continue to be the dominant international agency dealing with air transport issues. Some elements of the aviation industry do not share IATA views, however. Boeing Chairman Phil Condit earlier this month said the process of arriving at a worldwide open-skies regime will be "extremely disruptive" and developing an international aviation infrastructure probably will have to occur under an international body, such as the WTO (DAILY, Nov. 4). IATA, in releasing the discussion paper on air transport and on the General Agreement on Trade in Services, called for "balance" in liberalization pacts. GATS is not the vehicle for "fundamental reform" at this time, according to the paper. The airline industry prefers to be dealt with on a sectional basis and not as part of a package of services and goods, it said…."

International Herald Tribune 11/19/99 Frederick Bonnart "…..Earlier this week, Europe's General Affairs Council took the first practical step in the increasingly rapid process of creating a European defense identity separate from NATO. The council authorized its secretary-general, Javier Solana, to become secretary-general of the Western European Union, its defense arm. Europe's high representative for its common foreign and security policy will now be in charge of its defense. The process will undoubtedly solidify European union, but the way is long and the pitfalls numerous: Member countries will have to find increased resources to pay for it,….."

Pittsburgh Tribune-Gazette 11/28/99 "….After being dealt with by Yeltsin, Bill went to a communist-, anarchist-, every-unattached-leftist-orchestrated riot in Athens. As firebombs flew and glass broke, a host of Greek police protected the American Embassy and kept the rioters from disturbing our president's dinner party. The next morning, Bill Clinton apologized for long-ago decisions made by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Back in 1967, the Greek military ousted a faltering civilian government, sympathetic to communism, and put some so-called democratic processes on hold. Johnson, with strong bipartisan support, took no action - if, indeed, any had been possible and practical - to move against the Greek military. But Bill Clinton, with some 30 years of hindsight, now considers what he called America's "obligation to support democracy" - meaning the so-called right of communists to subvert as of greater importance than fighting and winning the Cold War….."

Augusta Chronicle 11/28/99 "…. For example, what do the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall and the Yellowstone National Park have in common? They are national treasures. Yet did you know that these sites are regulated by foreigners, rather than by our own elected representatives? Each of these treasures is designated a ``United Nations Heritage Site,'' with accompanying U.N. managerial control, due to an obscure 1972 treaty. Since that time, our government has also allowed huge tracts of land to become U.N.-designated ``Biosphere Reserves.'' These are areas set aside for conservation and scientific study -- and overseen by U.N. bureaucrats. The U.S. now has 20 heritage sites and 47 biosphere reserves encompassing an area the size of Colorado. What is aggravating, though, is that just the executive branch -- without required legislative branch approval -- has been approving these giveaways….."

L A Times 11/23/99 Kevin Phillips "….The World Trade Organization, though officially only 4 years old, represents a huge intrusion on U.S. politics and on national, state and local decision-making, largely in the interest of multinational corporations and trade lobbies. Scare talk like this has been exaggerated before. But this is not hyperbole: Legislators in Washington could be on the brink of understanding that they--and the voters--are losing control over the evolution of America's role in the global economy in the 21st century. This is a grave danger. The historical evidence from the two previous great economic world powers is that whatever financial elites want--high-profit global priorities--is bad for ordinary citizens, who are more vulnerable and require that domestic economics come first. ….."

Reuters 11/29/99 Chris Stetkiewicz "….Protesters struck two icons of global capitalism in downtown Seattle Monday, attacking a McDonald's Corp. restaurant and Niketown store to vent their rage against world trade talks starting here this week. Several demonstrators, some wearing ski caps, masks and bandannas, smashed windows at the restaurant, while others -- carrying a banner protesting the genetic engineering of food -- jumped on the roof of a city bus. A short time later the protesters regrouped in front of the Nike Inc. shop, which finally was protected by a wall of riot police in full body armor….."

U.S. Newswire 11/24/99 Greg Denier "….. Wal-Mart's (NYSE: WMT) global reach, extensive economic ties to dictatorial regimes and anti-worker practices are fueling the demand that the World Trade Organization (WTO) set basic labor and human rights standards as an integral part of the world's trade system. Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer and one of the biggest outlets for goods imported from Communist China and other dictatorships. The trade practices permitted by the WTO have led to the resurgence of child labor, forced labor and the systematic degradation of human work as key components of the new world economic order. As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart is distribution central for WTO's new economic order……"

Los Angeles Time (via San Jose Mercury News) 11/27/99 Robin Wright "…..Ten years ago, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted unanimously by the U.N. General Assembly amid predictions it would prove to be a ``Magna Carta for children.'' A decade later, the pact has been formally ratified by every nation save two: Somalia, which hasn't had a functioning government for much of the time since the treaty was adopted, and the United States. …… The United States formally signed the convention in 1995. But the Clinton administration has not submitted it to the Senate for ratification because of opposition from Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and conservative groups that believe the treaty infringes on U.S. sovereignty and the rights of parents. Helms has repeatedly warned the White House not to submit the treaty, which he has described as an ``insane interpretation of international law'' and ``incompatible with the God-given right and responsibility of parents to raise their children.'' …."

New York Times 11/24/99 John Galbraith "…..At his meeting with other progressive political leaders in Florence, Italy, President Clinton said some things that were admirable -- he called for debt relief for poor nations and ratification of the Child Labor Convention -- and a few others that sounded a little far-fetched, as when he celebrated the "little genomic maps" that he said would soon be sent home with new babies. But one bit of his commentary pointed to a serious problem with the economically conservative and socially liberal policy mix known as the Third Way. "The liberal left parties in the rich countries should be the parties of fiscal discipline," Mr. Clinton said. "It is a liberal, progressive thing to balance the budget and run surpluses if you're in a rich country today." "Unless you have total deflation like Japan, you should always be running a balanced budget," he went on. "It keeps interest rates down for your own people, which creates jobs and lowers costs." Yet only a few days earlier, the Federal Reserve had raised interest rates for the third time this year. The Fed today is just as inflation-obsessed as always, and neither Mr. Clinton nor the surpluses can influence it. The budget surpluses that emerged in the past two years have not kept interest rates down….."

Associated Press 12/6/99 Terrence Hunt "…..President Clinton, in a human rights speech Monday, criticized China's crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement and said that Russia "will pay a heavy price'' if it carries out its threatened destruction of the Chechen capital of Grozny. The president also condemned Afghanistan's "despicable'' repression of women and girls. He said the United States would spend at least $2 million next year to educate and improve the health of Afghan women and children refugees in Pakistan and would make $1.5 million available in emergency aid for those displaced by the Taliban's recent offensive. …."

Businessweek Online 12/20/99 Paul Magnusson Aaron Bernstein "…. Has the U.S. really grown weary of globalization? It's hard to imagine, after more than two decades in which free trade has been the mantra and expansion into new markets the mission. Harder still to believe that the process that has helped sustain the greatest U.S. economic expansion in history and raised millions of people in developing nations from privation might now be halted because of street demonstrations by American youths outside the World Trade Organization's Seattle meeting--or by the gridlock over issues inside. But a week after the tear gas has cleared, the questions linger. Did the scene in Seattle reflect a global fin de millennium angst over a world speeding into uncharted economic and political space? Or is it an anomaly--a brief conflagration that won't spread? The answers, of course, won't be known for years to come. But two things are clear. The victory in Seattle has emboldened labor, environmental, and other anti-WTO forces to redouble their efforts…….. Second, the debacle in Seattle has convinced some policymakers and business leaders that the public at large may have grown wary of the changes that accompany globalization. ''A lot of people have the sense that global corporations can't be controlled, that we have lost our cities and towns to chain stores that are the same everywhere, and that we have lost the guarantee of a job and security for life,'' David L. Aaron, Undersecretary of Commerce, told BUSINESS WEEK upon his return from the failed WTO meeting. ''There is now an enormous amount of anxiety about trade, and globalization has become the target for all sorts of unjustified fears.'' ,…."

WorldNetDaily.Com 12/13/99 Stephan Archer Sarah Foster "…. For nearly 40 years, a few groups on the political right have sounded the alarm over a seemingly absurd scenario -- that gun control legislation was actually a key part of a plan for total national disarmament and the eventual replacement of United States troops by a United Nations army as part of the law enforcement arm of a one-world government. The idea that such an improbable plan could exist, if only on paper -- or even more improbable, that people were working behind the scenes to implement it - has always been dismissed by the mainstream media and government officials as a paranoid, right-wing delusion. So where exactly does the truth lie in this decades-old controversy - the cause of great alarm for some, and for others, an occasion to heap ridicule and contempt? At the center of this issue is a 20-page State Department pamphlet published in 1961, titled "Freedom From War: The United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World" - Department of State Publication 7277. The program outlined was presented by President Kennedy to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 25, 1961, and offered "specific objectives toward which nations should direct their efforts." ….."

World Magazine 12/10/99 Gene Veith "…..Ever since the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan, the left wing has been in a state of decline. The Soviet Union fell apart; the world discovered the wonders of the free market; and deregulation and the scaling back of the welfare state have been the order of the day. But the debacle in Seattle-one of the largest protest demonstrations in U.S. history-wasn't just retro-nostalgia for the '60s. It signals that the left is back, with new tactics for the new millennium. The issue is not the World Trade Organization. Though free trade tends to be the tide that floats all boats, many conservatives, from Pat Buchanan to many Christian activists, oppose the WTO, as smacking too much of globalism and one-world government. But the conservative critics of the WTO do not seem to have been invited to the party. "The Battle in Seattle" was carefully organized by a leftist coalition, rallying troops from around the world via the Internet and coordinating parallel demonstrations in London. Besides labor unions and Third World farmers-who at least have a stake in the trade debate-the feminists and homosexual organizations were out in force (is there a gay position on free trade?), and the anarchists were there in their black ski masks (what kind of anarchist would be against free trade?). It certainly was not conservatives who smashed windows, trashed businesses, and caused some $2 million of property damage. While there may be conservatives who believe in tariffs, there aren't many who believe in destroying other people's property and breaking down the social order. …..The rhetoric of the day was not a ringing call for national sovereignty and economic nationalism, as one might expect for true critics of the WTO. Rather, it was aimed at the evils of corporations, businesses, and capitalism in general. Most of the protesters would, in fact, like a world government. Their problem with the WTO is that it doesn't have enough power to regulate the member nations. They want labor and environmental regulations imposed on the whole world. ….."

FoxNews.com 12/9/99 "....This year marked the start of a "new era'' for human rights after the international community deployed troops to stop atrocities, arrested a former dictator accused of past abuses and indicted a sitting head of state on ethnic cleansing charges, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. "These trends mark the beginning of a new era for the human rights movement,'' the group said in its annual "World Report.'' "Today, tyrants are increasingly likely to be indicted.'' Human Rights Watch said "significant progress'' was made toward an international system of justice, citing the case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, which was moving through British courts, and the indictment of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Government leaders who committed crimes against humanity ''faced a greater chance of prosecution and even military intervention,'' said the report, which covered events from November 1998 through October 1999....... The "most dramatic development'' this year was the deployment of troops by the international community to stop crimes against humanity in East Timor and Kosovo, the report said. Criticism that military interventions have been selective and the international community has ignored abuses in Angola, Colombia, Chechnya or Sudan, should not be a reason to "deny a helping hand to people facing mass slaughter'' just because similar action may not be taken elsewhere, the report said. ....."

Worldnetdaily 12/7/99 Joseph Farah Stephan Archer and Sarah Foster "…..Since the end of the Cold War, the disarmament community has brought small arms and light weapons within its sphere of interest, placing them and their "proliferation" on a par with such long-standing concerns as nuclear missiles and bio-chemical weapons. Though the terms tend to be used interchangeably, the United Nations defines small arms as weapons designed for personal use, while light weapons are those designed for several persons operating as a crew. Together, they account for virtually every kind of firearm from revolvers, pistols, rifles, carbines and light machine guns all the way to heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, mortars up to 100 mm caliber, and land mines. On Sept. 24, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, of Ghana, called on members of the Security Council to "tackle one of the key challenges in preventing conflict in the next century" -- the proliferation and "easy availability" of small arms and light weapons, which Annan identified as the "primary tools of violence" in conflicts throughout the world……"

US Newswire 12/15/99 ".... To: National Desk, Environment Reporter .... Fifteen groups from the United States and Mexico today notified the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other federal agencies of their intent to sue over their failure to protect the Colorado River ecosystem on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. This international coalition, constituting a broad range of environmental, social, and economic interests, represents more than six million United States and Mexican citizens who have joined in a united effort to restore the riverside jungles and gulf waters where jaguar once roamed and the vaquita porpoise once swam......"

AP News 12/15/99 Edith Lederer "....U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday looked back on a year of conflict across the globe and ahead to a new millennium in which AIDS threatens to destroy whole societies. ........ Earlier this year, Annan said, he urged big corporations to enter into a compact with the United Nations to promote human rights and environmental and labor standards. He warned them that if such issues as decent salaries and human rights for workers weren't addressed, they would be added to international trade negotiations. Demonstrators earlier this month at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle want those issues addressed. Annan said the WTO summit focused world attention on ``the strains and stresses that accompany globalization.'' The AIDS epidemic must also be tackled as an international issue: it is spreading rapidly and is not only killing parents but destroying whole economies, he said. ``We have to fight it as a health issue, as a political issue, and as a social issue,'' he said. Annan also said the Security Council should consider international intervention to protect civilians from terrorism and other human rights abuses - overriding national sovereignty if necessary. ...."

San Diego Union-Tribune 12/13/99 James Goldsborough "…. However the Kosovo intervention turns out, the war in that small corner of Europe will have one permanent effect: It united Europeans in the determination to have their own defense force. The decision was taken this weekend in Helsinki. In the postwar period, there have been several attempts to form a European army, beginning with the Western European Union in 1948. None of these amounted to much, stymied either by France, Germany, Britain or the United States. …."

The United Nations 12/13/99 "….Press Release L/2938 "…..Agreement had been reached on penalties pertaining to sentencing, fines, order of forfeiture and the trust fund, the coordinator of the working group on rules relating to Part 4 of the Court's Statute said. Among the issues decided had been the maximum fine that could be levied on a convicted individual, and the terms of imprisonment for default or failure to pay. The same working group, dealing also with international cooperation and judicial assistance, had clarified such issues as time limits for arrests and the basic procedures for how the Court should interact with States. At this session, which concludes on 17 December, the Preparatory Commission's main task is to continue elaborating key texts necessary for the functioning of the Court -- in particular, Rules of Procedure and Evidence and Elements of Crime -- for which it has a 30 June 2000 deadline. It has also begun work on the elaboration of a legal definition of the crime of aggression……. The coordinator of the working group on Elements of Crime, said the group was continuing its consideration of crimes against humanity. Work was close to being finalized on the following six crimes: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation/transfer, imprisonment and torture. Discussion was continuing on sexual crimes, persecution, disappearances, apartheid, and other inhumane acts. He said he hoped that the Group could finish a first reading of all elements by Wednesday 15 December….."

nationalpost.com 12/12/99 Lorne Gunter "…. In a speech delivered last week in Montreal to the World Civil Society Conference, Kofi Annan, the UN's secretary-general, said he wants to bring the United Nations "closer to the people" by embracing the "NGO revolution." According to Mr. Annan, this is "the new global people-power, or whatever else you wish to call this explosion of citizens' concern at the global level." And the "international civil society" constituted by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is "the best thing that has happened to [the UN] in a long time." The term "civil society," like the "Third Way" and "soft power," is a slippery one. Its traditional meaning is the network of clubs, societies and private associations, from charitable foundations to tennis clubs, that enable citizens to co-operate for common purposes -- relieving poverty, improving their neighbourhood or playing tennis. Civil society is, therefore, a social concept rather than a political or bureaucratic one. And if the international civil society celebrated by Mr. Annan were the same idea on a larger scale, it might be a good thing. ….."

nationalpost.com 12/12/99 Lorne Gunter "…. NGOs thus operate not as a civil society, but as semi-independent government agencies. These NGOs lobby the UN and other international bodies to press for domestic legislation that might be impossible to obtain democratically. Sometimes they do so with the connivance of government, sometimes not. Recent Canadian examples include the push to outlaw corporal punishment and litigation attacking Ontario's policy of funding Catholic schools. Mr. Annan, however, has his own reasons for welcoming "international civil society." His vision for the UN as an independent global power operating on behalf of humanity as a whole rather than of member governments lacks one obvious requirement: democratic legitimacy….."

US Newswire 1/6/00 "….Text of Sandy Berger Remarks to the National Press Club ….. But I am pleased with the progress we have made, and satisfied that an active year in foreign policy has sparked a constructive discussion about America's role in the world. One reason we are where we are today is that we -- the Congress and the Administration, led by the President and Secretary Albright -- generally have maintained a bipartisan consensus about the need for American leadership, though for five of the last seven years we have had divided government. Without that consensus, we could not have opened NATO to new democracies, or approved aid to dismantle former Soviet weapons, or approved NAFTA, or created the WTO, or ratified START II, or given our armed forces the backing they needed from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. I think one reason the protests in Seattle seemed so unusual is that we have gotten used to having more consensus about our role in the world in this decade, or at least less contention, than we had over the last three decades of the Cold War……. The duty of internationalists in both parties is not to agree on every matter of policy, but to come together around the basic principle that Americans benefit when nations coalesce to deter aggression, to resolve conflicts, to open markets, to raise living standards, to prevent the spread of dangerous weapons, and to meet other dangers that no nation can meet alone....and that a key to forging such coalitions is American leadership. That's what the bipartisan, internationalist center believes, and I am gratified that as 1999 ended, it reclaimed center stage. The Administration and the Congress agreed on a budget that restored funding for our global priorities. We agreed to pay our U.N. dues and arrears, bolstering America's credibility as a global leader…….As for China, a sense of realism cautions us to be prepared for the possibility that this emerging power emerges as a threat. But we should not presuppose that outcome, or make it more likely by acting as if it has already happened….. There is a growing recognition that war crimes and massive violations of human rights are the world's concern, even if they happen within sovereign borders. The central phenomenon of our time, globalization, plays to America's greatest strengths -- to our creative and entrepreneurial spirit -- and spreads our most cherished ideals of openness and freedom. ….."

Associated Press 1/4/99 Jerome Socolovsky "….An internal Yugoslav war crimes tribunal report on NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo is testing the limits of international justice - and Washington's patience. The report looks into allegations that the U.S.-dominated military alliance violated international treaties on the laws of war in its 78-day bombing campaign last spring, aimed at halting a Yugoslav offensive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Although the report's findings have not been made public, it was prompted by allegations presented to chief U.N. prosecutor Carla Del Ponte by Western legal experts and Russian lawmakers. The allegations list cases in which scores of civilians were killed by NATO bombs….."

Charleston (SC) Post and Courier 1/5/00 "…..The United Nations' chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, is investigating the conduct of NATO (i.e., American) pilots and commanders during the 1999 bombing campaign against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia. This development may well open a very noisome can of worms. Though most observers discount the likelihood of the chief prosecutor seeking indictments of U.S. servicemen, that is not outside the realm of possibility, now or in the future….. International tribunals have not in the past shied away from indicting heads of state and senior commanders for crimes against humanity (though ordinarily this has been a fate reserved to the losers, not the winners, of bloody conflicts). What would be the reaction in America today if Carla Del Ponte should astound the experts and seek indictment of our president or our servicemen for excessive barbarism in the air war against Serbia? …."

The New York Times 1/3/00 Steven Lee Myers "….Eighteen months ago the Pentagon strongly opposed a plan to create a permanent international criminal tribunal, fearing that a strong and independent court would expose American troops sent overseas to prosecution outside the American judicial system. Now, as a result of NATO's air war against the Serbs last spring, members of the American military have already undergone the scrutiny of just such a court: the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Experts on international law say that may create political and legal precedents for requiring Americans to submit to international judicial review. "The future the United States government feared is here sooner than it expected," said Diane F. Orentlicher, the director of the War Crimes Research Office at American University's Washington College of Law. "The United States has been almost obsessively afraid of how an international criminal court will act with regard to American soldiers," she added, "and now it turns out by this unforeseen turn of history that the international tribunal for Yugoslavia has that jurisdiction." Officials of the tribunal, in The Hague, completed an internal report in late December that was a legal analysis of the possibility that the NATO allies had committed war crimes during their 78-day campaign against Yugoslavia…..But neither White House nor Pentagon officials disputed the tribunal's legal authority to review American and allied involvement in the fighting. A State Department official said there was no question that the tribunal had such authority. …. The State Department official said only "a limited precedent" would be set, since the new court would be a different legal entity, created by treaty rather than a Security Council resolution supported by the United States. The political precedent could be greater. William L. Nash, a retired Army major general who oversaw the American peacekeepers in Bosnia in 1995 and 1996, said the tribunal was showing that it was fair-minded enough not to rule out investigations of NATO but also that it would not rush to prosecute NATO to make a statement….."

New York Times 12/17/99 Barbara Crossette "….A strongly worded report issued today by an international panel of experts holds both the United Nations and leading member countries, primarily the United States, responsible for failing to prevent or end the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The report, commissioned by Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was then head of the peacekeeping department, spares no one, naming those in the highest reaches of the United Nations who were running the operation in Rwanda, including Mr. Annan and his predecessor, Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Mr. Annan and others in his department made weak and equivocal decisions in the face of mounting disaster, the panel found. At the same time the Clinton administration -- represented at the United Nations by Madeleine K. Albright -- persistently played down the problem, setting the tone for a Security Council generally lacking the political will for a tougher response. …."

WorldNetDaily.com 1/7/00 Julie Foster "….Former Army Spc. Michael New, court-martialed in 1996 for refusing to obey an order to wear a United Nations uniform, will appear before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the highest military tribunal in the land, on Feb. 4. Considered a hero by many, the media-shy New refused to don the U.N. uniform while stationed in Germany in 1995 during a peacekeeping mission. This hearing is yet another in a long line of court battles fought to reverse the bad conduct discharge the Army gave New in 1996. Given his past court battles, New's prospects for victory look grim. This is his second appeal in the military court system -- which New's father, Daniel, characterizes as "an intense adversarial relationship." …… "We brought a mountain of evidence that the U.N. uniform is not regulation," Daniel New said. But the Army maintains the issue before the court is simply whether or not a soldier can disobey an order. Since the scope of the allowed debate is so limited, New can no longer argue the real issue -- should an American soldier be subject to wearing foreign military uniforms and serving under foreign military officers as occurred with New's unit in Germany. New's officers told him that the president now has the authority to place Americans under the United Nations, according to Presidential Decision Directive 25, signed in 1994. While an executive summary of that directive exists, the document itself is classified. Supporters of New's position claim that President Clinton has, under PDD 25, "affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power" -- civil power being Congress, not the Commander in Chief. …."

Washington Times 1/7/00 "….At first, December promised to be a good month for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague. British troops arrested a long-sought Bosnian Serb general accused of atrocities during the siege of Sarajevo. Goran Jelisic, a brutal Bosnian Serb detention-camp shift commander convicted of 31 counts of crimes against humanity, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, the harshest penalty meted out so far for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. But then, Carla Del Ponte, the new chief prosecutor for the tribunal, said that, while weighing compilations of the dark deeds of Serbian death squads and Kosovo Liberation Army thugs, she was also considering an internal report exploring whether NATO commanders and pilots had committed war crimes during the allied air campaign over Serbia. In an interview published on Dec. 26 in the British newspaper, The Observer, she indicated that should she conclude that NATO had broken the Geneva Conventions, she would indict those responsible. "If I am not willing to do that, I am not in the right place; I must give up the mission," Mrs. Del Ponte said, launching a global hot potato…… While there may be virtually no chance that charges will be brought against American and allied pilots, an alarming precedent has been set: American troops have been subjected to the scrutiny of an international body, their conduct reviewed by a legal authority outside the American justice system. While this undoubtedly thrills such Clintonites as Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot, who breathlessly awaits a time when all states will recognize "a single, global authority," such a plight is precisely what the Pentagon and conservatives in Congress had hoped to prevent by opposing the creation of a permanent international criminal tribunal. As a result of last spring's NATO campaign against Slobodan Milosevic, however, the international tribunal created in 1993 to prosecute atrocities committed by Balkan natives in the former Yugoslavia has expanded its purview to include American and allied troop actions. And neither the White House, nor the Pentagon, nor the State Department has protested this perilous erosion of sovereignty…."

The Wall Street Journal 1/9/00 William Bennett Charles Colson ".... Over the past few months the Clinton administration has lobbied for the United Nations to adopt a protocol that would lend legitimacy to prostitution and hard-core pornography...... It's been estimated that each year some two million women and children world-wide are sent into lives of sexual bondage, usually as prostitutes....... Yet in Vienna a week from today--when the U.N. Convention on Transnational Organized Crime votes on its protocol to combat international trafficking in women and children--White House representatives will take the first step toward legitimizing the sexual-trafficking business. Negotiations on this Vienna Protocol have been going on for the past year and a half. Since December, however, the White House delegation has worked to narrow the definition of sexual trafficking, in a way that would allow certain prostitution rings to flourish. It has done so despite the objections of a majority of the G-77 countries and other developing nations, whose women are the principal victims of sex trafficking......"

A.P. 1/4/2000 "…..An internal Yugoslav war crimes tribunal report on NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo is testing the limits of international justice -- and Washington's patience. The report looks into allegations that the U.S.-dominated military alliance violated international treaties on the laws of war in its 78-day bombing campaign last spring, aimed at halting a Yugoslav offensive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Although the report's findings have not been made public, it was prompted by allegations presented to chief U.N. prosecutor Carla Del Ponte by Western legal experts and Russian lawmakers. The allegations list cases in which scores of civilians were killed by NATO bombs. They include the strike against a bridge as a passenger train was crossing it, the bombing of a refugee convoy near Djakovica, and the targeting of the Serbian television building in Belgrade. Serbian officials have said NATO bombings killed more than 300 people, but that number has not been independently confirmed….."

EWTN 1/20/2000 "….Almost one year ago, a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) announced that they intend to get the Vatican kicked out of the United Nations. Through extensive international media coverage, a sophisticated web-site, and advertising in the New York Times, the campaign has grown to 400 organizations that are now calling for the UN to downgrade the status of the Vatican from Permanent Observer to NGO. * The leader of the campaign is Frances Kissling, President of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), an NGO dedicated to overturning official Catholic teaching on contraception and abortion….* Called "See Change", the campaign began with 70 organizations, including one of the most powerful UN NGOs, International Planned Parenthood Federation, the largest abortion provider in the world. The coalition has grown to include three major strands; pro-abortion groups, those in favor of population control, and groups hostile to religion…..* Participants include the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, Equality Now, Marie Stopes International, the National Abortion Federation, the Feminist Majority, the Sierra Club, Population Concern, Center for Research on Population and Security, the American Humanist Association, and Atheists United. The list includes groups from more than a dozen countries…"

stratfor.com 1/20/2000 "…..The World Trade Organization's (WTO) General Council Chairman Ali Mchumo reportedly said that the WTO will pass a resolution requiring foreign industrial investors to use up to 60 percent of host countries' raw materials, reported the Xinhua News Agency Jan. 18. This move would limit trade and be a reversal of WTO policy. In effect, the resolution proposes using the WTO - an international organization committed to free trade - to restrict free trade. A WTO official in Geneva, however, denied that the resolution was being considered. …… Mchumo's proposal exemplifies a trend by underdeveloped nations, like China and India, hoping to alter the WTO's direction. Interestingly, China's state news agency Xinhua reported Mchumo's comments. Both China and India have criticized the WTO for neglecting developing nations' interests, hindering their integration into the global economy….."

stratfor.com 1/20/2000 "…Another effort by Third World nations to bolster their economic position in the global economy involves the current negotiating over the Lome Accord. Originally signed in 1975 and up for renewal this month, the accord is a comprehensive commodity agreement between the European Union (EU) and its 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) former colonies. The accord will give these Third World countries preferential access to European markets, allowing them duty-free export of primary products to the European markets. The Lome Accord endeavors to help underdeveloped nations achieve global economic integration. The problem is that the accord cannot ultimately achieve this goal. The tenuous agreement reached in December proposes a development aid package of $13.7 billion. The ACP calls this insufficient for infrastructure development. Another point of contention between the EU and the ACP has been the eight-year preparatory period allowed for ACP countries to begin the integration….."

New York Times 1/21/2000 Barbara Crossette "….Senator Jesse Helms came to the Security Council today offering a "hand of friendship," but delivered the sort of clenched-fist message that has made him the symbol of right-wing hostility toward the United Nations. Mr. Helms, a Republican from North Carolina and the most powerful Congressional voice in foreign policy as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, contended that Congress had the right to dictate conditions for the payment of American debts to the organization. He warned the United Nations to keep its "utopian" visions away from American sovereignty…… Senator Helms told the Security Council that unlike the Europeans, the American people are moving away from "supranational institutions" and want no part of "utopian" international arrangements, including the international criminal court created last year over the objections of the United States….."

ABC Raw News 1/20/2000 "…. SIR JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITAIN: "The United Nations is, in itself, if you like, a great democracy. We have to do things here democratically because we all have national sovereignties. And in a globalizing world, there is such a thing as international collective interest. Compromises do not have to be a zero-sum game." ……. SERGEI LAVROV, RUSSIA: "I am convinced that nobody could even imagine any desire to infringe on the sovereignty of the United States. At the same time, I am quite convinced that all the other members of the United Nations expect from the United States a similar respect for their sovereignty, whether it be military, political humanitarian or commercial or economic." …….."

Tanjug 1/21/2000 "….Yugoslavia persists in its principled demand that the U.N. Security Council must honour its own Resolution 1244 on Kosovo-Metohija, i.e., make sure that it is fully and consistently implemented and prevent its violation. In a 17-point document, Yugoslavia offers specific arguments and key positions to prove gross violations of the Resolution, and demands from the Council to take resolute steps to unclog the process of implementing the document on a political settlement for Kosovo-Metohija. The well-substantiated Yugoslav positions and principles were published in the U.N. Security Council as an official document on Tuesday. The key point on which Yugoslavia insists and which is also the basis of Resolution 1244 is respect for the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity….."

Reuters 1/21/2000 Evelyn Leopold "…. Unfailingly polite, U.N. Security Council members squirmed at positions held by conservative U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, who ventured into their chamber like a missionary into a house of ill-repute. In a well-crafted speech on Thursday, Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued that Congress had the right to impose conditions for payment of the more than $1 billion U.S. debt to the United Nations. And he warned Washington could withdraw from the world body if the United Nations and its 188 members tried to impose its will on the United States…..``If the United Nations respects the sovereign rights of the American people, and serves them as an effective tool of diplomacy, it will earn and deserve their respect and support,'' Helms told the 15-member council. ``But a United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people, without their consent, begs for confrontation and -- I want to be candid with you -- eventual U.S. withdrawal,'' he said….."

Bible Prophecy Research 1/2/2000 "…. The United Nations Meditation Room …. Image taken from the following site: http://www.usasurvival.org/med-room.html The room is designed like a pyramid lying on its side with a mural in place of the capstone (i.e., the top of the pyramid would appear to be cut-off, with this image appearing in the place of it.) It's a small room with no windows. In the center of the room is a 4' high stone [altar?] made of dark grey crystalline ore. The stone is extremely magnetic and possesses polarity. The room is dimly lit, however a small beam of light from a lens in the ceiling focuses on the altar. Dag Hammarskjold, former UN Secretary General, described this center stone as "the symbol of the god of all." (Cohen, pg 160). ……. Donald Keys, New Age leader, President of Planetary Citizens, author "Earth At Omega": "We have meditations at the United Nations a couple of times a week. The meditation leader is Sri Chinmoy, and this is what he said...'The United Nations is the chosen instrument of God...a divine messenger carrying the banner of God's inner vision and outer manifestation. One day the world will treasure...the soul of the United Nations as its very own with enormous pride, for this soul is all-loving, all-nourishing, and all-fulfilling.'" > http://www.cuttingedge.org/ce1049.html …… "The UN meditation room, and the minute of silent prayer or meditation at the beginning of each UN General Assembly, place 'the greatest gathering of nations . . . under the symbol of silent prayer or meditation,' in the words of U Thant. The UN is where 'moral and ethical issues are being brought one after the other to the world organization.' The UN is creating codes of ethics and conduct, one of the greatest being the Charter itself. The UN 'extends the power of our hearts and souls.' The UN thus has become 'a cathedral where we can worship what is best in each other.' 'Little by little a planetary prayer book is being composed (at the UN) by an increasingly united humanity seeking its oneness.'" > http://www.globaleduc.org/dolan.htm ….. "

Bible Prophecy Research 1/2/2000 "…. "Prayer And Meditation At The United Nations" Robert Muller http://home5.swipnet.se/~w-54890/UN001.htm ….. "When it comes to the United Nations proper, one can obviously not say that it is a spiritual organization. How could it be otherwise? For the UN is the creation and mirror of governments, most of whom have 'secularized' themselves, i.e., separated spirituality from their daily lives and preoccupations. …… One could tell several moving stories of the spiritual transformation the UN has caused, to the point that this little speck on earth is becoming a holy ground. For example, the rational, intellectual economist Dag Hammarskiöld found God at the United Nations and inspiration for his work as a world servant in the mystics of the Middle Ages. Towards the end, his Markings overflow with spirituality and mysticism."

Bible Prophecy Research 1/2/2000 "…. The publishing company for the United Nations is Lucis Press, formerly called Lucifer Publishing Company. Sounds too hard to believe? According to a transcript at Cutting Edge this name change has been confirmed: "Christian author, Constance Cumbey, in her book, 'Planned Deception', reprints the title page of Alice Bailey's book, 'Initiation, Human and Solar'. This book was originally printed in 1922, and clearly shows the publishing house as 'Lucifer Publishing Co.' Very shortly thereafter, Bailey changed the name to the present 'Lucis Trust'..." > http://www.cuttingedge.org/ce1049.html …"

Eureka Alert 1/20/2000 Peter Daszak "….Newly discovered infectious diseases of free-living wild animals may pose an increasing and significant threat to human health and to global biodiversity, according to a just-published report. While emerging human diseases such as Ebola have grabbed headlines in recent years, similar diseases in wildlife have been understudied, and few regulations concerning exotic disease threats to wild animals or systems for surveillance are in place to prevent their spread. "With a new wave of globalization on an unprecedented level, we don't even know what the greatest threats are in terms of emerging infectious diseases of wildlife," said Dr. Peter Daszak of the University of Georgia's Institute of Ecology and department of botany. "The problem has largely been ignored by policy makers and the threat that these wildlife pose to human, directly or indirectly, should be taken far more seriously." A new report on the scope of the problem was published today in the journal Science. Co-authors of the paper are Dr. Andrew Cunningham of the Zoological Society of London and Dr. Alex Hyatt of the Australian Animal Health Laboratory…… Human history is filled with the catastrophic consequences of emerging infectious diseases. The introduction of smallpox, typhus and measles by the conquistadores in the 15th and 16th centuries resulted in a staggering 50 million deaths among native South Americans. Despite suspicious that disease may have caused similar effects on wildlife, systematic studies of emerging infectious diseases of wild animals and their effect on human populations have been few and far between….."

Washington Post 1/20/2000 Charles Trueheart "…. -As the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia got under way in March and talk of war crimes indictments against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian leaders intensified, a loose network of antiwar law professors in Canada, Norway, Greece, Britain and France began plotting another strategy. Communicating by phone and e-mail, the professors began building a case for war crimes indictments against NATO. By the end of the 78-day air offensive, they believed they had "overwhelming evidence" to demand the criminal prosecution of the leaders of the United States, Britain and other alliance countries..."

United Nations 1/10/2000 "….The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) met with top UN officials at UN Headquarters today to discuss how their organizations could work together more closely to address what he called the "anxiety over globalization." Speaking after his discussions with the UN Senior Management Group, chaired by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, WTO Director-General Mike Moore said he was disappointed that last year's Seattle Ministerial Conference was not able to make progress in increasing market access and technical assistance to the developing world……. Some of the issues discussed at today's meeting echoed the questions raised by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his speech circulated at the Seattle conference, namely how to make trade work for the poor, improve cooperation among different agencies, and increase transparency with the business community…."

Quad City Times 1/26/2000 Anthony man John Patterson "…..A conspiracy exists to throw black students out of school so there will be inmates to populate an ever-growing number of prisons that are being built to provide jobs for whites, The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Tuesday. The civil rights activist dubbed the practice the "Decatur syndrome" because he said that city's schools provide a textbook example of what he was talking about. Jackson issued his indictment of Decatur and the state and national education and prison systems during a summit he convened in the state capital…… Although the city was the only place Jackson named, he said the situation is duplicated all over. "There's a Decatur syndrome in America, which we must address," he said. "It started in Decatur; it will end at the United Nations." ….. ‘

United Press International 1/24/2000 "…. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday disavowed several anti-United Nations remarks made last week by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms. ….. At the opening of a week of U.N. Security Council meetings on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she said Helms, who harshly criticized the world organization before the panel on Thursday, does not speak for the American people. "Helms is a man of conviction and strong advocate of a distinct point of view about the United Nations and America's relationship to it," she said in opening remarks. "He and I have made a point of working together where we can and making sure that when we disagree, we do so agreeably. "So let me be clear: only the president and the executive branch can speak for the United States," Albright said. "Today, on behalf of the president, let me say that the administration, and I believe most Americans, see our role in the world, and our relationship to this organization, quite differently than does Sen. Helms." ….."

United Nations 1/24/2000 "…. COMMITTEE ON NGOS RECOMMENDS REJECTING UNIVERSIDAD LATINOAMERICANA DE LA LIBERTAD FRIEDRICH HAYEK FOR CONSULTATIVE STATUS ….. Acting by vote this morning, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations decided to recommend rejecting the application of the Universidad Latinoamericana de la Libertad Friedrich Hayek for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council…… Continuing, she said the Universidad had been established and was supported by the Cuban American Foundation and was closely linked to other organizations of a terrorist nature, including Hermanos al rescate, which devoted their activities to organizing the overthrow of the legitimate Government of Cuba, through means including assassinations. The group was part of an important political lobby in the United States; it promoted aggressive policies against the Government and people of Cuba -- including the blockade against her country -- which the General Assembly had rejected…."

Associated Press 1/24/2000 "…. Eight developing countries on Monday asked the World Trade Organization to give them more time to phase out laws aimed at protecting domestic producers from foreign competition. Most wanted more time before they abolish rules requiring automobile manufacturers to use a certain proportion of domestically produced parts. The agreement to scrap the regulations came into force in 1995, but poorer countries were allowed to ask for an extension until Jan. 1, 2000……"

International Herald Tribune 1/25/2000 Thomas Carothers "….President Bill Clinton and his advisers have invoked grand Wilsonian rhetoric at every turn, but their actual pursuit of democracy promotion abroad has been scarcely more assertive than that of the Bush administration before them. Where democratization obviously reinforces U.S. economic and security interests, as in Latin America and Eastern Europe, the Clinton team has actively supported democratic transitions and helped ward off coups. But where Clinton officials believe that pushing for democratic change might upset autocrats friendly to U.S. economic and security interests, as in China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and elsewhere, they are quick to play down democracy. …."

Air Force Magazine 2/2000 John Correll ".... When the NATO nations took action in Yugoslavia last year, they did more than set Slobodan Milosevic back on his heels. They intervened in the affairs of a sovereign nation on behalf of an ethnic minority. The point here is not whether NATO was justified but rather that it set a precedent. It broke with the tradition of national sovereignty that had prevailed since 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War in Europe. National sovereignty was further codified at the founding of the United Nations in 1945. Three of the seven principles in its charter were about sovereignty. The UN and its member states would not interfere in the internal affairs of any nation. Since Kosovo, a different concept has been gathering momentum..... This Doctrine of Intervention establishes a whole new category of righteous wars, but some wars are more righteous than others. The world disapproved of the Russian slaughter in Chechnya but decided, in a practical flashback to the Westphalian model, that Russia was too dangerous to challenge. ..... The Doctrine of Intervention reached its present position mainly on the wings of moral justice. That is a notoriously subjective standard. Depending on how it is interpreted and applied, the dividing line between "just intervention" and aggression can be uncomfortably thin. In 1938, Hitler used the grievances of ethnic Germans to justify his seizure of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The Russians claim to see a parallel between Chechnya and Kosovo. .... Even those who support the concept of just intervention disagree on how to define it. Kofi Annan complains, for example, that "in Kosovo, a group of states intervened without seeking authority from the United Nations Security Council." Had the proposed action against Yugoslavia come before the Security Council, it would have been vetoed by Russia and probably by China...."

The Reagan Information Interchange 2/2/2000 The Christian Alert Network "..... Date sent: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 Recently a local talk show host (Barbara Simpson of KSFO radio in San Francisco) interviewed Reverend Peter Hammond, over the phone from Capetown, South Africa. Rev. Hammond has been a missionary for 18 years. He spoke of seeing thousands of bodies and/or skeletons of Tutsi victims of Hutu murderers in Rwanda. Hammond said that people from the UN stood by and allowed the slaughter by machetes to occur, and at times handed over Tutsis to the secret police. (Individual Tutsis were identified and marked for murder.) The U.N. disarmed the Tutsi population in advance of the genocide. Spears, knives, and machetes, as well as all guns, were confiscated. Hammond said that all genocides have been preceded by disarmaments. The Tutsi were Christians, and the Hutus are primarily anti-Christians; Hammond said there were three operative anti-Christian forces: 1) voodooists/animists 2) Marxists, who worked up the resentment against the Tutsis, who, as a result of their habits of clean-living, saving, investment, and so on, built up more material and financial success than the Hutus and 3) Islamists. The Tutsis were primarily killed in churches, schools, and hospitals, the places to which they fled for sanctuary. Rev. Hammond said he has watched U.N. personnel over the years and noted that, while many of the lower- or middle-level people were well-meaning "bleeding hearts", "absolutely" the upper echelons of the U.N. people were anti-Christian. He said so "without doubt, having been a missionary for 18 years." He said that in Angola and Sudan, the U.N. was selective about who received aid.. He said persecution of Christians has been particularly bad over many years in Sudan. Rev. Hammond has written many books--"Holocaust in Rwanda" is a recent one--and also has made video documentaries. A contact phone number is 1-888-918-4100. ....."

Russia Today : www.Sudan.net/The Economist 2/1/2000 ".... And not just in Somalia. NGOs now head for crisis zones as fast as journalists do: a war, a flood, refugees, a dodgy election, even a world trade conference, will draw them like a honey pot. Last spring, Tirana, the capital of Albania, was swamped by some 200 groups intending to help the refugees from Kosovo. In Kosovo itself, the ground is now thick with foreign groups competing to foster democracy, build homes and proffer goods and services. Environmental activists in Norway board whaling ships; do-gooders gather for the Chiapas rebels in Mexico. In recent years, such groups have mushroomed. A 1995 UN report on global governance suggested that nearly 29,000 international NGOs existed. Domestic ones have grown even faster. By one estimate, there are now 2m in America alone, most formed in the past 30 years. In Russia, where almost none existed before the fall of communism, there are at least 65,000. Dozens are created daily; in Kenya alone, some 240 NGOs are now created every year. ...... Between 1990 and 1994, the proportion of the EU's relief aid channelled through NGOs rose from 47% to 67%. The Red Cross reckons that NGOs now disburse more money than the World Bank. And governments are happy to provide that money. Of Oxfam's £98m ($162m) income in 1998, a quarter, £24.1m, was given by the British government and the EU. World Vision US, which boasts of being the world's "largest privately funded Christian relief and development organisation", collected $55m-worth of goods that year from the American government. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the winner of last year's Nobel peace prize, gets 46% of its income from government sources. Of 120 NGOs which sprang up in Kenya between 1993 and the end of 1996, all but nine received all their income from foreign governments and international bodies. Such official contributions will go on, especially if the public gets more stingy. Today's young, educated and rich give a smaller share of their incomes away than did-and do-their parents. ...."

Associated Press 2/1/2000 Geir Moulson "....Six days of discussions on the future of world trade, technology and politics wrapped up today with participants recognizing that the world's poorer countries need a greater say in the economy, but few ideas on how to grant it. Many of the subjects that were considered in Davos --including the lessons of the Asian financial crisis, differing rates of economic growth and how technology is changing the face of global commerce -- have been overshadowed here by fears of a backlash against increasingly free trade...."

ArabicNews.com 1/31/2000 "...... Jordanian King Abdullah II said his country is not thinking of a regional confederation, having it together with Syria, Lebanon and the future Palestinian state. He expressed his optimism over achieving peace between Syria and Israel within months. He said that the young leadership in the region is the "generation of globalization" and is able to understand its challenges. Meeting with heads of international television networks and the press on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Jordanian king said, replying to a question asked by one journalist, that "There is no word in our dictionary called confederation. From now until achieving peace in the region, including the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, we will not think on this matter. After that it will be possible to think of a form of economic integration in the region. A sort of a mini-economic federation." . ...."

WorldNetDaily 2/1/2000 Joseph Farah "..... Walter Cronkite prides himself on being the consummate newsman. Yet, in his retirement years, he's become little more than a poster boy and PR man for a new global political order -- one that even he admits would deprive Americans of their sovereign rights and independence. In November, I told you about Cronkite's low-profile appearance at the United Nations. On Oct. 19, he accepted the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalists Association at the United Nations in New York. He told those assembled, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, that the first step toward achieving a one-world government -- his personal dream -- is to strengthen the United Nations. "It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace," he said. "To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order." ....."

WorldNetDaily 2/1/2000 Joseph Farah ".....In a more recent interview with the BBC, Cronkite was not quite so delicate in his plea for world government. There was no call for an American-style tri-partite system. What Cronkite described sounded more like a militaristic world dictatorship. The BBC's Tim Sebastian asked Cronkite if the United Nations had lived up to his earlier dreams for a "Parliament of Nations." Here's what he said in response:

I wouldn't give up on the U.N. yet. I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law. We need not only an executive to make international law, but we need the military forces to enforce that law and the judicial system to bring the criminals to justice before they have the opportunity to build military forces that use these horrid weapons that rogue nations and movements can get hold of -- germs and atomic weapons.

Note that Cronkite advocates having "an executive" make international law. That's the way it works, I guess, in Cuba, Iraq, Libya and a few other totalitarian hellholes around the world. Is that what Cronkite has in mind? And this executive -- presumably unelected and unaccountable, except, perhaps, to a handful of Cronkite's elitist friends -- would be backed by a global military monopoly that would hunt down rebels even before they armed themselves or committed any "international crime." So now the "newsman" is advocating the creation of global thought police...."

The Nation 2/14/2000 William Greider "…. Last summer, Clinton chose the University of Chicago, mother church of laissez-faire economics, as the place to deliver a cogent rebuttal to Milton Friedman's utopian claim that an unfettered marketplace governs best. The free market, Clinton argued, needs strong social institutions to thrive--"a legal framework of mutual responsibility and social safety." "All of us know that the problem with the new global economy is that it is both more rewarding and more destructive," Clinton told the graduates. "So the question is, how can we create a global economy with a human face--one that rewards work everywhere, one that gives all people a chance to improve their lot and still raise their families in dignity, and supports communities that are coming together, not being torn apart?" The media largely ignored his remarks, and why not? Clinton, as President, consigned the malfunctioning global economy to the reform energies of the Business Roundtable and Wall Street. His Administration led cheers for multinational commerce, opened fragile economies to the manic surges of global capital and created the World Trade Organization to judge whether new social standards are, in fact, barriers to trade and therefore forbidden……"

Reuters 1/27/2000 Belinda Goldsmith "…..European leaders called for international cooperation on Thursday to stop the Internet's use as a tool for spreading neo-Nazi and other racist propaganda. Many of the 700 delegates from 46 countries attending a conference on the Holocaust expressed concern about rising neo-Nazi activity in Europe, and the growing role of high technology in spreading messages of hate. ''Unfortunately the Internet is ... a cross-border vector for racist theories and the fermentation of hatred and discrimination,'' Ruth Dreifuss, head of Switzerland's Federal Home Affairs Department, told the conference on Thursday. ``Worse still, the Web enables those who support such ideas to network and promote their products, books and so-called 'scientific' and other reports by means of e-commerce, or even to coordinate their subversive activities,'' she said. …."

White House 1/27/2000 Sandy Berger "……PRESS BRIEFING BY CHIEF OF STAFF JOHN PODESTA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF MARIA ECHAVESTE, NATIONAL ECONOMIC ADVISOR GENE SPERLING, NATIONAL DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISOR BRUCE REED, AND NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER ON THE PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS…….Q Is he going to talk anymore about the Clinton Doctrine, the notion of intervening in sovereign countries to prevent genocide or other chaos? MR. BERGER: Well, I wouldn't describe it exactly that way. I mean, what has been called a doctrine is -- I think the President has said that where our interest and our values are threatened -- as they were in Kosovo, as they were in Bosnia, as they were Haiti, as they were in Iraq -- and where we have the capacity to act, particularly with others, we should be prepared to do so. But that doesn't mean that we can -- the United States can intervene everyplace in the world where there are wars or conflicts or turmoil. ......:

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX 1/28/2000 Matt Drudge ".... Free speech may be the first casualty in the globalization. Protestors early Saturday vowed to demonstrate when US President Bill Clinton arrives in Davos despite a Swiss court order banning them from doing so! The Swiss army has been called in to reinforce police mounting unprecedented security around the fortress-like congress centre where the World Economic Forum meeting is being held. The group organizing the protest, Anti WTO-Coordination, hopes that up to 500 demonstrators will take part, spokesman Dario Haberli said. "The reason why we should not be able to demonstrate on Saturday is not obvious to us," Haberli told reporters on the scene, adding they planned to appeal the denial in the Swiss Federal Court....."

The London Express 1/27/2000 "….. It is one of the world's most illustrious gatherings, set in one of the world's most exclusive ski resorts. But as 14,500 delegates descend on the Swiss town of Davos for today's opening of the World Economic Forum, some might question whether this is simply the world's most expensive talking shop. US President Bill Clinton will attend for just half a day, yet with him goes a delegation of 300 aides, politicians, businessmen, secret servicemen and general hangers-on. The trip in Air Force One, with a Boeing 747 bringing up the rear, will cost the US taxpayer at least £5million. Then there are the US delegation's 80 limousines and 200 hotel rooms to pay for. ….. Guests will listen to speeches and discuss globalisation, Internet business, trade negotiations and the rich-poor divide.... "

LA Times 1/28/2000 Andrei Tsygankov "……What was it that Russia could have learned from the West's recent intervention in Yugoslavia? Or, put differently, what was it that the West wanted Russia to learn from its resistance to brutalities of Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Kosovo? To many Western politicians, the answer is obvious: Russia, as well as other parts of the globe, should have gotten the message that from now on, no one would be allowed to grossly violate human rights. What Russia has learned from the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia is something very different, however. Russia has learned that the West, led by the U.S., will do everything possible to establish its global hegemony and that, in attempting to accomplish this goal, it will continue to appeal to the rhetoric of human rights. Why such a gap in perceptions? In part, the gap has to so with semi-authoritarian nature of Russia's new political regime, in which the military recently has gained an upper hand in the country's decision-making process. Russia's heavy-handed approach to Chechnya's separatism is a case in point…"

The Wall Street Journal. editorial page 1/31/2000 Robert Bartley "….On the heels of violent protests against trade in Seattle, the world's political, business and intellectual leaders have gathered for their annual gab-fest here. What do the globalists have to say for themselves now? Swiss police efficiently held off a knot of protesters chanting in French and waving the hammer and sickle. Inside the hall, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Economic Forum, presidents, finance ministers, transnational businessmen and big-picture intellectuals listened not only to themselves but their critics. Forum founder Klaus Schwab has long studded his programs in the Alps with environmentalists, and this year inevitably also gave a top spot on the program to the world's leading opponent of globalization. "I'm a minority on this panel," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared at the onset of his presentation. "I think Nafta was a failure." Echoing a point made by some Third World representatives, he said trade liberalization is not an end in itself, but should be tested on whether it advances development in poorer nations. It has not, he decided, and the result was a "five-alarm fire in Seattle." He favored "high-road development strategies." Without "new global rules," such as "limits on cutthroat competition," the growing inequalities will produce a "volatile reaction that will make Seattle look tame."..."

Star tribune (Minnesota) 1/30/2000 David Morris "….."Perfection of means and confusion of ends seems to characterize our age." That insight of Albert Einstein's half a century ago aptly describes the current debate -- or, more precisely, nondebate -- about free trade. Free trade, a means, is now viewed as an end. Indeed, it has taken on the trappings of a full-fledged religion, less an economic strategy than a moral dogma. Embrace its tenets and you and civilization itself will be saved. Dissent and you will be branded a heretic, a barbarian, or worse. This explains the apoplectic response by most commentators to the collapse of the recent World Trade Organization talks in Seattle. To them, the 50,000 protesters were Visigoths storming Rome. The Dark Ages would surely follow. Most pundits saw the protesters as antitrade. But no placard read "Down with trade." The vast majority of those on the streets agreed with Adam Smith that humans have a "natural propensity to barter and exchange." Exchanging ideas and innovations and products is the way the human race progresses. The current debate about free trade is less about trade than about the nature of sovereignty, the role of community and the reach of citizenship in the 21st century. Which is very different from the debate about free trade before the 1980s….."

WorldNetDaily 1/30/2000 Anthony C LoBaido "……Nikki counted the money and then hid it in her bosom, as she had with the diamonds. It was a small, seemingly unimportant event in the grand scale of the global economy. Yet upon closer analysis it was a vital move -- one of countless such moves -- in a dangerous endgame pitting the anti-communist, Christian rebel army UNITA against the Marxist MPLA, United Nations and Western transnational corporations that, together, have sought unsuccessfully to destroy UNITA since 1965. "They say that diamonds are forever," said Nikki in an interview with WorldNetDaily. "So is the war between good and evil. These diamonds and the money they are exchanged for have a wonderful purpose. They will provide the funds to sustain our struggle against the forces of communism and world government which seek to destroy our Christian way of life." Nikki paused, calling her daughter to come and sit on her lap. "UNITA must not fall," Nikki continued. "You see, that is what the United Nations and the so-called New World Order wants. It is what the amoral West wants. It is what Nelson Mandela and the communist ANC wants. It is what Bill Clinton wants. But they're not going to get what they want." "What they want is for UNITA to surrender. To give up our faith as Christians. To hand over our mineral wealth to the foreign corporations. To be slaves in the global corporate society. But we will never surrender. Ever." ….."

WorldNetDaily 1/30/2000 Anthony C LoBaido "…… After fighting off the U.S.S.R., Cuba, North Korea, East Bloc, MPLA, United Nations peacekeepers, Executive Outcomes, ANC, the betrayal of the Afrikaner government, the CIA, U.S. State Department, and Western-based global media and transnational corporations, one might expect that these forces would finally back off and allow UNITA to exist within its own newly formed nation of Southern Angola. But there was no chance of that. UNITA controls vast diamond reserves in Southern Angola and sells billions of dollars worth of diamonds on the European market. Because of this fact, in 1998 President Clinton, heeding the demands of the Marxist ANC, DeBeers diamond cartel and the U.S. State Department, signed into law Executive Order 13098. This presidential decree, unknown and undebated in the U.S. Congress or by the American public, directed all U.S. agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, to seize all assets of UNITA leaders and to prevent the sale and importation of UNITA diamonds into the United States. The order also sought to subvert the ability of American individuals and companies to do business with UNITA. President Clinton seemingly has dealt the death blow to UNITA, the last anti-communist rebel movement in the entire southern hemisphere….."

London Telegraph 1/31/2000 Christopher Lockwood "….MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, the US Secretary of State, yesterday hit back at America's critics, warning them that they risked driving her country towards the policies of isolation that led to the Second World War. A refugee from Hitler, the Czech-born Mrs Albright was speaking at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, an event which has drawn 30 presidents and prime ministers, along with more than 100 ministers and close to 2,000 businessmen to the Swiss resort town of Davos. …… The French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, has taken to calling America "the Hyperpower" in recognition of this. "It's very strange," Mrs Albright said. "The US did not ask to be the only super-power. But when we were not on the international stage, in the 20s and 30s, our absence was a huge vacuum that led to great horrors." But, she gave warning, America "is at a very delicate period. A lot of Americans would rather pack up and go home". Anti-Americanism has been one of the most noticeable features of this year's Davos meeting, and the American magazine Newsweek titled this week's cover story "Honk if You Hate America". ….."

BBC News 1/29/2000 "….Mr Clinton was setting out his ideas on the global economy in a speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland. It is the first time an American president has attended the annual gathering of international political and business leaders. He said the world was at a crossroads, with globalisation revolutionising the way economies operated and tearing down barriers between nations. Clinton: "We will show flexibility" But he emphasised that individual countries could not build their own futures without also helping others to build theirs. Open markets and free trade were the best ways to promote global prosperity, he said, and developing countries who had embraced open trade had advanced much faster than those who had closed themselves off. Turning away from free trade would keep developing states on the bottom rung. ...Mr Clinton said he would keep working for consensus on a new round of world trade talks……"

Yahoo News AFP via Drudge 1/27/2000 "…..The world's political and business elite were gathering in the Swiss Alps for the start Thursday of an annual blue-chip summit to discuss the world's woes and attempt to sketch out its future. The World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting is being held amid unprecedented security, amid warnings of anti-globalization protests like those which ruined last month's World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle…… US President Bill Clinton, who arrives Saturday, is the star of this year's show, the 30th edition of the Davos meeting which in the past has played host to historic events including key Middle East and South African accords…… The meeting, this year, entitled "New Beginnings: Making a Difference," is billed as the first major international meeting of the 21st century, and a chance to set the agenda for the new millennium. "New realities are radically changing almost every domain of human activity," said WEF Managing Director Claude Smadja. "The compounding forces of globalization, the technology and biology revolutions, and the emergence of the e-economy confront us with a challenge of unprecedented magnitude in modern history." …… "

WorldNetDaily 1/27/2000 Jon Dougherty "…The United Nations is sponsoring a global government conference in the fall designed to examine "the future of the world," and to create "an organizational structure whereby the peoples of the world can participate effectively in global decision-making in the context of the United Nations system." In preparation for this unprecedented conference, "Charter 99: A Charter for Global Democracy" calls for all nations to adopt principles of "international accountability, justice, and sustainable development" under the umbrella of democratic representation -- through the United Nations. Called the "Millennium Assembly and Summit," the meeting is part of the U.N.'s latest initiative to implement global government. Paving the way for the meeting, Charter 99 is sponsored by a consortium of influential non-governmental organizations, or NGOs -- including the World Federalist Association, Westminster UNA, the One World Trust, the Commission for Global Governance, and the Royal Commonwealth Society. Addressed to "all the governments and peoples of the world they represent," it openly invites representatives from every country to the U.N. conference. …."

World Net Daily 1/27/2000 Jon Dougherty "….According to CNN, the first and longest war-crimes tribunal since Nuremberg has finally convicted a lowly Bosnian Serb policeman for participating in "ethnic cleansing" and "crimes against humanity" during the 1992-95 Bosnian civil war. The accused, Dusan Tadic, got 20 years in jail. Ironically, a judge with a Muslim name -- Mohammed Shahabuddeen -- sentenced him. There can be no doubt that the treatment of people during the Bosnian war was atrocious. But there is also no doubt that the treatment of others was bad by all participants: Serbs, Muslims and Croats. Yet, NATO-led globocops are continually ordered to arrest primarily Serbs. Most of those wanted by The Hague's International Criminal Court -- a dubious globalist entity in the first place -- are of Serbian ethnic origin…… No Western officials -- military or otherwise -- have been arrested or are even wanted for any crimes, though U.S. and NATO military officials have been accused of killing Albanian civilians during a bombing run that hit a train and during the "accidental" bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade…… The difference, we are told, is that we meant well. We went into these areas of the world uninvited but we only did so 'cause we cared so darned much….."

UN 1/25/2000 "….A United Nations working group has begun a two-week session in Geneva to draft a protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on the issues of child prostitution and pornography, and the sale of children, a UN spokesman said today. "Although there is broad agreement on the text of the resolution, there is still no agreement on the concept of the sale of children," Mr. Fred Eckhard said in New York. Some Member States want to limit the protocol to the sale of children for sexual exploitation, while others would like to see a broader definition that would include the sale of children for adoption and the sale of their organs for medical purposes, the spokesman said. …."

UN 1/26/2000 "….The international business community is urging governments to help bolster the United Nations while the world body perseveres with institutional reform, according to a statement presented today to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The president of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Adnan Kassar, handed over to the Secretary-General a 'world business message' for this year's UN Millennium Assembly on the Oragnisation's role in the 21st century. The ICC has a worldwide membership of over 7,000 business associations and companies. The ICC message urged the millennial General Assembly to ensure the United Nations takes the lead in supporting an "open system of international trade and investment while opposing all forms of protectionism." Relevant UN agencies and programmes, and not the multilateral trading system, should be the recognized global institutions for raising environmental and labour standards and promoting human rights, it adds. …."

Enter Stage Right 1/24/2000 Henry Lamb ".... Senator Jesse Helms told the U.N. Security Council exactly what it needed to hear: (1) the United States "will not countenance" the U.N.'s "global governance" aspirations; (2) "the U.N. serves nation-states, not the other way around;" (3) "no treaty or law can ever supercede the Constitution of the United States of America;" and (4) Americans reject and resent the suggestion that we are a "deadbeat" nation when we provided $10.179 billion dollars to the U.N. in 1999. He told them a lot more........ He asked forgiveness in advance, "if I come across as a bit more blunt" than the Ambassadors were accustomed to hearing. "I am an elected official with something of a reputation for saying what I mean and meaning what I say," he explained. Blunt he was. Don't believe the polls commissioned by U.N. supporters, he admonished, which claim that the U.N. enjoys the support of the American public. "I have never won a poll," he said, "or lost an election." He told the Ambassadors he had received "literally thousands of letters" expressing deep frustration with the U.N......"

New York Post 2/6/00 Al Guart "….. Right-wing leader Joerg Haider told Austrians yesterday not to fear international isolation as cops held off 1,500 protesters who hurled eggs at his party's headquarters. "There is no need for hysteria," Haider told the Austria Press Agency, while insisting the new ruling coalition that includes his Freedom Party would soon prove its critics wrong. Haider provoked international outrage for praising Adolf Hitler's "orderly employment" policies and lauding veterans of the Waffen SS as "decent people of good character." Although he has since apologized for the comments, the 14 other member nations of the European Union, along with Israel, opted last week to freeze high-level contacts with the new government. …."

Reuters 2/76/00 "…..A majority of Danes oppose European Union countries' isolation of Austria after the far-right Freedom Party joined the government, an opinion poll showed on Sunday. The survey carried out by Gallup for the daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende found only 30 percent of Danes were in favour of a joint resolution by EU leaders condemning Austria. ``Almost twice as many, 56 percent, think that the action taken...was wrong,'' the paper said. And 65 percent said they opposes any political sanctions by Denmark against Austria, with just one fifth of respondents in favour. ......"

San Diego Union-Tribune 2/5/00 Brigitte Greenberg "….A U.S. soldier's bad-conduct discharge for refusing to serve on a U.N. peacekeeping mission should be overturned because the jury was not allowed to decide whether President Clinton's order to deploy was legal, the soldier's lawyer argued yesterday. Attorney Henry L. Hamilton, representing Army medic Michael New, told five judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces that Clinton's order to deploy troops to Macedonia in 1995 was illegal because he did not have congressional approval. "Superiors may not compel subordinates to obey illegal orders," said Hamilton, a retired Army judge advocate general. "The government must prove lawfulness. . . . If it's not a legal order, there's no duty to obey it." ……"

Associated Press 2/8/00 David Thurber "….The future leader of the World Trade Organization today told activists demanding a greater voice in trade talks that globalization was entering a "crucial" stage and their concerns would be heeded. Supachai Pantichpakdi, Thailand's commerce minister, met with representatives of non-governmental organizations who have gathered to present proposals at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development being held Feb. 12-19. He was warm and welcoming to the activists, who have savored their victory in helping derail the WTO summit in Seattle in November, sinking for now hopes of launching a new round of trade negotiations. ….."

Wall Street Journal 2/8/00 George Melloan "….Sandy Berger offered a puzzling explanation Saturday of why President Clinton had imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria for behaving like a democracy. "Democracy is about more than elections," said the president's national security adviser. "It is also about shared values." Really? Aside from raising the question of why the formation of a government in Vienna is a national-security matter for the U.S., Mr. Berger seems to have plunged rather deeply into political philosophy, quite possibly by accident. Assuming that political ideals derive from personal sets of values, it would be remarkable indeed if everyone in a democracy shared the same values. Such a happy and harmonious place would have little need for elections, or even government. Some might think though that the true function of democracy is precisely to adjust differences in points of view. Giving each individual a shot at the ballot box, with strong legal protection for minority rights, seems to do that quite well. Suppressing the expressions of values by some individuals with the purpose of establishing a polity with "shared values" has a name. It's called totalitarianism….."

UN 2/7/00 "….The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, elected today a new president and vice-president to serve for the next three years. Judge Gilbert Guillaume, a French national, became the court's new president, while Judge Shi Jiuyong of China became its new Vice-President. Mr. Guillaume has been a member of the ICJ since 1987 and Mr. Jiuyong since 1994. ….."

World Net Daily 2/8/00 Jon Dougherty "….Though few thought it could happen at this late state of post-modern Americanism, it appears that there are still a number of good legislators out there who not only want to maintain the integrity of this nation but who also understand the historical divide between state and federal government in the U.S. On Sunday, WorldNetDaily ran a story about a movement in the state legislature of Arizona to secure -- in future tyrannical circumstances -- the sovereignty of state government over the overbearing and often forceful reach of the powermongers in Washington, D.C. WND reporter Julie Foster told readers: "An Arizona state legislative committee has approved a resolution calling for the dissolution of the federal government in the event that it abolishes the U.S. Constitution, declares martial law or confiscates firearms -- scenarios some say are not unrealistic." ….."

Enter Stage Right 2/7/00 Charles Bloomer "….Walter Cronkite is in the news once again, pushing his globalist agenda. In a January 29th interview with BBC News, Mr. Cronkite said, "American people are going to have to realise that perhaps they are going to have to yield some sovereignty to an international body to enforce world law." Referring to the United Nations, he called for "an executive" to make international law, military forces to enforce that law, and a "judicial system to bring the criminals to justice before they have the opportunity" to engage in terrorist acts. In Mr. Cronkite's view, "Our whole society is in danger" from "terrorism, national war movements, civil war type movements." The interview with BBC News reinforced Mr. Cronkite's remarks to the World Federalist Association last October. Addressing the WFA, Mr. Cronkite said, "Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill." Mr. Cronkite goes on to put urgency in the need for global government. "Time will not wait. Democracy, civilization itself, is at stake. Within the next few years we must change the basic structure of our global community from the present anarchic system of war...to a new system governed by a democratic UN federation."…."

AP 2/9/00 Nicole Winfield "….The United Nations is demanding better protection for its aid workers and justice from the countries where 184 civilian staffers have been killed since 1992. World Food Program director Catherine Bertini called for penalties against governments that fail to investigate or prosecute crimes against humanitarian workers. She made her plea at an open session of the Security Council on Wednesday. Bertini demanded more money from U.N. member states to protect and train U.N. civilian staff, who - unlike peacekeepers - receive little or no security training and carry no arms…."

Newsmax 2/7/00 Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz "….The cries of outrage fill the air. From European dispatches, we read about the possibility of sanctions and the breaking of diplomatic relations. Warnings have been sent regarding the suspension of European Union membership. What threat to civilization, as we know it, has caused talk of such drastic action? The new government in Austria will contain members of Joerg Haider's Freedom Party, which won 27 percent of the vote in a democratic election, the fairness and integrity of which no one has challenged. The Austrian People's Party and the Freedom Party hold 104 of the 183 seats in the Austrian Parliament. Before we join the merry mob in hurling broken beer bottles at the Austrians, perhaps we should ask some questions. First, do we respect the results of free elections? After all, in Israel both Communists and semi-seditious Arabs have been seated in the Knesset because the vote totals entitled them to their seats. Second, how many Brown Shirt goons has Herr Haider enlisted to prance down the streets and terrorize the populace? From all the evidence available, none. Similarly, he has not threatened Jewish people, nor has he described Jews in pejorative terms. …… Herr Haider's program is for free markets, a strong national defense, and an immigration and cultural policy to keep Austria Austrian. This sounds remarkably similar to policies espoused by conservatives in other Western nations. But the radical left - and most European nations are controlled by Socialists - have defined moderate conservative ideas as "far right." The far left also has little regard for democracy. Austria is today a democratic country. The sensitive nations so upset with Austria seem unable to offer any response to, say, Communist China in which students are slaughtered for seeking democracy and people are imprisoned for attempting to offer prayers and religious service to God. These same sensitive nations have little to say about other states such as Cuba. Of course, Castro has only imported nuclear weapons into his communist isle, executed dissidents, summarily arrested journalists, abetted the narcotics trade and spread revolution throughout Latin America. Herr Haider is far more dangerous, the sensitive nations say, while Castro is someone we need to make nicey nice with. Indeed, truth to tell, these are the same sensitive nations that did nothing - absolutely nothing - when the real Nazis of history prepared to overrun Europe and totally destroy Jews everywhere….."

DAWN 2/13/00 Jonathan Clarke "…..LOS ANGELES: "Not ready for prime time" is an insidious phrase making the rounds on the presidential primaries. The question may be asked whether it also applies to the European Union's decision to impose diplomatic isolation on Austria following the rise to power of the far-right Freedom Party under the leadership of the charismatic neo-fascist Joerg Haider. Following a decade of debacle over the former Yugoslavia in which the EU was forced to abandon its initial boast that this was the "hour of Europe" and to accept that, without the United States, it could not get the job done, Americans now are anxiously wondering whether yet again, Europe will bungle its big moment in the spotlight. The sight of bloodied demonstrators in the streets of Vienna is not an auspicious portent. The starting point for the debate is uncontroversial. Beneath a speciously innocent programme of fighting corruption, limiting government and boosting small business, the Freedom Party's ideology takes its cue from mankind's basest instincts of hatred, discrimination and racial exclusivity. The fact that, in a congratulatory telegram, Slobodan Milosevic expressed solidarity with Haider sums things up neatly. It is also uncontroversial that the EU is constitutionally entitled to take action against any member, Austria included, of which it collectively disapproves. …..Unlike Nato, the EU's core idea involves the pooling of sovereignty. The Austrian protests against EU meddling in Austria's internal affairs therefore are misplaced. …."

AFP 2/12/00 "…..UN chief Kofi Annan attacked the world's most powerful nations at the opening of major trade talks Saturday, blaming them for scuppering last year's WTO talks and stunting the development of poor countries. Annan said the "leading economic powers" were solely responsible for the spectacular failure of the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle, which was supposed to launch a new round of trade negotiations. He described as a "popular myth" the belief that the talks were derailed by the violent protests which paralysed the summit's program. "The round was not launched because governments -- particularly those of the world's leading economic powers -- could not agree on their priorities," he told the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). ….."

REUTERS 1/12/00 "….An unidentified man pushed a cream pie into the face of IMF chief Michel Camdessus as he was preparing to give his last official speech as the agency's managing director on Sunday. Camdessus was not injured and was preparing to go ahead with his speech. The man attacked Camdessus as he was chatting to delegates at a summit of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), witnesses said. The IMF chief tried to shield his face with a clipboard but was sprayed with cream from the pie. The assailant was bundled away by police. …."

Associated Press 2/12/00 Dirk Beveridge "…..Poor nations left behind by a rapidly expanding world economy clamored today for a bigger share of the wealth, as demonstrators seeking more radical changes squared off with riot police. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a "Global New Deal," with rich nations extending a helping hand to poor countries. "Can we not attempt on a global level what any successful industrialized country does to help its most disadvantaged and underdeveloped regions to catch up?" Annan asked the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. Developing nations need debt relief and open markets for their products, and wealthy nations should help countries that encourage investment and guarantee their people will share in the benefits, Annan said at the opening of the conference. …."

Reuters 2/11/00 "…..The World Trade Organisation has denied critics' accusations that it is a tool of developed Western countries and multinationals. "That's a slogan. It looks good on a T-shirt. People say that the WTO should be abolished, and that things will improve," WTO director general Mike Moore told the Bangkok Post newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. "That's like saying that if you abolish a hospital, there would be no more sick people," he was quoted as saying. "Globalisation is not an ideology, not a political theory, but economic evolution. One of the problems of the WTO is that every excess of capitalism, every spill of toxic waste, every tree that is cut, we are blamed for," he said. …."

Associated Press 2/11/00 "…..Spurred by a sense of crisis since the turmoil of the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, some 180 nations are meeting in Bangkok this week to shape the global economy. But as leaders and ministers talk and ponder, globalization is happening a mouse-click, a share trade and a takeover at a time. Governments and international bodies like the United Nations acknowledge they aren't sure how to keep up - much less control - a phenomenon that is really led by companies, not treaties. "The process of globalization is being driven by the activities of private enterprise," said Rubens Ricupero, secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. "This has contributed to the increasing vulnerability and instability of large parts of the world economy," Ricupero said. UNCTAD, which promotes trade to help develop poor countries, opens its four-yearly meeting Saturday under the greatest scrutiny in its 36-year history, precisely because of uncertainty over how to get a grip on globalization. …."

Associated Press 2/4/00 Brigitte Greenberg "…..A U.S. soldier's bad-conduct discharge for refusing to serve on a U.N. peacekeeping mission should be overturned because the jury was not allowed to decide whether President Clinton's order to deploy was legal, the soldier's lawyer argued Friday. Attorney Henry L. Hamilton, representing Army medic Michael New, told five judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces that Clinton's order to deploy troops to Macedonia in 1995 was illegal because he did not have congressional approval. ``Superiors may not compel subordinates to obey illegal orders,'' said Hamilton, a retired Army judge advocate general. ``The government must prove lawfulness. ... If it's not a legal order, there's no duty to obey it.'' Capt. Kelly Haywood, representing the government, argued that the order's legitimacy was never for the seven-member military jury to decide, and New had a duty to obey the commander in chief. ``The mission lives and dies by the soldier following an order,'' Haywood said. ….."

United Nations press release 2/4/00 "….. [04 Feb 2000] GA/SM/149 : ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT STRESSES REFORM, FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT, GENDER EQUALITY, MENACE OF SMALL ARMS AND AIDS AS CORE UN CONCERNS …… GA/SM/149 …… Humanity, as I expected, survived, actually defeated, the Y2K bug. I am, however, afraid that in the critical and challenging fields of nuclear disarmament, human relations, disparities between the haves and the have-nots, organized crime, transfer of technology, financing for development, gender equality, children's rights and protection, the record of the United Nations Member States, industry and academia alike stinks to the high heavens. The global community is integrating and fragmenting at the same time and the United Nations efforts towards peace and development are constantly being frustrated…….. Last year, the Secretary-General produced a comprehensive and thought-provoking and, in some respects, challenging report. I would like to exemplify one issue, among others, which engendered a very robust and passionate debate, on a somewhat divisive issue. This issue, "humanitarian intervention", some delegations felt, put the concepts of State "sovereignty" and "human rights" on equal footing. There is the rub…….. I, myself, said that the idea of "humanitarian intervention" was not only alarming, but it was actually threatening the very existence of the sovereignty of States, as well as undermining the sacred principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations. I concluded by asserting that it did not constitute my idea of "a new world order". Until the jury is back, I still hold that view. …….. Today, at the United Nations, the ongoing discussions and trade- offs are concentrated on the following areas of policy that I have delineated:
First one is the reform, restructuring and democratization of the United Nations system, including the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others…..
Second, financing for development, in line with the human-centred proposals and recommendations of the major United Nations summits, starting with the 1992 Rio Summit on environment and development through those on human rights, population, women and development, habitat and ending with the Rome Food Summit in 1996. Out of all this, poverty eradication is the ultimate goal.
Third, gender equality, which also links up with children's rights and protection, as well as the restoration of healthy and productive family life.
Fourth, the proliferation and spiralling menace of small arms in the third world where armed conflicts, civil wars and ethnic cleansing are rampant. The call is to put an end to this nasty business.
Fifth, the external debt owed by many developing countries to the industrialized countries. Total debt cancellation is the only answer…..
Sixth, and last, HIV/AIDS. This is, today, the single most devastating crisis facing the modern society and its inhabitants. The most affected regions of the world are the very ones where the poorest of the poor live, with sub-Saharan Africa topping the list….."

ABC RAW NEWS 2/5/00 Reuters "…. Europe and the United States failed on Saturday to see eye-to-eye over the role of NATO as the alliance tries to map out its future strategy and learn the lessons of last year's Kosovo conflict. European defense ministers told a security conference in Munich they wanted to make further progress toward building a regional defense "identity" and improve Europe's ability to deploy forces quickly to crisis zones. But Defense Secretary William Cohen said he was concerned those efforts, while welcome, were not backed up with sufficient funding and could end up diverting resources away from the alliance and create a bloated military bureaucracy. ….."

The Washington Times, p. A3 2/5/00 Bob Dart "…… Pointed questions from military judges provided hope to Michael New yesterday in the former Army medic's crusade against wearing United Nations insignia. Some members of the nation's highest military tribunal seemed to agree that the judge in New's 1996 court martial erred in not allowing the jury to consider whether an order that he don a blue U.N. helmet and patches was lawful under Army regulations. "We think we prevailed," said Henry Hamilton, the lawyer who argued Mr. New's case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. New, who lives in a suburb of Houston, was convicted of refusing to obey his commander's order to wear the U.N. insignia after his infantry unit was deployed from Germany to join multinational peacekeeping forces in Macedonia in 1995…..Mr. Hamilton argued that these orders were illegal not only because President Clinton "lied to Congress" in authorizing the deployment but also because Army regulations prohibit such alterations to the uniform. …."

LA Times (via San Jose Mercury News) 2/6/00 Carol Williams "…..A global security debate on ``the lessons of Kosovo'' unleashed angst and anger here Saturday as generals and politicians blasted NATO's first military engagement for being expensive, morally misguided and an unfinished job that left ticking time bombs in the Balkans capable of exploding into new wars. More than 200 defense and security strategists gathered for the 36th annual Munich Conference on Security Policy had been expected to engage in self-congratulatory celebration of the unity and determination of NATO's three-month assault on Yugoslavia last year. But many of the world's security elite, given the opportunity to discuss the air campaign together for the first time, lambasted it as so fraught with bureaucracy and shackled by political cowardice that it accomplished little more than a baring of the deep divisions and daunting challenges facing the alliance. The frank exchanges also exposed disagreement on European Union plans for a new continental army independent of NATO, as well as on a nuclear missile defense program that U.S. leaders appear determined to push forward despite vehement objections from Russia. ….."

Enter Stage Right 1/31/00 Charles Bloomer "….. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wasted no time denouncing Senator Jesse Helms' address to the UN. Using an opportunity to meet with the UN Security Council, Secretary Albright sought to smooth ruffled feathers among her former colleagues. "Let me be clear," she said. "Only the president and the executive branch can speak for the United States." Why the big rush to denounce Senator Helms? What did the Senator say that Secretary Albright objected to? Could it be that Senator Helms, in his normal manner, spoke the truth? Could it be that Senator Helms, who himself admitted that he was not "fully conversant with the elegant and rarefied language of the diplomatic trade," may have unintentionally offended an organization whose members include totalitarian dictatorships? In fact, Senator Helms did say some things that may have offended the delicate sensibilities at the United Nations. Senator Helms did something the no one else has done recently - he said what he meant and meant what he said. The good Senator merely spoke the truth. And he said things that the overpaid bureaucrats didn't want to hear. He was, in fact, "a bit more blunt" . ….."

AP 2/4/00 Barry Schweid "….The Clinton administration today distanced itself from Austria to protest inclusion of far-right Freedom Party members in a new government. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, announcing there would be limited contacts with Vienna, said there should be no place in a European government for a political party that "doesn't distance itself clearly from the atrocities of the Nazi era and the politics of hate." Albright said Ambassador Kathryn Hall would register the United States' deep concern about inclusion of six members of the Freedom Party in the new coalition government. The U.S. defense attache in Vienna was ordered not to participate in ceremonies for Austria's new defense minister, Albright said, and Hall will return to Washington to report and then go back to Austria to keep tabs on political developments there. The United States will "react forcefully to any deviations" from democratic European principles, she said. …."

South China Morning Post 2/4/00 Reuters "…. Israel recalled its ambassador from Austria on Friday, just hours before a new government including Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom Party was to be sworn in despite a storm of international protest. An embassy spokeswoman said Ambassador Nathan Meron, who is also responsible for Slovakia, had flown home to accompany Slovak President Rudolf Schuster on a visit to Israel but there were no plans for him to return. ''He will remain in Israel indefinitely because of the political situation in Austria,'' she said. A reluctant President Thomas Klestil was to swear in conservative People's Party leader Wolfgang Schuessel as chancellor at 7pm (HK time), ending 30 years of Social Democrat-led government in the Alpine republic. …..This will test the resolve of Austria's 14 European Union partners to carry out their threat to isolate it politically. …."

MPEG Commentary 2/1/00 "….. Last week the world's movers and shakers held their annual confab in Davos, Switzerland. Bill C. and Bill G. were there. No doubt the scandal enveloping Helmut Kohl, Europe's greatest statesman since Churchill and De Gaulle, provided much grist for gossip. But here at home, some began to glimpse the outline of a possible new Clinton scandal -- one that could ultimately eclipse Watergate or Teapot Dome. Evidence is accumulating that the administration of Bill Clinton may have turned the Exchange Stabilization Fund (the "ESF") into a political slush fund to make itself look good and simultaneously profit some of its closest Wall Street friends and supporters. Specifically, the known facts support credible allegations that the Clinton administration has effectively capped the gold price by using the ESF to backstop the selling of gold futures and other gold derivative products by politically well-connected bullion banks. Such interference in the free market price of gold would undermine its traditional role as a leading indicator of inflation. And it would do so at the same time that the administration's many adjustments to the CPI have rendered that lagging indicator of inflation also suspect. Among the bullion banks most heavily involved in selling gold futures and purveying gold loans, forward sales and other derivatives that undercut its price is Goldman Sachs, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's old firm. …..These are serious allegations, but the current administration scarcely merits much benefit of the doubt. If these allegations are incorrect, Treasury Secretary Summers can deny them in unequivocal language as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan did two weeks ago with regard to similar allegations of gold price manipulation by the Fed. …."

Reuters 2/7/00 "….Some 500 civilians died as a result of last year's NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia, a human rights group said Monday, accusing the Western military alliance of violations of international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch said the deaths came in 90 separate incidents. In a report released in Washington, the group said its estimate of the number of incidents was far higher than the U.S. defense department and other NATO governments have admitted. But its figure for civilian deaths was much lower than that claimed by the Yugoslav government, it added. Belgrade says about 2,000 people died during 78 days of NATO air strikes. The alliance launched the attacks to halt repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. ….."

Brotish Broadcasting corp 2/4/00 Emma Batha "….The sudden re-emergence of the far right in Austria has not only shocked its European neighbours, but left them scratching their heads in bafflement. The rise of the Freedom Party and its controversial leader Joerg Haider has upset their assumption that prosperity and liberal values go hand in hand. Mr Haider has propelled himself to power on an anti-immigration ticket. To hear his campaign speeches, you might be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a crippling unemployment crisis. Yet Austria is the seventh richest state in the world per capita, and its unemployment levels are among the lowest in Europe - about half those of Italy and France. So what is sending Austria lurching to the far right if it is not economic hardship? The answer would seem to lie in its post-war history, and the fear of mass immigration when eastern countries join the European Union. …..But EU expansion is not the only explanation for Mr Haider's success. Surveys have consistently shown that xenophobia is widespread in Austria. In a 1997 poll, 42% of Austrians admitted to some degree of racism, compared with an EU average of 33%. And 70% said there would be problems if the minority population increased. ….."

Reuters, Yahoo 2/4/00 Mark Thompson "…..Austria's new coalition of conservatives and Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom Party took office on Friday amid angry protests at home and diplomatic uproar abroad. In Vienna's Hofburg Palace, President Thomas Klestil swore in a cabinet led by conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel -- Haider is not a member -- and despite his clear disapproval, urged the world not to prejudge the new government. Israel recalled its ambassador to Vienna in protest at the inclusion of the far right, whose leader has made several remarks in the past playing down Nazi crimes, and thousands of protesters clashed with riot police outside Klestil's office. Austria's 14 European Union partners began moves to isolate the new government politically, taking the unprecedented step of trying to influence the domestic politics of a member state and deepening one of the worst crises in the bloc's history. The United States condemned the far-right's entry into government. Defense Secretary William Cohen warned it ``might be a step back into a very dark past.'' United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a rare comment on a nation's internal affairs, also expressed concern. ``The secretary-general is of the view that anyone with a sense of history would be concerned about recent political developments in Austria,'' his spokesman Fred Eckhard said. …."

New York Times 2/6/00 David Sanger "…..President Clinton's top foreign policy adviser says Washington's decision this week to impose diplomatic sanctions against Austria is driven partly by a desire to send a message that the United States will not stand by idly if other anti-immigrant, far-right parties try to join other coalition governments in Europe. "There is a concern about whether the extreme hateful right could emerge in Europe," Samuel R. Berger, the national security adviser, said in an interview on Friday evening. "There are extreme small parties that exist in some countries," he added, clearly referring to Germany and France though carefully not mentioning them by name. The United States, he said, had to make it clear that "democracy is about more than elections, it is also about shared values." ….."

CNSNews.com 2/4/00 Ben Anderson "…..The US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces heard arguments on Friday in the case of an American soldier court martialed in 1996 for refusing to remove his Army insignia and cap and replace them with those issued by the United Nations. In 1995, Army Specialist Michael New was assigned to the Army's 3rd Infantry Division stationed in Germany when his company was informed that they would be deployed to Macedonia as part of a peacekeeping mission. Those orders came as a result of Bill Clinton's Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25), a classified document, which New's attorney Hank Hamilton argued before the five judge panel was an illegal and unconstitutional effort by the president to avoid congressional scrutiny. ….."

BBC 2/5/00 "….. The United States has challenged European Nato countries to increase their spending on defence - and called on them to take a greater share of the burden of defending Europe. American Defence Secretary William Cohen also questioned whether European members had the political will to meet some of the security goals they have set themselves. ….. Speaking at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, he told European allies they must spend more and make a sustained political commitment in order to achieve their goal of closing the technological gap with US military forces. He told the conference: "You cannot continue to cut budgets. "You cannot have a situation in which one country bears a disproportionate burden." ….."

Time Magazine 1/24/00 Douglas Waller "…. THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION DOESN'T want the U.S. to become the world's policeman. But it wouldn't mind having world cops. Floating around the White House is a proposal by Secretary of State ….. Madeleine Albright that would have the U.N. set up a standby force of several thousand policemen, who would rush into war-torn areas to keep law and order. Cops are scarce in countries recovering from civil war, but military units deployed as peacekeepers balk at doing police work. So the U.N. has to start from scratch each time, enlisting nations to contribute policemen. "Getting enough of them is always a problem," says a senior State Dept. official. ……"

South China Morning Post 2/5/00 "….. The United States has distanced itself from Austria, temporarily withdrawing its ambassador, to protest the inclusion of far-right Freedom Party members in a new government. ''There is clearly no place inside the governments who make up the Euro-Atlantic community, in a healthy democracy, for a party that does not distance itself from the atrocities of the Nazi era and the politics of hate,'' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said overnight (HK time). Mrs Albright said US ambassador Kathryn Hall will register the United States' deep concern to Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, return to Washington to report on her consultations and then go back to Vienna ''to convey our concerns about what their policies might be''. The US defence attache in Vienna was ordered not to participate in ceremonies for Austria's new defence minister, Mrs Albright said. ''We have decided to limit our contact with the new government and will review whether further actions are necessary to advance our support for democratic values,'' she said. ….."

Fox News 2/5/00 Todd Brendan Fahey "….The U.S. military is resuming high-level contacts with U.N. peacekeeping officials after years of strained relations over the debacle in Somalia and the U.S. failure to pay its U.N. debt. East Timorese protesters call for U.S. assistance during their struggle for independence last fall. "It is rebuilding a relationship which was severely strained and more or less dried up" in recent years, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said in an interview on Friday. "We're trying to use Pentagon know-how to help the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in its planning effort. This is not an attempt to take over U.N. responsibilities," he said. "Since American taxpayer dollars are involved, and at times even American lives are at risk, we want to help get it right." ….."

Sydney Morning Herald 2/14/00 Tyler Marshal "….. The arrival of China's first Russian-built guided-missile destroyer in East Asian waters in recent days is a troubling reminder of the budding military relationship between two nuclear giants increasingly wary of American intentions. The $A795-million Sovremenny-class destroyer and its sophisticated anti-ship missiles, which passed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday, provide a new dimension to China's modest navy: the ability to confront United States aircraft carriers. But the presence of the new warship also reflects a deepening political co-operation between China and Russia that is driven by a single overriding imperative: the determination to counter US power. While neither the Sino-Russian military link nor the two countries' shared political objectives appear to pose an immediate threat to America's status as the lone remaining superpower, analysts warn that they have the potential to be troublesome. Sino-Russian ties have warmed in part because of the shared conviction that the US's global dominance must be checked. Russia and China are both wary of any developments that would diminish the primacy of the UN Security Council, where both have a veto. Both abhor any expansion of the precedent established in last year's Kosovo campaign - and heralded by President Bill Clinton - that well-meaning nations can ignore a country's sovereignty to halt a humanitarian crisis. ….."

Truth In Media 2/14/00 Bob Djurdjevic "…..Haiderbash is on, democracy is off, and Austria has replaced Serbia as Europe's "pariah state," according to the "liberal" governments and media. And just think... all that is happening on Valentine's Day! European governments are in a hysterical frenzy over the Austrian populist Joerg Haider's ascension to power. By trying to punish the Austrian voters for having given Haider's Freedom Party 27% of the popular vote last October, the European Union (EU) is proving that democracy comes a distant second to the dictatorship of its "liberal" (read left wing) values (also see "European Union Capital Exports"). Nor is the EU alone in its contempt for voters' freedom of choice. The U.S. government has recalled its ambassador from Austria for "consultations" at the State Department, immediately after Israel had done the same. And the "liberal" New York Times published an editorial on Feb. 4 whose headline said it all about how un-liberal its editors really are. "An Unwelcome Austrian Government," the Times declared, as if it had the right to decide what's best for Austrians……."

The Washington Times 2/10/00 Arnaud de borchegrave "…. The collective knee jerk in Western capitals over Austria's democratic processes is the latest manifestation of the no-enemies-on-the-left syndrome that prolonged the Cold War by a decade or two. The only enemies are on the right. Those who were all too willing to give the Soviet Union the benefit of the doubt when there was no doubt are now unwilling to give Austria the benefit of the doubt even thought its new right-wing coalition government has denounced xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racism, pledged to honor democracy and human rights, and acknowledged responsibility for Nazi-era crimes. The 1968 generation of socialists nurtured on Europe's barricades now is in power in all of EU's governments (except Spain). Austria is now the latest to jump the socialist ship….."

EWTN 2/25/00 "……The United States Senate and House of Representative began considering this week resolutions condemning the ongoing attack on the presence of the Holy See at the UN. The resolutions threaten that a Vatican ouster from the UN would "further damage relations between the United States and the United Nations." The attack on the Vatican's status began a year ago under the leadership of a pro-abortion group called "Catholics for a Free Choice." Nearly 400 organizations, mostly pro-abortion advocates like International Planned Parenthood Federation, have joined the call for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to "review" the Holy See's status with a view to downgrading them to non-governmental organization status, which would be identical status to that held by the Girl Scouts. Even campaign organizer Frances Kissling does not believe her campaign will be successful. Rather she expects the campaign will "keep the Vatican on its toes" during UN conferences. It is understood her intention is to intimidate the Holy See delegations and its allies in the developing world. The Holy See participates in a coalition of Latin American and Muslim states that has successfully kept abortion from becoming an international human right. The Senate and House resolutions emphasize that the attack on the Holy See comes mostly over the question of abortion. ….."

The Battalion Texas A&M U. 2/24/00 Jill Rilery "…..People worldwide worry about the reocurrance of something as awful as the Holocaust, which is definitely a valid concern. However, condemning Austria for freely electing an official whom other nations deem as holding questionable opinions about World War II solves nothing. Other nations have no right to involve themselves in another country's democratic process. The citizens of Corinthia, a province in Austria, recently elected Joerg Haider of the nationalistic Freedom Party as their governor. Since that time, the European Union (EU), the United States, Argentina and several other countries have shunned the nation because of statements made by Haider about World War II and the Holocaust. …….. Millions of Austrians voted for members of the Freedom Party and the People's Party in the last election. Now the two parties combined outnumber the Social Democrats, 110-63. The Social Democrats do not like the new arrangements because they no longer hold the majority, but from the election results, it is clear that the Austrian citizens wanted a change. Austrians chose a nationalistic government against foreign encroachment instead of a socialist democratic government. In other words, the citizens are not in favor of the EU taking control of their country. In a democracy, they have the right to vote for whomever fits their beliefs. The hooplah generated by the election is just another example of other nations sticking their noses where they do not belong……"

Reuters 2/24/00 "…..Under pressure from business leaders and their allies in the U.S. Congress, the Clinton administration said on Thursday it would launch talks aimed at settling a dispute with the European Union over a tax scheme affecting hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. exports. "We're going to respect our WTO obligations," a senior U.S. administration official said, but added: "We will not do anything that's going to result in unfair competitive disadvantages for U.S. firms and workers." The pledge followed a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against the U.S. Foreign Sales Corporations (FSC), which would provide U.S. companies with an estimated $4.1 billion in tax breaks in 2001 and up to $25 billion in relief over the next five years according to U.S. estimates. The ruling was a stinging blow to the Clinton administration, and threatened to send shock waves through U.S. business and spark a backlash from Congress against the Geneva-based WTO. Opposition to the WTO and President Bill Clinton's trade agenda has increased since the collapse of global trade talks in Seattle last December, and now threatens to scuttle a landmark trade agreement with China. Lawmakers say the FSC ruling could embolden free-trade opponents when the U.S. House of Representatives votes on legislation calling for the United States to withdraw from the WTO, which sets international trade rules. ……"

AP 2/24/00 "….. President Clinton signed a directive Thursday for a $10 million U.S. program to train foreign police forces. Clinton, in a statement, said "in peacekeeping missions from the Balkans to East Timor, establishing basic law and order has been among the most important - and formidable - challenges." The State Department is setting up an office for the program. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said it would improve U.S. capacity to provide police overseas in coordination with the United Nations. ….."

Antiwar.com 2/24/00 Dr Srdja Trifkovic "…..The war waged by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 marks a significant turning point, not only for America and NATO but also for "the West" as a whole. The principle of state sovereignty, and of the rule of law itself, has been subverted in the name of an allegedly humanitarian ideology. Facts have been converted into fiction, and even the fictions invoked to justify the act are giving up all pretense to credibility. Old systems for the protection of national liberties, political, legal and economic, have now been subverted into vehicles for their destruction. But so far from demonstrating the vigor of Western ruling elites in their ruthless pursuit of an ideology of multi-ethnic democracy and international human rights, the whole Balkan entanglement may be as a disturbing revelation of those ruling elites' moral and cultural decay. I shall therefore devote my remarks to the consequences of the war for the emerging new international system, and - ultimately - for the security and stability of the Western world itself. Almost a decade separated 'Desert Storm' from 'Humanitarian Bombing.' ……."

Moscow Times 2/24/00 Reuters "….Board members of the International Monetary Fund, frustrated at European delays in finding a new IMF managing director, threw the competition wide open Wednesday by nominating two non-European candidates. An IMF statement said Stanley Fischer, a naturalized American who is the Fund's acting managing director, and former Japanese finance ministry official Eisuke Sakakibara were the first formal candidates to replace Michel Camdessus as head of the international lender. "The former managing director made his request [to resign] 115 days ago. His distinguished term came to an end over a week ago and we have now entered a period of uncertainty and instability which we could all do well without," board member Jose Pedro de Morais said in a statement nominating Fischer. "I put forward for the consideration of my colleagues the nomination of Mr. Stanley Fischer, our highly regarded first deputy managing director, to succeed Mr. Michel Camdessus as managing director þ for a full five-year term." …."

US Newswire 2/24/00 "……STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT I have just signed a Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) that will improve America's ability to strengthen police and judicial institutions in countries where peacekeeping forces are deployed. The PDD directs the Departments of State, Defense and Justice to undertake a series of critical enhancements in the areas of police-military coordination, as well as in police, penal and judicial training and development. In peacekeeping missions from the Balkans to East Timor, establishing basic law and order has been among the most important -- and formidable -- challenges. Developing effective local police forces, establishing credible court and penal systems, and reforming legal codes can make the crucial difference between building a just future and lapsing back into conflict. When fully implemented, this PDD will help overcome major obstacles that currently confront international peacekeeping operations. By enhancing cooperation between police and military peacekeepers, we will better ensure public security during these operations. By more effectively training and fielding international police monitors, we will better ensure that local police fairly and effectively prevent the breakdown of law and order in post-conflict societies. And by improving our ability to provide assistance to local judicial and penal institutions, we will better ensure accountability, as well as confidence among local populations often traumatized by the conflicts they have endured. We must do everything possible to improve our ability to help countries in transition to get the job done -- and to encourage other governments and the United Nations to be deeply engaged in these efforts. ….."

Defense Daily 2/23/00 Vago Muradian "….. The United States and Europe are growing increasingly protectionist with respect to defense trade, but if governments move quickly to break down barriers to cooperation markets will remain open, according to France's defense minister. "For the interests of both groupings of nations, in the long term, we need to have a more balanced situation of competition between the defense industrial pool in the States and the one in Europe," Alain Richard told reporters yesterday during a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C. "We have consolidated enough, and by that reduced considerably the scope for competition within each continent, so now we have to have them compete together...It's in our interest to reduce the barriers for procurement between the European and American industries."….."

ETHERZONE 2/24/00 Kitty Testa "…… When we speak of Big Government, it is not just the size and cost of government, but the scope of government that comes to mind…….. It's 6:00 AM and my radio alarm goes off telling me to wake up for another beautiful day...... The FCC grants licenses to people who want to use the airwaves, making sure they know how to operate the necessary machinery to use the airwaves, and then makes sure people don't swear on the radio. I drag myself out of bed to the kitchen to make breakfast. With the exception of the can of coffee I pull from the cabinet, every food product in my kitchen is labeled by mandate of the US Food and Drug Administration.......,, I wake my children up to get ready for school. Like most children, they don't wear real pajamas to bed. They wear T-shirts or their underwear or sometimes the clothes they wore the day before. The government doesn't really like that because it went to a whole lot of trouble to make sure that children's sleepwear is made out of flameproof material. Of course, most people who die in fires die from smoke inhalation, but that is, apparently, beside the point. With their lunches packed, the kids head off to a school run by the government......."

Reuters 2/23/00 ".....In a decision that could strain U.S.-European trade relations, the World Trade Organization's appellate body ruled that a U.S. tax program affecting hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. exports violated international rules, trade officials and industry groups said on Wednesday. The decision could force the U.S. Congress to change current law to bring the 16-year-old U.S. Foreign Sales Corporations (FSC) scheme in line with the world trade watchdog's rules. Failure to do so could oblige the United States to pay compensation to the European Union or face trade retaliation, though an EU source said retaliation was unlikely. The ruling was a major victory for the EU, which launched the WTO dispute alleging that the FSC scheme amounted to a $2.5 billion a year export subsidy to U.S. firms, with Boeing Co. and Microsoft Corp. among major beneficiaries. It was a stinging blow to the Clinton administration, and threatened to send shock waves through U.S. business and spark a backlash from Congress. ......"

Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism 2/21/00 Charles Bloomer "…..The United States and the European Union have shown incredible hypocrisy in their foreign policy by their recent response to Austrian elections. The US and EU have threatened and carried out a diplomatic ostracization of Austria since the Austrians decided to include members of the Freedom Party in the coalition government. The Clinton administration recalled the US ambassador. EU states have given Austrian diplomats the cold shoulder. All this over democratic elections in a sovereign nation. The center of attention seems to be Joerg Haider, chairman of the Freedom Party. Adjectives such as "extreme", "radical", even "Nazi" have been used to describe Mr. Haider, who occasionally says things that are not held as "politically correct" by today's socialist governments of Europe and the United States. Evidence to support this name-calling is in short supply by Mr. Haider's critics. In Austria, A Country Study, published by the Library of Congress, Haider is described as "a handsome, dashing figure whose self-confidence strikes many observers as verging on arrogance". One would think that, with all the vitriol directed toward Mr. Haider that he was about to be crowned as a new, right wing dictator, a modern day heir to the Habsburg Throne ready to revive the Holy Roman Empire. Yet, Mr. Haider is a provincial governor and not a part of the new national government……"

CBSNews 2/13/00 AP "….. Right-wing Austrian politician Joerg Haider risks more international condemnation. He's called Britain's greatest wartime hero a terrible criminal, says CBS News Reporter Pamela McCall. In an interview with Britain's Sunday Telegraph, Haider branded Winston Churchill "one of the greatest criminals" of the 20th Century, saying he was responsible for destroying the German city of Dresden during the Second World War…… He also paused before answering when asked whether he would have joined the Nazis, as his father had done. "It's not easy to say, because with the privilege of hindsight, you know exactly what you have to do." Then he grinned. "I think I would have been in prison during the Nazi period, because I am a fighter for freedom and not for dictatorship." He also expressed admiration for British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "Well, if you compare our program with the program of Blair, you will find a lot of similarities. He is protecting England against criminals, the same thing we want to do. He wants to have lifelong observation of criminals who hurt children, these are similar to our proposals, as well as the program to provide jobs for the young generation, to reduce youth unemployment." ….."

New York Times 2/21/00 Steven Muers "…..Soldiers on this sprawling post in central Texas snap to salute when Maj. Gen. Rick J. Hillier strides by. He is, after all, deputy commander of the Army's Third Corps and its 57,000 troops. But there is something unusual about this lanky officer that gives soldiers pause. First there is his clipped accent, which sounds even stranger down here in Texas. And then there is his uniform, his forest-green beret and the two maple leaves he wears instead of a general's stars. General Hillier, second in charge of one of the Army's four corps, a senior officer overseeing the operations of three Army divisions, is a Canadian. "Some found it a little strange at first," he said as he oversaw a group of National Guard soldiers preparing to leave Fort Hood for Bosnia. "Now it doesn't seem to matter that I'm in a Canadian uniform. They just view me as part of the team." ….."

Washington Times 2/21/00 "…..For those wondering whatever happened to former Rep. John B. Anderson, the Illinois Republican who left the party to run for president as an independent in 1980, he is alive and well and leading a crusade for world government. That bit of information comes via a full-page ad in Friday's New York Times by the World Federalist Association, of which Mr. Anderson is president and CEO. In the ad, Mr. Anderson takes issue with Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who recently addressed the U.N. Security Council and warned it against any effort to thwart the sovereignty of the United States in conducting foreign policy. Americans look to the United Nations "to take the lead in international relations, contrary to Senator Helms' view," Mr. Anderson said in the ad, pointing to President Clinton and Walter Cronkite as prominent figures who support a "world federation." ….."

news.excite.com 2/19/00 Reuters "…..Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider was forced to leave a restaurant in Vienna under police guard on Saturday after he was spotted having dinner by a small group of protesters returning from an anti-government rally. Dozens of demonstrators surrounded the restaurant chanting "Foreigners stay, drive Haider out," after coming across the Freedom Party leader by chance, a Reuters photographer said...."

The Telegraph 2/19/00 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard "….. THE European Union's sanctions against Austria are causing an anti-Brussels backlash in Denmark and Sweden, say their governments, jeopardising their plans for early adoption of the euro. In Denmark, the long-awaited referendum on Economic and Monetary Union could be put off until after the next parliamentary elections in 2002 because of the row over the affair, said Jacob Butski, spokesman of the ruling Social Democrats. Until this month it had been assumed that Denmark would vote to join the single currency within the next year, but the latest poll in the daily Berlingske Tidende shows a dramatic shift in opinion with the "yes" and "no" camps running neck and neck at 46 per cent. Danes are extremely sensitive about heavy-handed actions against small EU states. "Nobody likes [the Rightist Jörg] Haider but that's not the question," said Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish MEP. "People are nervous about being sucked into a political union that they never agreed to join, one that tells them how to form their own government." ….."

Orlando Sentinel 2/20/00 Charley Reese "….Looking up a quote, I chanced to re-scan the book, Israel's Fateful Hour, by Yehoshafat Harkabi, who at one time was chief of Israeli military intelligence. More important, Harkabi was a wise man, and, in one chapter of his book, he gives a short summary of sensible foreign policy that is applicable to any country. You can use his advice to judge our own foreign policy as well as the positions of various candidates. He begins by pointing out that, with the rise of democracy, foreign policy is no longer the exclusive property of an aristocracy or elite. Popular opinions are a constraint on a government's freedom of action (hence, I would add, the government's interest in propaganda). "Policy has thus come to depend on the quality of public thinking; a democracy will succeed only if it is blessed with a sophisticated public opinion. An island of political wisdom surrounded by a sea of boorishness and folly will soon be drowned by the waves," he writes. ….."

Sydney Morning Herald 2/17/00 Tony Kevin "….. THE Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, is due in Australia tomorrow at a time of disturbing trends in the world body. The UN is under pressure from international human rights organisations to intervene in "weak states". There is a danger that this pressure will lead to a new version of 19th-century gunboat diplomacy, when powerful Western nations regularly imposed, by threat or use of force, their own values and commercial interests on weaker non-European sovereign states, such as China, Thailand, Japan, Egypt, Turkey or Morocco. In reaction to the horror of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, which the UN failed to prevent, there is a new UN tendency to intervene in the affairs of Third World sovereign states. This trend is being encouraged by international human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. These draw most of their support from Western countries. In Cambodia since 1996, and now perhaps beginning also in Indonesia, there is evidence of a disturbing new model of Western interventionist behaviour - now under a UN mandate. ……"

International Herald Tribune 2/18/00 William Pfaff "…. The reaction to a governing coalition in Austria that includes the far-right Freedom Party has directed attention to the issue of national sovereignty inside the European Union, a subject until now skirted because of the radical difficulties it poses. Countries which imposed sanctions on Austria without formal EU consultation or a recognized legal basis for their action shocked opinion in Denmark and some of the other smaller member states, which saw in this an imprudent interference in the sovereign affairs of a member nation. The smaller states have reason for concern. ..."

Houston Chronicle 2/15/00 Edward Hegstrom "…… The U.S. military has the power but lacks the public support to stop genocide around the world, retired Gen. Colin Powell said Monday. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, here to receive a "moral courage" award from the Holocaust Museum Houston, said the United States, even had it known about the slaughter of Jews at the outset of World War II, could not have stopped it unilaterally because it lacked the military power. But now that the U.S. military has become the world's most powerful, deciding where to intervene has become an agonizing moral decision, he said. "It's very difficult to say to the American people that we ought to (intervene) whenever a country has a 911 situation," Powell said prior to a dinner where he received the award. ……."

Jerusalem Report 2/17/00 Ze’ev Chafets "…..Throughout Europe and the U.S., there are respectable politicians making arguments similar to Haider's Joerg Haider's Freedom Party is part of the new Austrian government coalition and Israel is outraged. Prime Minister Barak, by recalling our ambassador, has led the chorus of moral outrage. Senior politicians from Foreign Minister David Levy to Likud leader Ariel Sharon have thundered against this threat to European democracy. A bipartisan delegation of Knesset back-benchers stormed into the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv to express their shock - shock! - that a man like Haider could assume a role of political influence in Vienna. And the government of Israel, in a state of high dudgeon, has officially pronounced his party neo-Nazi. I would like to add my own voice to this festival of indignation, but unfortunately I cannot. First, since the affair began I have found no evidence that Joerg Haider is a uniquely evil figure, one worthy of Israel's vitriolic condemnation. No one (except the Austrian people) seems to like him, but the critics' indictment, especially on the charge of anti-Semitism, seems strangely thin……..As far as I can tell, Haider's main message is that there are too many foreigners in Austria, and that immigration threatens the country's economy and traditional ethnic composition. Such views may be selfish and xenophobic, but they aren't inherently racist. Throughout Europe and the U.S., there are respectable politicians who are currently making similar arguments…… "

Front Page Magazine 2/19/00 Charles Krauthammer "…..JOERG HAIDER'S FAR RIGHT FREEDOM PARTY has been part of the Austrian government for two weeks now. No sign yet of an invasion of Poland. From the outraged reaction of the European Union to Haider's inclusion in Austria's ruling coalition, you might have thought the old anschlussed Third Reich appendage was stirring once again for the glory of the fatherland. The EU has ostracized Austria, cut off bilateral meetings, and unleashed a steady barrage of threats and denunciations. ……. I have news for the EU: (1) Nazism has been dead for 50 years. (2) Hitler is not coming back. (3) There are people diligently working to finish Hitler's work. They are not Austrian. Who is manufacturing-today-poison gas for the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jewish innocents? Who is building missiles to deliver these agents of extermination and aiming at the largest Jewish cities on the planet? Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Yet even as Europe piously flagellates Austria, it openly consorts with these malevolent dictatorships……"

Investor's Business Daily 2/17/00 Jim Christie "…..The European Union's reaction to Austria's right turn was fast, furious and, many analysts now say, overblown. Maybe even self-serving. And, they add, it points more to insecurity within the EU than a realistic fear of neo-Nazism. If Austria included its far-right Freedom Party in its new government, 14 EU nations promised to freeze bilateral diplomatic contacts. The threat backfired. Austria formed the government, stoked, many say, by a heightened sense of anti-Brussels pique. Meanwhile, EU solidarity has started to show cracks, though a few members are holding a hard line. Portugal, now holding the EU presidency, is in the lead. Portugal's president nixed a state visit to Austria, and Portugal's prime minister said the Freedom Party is not "suitable" to be in the EU……"

Russia Today 2/17/00 AFP "……A powerful Russian general accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to run the world and effectively pushing it towards a new Cold War. "The U.S. are brainwashing the world....even Russian people are being brainwashed," said the head of international cooperation for Russia's Defense Ministry General Leonid Ivashov in a presentation of Russian defense policy in Geneva. America and a group of western allies see the whole world as "a vital interest zone," Ivashov said and they increasingly interfere in domestic affairs "under the pretext of protecting human rights." This could lead "to a very dangerous cold war," Ivashov said, with China, India and Russia uniting against the western "dictat policy." ......"

Inside China Today 2/17/00 AFP "…..China ruled out any measures against Austria following the inclusion of an extreme-right party in Vienna's coalition government, describing the uproar over Joerg Haider's Freedom Party as "an internal affair". "This question is an internal affair of Austria," foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said. Questioned by reporters over the diplomatic boycott launched by the European Union against Austria, Zhu said China still wanted "to continue the development of our relations" with the country. China, which was made a target of international sanctions following the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, routinely voices opposition to sanctions against countries because of democratic or human rights issues. …."

Nando Times (Online) 2/16/00 Geir Moulson "…..Experts at a U.N. meeting Wednesday said Wednesday that the United States could do more to curb the use of the Internet for racist material while upholding freedom of speech. "New forms of communications technology such as the Internet are being used to support the dissemination of racial hatred," Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told participants in a three-day seminar on racism. Speakers noted the legal challenges of controlling Internet content in, and originating from, the United States, where the First Amendment of the constitution guarantees freedom of speech. There are an estimated 250 to 400 self-proclaimed hate groups in the United States with their own Web sites. ……"

Wire 2/16/00 Reuters "…..U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, leaving for Lisbon on Wednesday, hopes to convince the European Union to help him secure a reduction in America's U.N. dues, diplomats say. But so far the 15 EU members, whose current president is Portugal, have shown few signs of willingness to raise their own payments to satisfy demands from the U.S. Congress, with several noting that the United States already is paying below the amount that its economic standing would dictate…….Many developing nations receive a huge discount on their assessments, even though some economies have greatly expanded. Among them are China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Brunei, Argentina and Brazil. In contrast, South Africa is said to be paying more than its economic wealth merits….."

Reagan Information Exchange 3/9/00 Susan Roylance "……The United States is leading an effort to convert the United Nations' Beijing Platform for Action - which is aimed at eliminating discrimination against women - into a document which champions homosexual rights. Specifically, the United States is attempting to insert language calling for an end to discrimination based on "sexual orientation" into the document which will be approved by the United Nations General Assembly as the product of the five-year review of Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995 ….. The citizenry of the United States does not support the gay rights agenda. Congress has refused to make "sexual orientation" a protected category. State after state is overwhelmingly rejecting "gay marriage." Despite efforts by Western nations to make homosexuality a "human rights" issue, it is not. It is a matter of culture, religion, morality and domestic governance. The United States has absolutely no right, and certainly no popular mandate, to attempt to force the gay rights agenda on other nations. ......"

Washington Times 3/9/00 Betsy Pisik "……A full-scale investigation of NATO commanders for their role in last year's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia remains possible though "unlikely," U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in an interview. Mrs. del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the U.N. International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, said she will decide whether to launch a formal investigation after she receives a report from an advisory committee, expected within a month. "At this point, it is just an inquiry, not a proper investigation," she said during an interview Monday in which she discussed the issue with obvious reluctance. "I haven't seen anything that indicates" an investigation would be required. She said she is also waiting for former NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana to reply to specific questions she posed to him last month. Mrs. del Ponte, a former attorney general of Switzerland, opened a diplomatic hornet's nest just before Christmas when she revealed that her office was inquiring into the alliance's actions during the 78-day air war to expel Serbian troops from Kosovo. ......"

AP 3/6/00 Melissa Eddy "…..The president of Vienna's Jewish Community said Monday he would use a libel suit filed by Joerg Haider as a chance to prove the former Freedom Party leader's anti-Semitism. Haider filed the lawsuit against Ariel Muzicant and News weekly for publishing an interview in which the Jewish leader called Haider an anti-Semite for denying that Jews had suffered more harassment during the Freedom Party's election campaign last summer. On Monday, Muzicant said he was compiling examples of Haider's anti-Semitic rhetoric since the start of his political career, as well as finding linguists and other experts, to support the statements he made in the November interview. …."

Associated Press 3/4/00 Barry Schweid "….American troops could be sent to Europe to quell conflicts even after the creation of a new European security force, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says after high-level meetings here. Any decision will be based on U.S. national interest, Albright said Friday while welcoming plans to establish a rapid reaction force of 50,000 to 60,000 European troops by 2003...."

Associated Press 3/4/00 Martin Crutsinger "…..A group of conservative House members promised Friday to introduce legislation demanding that the United States quit the World Trade Organization. The move will force the full House to take up a second contentious trade issue this year. The effort, being led by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, guarantees a vote within 90 days on withdrawing from the WTO, the Geneva-based organization that has become a lightning rod for opponents of globalization. Under the 1994 legislation that authorized U.S. membership in the newly created WTO, Congress required the administration to submit a progress report after five years of WTO membership about the costs and benefits to the U.S. economy. ….."

The Washington / AP 2/29/00 Robert Reid "….A day after resigning as leader of the far-right Freedom Party, Joerg Haider lashed out at the European Union Tuesday for its drive to ostracize Austria over his party's role in government. Haider kept up the stream of invective against his opponents - long the hallmark of a political style that many of Europeans find offensive. In an interview with Austrian state television, Haider called the EU actions against Austria's government "childish." "Europe made a mistake," he said. "You don't treat a democratic and exemplary country this way." ….."

EWTN 2/29/00 "…..Thomas Jimenez, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) representative to Nicaragua, announced last Thursday that aid to the country would be halted since the nation's family planning programs contain "discrepancies." UNFPA was enraged over the decision of Nicaraguan Minister for Families Max Padilla and Education Minister Fernando Robleto to reject the UN's "reproductive health" programs. They did so because the UN's programs advocate abortion. Nicaragua is one of numerous Central and South American countries that have declared March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, as the "National Day of the Unborn." The Nicaraguan decree for the day stated that "the right to life, inherent in each of the inhabitants of the nation and the world, is the principal axis of human rights and, therefore, merits the determined attention of the government." …."

AP 3/2/00 "…..The number of emigrants seeking work around the world is set to increase as globalization puts added pressure on poor countries and makes working abroad more enticing, the International Labor Organization said. About 130 million people are working as migrants worldwide, up from 75 million in 1965, the U.N. group said Wednesday. Moreover, the number of undocumented migrants is estimated at 10 million to 15 million, said Peter Stalker, who wrote the book "Workers without Frontiers" for the organization. The economic migrants are seeking work in roughly 67 countries, up from 39 in 1970, and fleeing 55 countries, compared to 29 previously, Stalker said. But in a sign of the complexity of immigration patterns, 15 countries such as Thailand and Malaysia both receive and send a major number of migrant workers. "In a world of winners and losers, the losers do not simply disappear. They seek somewhere else to go," Stalker said at a news conference launching the book. ..."

Electronic Telegraph 3/2/00 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard "…..JORG Haider has threatened to paralyse the European Union's reform agenda unless sanctions against Austria are lifted. The move belies his claims to have given up control of the far-Right Freedom Party. He said from Carinthia, where he still serves as provincial governor: "It's not acceptable to treat a democratic and exemplary country like ours in this fashion, and it won't be acceptable when the French take over the EU presidency. If the French insist on continuing to treat Austria like this, nothing concrete will be accomplished in Europe." Asked by Austrian television if this was a threat to deploy a blocking veto, Mr Haider said: "We don't need a veto because Europe's founding treaties stipulate that decisions can only be reached if there is unanimity. If there is no unanimous agreement, nothing can be done." ….."

3/1/00 Claire Mencke "….The U.S. may have suffered a huge setback when the World Trade Organization ruled last week that the U.S.' use of Foreign Sales Corporations in Europe broke global free-trade rules. Some say this ruling blocks the U.S. from using a system that has supported billions of dollars of exports. But others think it won't make a difference. The WTO's three-person appeals body last week upheld an earlier decision that the U.S. foreign sales units should be considered a "prohibited export subsidy." The WTO left no room for appeal, said Claude Barfield, coordinator of trade policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. ….."

Worldnet Daily 3/2/00 Henry Lamb "…..Rarely is the term "global governance" heard on the evening news. When it does appear, the term "conspiracy theory" is usually in the context. While America is watching the political circus, the international community is bringing together all the elements of global governance in preparation for the big event scheduled for September. A full calendar of events has been prepared. Americans don't care what the United Nations is doing, in the belief that nothing the U.N. does can affect us anyway. This may have been true in the past, but no more. The magnitude of societal change that is underway is almost beyond comprehension. These changes are already affecting individual Americans, but rarely is the impact recognized as the result of United Nations influence. We are already deeply into the era of global governance. It is a process that began many years ago. The events scheduled for this year, culminating in the September World Summit, will put in place all the international mechanisms necessary to insure that there is no turning back. It is important to realize that global governance will not be imposed suddenly, upon adjournment of the World Summit. After the summit, implementation of global governance will accelerate, but it will still take several years to fully transfer sovereignty from nation-states to a central global command. …. International law will be the supreme law of the planet. Individual nations will be required to conform their laws to international norms. For those who say "never in America," wake up and smell the roses. The World Trade Organization already has the power to require conformance of national law to WTO policy. And it has the power to impose financial penalties upon those nations that fail to do so in a timely manner. ….."

Stratfor.com 2/29/00 "…..On the surface, Haider's departure will elicit a sigh of relief from many Western capitals. Western Europe can wave goodbye to a dark reminder of its past and Eastern Europe can rest assured that one more roadblock to EU accession has been removed. But the EU's crisis of conscience is over. The union shunned Austria -- to the degree that some senior European diplomats are avoiding EU meetings - simply because the Freedom Party is a junior coalition partner in the government. Unless the new Freedom Party leader - Haider's lieutenant, Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer - can effectively muzzle her former boss as well as mainstream much of her party's platform, the ostracism of Austria will continue. Beyond Austria, Haider exposed a deep split between countries that are strongly pro-Europe - such as Belgium and France - and those that approach the EU with caution - such as Sweden and Denmark. The EU's ability to indirectly force Haider from official power will only deepen this split……"

New York Times 2/29/00 Joseph Kahn "…President Clinton has vowed to block the man Europe wants to head the International Monetary Fund, setting off a possibly protracted contest for control of the financial institution and most likely casting the United States in the role of kingmaker. Mr. Clinton's rejection of the candidate, Caio Koch-Weser, a German finance ministry official, makes the succession at the I.M.F. the biggest battle for leadership of a major international institution since the United States fought to oust United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and replace him with Kofi Annan in 1996. The Clinton administration says that in an era when financial crises can spread at Internet speed from country to country, the German candidate does not have what it takes to be the world's chief financial firefighter. ….."

AP 3/22/00 Tom Raum "…… Indian leaders have made it clear they don't like being told what to do by America. Yet President Clinton has been pressing them hard to accept two treaties that even the United States has not ratified. Against the shimmering backdrop of the Taj Mahal, Clinton promoted a global-warming treaty that has yet to go to the Senate, and he's spent days abroad pitching a nuclear test-ban treaty that the Senate soundly rejected last year. ……. "We don't have to choose between economic opportunity and environmental protection," Clinton told a group of environmentalists Wednesday at one of the world's most photographed sites. His point was that both are possible with modern technology and the proper policy, but that's not an argument he's won in his own backyard………. The administration has yet to send the global air-quality pact, which it helped write in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, to the Senate for ratification......."

Reuters 3/15/00 "….. ENVIRONMENT activists unveiled an "Earth Charter" yesterday that is designed as a code of conduct for governments, businesses and individuals in the globalised age. The supporters of the charter, who include Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet President, and Ruud Lubbers, the former Dutch Prime Minister, said that the charter's 16 principles reflected a global demand for moral and ethical values in business and public affairs. The Earth Charter will be presented to the United Nations, governments, businesses, schools and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as the basis for new laws and codes of conduct. "We need a moral and ethical recovery, not just an economic recovery," Maurice Strong, the co-chairman of the Earth Charter Commission, said. The activists said that many of the principles of the charter had already been adopted by NGOs and used to put pressure on corporations. ……"

CNS News 3/15/00 Lawrence Morahan "…… Citing evidence gathered by a leading watchdog of abuses of women, GOP lawmakers Tuesday called on the US Agency for International Development to investigate allegations the Peruvian government is using US aid money to force poor Peruvian women to undergo sterilization. "The spirit if not the letter of the Tiahrt amendment has been violated," Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), said at a Capitol Hill news conference hosted by the Population Research Institute (PRI), which investigated the abuses. Tiahrt is the principal sponsor of the Tiahrt amendment, a measure signed into law in October 1998 that prohibits U.S. funds from going to non-voluntary foreign family planning programs. PRI's investigators said they found that the Peruvian Ministry of Health's Family Planning Program, of which USAID is the primary benefactor, overwhelming targets poor minority women. ….."

WorldNetDaily 3/18/00 Mary Jo Anderson "…..Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson is demanding that Vice President Al Gore repudiate two "anti-Catholic" groups that are calling for the eviction of the Holy See from the United Nations. The National Abortion Rights Action League and the Women Leaders Online, both groups enthusiastically endorsing Gore for president, are supporting "See Change," a campaign to oust the Vatican from the United Nations. Since 1964, the Vatican has had "permanent observer" status at the U.N. -- enabling it to play an active role and vote with other countries at U.N. conferences, but not in the General Assembly. Representatives of various nations are gathered at the United Nations in preparation for June's "Beijing +5" Special Session of the General Assembly, entitled, "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century." ….."

Worldnet Daily 3/18/00 Alan Keyes "…..The center of internationalism, of course, is the United Nations. So if we are to understand what is wrong with internationalism, we need to understand clearly what the United Nations represents. To be fair, we should begin by acknowledging that the U.N. arose from motives that, however misguided, were not altogether malicious……..The Charter of the United Nations states that one of the basic purposes of the organization is "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." ...... So why are conservatives so worried about yielding some of our national sovereignty to an organization aiming at such high and noble goals? Should we not fall in line with the more general effort of people around the world to overcome the distinctions and divisions of nationhood and replace them with a global community -- particularly when it is so clear that communication technologies and other factors are rapidly producing a global community whether the governments of nations like it or not? ……… That sounds good, until you look at the actual record of the United Nations over the past half-century. For all the formal rhetoric about human rights, the United Nations has failed to advance that cause. This failure is particularly marked in precisely those areas that involve the attempt to translate the universal language of the Universal Declaration into concrete respect for human rights. On issue after issue we can tell the sorry story of the impotence and even the active complicity of the United Nations in the systematic suppression of both understanding of and respect for those rights. Like accumulating symptoms that point undeniably to some hidden cause of physical illness, so the record of the United Nations in advancing human rights is a list of the symptoms of a fundamental corruption in the effort itself. ……."

Yahoo – Reuters 3/14/00 Dominic Evans "……Scientists around the world should have free access to research on the mapping of human genes, the United States and Britain said Tuesday. President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said research into the human genetic blueprint was ``one of the most significant scientific projects of all time.'' ``To realize full promise of the research, raw fundamental data on the human genome including the human DNA sequence and its variations, should be made freely available to scientists everywhere,'' the two leaders said in a joint statement. Their call came a week after U.S. company Celera Genomics, racing to become the first firm to sequence all the genes in the body, said it was concerned that if it shared information with publicly funded research its data would be used by rivals. ….."

CNSNews 3/14/00 Bruce Sullivan "…….Hundreds of pro-abortion, feminist and anti-religion liberal organizations have launched an organized effort to reduce the Vatican's United Nations status from Permanent Observer to non-governmental organization, and in response, a coalition of Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Mormon, Muslim and non-religious organizations have joined forces to defend the role of the "Holy See" (the official UN designation for the Catholic Church)....... "The Catholic Church has been the number-one defender of the unborn child's human rights around the world, and that's why pro-abortion forces are trying to shut the Holy See out of UN conferences," Focus on the Family spokesman Tom Minnery told CNSNews.com…….. "We Christians from all denominations will proudly stand with our Catholic allies to see that the abortion industry is not successful at silencing the Holy See at the UN," added Minnery……"

LA Times.com 3/26/00 TYLER MARSHALL, JIM MANN, Times Staff Writers "……America's dominant shadow has long been welcome in much of the world as a shield from tyranny, a beacon of goodwill, an inspiration of unique values. But 10 years after communism's collapse in the Soviet Union left the United States to pursue its interests without a world rival, that shadow is assuming a darker character. The preponderance of America's power--economic, political, military and cultural--is fast becoming a liability. In State Department meeting rooms it's called the "hegemony problem," a fancy way of describing the same resentment that children harbor for the biggest, toughest and smartest kid in school…… The complaint abroad is not that America is withdrawing into an isolationist shell, as it has so often in the past. Rather, foreigners diagnose America as suffering from a bad case of "me first." ….."

Washington Post 3/24/00 Michael Fletcher ".....The United States and its NATO allies won a military victory in Yugoslavia a year ago but, as the deteriorating situation in Kosovo attests, it has proved a hollow triumph. As a test of the Clinton administration's doctrine of virtuous power--the notion that the United States should intervene when other countries' internal conflicts offend American values--the Kosovo war has proved one of the administration's more notable failures. It is a failure--strategic, diplomatic and military--that should have been predicted and avoided. Accuse us of relying too heavily on the benefits of hindsight if you will, but a brief overview of the current situation confirms the notion that this was, from the start, a misguided venture. Washington's declared objectives of bringing stability to the Balkans and building a multiethnic democracy in Kosovo have utterly foundered. Worse, as should have been foreseen, the United States and its allies are becoming stuck in a geopolitical quagmire...."

NewsMax.com 3/23/00 Diane Alden "…….. One has to love a guy who claims: "As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government." Joseph Sobran is a writer, a thinker, a constitutionalist - and dead right. Recently, he wrote an article titled "When Tyranny Came to America," in which he outlines the history of the Constitution and how it "died" and what took its place. The left would disagree with his conclusions, but so would all collectivist-statists of whatever political persuasion. They call it a living document, which to them means: subject to the whims of whatever is currently the trend or perceived needs of the "people," even if fulfilling those needs is unconstitutional. The upcoming "Million-mother March Against Guns" is a case in point. Led by a friend of Hillary Clinton, Donna Dees-Thomases, these gals will wave the flag as they whittle away at the Second Amendment and the Constitution, which they use as cover. The million mothers are marching not in support of getting criminals with guns off the streets, but rather denying them to citizens who don't commit crimes. Whether they know it or not, these well meaning moms are heaving the baby out with the bath water. As usual, the left is using women and children as a shield for its real intent, which is to pull the life support from an already critically ill Bill of Rights……The "moms" are merely shills for the people who want to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they want to keep. These moms don't really believe in the Constitution or its intent because they "feel" guns are nasty, smelly things and should be banned. ..."

Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute 3/24/00 "…… A pamphlet just released by the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice reveals the intentions and wishes of feminist groups related to the nascent International Criminal Court (ICC). The pamphlet also makes plain the worries of conservative scholars that the new ICC will be an engine of ideological feminism rather than a neutral criminal court.

* "The International Criminal Court: The Beijing Platform in Action" was released to coincide with two ongoing UN meetings, the five year review of the Beijing Women's conference, and yet another round of negotiations for the "procedures" and "elements of crime" for the ICC. The meetings have overlapped in the past few weeks at UN headquarters in New York……
* According to the Women's Caucus, their greatest success in the ICC process was bringing the concept of "gender" into the draft statutes passed in Rome nearly two years ago. Most UN documents in recent years are suffused with what is called "the gender perspective." Until Rome "gender" went undefined. Conservatives charge feminists with wanting an undefined term that could come to include homosexuality. A very narrow definition was insisted upon by the Holy See and a few Latin American and Muslim countries. For the first time in the ICC statutes a UN document now defines "gender" as including only two sexes..."
* Among the most controversial positions of the Women's Caucus comes in the area of abortion. The concept of "enforced pregnancy" came into the statutes before the Rome conference, and feminists insisted it only meant repeated rape for the purposes of impregnation, as was charged by Bosnian women against Serb soldiers. Feminists used the term, however, in a 1991 Utah court case in which the term was used to mean a woman couldn't get an abortion.
* In their pamphlet feminists contend that "withholding abortion from raped women should be explicitly defined as a war crime and a crime against humanity." This position is troubling to Catholics since it would explicitly name a part of their religious beliefs, that abortion is always wrong, a crime against humanity. ..."

World Magazine 3/24/00 Tim Graham "……What happens when a coalition of aggressively pro-abortion groups tries to silence an international pro-life voice? Religious conservatives, who disagree with one another on points of theology, form a coalition to try to stop them. Evangelical groups have joined with Roman Catholic activists in fighting to preserve the Vatican's unique status at the United Nations. As a non-member state with permanent observer status, the Vatican enjoys many of the same rights and privileges as the 188 countries that are full-fledged UN members. While it has no vote, the Vatican can take active part in UN debates and conferences, and its contrarian pro-life presence clearly annoys the dominant ethos at these celebrations of feminism and radical environmentalism. The abortion advocacy group Catholics for a Free Choice is leading a campaign to prod the UN to review the permanent observer status of the Holy See, the Vatican's governing body. "In a time when religious fundamentalism threatens pluralism, tolerance, and women's human rights, the UN must maintain a clear separation between religious beliefs and international public policy," declares the CFC website. They complain the Holy See uses its influence "to limit access to family planning, safe abortion-even in countries where abortion is legal, and emergency contraception-even for women who have been raped as an act of war. Successfully challenging the Holy See's status will save women's lives." CFC leader Frances Kissling said her campaign, known as "See Change," had over 400 signatures from organizations that want to review the Vatican's sovereign-state claim. ……"

United Press International 3/20/00 William Reilly "…….A United Nations University study of NATO 's intervention in Kosovo said Monday a profound change in world politics has emerged, mainly that sovereignty can be forfeited on humanitarian grounds. But the study co-edited by the Tokyo-based institution's vice rector, Ramesh Thakur, and Albrecht Schnabel with contributor Ray Funnel, a retired Australian air marshal, warned the precedent will have dangerously undermined international order unless world powers can agree on principles to guide future interventions, in similar circumstances. "Kosovo and The Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention" is billed as a "compendium of authoritative viewpoints on many dimensions of the 1999 crisis" and on recommended follow-up steps. Those steps include promotion of "an international consensus about the point at which a state forfeits its sovereignty," and removal of veto power in the Security Council in exceptional circumstances "so that the support of a majority of the great powers is all that is required to permit states to engage in humanitarian war." "Kosovo confronted us with an abiding challenge of humanitarian intervention: namely, is it morally just, legally permissible and militarily feasible?" asked Thakur. "In today's dangerously unstable world full of complex conflicts, concerned countries and citizens face the painful dilemma of being condemned if they do and damned if they don't. "To use force unilaterally is to violate international law and undermine world order. Yet to respect sovereignty all the time is to be complicit in human rights violations sometimes. To argue that the U.N. Security Council must give its consent to humanitarian war is to risk policy paralysis by handing over the agenda to the most egregious and obstreperous." ……."

CNSNews.com 3/21/00 Ben Anderson "….. A report published by the United Nations which says that countries "can temporarily forfeit sovereignty on humanitarian grounds" is drawing sharp criticism and being called "outrageous" from Washington insiders concerned that the organization has taken a shallow view on the sovereignty of individual nations. "This is completely outrageous," one United States Senate source told CNSNews.com. "This study fails to understand reality. The United States is the world's only superpower and all this huffing and puffing about multi-lateralism is just that." The study - actually a collection of viewpoints -- is called "Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention." It is billed as "a compendium of authoritative viewpoints" on NATO's assault of Kosovo - the problems presented, the lessons learned, and follow-up steps to be taken……."

3/21/00 Nicholson 3/21/00 "……Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson today revealed that four congresswomen who sit on the advisory board of Women Leaders Online, one of the lead groups trying to throw the Vatican out of the United Nations, are trying to hide their involvement in the group's activities. Today, the Women Leaders Online removed pictures of congresswomen Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), and former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro (D-N.Y.) from its web page after receiving inquiries about its anti-Catholic bias. "It's no surprise to me that these congresswomen are ashamed to be involved in such a bigoted plot to deny the Vatican a voice in the United Nations," Nicholson said. "However, this cowardly game of duck and hide will not be tolerated by Catholics. Instead, these four members must repudiate the anti-Catholic views of this organization." …."

Globe and Mail 3/21/00 Brian Milner "……The NATO bombing campaign over Yugoslavia was a military and political blunder based on "selective indignation" that set a dangerous precedent for the handling of such humanitarian crises, a new report on the conflict says. Continuing fallout from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's assault to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo "has the potential to redraw the landscape of international politics," the study says. But the study acknowledges that such intervention never would have been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council and predictably recommends reform of that key policy-making body -- including the possible removal of the five permanent members' veto power to stall UN intervention. If the veto power cannot be removed, it could at least be blunted, said Ramesh Thakur, vice-rector of United Nations University in Tokyo and a co-editor of the university-sponsored study. "Faced with another Holocaust or Rwanda-type genocide on the one hand and a Security Council veto on the other, what do we do?" Mr. Thakur asked. The answer, he said, is a new international consensus on humanitarian intervention……."

Chinatimes 3/23/00 AFP "……The Chinese military accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to dominate the world with its military power, and said US policies were endangering global peace. In a page-long critique of what it called the US military's policy of "new intervensionism," the army's newspaper said the United States was trying to set a dangerous precedent. The articles said the United States was using the issue of human rights to interfere militarily in the internal affairs of other countries as it sought to establish itself as the sole superpower in the post Cold War era. "Since the end of the Cold War the United States has become the only superpower and its hegemonic ambitions have never ceased to grow," said one article in the People's Liberation Army Daily by two experts from the army's Institute of Military Studies. ….."

United Press International 3/20/00 William Reilly "……A United Nations University study of NATO 's intervention in Kosovo said Monday a profound change in world politics has emerged, mainly that sovereignty can be forfeited on humanitarian grounds. But the study co-edited by the Tokyo-based institution's vice rector, Ramesh Thakur, and Albrecht Schnabel with contributor Ray Funnel, a retired Australian air marshal, warned the precedent will have dangerously undermined international order unless world powers can agree on principles to guide future interventions, in similar circumstances. "Kosovo and The Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention" is billed as a "compendium of authoritative viewpoints on many dimensions of the 1999 crisis" and on recommended follow-up steps. Those steps include promotion of "an international consensus about the point at which a state forfeits its sovereignty," and removal of veto power in the Security Council in exceptional circumstances "so that the support of a majority of the great powers is all that is required to permit states to engage in humanitarian war." ……."

Federation of American Scientists 2/24/00 "……This PDD has been months in the making. The US participated in our first civilian police (CIVPOL) mission in Haiti in 1994. As we began to identify lessons learned from the Haiti and Bosnia missions, we determined that a thorough review was needed. This PDD reflects the results of that review. As demonstrated by growth in these types of activities in recent years and months, and the difficulties we have faced in mounting these types of operations in Kosovo, East Timor and elsewhere, the time is right to begin to address these issues in a more comprehensive and systematic way. How will the PDD be implemented? ……. As the government entity responsible for U.S. foreign policy, the State Department has been named the lead agency for coordinating U.S. participation in CIVPOL and complementary international criminal justice development activities. A lead office with responsibility for this function will be created within the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) using the personnel who currently conduct these activities in a less formal capacity. An interagency working group also will be formed to manage these issues. Thus, rather than creating a new bureaucracy, the PDD institutionalizes existing relationships and capacities. …… How will the PDD affect recruitment for international civilian police work? ……. The PDD enables the U.S. to pre-screen and train potential CIVPOL personnel prior to their assignment to a particular mission. They then can remain in their regular jobs until called by the USG for CIVPOL duty. U.S. CIVPOL officers are individuals from all over the U.S. who volunteer to serve in international civilian police missions. ….."

News-Excite.com 3/27/00 "……Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson today revealed that four congresswomen who sit on the advisory board of Women Leaders Online, one of the lead groups trying to throw the Vatican out of the United Nations, are trying to hide their involvement in the group's activities. Today, the Women Leaders Online removed pictures of congresswomen Nita Lowey (D-NY), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) from its web page after receiving inquiries about its anti-Catholic bias. "It's no surprise to me that these congresswomen are ashamed to be involved in such a bigoted plot to deny the Vatican a voice in the United Nations," Nicholson said. "However, this cowardly game of duck and hide will not be tolerated by Catholics. Instead, these four members must repudiate the anti-Catholic views of this organization." ….."

Boston Globe 3/27/00 William Pfaff "……PARISThe common theme to the three most significant conflicts on the international scene - Kosovo, Chechnya, and Taiwan - is the recovery of lost lands. The lost territories embody conflicts of ideas and rivalries of national aspiration: whether Kosovo should be Albanian or Serb, Chechnya independent or Russian, Taiwan independent or subject to China. Thus the international community responds in contradictory ways, influenced by the history of each conflict, commitments already made by foreign actors, and above all, by the feasibility of doing anything. The age of ''humanitarian interventions,'' subject of much optimistic discussion in the West, turns out to have made only a tentative and confused arrival on the international scene. There is serious danger of humanitarian intervention's failure in Kosovo. NATO could fail as a consequence of what happens there. …."

Washington Post 4/13/00 John Burgess "…… Jeffrey Waite feels "a little bit under siege." He's an education specialist at the World Bank and from his office can see police barriers below, put up as defense against demonstrators who have very publicly pledged to "shut down" the bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, this weekend. Waite spends a quarter of his year on the road in such places as Morocco, overseeing programs that aim to enroll more children in school, particularly girls in villages. "People who work here are committed to making sure that the poor are becoming less poor," he said yesterday. The Foggy Bottom headquarters of the bank and the IMF are full of such experts on schools, electric power for villages, clean water, AIDS, river blindness, road building, financial management. And what many want to know this week is this: How is it that we are being called the cause of world poverty? Many of the demonstrators "would benefit from going and working in a poor country for a few years, seeing what it's like and how difficult it is to make progress," said Ian Johnson, a bank vice president who spent five years in Bangladesh in the 1970s helping get emergency food and clean water to villages……"

AP 4/13/00 Harry Dunphy "……Globalization is not the evil force claimed by street protesters and offers the best hope of reducing poverty around the world, a top official of the International Monetary Fund said today. At a wide-ranging news conference, acting Managing Director Stanley Fischer attacked head-on the arguments of demonstrators who have vowed to shut down the spring meetings of his agency and the World Bank by clogging the streets of Washington. Fischer, a former economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, challenged the demonstrators to come up with alternatives to the path of promoting open markets and a more closely integrated world economy. "The word globalization may be a problem," Fischer said, conceding that officials need to find a catch-phrase with less sinister overtones. But he insisted, "The process that it represents is the only way we are going to raise people around the world to the same level as people in industrialized countries." Fischer said, "All the evidence is that the best way to grow is to integrate into the global economy." ……."

Times of India 4/13/00 "……. Mandela slams Western action in Kosovo, Iraq DUBLIN: Nelson Mandela has warned that powerful western countries such as the United States and Britain risked sparking global conflict if they tried to police the world alone. ''When two nations take it upon themselves to police the world...without getting the authorisation of the United Nations, we must condemn that because it can lead to another world war,'' the former South African President said in a speech on Wednesday. Mandela did not name the U.S. and Britain but joked that he was sure that everyone in the audience knew the two countries he had in mind. Mandela said military actions in Iraq and Kosovo undermined the role of the U.N. as a forum for the peaceful resolution of conflict around the globe. ''They send a message that the powerful will police the world,'' Mandela said as he delivered the Irish independent newspaper annual lecture at Trinity College here . ….."

International Herald Tribune 4/13/00 William Pfaff "…..The latest argument in Washington's criticism of the European plan to create an independent defense ''identity'' is that it must be open to non-EU members of NATO. This is meant to assure that any European Union military structure will be placed under NATO's overall authority, which of course means under American authority. It is an effort bound to fail. The U.S. ambassador to Germany, John C. Kornblum, told a German forum on March 30 that the United States supports the EU plan ''on the understanding that it will not duplicate existing NATO structures or activities and will not exclude those allies who wish to cooperate.'' Norway and former Warsaw Pact countries that are now members or candidates for NATO membership do not belong to the EU. Several of the latter are estranged from it, saying it went little beyond words in welcoming them to Western institutions after 1989. They now have joined the United States in arguing that the EU's European defense initiative could undermine NATO, which for them is a precious security link to the United States……"

CNSNews.com 4/14/00 Wes Vernon "....... International organizations are attempting to whittle away American independence on many fronts. The one-worlders in our midst are gleefully egging them on, largely to the ignorant bliss of much of the US public, which depends on "infotainment" for its news. While Americans enjoy an unprecedented - almost unbroken - 17 year run of prosperity, globalism is moving in with treaties and international proposals on everything from destroying US business in the name of so-called "global warming" to how to raise your children. If you are frustrated at watching these developments occur to the seeming indifference of your fellow citizens, you should know about House Joint Resolution 90, which would direct the United States to withdraw from the World Trade Organization. The WTO was created by the 1994 revision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, otherwise known as GATT.........The WTO sits in Geneva, authorized to make and enforce the rules of global trade. Its 135-nation legislature, known as the Ministerial Conference, allows each nation one vote. So if a majority of nations, including the communist and third world countries, decides that a US law passed by our duly-elected representatives violates WTO rules, the law is effectively abrogated and our Congress can't do anything about it. ......"

AP vis Canoe.com 4/14/00 Nicole Winfield "……Shamed by its inaction, the Security Council accepted responsibility Friday for having failed to stop Rwanda's 1994 genocide and vowed to do more to prevent another slaughter of innocents. In their first formal response to a critical report of the U.N. role in the genocide, ambassadors acknowledged the expose's key findings: that world governments lacked the political will to stop the massacre of half a million people and deprived the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda of the resources needed to save lives. "I doubt any in this chamber can look back at that time without remorse and a great deal of sadness at the failure to help the people of Rwanda in their time of need," said Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, who presided over an open meeting of the council. The brutality "made a mockery, once again, of the pledge 'never again,"' he said, referring to the promise made after the Holocaust. ….."

United Press International 4/4/00 "…..The United States should drop the rhetoric of international law and speak the language of morality, Robert H. Bork said here Tuesday. The impulse toward legal globalism seems to be very strong and "may be capable of changing our Constitution," the former jurist told his audience at the American Enterprise Institute. As an example, Bork cited a recent opinion by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer having to do with the length of time a prisoner may be held on death row before execution. Bryer opined that the constitutionality of this matter should be influenced in part by examining the laws of other nations. Bryer suggested that the United States should take constitutional guidance from decisions by the Privy Council of Jamaica, the Supreme Courts of India and the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. "I'm not sure why the Constitution of the United States, which has its own history and understood meaning, should be affected in any way by what foreign courts have to say about their constitutions," Bork said. "International law about the use of armed force should not inhibit America's actions in its own interests," Bork said. "We should not, through globalization, surrender our interests to nations of far different cultures and views of politics, not to mention to nations that are overtly hostile to the United States." He termed it "a bit nauseating" to hear of laws forbidding crimes against humanity "when it's obvious that what is involved is not law but politicized force." ……"

ABC Raw News 4/4/00 Reuters "…..Former South African President Nelson Mandela accused Britain and the United States on Wednesday of encouraging international chaos by ignoring other countries and playing policemen of the world. Mandela said in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper that the British and U.S. governments had gone ahead with military actions on Iraq and Kosovo without seeking permission from the United Nations Security Council. "The message they're sending is that any country which fears a veto (from the U.N.) can take unilateral action," Mandela said. "That means they're introducing chaos into international affairs; that any country can take a decision which it wants." …… Mandela suggested a possible racist motive behind American policy towards the United Nations. "The U.S. did not do this when the secretary-general of the U.N. was white. They are doing it now, ignoring the U.N. under Kofi Annan," he said. "And there are many people who are whispering that it is because the secretary-general is black. That perception is disturbing." ….."

Washington Times 4/5/00 Helle Bering "…. Remember the International Criminal Court (ICC)? It was the topic du jour in the summer of 1998 when the United States was debating whether we should sign on to the idea of a permanent standing human rights tribunal. In the end, 99 countries signed the so-called Rome Statute in July 1998, the founding act of the ICC. However, the United States and Israel declined (along with a gallery of much less reputable countries like Iran, Iraq and China) and the topic slipped from sight. Well, it shouldn't have, for though the idea seems well-intentioned, there is here a serious challenge to national sovereignty looming on the horizon……..This problem has caught the eye of congressional Republicans, for which they are much to be commended. Though the Clinton administration is fond of portraying the GOP as composed of isolationist Neanderthals, members of the executive branch, too, may be thankful in years to come. Legislation, "the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2000," is soon to be introduced "to protect the United States' military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not a party." As pointed out in the language of the legislation, Americans charged under the ICC would be deprived of their constitutional rights, to a trial by jury, to confront their accusers, to be protected against self-incrimination. The bill contains a number of provisions to prevent this from happening…….."

Associated Press 3/30/00 Tom Raum "……The U.N. Security Council took seats in the historic Old Senate Chamber today for a greeting and a civics lesson from Sen. Jesse Helms. The ardent critic of the world body reminded the visiting delegates of the Senate's ''unique role'' in U.S. foreign policy. ''I know it's been suggested to you that the president alone'' speaks on behalf of the United States on foreign policy matters, Helms, R-N.C., said. ''Not in the United States.'' The delegates accepted Helms' invitation after he became the first U.S. lawmaker to address the Security Council last January. All 15 members came from New York, billing it as an unofficial visit, and arriving individually. ……… While ambassadors initially were skeptical about Helms' invitation, they later seemed to warm up to it -- and see the visit it as a good way to help mend frayed U.S.-U.N. relations. ''I believe that this is so vital and important for the United Nations that we cannot just brush this aside,'' said the current Security Council president, Bangladesh Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury. ........."

Agence France-Press 4/3/00 "…….. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on Monday characterized Pope John Paul II as "the most important socialist in the world," lauding him for making the plight of the poor and solidarity key themes of his papacy. "Globalization can also have destructive effects but we must pursue, as the pope says, its positive aspects," the former Soviet leader said in a speech to students of Rome's Sapienza University. "Wherever John Paul II goes on his trips, he will always speak of the poor and of solidarity. He is the most important socialist in the world." If globalization is to be fair, the gap between North and South must not be deepened, and political and economic freedom and social justice must be granted, he added. Gorbachev said he was convinced that the outcome of Russia's presidential elections would allow President-elect Vladimir Putin to break with the past. "I have told him this personally," he said. "Now it is up to him to radically change things without losing time." ......"

WorldNetDaily 4/3/00 Jon Dougherty "……. In a bid to form a single global community, a group calling itself the Earth Council has drafted a new "Earth Charter" that calls for all nations to surrender their sovereignty for the "greater good" of a singular global order. The Charter, which was finalized at a meeting held at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, headquarters in Paris March 12-14, said that in order to "move forward" as humans, "we must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. "Towards this end," the Charter preamble states, "it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations." As in similar charters and global declarations put forth by other United Nations groups and affiliates, the Earth Charter claims, "dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species." The Charter also adopts a class-warfare argument, stating that "benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening." Such gaps, the document claims, have led to increased "poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict" throughout the world, though the Charter's authors don't define the problem with specifics. ….."

Defense News 4/24/00 Luke Hill "……Although there is widespread agreement that NATO's rapid mobility force, the Allied Command Europe's Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), must be augmented by at least a second unit, allied officials say there is no accord on how to do so. "The one thing that nobody disagrees with is that we need another ARRC," a NATO official said. "You've got an organization which is highly capable and has proven itself twice. But what do you replace it with [in the event of a second crisis]? There is no ARRC 2." The ARRC, a mobile headquarters of some 1,000 multinational military personnel, is based in Rheindahlen, Germany. It is headed by British officers under NATO's so-called framework nation concept, in which one well-equipped country takes the lead for such a force and other nations pledge officers and troops. ……"

National Journal 4/15/00 George Wilson "……. NATO may never again mount another military offensive, because the Kosovo operation was so "ugly." So says a four-star military officer who should know: retired Navy Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr. He ran military operations in Bosnia in 1996, and for more than two years also worried about Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans as the commander of NATO's Southern European forces. Although he thinks NATO's first-ever offensive operation cracked the alliance so badly that it may never be able to unite behind another one, the outspoken Smith contended in a lengthy interview with National Journal that there is now no graceful way out of Kosovo for the United States. "We've got to keep ground forces there for a long time just to keep a lid on that problem." He compared the Balkans of today to "a forest fire in danger of leaping out of control." ……."

New York Times 4/18/00 Joseph Kahn John Kifner "…..The world's top financial officials, trying to show sensitivity to poverty as protesters braved a chilling rain and an impenetrable police force outside, pledged to pay more attention to globalization's victims and to commit "unlimited money" to fight AIDS in poor countries. The finance ministers and central bank governors who oversee the World Bank said the bank should intensify its fight against AIDS because the disease is as much a problem of poverty as public health. More than 50 million people are infected with the virus that causes the disease, and it is spreading fastest in Africa, India, China and the Caribbean, all major World Bank clients. The bank has been active for more than a decade in fighting the disease. The new commitment on AIDS came as finance officials sought to show that they were at least as focused on helping people and nations that have not benefited much from globalization as they are on speeding the international march of capitalism. They promised to accelerate debt relief for the developing world and to press rich nations to agree to import farm and clothing products from the poorest ones duty free. ……….. But some of their promises are unlikely to be fulfilled soon. Wealthy nations have been slow to commit the money necessary for debt relief, and the World Bank has insisted on an intensive review of how third-world countries will use money made available when debt is forgiven. ……"

Time Magazine Online 4/24/00 Walter Kirn "……. Maybe part of the problem is the word. Globalization. It has a sinister ring, like a euphemism from the same technocrats who gave us "downsizing" during the Reagan years and "pacification" during Vietnam. The term conjures up a futuristic vision of vast, implacable economic processes steamrollering their way across the earth, leveling forests, languages and customs without regard for puny individuals. Globalization: right or wrong, it sounds unstoppable. Which may be one reason so many people of so many different persuasions have sworn to stop it……… A movement of whom toward what, though? That's the puzzle. What's the opposite of globalization? Socialism? Isolationism? Vegetarianism? The answer is all three things, and many more. The radical-chic outfit of the season is a coat of many colors. If you trained a license plate-reading surveillance satellite on Washington last week (or better yet, swept low in a black helicopter), you would have seen bumper stickers, signs and buttons promoting animal rights, organic farming and Pat Buchanan for President. You'd even have seen a soccer ball or two being kicked around by--this is real--something called the Anarchists Soccer League. (Q. How do anarchists score goals? A. Any way they damn well please.) What you'd have had to look very hard to see in Washington was anyone resembling a leader. Because there isn't one, in the usual sense. No Abbie Hoffman. No Pat Robertson. Sure, Ralph Nader is wandering around (see accompanying story), and so is satirical filmmaker Michael Moore, but they're not calling the shots or giving marching orders. The Mobilization for Global Justice isn't a top-down affair. Like the Internet itself, and unlike the coalition's corporate enemies, the antiglobalist movement is a body that manages to survive, and even thrive, without a head……."

Associated Press 4/17/00 Will Lester "……Teen-ager Kim Cook doesn't know that much yet about the complexities of world financial politics. Economics professor Robin Hahnel knows the system, and doesn't like it. Like thousands of others protesting the meetings of global finance groups here Sunday and today, they worry that international capitalism is overshadowing people. "I'm completely opposed to corporate-sponsored globalism," said Hahnel, a 54-year-old professor at American University. "For the past 15 years or so, large corporations have had a free hand in rewriting the rules of international economics." "It's been exciting to see this many people pulling together on one issue," said Cook, 18, of Chicago, as she locked arms in a street blockade. "People need to have a say in decisions that affect their lives." The two were among the thousands of students, activists, college professors, laborers, anarchists, high school teachers, retirees - and especially young people who came to voice their concerns. ……."

Jon Christian Ryter 4/16/00 "…….On September 6, 2000 the UN will hold what is being billed as a "Millennium Summit." During this Summit, the UN will examine its role in the 21st century. The center- post of the Summit will be the Millennium Forum during which its members will propose the creation of a People's Assembly in the United Nations. The People's Assembly debate will trigger a call to completely revamp the structure of the General Assembly, discarding the current form and replacing it with a bicameral legislature loosely modeled after the Parliaments of Europe and our own Congress. The People's Assembly will be a body much like our House of Representatives in which the members will be elected to the Assembly by their nation's eligible voters to cast international legislation. The upper chamber of the People's Assembly will be a Senate. The governments of each nation-state will elect two Senators to represent their interests before the international body. ………. The laws enacted by this body will be legally binding on every nation-state on Earth--without ratification by those nation-states. In other words, any laws legislated by the People's Assembly would supersede our Constitutional requirement that international laws and treaties must be ratified by the United States Senate.. …"

Washington Post 4/18/00 John Burgess "……Through two days of meetings that ended here yesterday, officials at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund said many times that it was business as usual - the noisy rallies beyond the police lines outside did not affect the talks. But without the people on the street, it's unlikely that the word "poverty" would have cropped up quite so often. Ministers talked about the Poverty Reduction Strategy, the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (a type of IMF loan), and the Poverty Reduction and Growth Papers (economic plans by poor countries hoping to lift themselves up). In papers addressed to one another, they made various calls to combat, alleviate or abolish poverty……."

Associated Press 4/13/00 "…..Some major sponsors of protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and a brief description of their purpose:
-50 Years Is Enough Network: dedicated to making international financial institutions democratic and accountable to those affected by their policies.
-ACT UP, Philadelphia: advocate for social justice, especially for AIDS patients.
-AFL-CIO: the labor organization is a sponsor of the Sunday rally on the Ellipse against World Bank-IMF policies.
-American Lands Alliance: advocates protecting the world's forests.
-Direct Action Network: committed to developing and strengthening grassroots networks using direct action for social change.
-Friends of the Earth: protecting the environment.
-Global Exchange: fights against environmental destruction, violations of labor rights, social injustice.
-International Rivers Network: works to protect world's rivers and people who depend on them.
-Jubilee 2000 Coalition: an international movement in more than 40 countries seeking cancellation of unpayable debts of the poorest countries.
-Earth First: fights for environmental protection through direct action.
-Rainforest Action Network: advocates protection of the world's rain forests and their inhabitants through education, grass roots organizing and nonviolent civil disobedience.
-Ruckus Society: trains activists who wish to use direct action for basic social change.
-United Steelworkers of America: a sponsor of Sunday's rally on the Ellipse. ......"

ABC News 4/15/00 John Rice AP "……The leaders of the world's poor nations are uniting to demand a greater say in the global economic system, insisting on greater aid and trade and a role in financial decisions that often shake their countries. "From now on we will play our part in shaping this [world] order into one that is just, fair and mutually beneficial to all sides," said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the South Summit that closed late Friday night. The Group of 77, founded in 1964 as a U.N. lobbying group, has expanded to include 133 nations. The leaders used their first summit to transform the G-77 into what could become a significant international voice for the developing world, creating a structure to pressure richer countries to consider the interests of the poor. "We will not be mendicants content with the crumbs that fall from the table of the North," said Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson. About 40 heads of state or government took part, along with vice presidents or foreign ministers from some 80 other nations. ……"

Newsweek 4/17/00 Michael Hirsh "……… "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!" exclaims a character in Macbeth. That's a pretty good description of Washington this week, as anti-free trade protesters converge for the spring meetings of theWorld Bank and International Monetary Fund. Why are you here, a TV reporter asked one protester? "Because the World Bank promotes war," she said knowingly………. So many ironies are piling up in these protests that one needs a chain-cutter from the D.C. police to get through them. Irony one: the IMF and World Bank-those supposed fronts for evil, multinational corporations-were founded in 1944 by a socialist and a communist, both of whom hoped to blunt the impact of untrammeled capitalism and free trade. The socialist was the great economist John Maynard Keynes, who so distrusted the global capitalist system after the Great Depression and World War II that he celebrated the IMF's founding with a dinner at which he declared, "What was heresy has become orthodoxy"-namely that countries now had the right to impose controls on capital. His brilliant and irascible co-founder, U.S. Treasury official Harry Dexter White, was a guy with a soft spot for the workers of the world. He was later cashiered for his alleged ties to Moscow………..Irony two: the World Bank today is run by Jim Wolfensohn, an ex-investment banker who got Third-World religion a half decade ago. Wolfensohn has spent his entire five-year term pushing for much of the revolution that the protesters want: a withdrawal from big environmentally damaging projects like dams (the Bank has reduced its energy-related projects from 21 percent to 2 percent); protection of the poor from Wall Street (Wolfensohn's mantra has been that the Bank must go where private financial capital does not); and more institutional transparency ….."

Newsweek 4/17/00 Michael Hirsh "……… The greatest irony of all, perhaps, is that many of the protesters do have a point, if only they knew it . There is something genuine to protest about globalization. For instance, global income inequality has grown to appalling levels. According to United Nations data, the assets of the world's 200 richest people now amount to more than the combined income of 41 percent of the world. A recent paper co-authored by economist Lyn Squire-uh, yes, he's at the World Bank-shows that trade openness leads to faster growth but also brings little benefit to the poorest 40 percent of the population. There's some debate among economists over how valid those results are, but at least it's a real debate over real issues. One thing is clear: the World Bank has nothing to do with this problem, except to ameliorate it somewhat. ……."

Washington Times 4/13/00 "…….Ever since Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1994 elections, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have relentlessly demagogued the GOP as a collection of "isolationists" who want to turn back the clock and turn America away from its global responsibilities. Well, yesterday an estimated 15,000 labor union members - arguably the most powerful constituency in the Democratic Party - converged on Capitol Hill to demand that Democratic congressmen recommit themselves to reducing the benefits that U.S. businesses and consumers receive from the expansion of trade throughout the world…... Having successfully prevailed upon increasingly isolationist Democratic congressmen to deny President Clinton the "fast-track" negotiating authority he needs to reduce trade barriers, organized labor has now targeted legislation that would grant China permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR). In the past, subject to congressional veto, U.S. presidents have had to annually approve NTR for China. Congress has never reversed those decisions. As part of China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is expected to occur later this year, Mr. Clinton has submitted legislation that would exempt China from the annual approval process and confer upon it permanent NTR. Most trade experts have argued that once China enters the WTO, unless Congress approves permanent NTR, China need not extend to U.S. businesses - and the employees of those exporting businesses - the massive trade concessions it will offer other countries as a condition of its entry into the WTO, the 135-member international organization that establishes international rules governing trade………."

Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism 4/17/00 Charles Morse ".......Economist Harry Dexter White was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the FDR Administration during WW II, and a founder of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. His career is a study in treason on an immense scale. According to congressional testimony, in particular that of former Communist underground agents Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, White, while at Treasury, provided the infamous Silvermaster spy ring with classified documents to be advanced to the Soviet Union. The recently declassified Venona codes confirm this testimony and identify White by his code name "Richard". What separates White from the pack of spies which honeycombed the Roosevelt Administration, is the position of power he achieved and the resulting level of damage his policies and acts did to our nation and the free world.........."

Antiwar.com 4/19/00 An Interview with Michel Chossudovsky by Jared Israel ".......In this electrifying interview, Prof. Chossudovsky challenges the movement which has converged on Washington to look more deeply at the institutions destroying nations in the Third World and the former Socialist bloc. In doing so, Chossudovsky opens a much-needed discussion. Michel Chossudovsky: When an IMF mission goes into a country and requires the destruction of social and economic institutions as a condition for lending money - this is very similar to the physical destruction caused by NATO bombing. The IMF will order the closing down of hospitals, schools and factories. That's of course more cost effective than bombing those hospitals, schools and factories, as they did in Yugoslavia, but the ultimate result is very similar: the destruction of the country........... The IMF has what is called the MAI - the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. It's the ultimate investment treaty. Signing leads to the economic destruction of the targeted country. Well, really, war is simply the MAI of last resort........"

Stratfor.com 5/4/00 "…… For years, NATO has offered membership in the alliance as a tantalizing and often unachievable goal for countries once under communist control. But in the Baltics, the world's most successful military alliance appears to be headed for a political surprise as a popular new party gains momentum and argues for slashing defense spending. Lithuania's parliament will consider a proposal to cut the country's defense spending, although the country has pledged to increase spending in a bid to join the NATO alliance. The country's increasingly popular New Union Party is backing the bill. With only a single seat in the legislature, the party can't push the bill through parliament now. But it is poised to gain control in an election scheduled for October, and that foreshadows a shift in the tiny Baltic republic's foreign policy. Instead of striving for an unlikely invitation to join the NATO military alliance, the tiny Baltic nation may aim instead for membership economic federation of the European Union. ……"

BBC 5/2/00 Claire Doole "……. China and the US will be among the countries defending their records in preventing torture during a UN meeting in Switzerland. Implementation of the UN Convention Against Torture will be examined by a 10-member committee who will issue recommendations. China escaped rebuke at the UN Human Rights Commission last month but human rights groups say Beijing will face allegations of widespread torture. The US is expected to be taken to task for police brutality and poor prison conditions. It is the second time China has faced scrutiny since it ratified the convention. Four years ago, the UN expressed concern about allegations of widespread torture and recommended that Beijing bring its laws into line with the convention. …….Human Rights Watch adds that Washington will face complaints of police brutality and inhuman prison conditions. According to the group, a mere 36 of the 12,000 complaints filed with the US Justice Department went to trial. …."

Drudge/AP Wire 5/1/00 By George Gedda Associated Press Writer "……Persistent poverty and ineffective government in Latin America are threatening the democratic tide that began two decades ago, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday. Despite a series of positive developments in the area, "there is a troubling flip side," she said in a speech to the annual conference of the Council of the Americas. "The fruits of growth in the last decade have not appeared on every table within or among countries in our region," Albright said. "While many people enjoy higher living standards, many others remain mired in poverty. And too often, government programs and policies serve to increase - rather than reduce - these inequalities." Albright noted that a year ago she warned that "the democratic tide in Latin America may begin to recede" if these problems were not addressed……."

Reuters 4/26/00 "….Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider said in an interview Wednesday that the European Union was "as immoral and decadent" as ancient Rome. Renewing his attacks on the EU, which he recently said Austria should consider leaving, Haider told NEWS magazine: "In reality this federation is just as immoral and decadent as ancient Rome. They let the work get done in the provinces and then waste the money that is raised." …….. "The EU is apparently preparing my comeback. What they are doing is leading to a remarkable solidarity with us that goes beyond our borders," the 50-year-old right-winger, who has not ruled out running for chancellor in future, remarked. Haider's comments were yet another embarrassment for Schuessel, a committed pro-European who has been deeply stung by the decision of Austria's EU partners to freeze bilateral political contacts because they question the Freedom Party's commitment to democracy and human rights. ……"

Globalism Watch 4/20/00 "……. On Tuesday April 18, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to place very tight sanctions against UNITA. The new restrictions would ban travel even by UNITA family members and would declare any UNITA assets abroad forfeit. This continues the war against UNITA which began in 1965 where the UN, transnational corporations, marxist nations have fought to destroy the anti-Communist group. The group, led by Jonas Savimbi, will now face the entire world allied against them. UNITA has struggled for freedom for decades against an international alliance of Corporations who wish to control the mineral wealth of Angola to the UN and its New World Order. The MPLA continues to express its desire that UNITA be wiped off the face of the earth. UNITA, a christian anti-communist group continues to surrender their land, their wealth, their faith and most likely their lives to this cabal. ……..More than 100,000 people have died in this war just in the 90's and more are likely to die before UNITA is wiped out by this New World Order......."

Stratfor 4/25/00 "……U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke announced in a U.N. committee hearing April 4 that the United States had given up its objection to U.N. Security Council expansion. This change of policy will contribute to the United Nations' slide into obscurity as a forum for policy-making. On a strategic level, Holbrooke's statement acknowledges that the United Nations no longer holds much value as a venue for U.S. strategic policy efforts. Holbrooke's statement has several implications for the future of the Security Council and - by extension - the United Nations as a whole. First, it renews the call for Germany and Japan to increase their financial and political contributions to the organization, thus decreasing the U.S. role. Second, it reflects the United States' realization that the Security Council will never be an effective means to advance U.S. policy. With five veto-wielding members, agreement is already scarce. If the United Nations increases the number to eight or more, and includes the agendas of countries such as India or Brazil, it creates a recipe for gridlock. ...... Up until Holbrooke's announcement, the United States had resisted Security Council expansion for reasons of efficiency……"

Daily Mail and Guardian 5/17/00 Jaspreet Kindra "…..AFRICAN National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe last week committed the party to the cause of socialism and said South Africa should follow the Chinese and Cuban socialist models of economic policy. In a wide-ranging interview with the Mail & Guardian, Motlanthe also reiterated the party's support for the Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu) strike action. ………. Motlanthe endorsed the one-day strike at a May Day rally, calling on union members to "intensely hate capitalism and engage in a struggle against it". His endorsement directly contradicted the government's condemnation of the strike, while his comments about capitalism and economic policy in general flew in the face of the government's investor-friendly macroeconomic policies. …… Motlanthe last week stood by his May Day speech, saying the unions should hold the capitalist system's transnational units accountable for the job losses in the country -- not the ANC or the government. ……"You cannot hope to become a peaceful trade union federation with capitalism existing today in its globalised form," the secretary general said, adding he often told unions that the first thing transnational units did in any country was to enforce "half to three". "They reduce the work force by half and triple their profits -- this results in job cutbacks." ……."

Reuters 5/17/00 "……A United Nations special envoy for immigration issues will visit the U.S.-Mexico border to look into complaints of U.S. residents and officials abusing and mistreating Mexicans crossing the border illegally, Mexico Foreign Minister Rosario Green told reporters Tuesday. Green said Cecilia Rodriguez, the special envoy, was tentatively scheduled to visit next week. In recent weeks Mexico has accused ranchers in Arizona, on the U.S. border with Mexico, of hunting Mexicans like dogs in a vigilante campaign to make citizens' arrests of immigrants who trespass on their land. Ranchers have said their immigrant roundups are in response to the lack of action by the U.S. Border patrol.. …."

Reuters 5/15/00 Elif Kaban "…..The United Nations publicly rebuked the United States Monday over brutality in its prisons and called for an end to chain gangs and to the use of electro-shock belts for restraining inmates. The U.N. Committee against Torture said it was concerned about breaches of the international convention against torture in the United States, citing the alleged sexual assault of female prisoners by law enforcement officers and the holding of minors in adult jails. This is the first time the United States, the world's most vocal defender of human rights, has been put in the dock before the Geneva-based body alongside the usual suspects such as China. ``The committee expresses its concern about the number of cases of police ill-treatment of civilians and ill-treatment in prisons. Much of this ill-treatment by police and prison guards seems to be based upon discrimination,'' the report said……."

US Newswire 5/16/00 US State Department "…… More than 50 years have passed since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed that all human beings are "free and equal in dignity and rights." Yet for too long, the world's dictatorships have sought to undermine one of its most fundamental precepts: the right to democracy. Although Article 21 of the Declaration provides that "the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government...expressed in periodic and genuine elections," many governments continue to deny their citizens the right to choose their own government. In too many countries, leaders speak of democracy, even as they rig elections, suppress dissent and shackle the press. In this essay on the right to democracy, Assistant Secretary of State Harold Hongju Koh looks at democracy as a long and complex struggle, which does not come easily, but is certainly worth the wait. The article appeared in the May 2000 Issues of Democracy electronic journal "Towards a Community of Democracies" --http://www.usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0500/ijde/ijde0500.htm)….."

UN 5/11/00 "…….The Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, also known as the Special Committee of 24, will hold a Pacific regional seminar in Majuro, Marshall Islands, from 16 to 18 May 2000. The seminar will assess the achievements of the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, the role of the Special Committee of 24, and the political and socio-economic conditions of nearly 2 million people in the remaining 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories. The seminar is the last of the series of regional seminars held within the framework of the International Decade due to conclude in 2000, and in accordance with the Plan of Action adopted under General Assembly resolutions 46/181 and 54/91. It is being hosted by the Government of the Marshall Islands. ……"

WorldNetDaily 5/14/00 Anthony LoBaido "…..A special United Nations group will meet this week to