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Shows no
*remorse
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - Even as
guards hauled him away to a life behind
bars, convicted assassin Yigal Amir
showed no remorse about gunning down
Israel's prime minister.
The 25-year-old former law student
told the Tel Aviv court in his final
statement yesterday that Yitzhak Rabin
had to be killed because his efforts to
ake peace by giving up land to the
r abs were a calamity for the Jews.
"Everything I did, I did for God, for
the Torah of Israel, the people of Israel
and the land of Israel," Amir said. He
dismissed the three-month proceedings
as a show trial and told Judge Edmond
Levy: "May God help you."
It was a typical proclamation by the
determined young man who shocked
the world and exposed the deep rifts in
rael by walking up to Rabin, reaching
tween security men and shooting him
twice in the back with hollow-point
bullets Nov. 4.
Thethree-judgepanelconvictedAmir
and ordered the maximum sentence -
life in prison for murdering Rabin, as
W11 as six years for wounding his body-
guartL
aParole seems out of the question for
the-slightly built defendant, who
throughout the trial exasperated his
udge and many Israelis with his appar-
ent indifference and unrepentant atti-
tude.
Looking at his sister Hadas at his
sentencing, Amir pointed upwards, as
if to suggest that everything was in
God's hands.
His black curly hair covered by a
black skullcap, Amir yawned as Levy
described him as a "wild growth" and
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 28, 1996 - 13A
Senate passes
line-item veto bill;
Clinton set to sign
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - In a move that
would shift power from the legislative
branch to the White House, the Senate
passed a landmark measure yesterday
granting presidents authority to veto
individual spending items in bills with-
out rejecting the entire measures.
By a vote of 69-31, the Senate ap-
proved legislation giving the executive
branch a powerful tool that all modern
presidents have requested but all previ-
ous Congresses had denied them.
The House also was expected to pass
the line-item veto without difficulty
tomorrow and send it to President
Clinton, who says he is eager to sign it.
Sponsors of the legislation hailed it
as an extraordinary gesture by Con-
gress to voluntarily surrender some of
its power over the federal purse strings
in effort to restrict the kind of excessive
federal spending that has resulted in a
$3.7 trillion debt.
"In effect, we're taking action against
our interest," said Senate Majority Whip
Trent Lott (R-Miss). "We are showing
that we can rise above politics and take
an action because it will be the right
thing to do for our country."
The law would allow the president to
surgically remove individual programs
in appropriations bills, cancel targeted
tax benefits aimed at 100 or fewer ben-
eficiaries or erase spending on new
entitlement programs.
"The president can no longer say, 'I
didn't like having to spend on that waste-
ful project, but it was part ofa larger bill
I just couldn't say no to,"'said Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has worked
toward a line-item veto for 10 years.
"Under a line-item veto, no one can
hide."
Under current law, influential legisla-
tors regularly insert so-called pork-barrel
legislation in popular bills to win special
projects for their states or districts.
Opponents of the measure, however,
warned that Congress was disturbing
the delicate balance of powers struck by
the Founding Fathers.
"The control of the purse is the foun-
dation of our constitutional system of
checks and balances," Sen. Robert Byrd
(D-W.Va.) said. "The control over the
purse is the ultimate power to be exer-
cised by the legislative branch to check
the executive."
Calling Congress' action "rank her-
esy," Byrd accused his colleagues of ush-
ering in a new order where presidents
could use the device to pressure Congress
into rubber stamping their agendas by
threatening tokill legislators' pet projects
if they defy the White House.
"What senator is willing to surrender
his independence of thought and action
and speech to an already powerful ex-
ecutive?" Byrd added.
Congressional efforts to grant presi-
dents line-item veto authority date back
to 1876, but never before has Congress
agreed to cede such control to the presi-
dent.
The decision by Republicans to sup-
port the measure at a time a Democrat is
sitting in the White House reflects their
understanding of the mounting frustra-
tion the public feels about the balloon-
ing federal debt. Under the measure,
any savings that result from line-item
vetoes would be earmarked for deficit
reduction.
AP PHOTO
Yigal Amir sits between court guards at Tel Aviv's district court yesterday prior to his conviction in the assassination of
Isreali Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. Ami, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, told the court he did everything for God.
suggested Israel must re-evaluate an
educational system that was failing to
instill sufficient values.
Levy noted Amir is highly intelligent
-his lawyers say tests placed his IQ at
144, far above average. But he also "has
narcissistic and schizoid tendencies and
sees the world in terms of black and
white," Levy added, summarizing a
court-ordered psychiatric exam.
"With premeditation and amazing
calm, he decided that the death of the
late prime minister was the only way to
stop the peace process he opposed and
he took this path to its very end," Levy
said.
Amir tried to yell something after the
sentence was pronounced, but guards
quieted him and hustled him out of the
courtroom.
The conviction and sentence were
hardly a surprise: Amir was caught at
the scene and confessed. An amateur
video shows Amir loitering by Rabin's
car and shooting the premier as he was
about to leave a Tel Aviv peace rally.
Still, the trial transfixed Israelis, who
were deeply shaken by the first high-
level assassination in their modern his-
tory.
Rabin's widow struggled to find the
right words.
"What was left to prove?" Leah Rabin
asked. "I have nothing to say about the
verdict or the sentence. I do not wish
him (Amir) anything because ... for me
he does not exist."
Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who
shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with
Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat,
said the punishment "pales in compari-
son to the crime."
Yesterday's four-hour session ended
a trial that at times seemed like a circus.
Levy would often groan as witnesses
struggled to understand the broken He-
brew of defense lawyer Jonathan Ray
Goldberg, an American immigrant. At
times Amir himself took over cross-
examination, earning more scorn from
the judge.
ajor assures that
British beef is safe
E -Panther
LONDON (AP) - The bad news
fo 'rime Minister John Major is that
, toring public confidence in Brit-
'sh beef after the mad cow disease
scare may take $4.2 billion and five
years.
The worse news is that after a politi-
cally disastrous week, his Conservative
Pagty probably won't be in power that
long.
Major is trying to assure people that
British beef is safe.
"We have said so and the scientists
Gave said so," he said in a television
interview yesterday. "What has hap-
pened is collective hysteria, partly me-
dia, partly opposition (politicians),
partly European."
But at supermarkets and fast-food
counters across Britain, consumers have
returned a resounding vote of no confi-
dence in Major's assurances.
Beef sales have slumped in Britain
and its largest former export markets.
Thee McDonald's, Burger King and
,'impy fast-food chains are withdraw-
ing British beef.
And yesterday, the European
Union ordered Britain to stop ex-
porting its cattle, beef and beef prod-
ucts to any part of the world. Greek
authorities confiscated more than 50
tons of British beef stored at ware-
houses around Athens. And the Dutch
Agriculture Ministry ordered the
laughter of up to 64,000 British
alves imported in recent months to
the Netherlands.
The revolt against British beef was
ignited by the government's disclosure
la'week that its scientific advisers
believe that mad cow disease "most
likely" was the source of 10 cases in
Britain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease,
which kills people by destroying their
brains.
British beef farmers, as they watch
their $6-billion beef industry disinte-
grate, are pressuring the government to
do something.
The National Farmers Union is press-
ing for the destruction of all cattle older
than 30 months-up to 15,000 animals
a week for five years.
Agriculture Minister Douglas H ogg
told a parliamentary committee yes-
terday that would cost $825 million a
year.
A Scottish meat processor called for
even more drastic action - destroying
any herd in which even a single case of
mad cow disease is found. That could
cost $9 billion in all.
"There has to be a deliberate policy
to end BSE (mad cow disease), or it will
recur again and again," said Fred
Duncan, chair of Grampian Country
Food Group Ltd. of Aberdeen.
His company, which normally sells
650 tons of beef a week, has sold only
12 tons in the past week. Duncan said
he has laid off 150 workers and expects
to lose more than $2 million by mid-
April.
Tens ofthousands ofjobs are at stake
- on farms, in slaughterhouses and
trucking companies. The developments
dominate newspapers and news broad-
casts.
It's an easy issue for opposition par-
ties to exploit.
Following the government announce-
ment last week, Labor Party leaderTony
Blair said that he, like Major, was con-
fident in the safety of British beef and
would continue to eat it.
Ex-Panther
may be
innocent
Jailed since 1972,
Elmer Pratt may have
been framed by FBI on
murder charge
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The last
time Jeanne Hamilton saw Elmer
"Geronimo" Pratt was in 1972, when
she and otherjurors convicted the former
Black Panther of murdering a school-
teacher.
Hamilton now believes they sent an
innocent man to prison.
Pratt, 48, and his lawyers plan to
return to court today to seek a new trial.
Hamilton wants to be there.
"I'm scared to death, and I want to
look at him and tell him I'm sorry," said
Hamilton, a schoolteacher.
Pratt contended he was in Oakland,
400 miles away, the night Carolyn
Olsen, 27, was shot to death in 1968
during a robbery on a Santa Monica
tennis court. Her husband, Kenneth
Olsen, was wounded. Pratt is in a North-
ern California prison and has served 24
years of a life sentence.
Pratt's case has become a cause
celebre, prompting protests and draw-
ingsupport from Amnesty International,
the American Civil Liberties Union and
members of Congress.
Defense attorneys say prosecutors
withheld key evidence as part of an FBI
frame-up.
"I didn't know I was up against the
entire government," said Johnnie
AP MOTO
Jinny Pratt, sister of Geronimo Pratt, stands near a "free Geronimo Pratt" sign during a rally promoting the freedom of her
imprisoned brother in the Leimert Park section of Los Angelos on Sunday
Cochran Jr., who as a young lawyer
years before the O.J. Simpson case rep-
resented Pratt.
Cochran has failed four times to get a
new trial. This time, he says he has
more evidence and six witnesses who
will verify Pratt's whereabouts. The
defense also claims to know who com-
mitted the crime, although both men are
now dead.
They defense this time also has the
help of crusading lay minister Jim
McCloskey, whose Princeton, N.J.-
based Centurion Ministries specializes
in exonerating those wrongly con-
victed.
It was largely due to McCloskey's
report on the Pratt case that led District
Attorney Gil Garcetti to agree to review
the case in 1993. Frustrated at no re-
sponse, Cochran and co-counsel Stuart
Hanlon filed a request to overturn the
conviction, and a judge set a deadline
for the district attorney to reply this
week.
Prosecutors, however, have asked
Superior Court Judge Michael Cowell
for a three-month extension to gather
FBI documents.
At Thursday's hearing, the two sides
are expected to take up the request.
FBI spokesperson Kiara Andrich re-
fused to comment on allegations of an
FBI frame-up of Pratt. And Deputy
District Attorney Brentford Ferreira,
who is reviewing the case, said, "We
believe he had a fair trial."
While there's disagreement on the
fairness of Pratt's trial, there's no
dispute the case is deeply rooted in
the political turbulence of the late
1960s.
*Floaters' die fryig to
reach a northern dream
The University of Michigan Program for the Study of Complex Systems
Second Annual
Interdisciplinary Symposium on Complex Systems
Los Angeles Times
BROWNSVILLE, Texas-The body
of John Doe No. 95-036751, one of 14
undocumented migrants to wash up along
this short stretch of the Rio Grande last
year, was clad only in beige underwear
vith thin, red, checkered stripes.
His trim, 20ish frame was bloated. His
lips and eyelids had been devoured by
turles. Otherthan adarkovalbirthmarkon
the right side ofhis chest, there was no way
to identify him-no wallet, nojewelry, no
tattoos - not even enough skin on his
fingers from which to draw prints.
many come from villages or ranches,
never having learned to swim. Most
remove their clothing and identifica-
tion, ferrying them in plastic bags above
their heads. If they slip or panic, warm
waters and carnivorous aquatic life
quickly deform their features. When
theirbodies surface, it is upon the shores
of some of the poorest counties in
America, ill-equipped to handle the
human detritus of an international mi-
gration crisis.
What invariably surprises most first-
time visitors is the shallow, almost pa-
FOR MSA PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT
Jefe &
Me~sh
March 28, 1996
Morning Session
9:00 -9:15
9:15 - 10:30
10:30 - 10:45
10:45 - 12:00
Afternoon Session
The Michigan League - Hussey Room
Opening Remarks
Homer Neal, Vice-President for Research
The University of Michigan
Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity
John H. Holland, The University of Michigan
BREAK
Chaotic Evolution of the Solar System
Jack Wisdom, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
i