NA IIN ,T~torJ/ .D The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September11,1996- 5
flng Yeltsin passes defense powers to prime minister
Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW - As he prepares for open-heart surgery,
Russian President BorisYeltsin has handed over responsibili-
ty for security and national defense to Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin, but Yeltsin will keep his own finger on the
"nuclear button" his spokesperson said yesterday.
*The voluntary transfer of power that took effect Monday
was believed to be unprecedented for a major world leader,
although it remained unclear just how much authority
Chernomyrdin would have while Yeltsin undergoes the coro-
nary bypass operation and recuperation.
Yeltsin retained the right to summon his Defense Council
into session and he demanded a full accounting of the assets
and expenses of ministries he was putting under
Chernomyrdin's temporary control.
The newly reorganized Defense Council is headed by
Alexander Lebed, the Kremlin's increasingly popular securi-
ty chief who has made no secret of his desire to succeed
Yeltsin as president and is engaged in an open power struggle
with Chernomyrdin.
"For the period of his vacation, President Boris Yeltsin
instructed the heads of the power ministries to agree on issues
demanding the decision of the head of state with Prime
Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin," presidential spokesperson
Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.
He later specified that the order referred to the Cabinet
members responsible for defense, law enforcement, border
guards, counter-intelligence, government communications,
disaster response and federal security, all of whom usually
report directly to the 65-year-old Yeltsin.
But Yastrzhembsky said the order signed by the president
"does not concern the so-called nuclear button," the briefcase
with missile-launching coordinates that is always in the head
of state's possession.
State-run television noted that nuclear keys are also in the
hands of Defense Minister Yuri Rodionov and Army Chief of
Staff Mikhail Kolesnikov and that without their cooperation
the "nuclear football" is useless.
Despite the apparent limits on Chernomyrdin's expanded
powers, the hand-over was believed to be the first in modern
times for the leader of one of the world's superpowers. Even
after the March 30, 1981.. assassination attempt against
President Reagan, only ceremonial duties were passed to Vice
President Bush while Reagan recovered.
Yeltsin announced Thursday that he would undergo surgery
in late September to correct his myocardial ischemia, a
restriction of blood flow to the heart that inflicted two heart
attacks last year and kept him out of the Kremlin for more
than three months.
No specific date, place or medical team has been named
for the operation, expected to last four to six hours and stop
the functioning of his heart.
Hortense
lulls 8 in
Puerto
Rico
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -
Hurricane Hortense lashed Puerto Rico
with punishing winds and torrents of
rain yesterday, killing eight people as it
snapped trees and power lines, swelled
rivers and collapsed hillsides.
Half the dead were children, includ-
ing an 8-year-old girl swept from her
father's arms as her 13-year-old sister
drowned. Despite valiant rescue
empts across the island, police said
death toll could rise once they reach
areas cut off when the hurricane passed
over southwest Puerto Rico before
dawn yesterday.
Hortense made its second direct hit
of the day later yesterday,, striking the
northeast tip of the Dominican
Republic.
Tourists there were ordered off
beaches and evacuated from ocean
orts. Authorities at eastern Punta
ana airport canceled 14 flights after
clocking 90-mph wind gusts around
noon, but little damage was reported on
the Dominican Republic other than
downed trees and telephone poles.
At 8 p.m. Ann Arbor time, Hortense
was headed toward the Dominican
Republic's northern peninsula, threat-
ening thousands of tourists with its 75-
mph winds.
The National Hurricane Center in
*ami said there was a 10-percent
chance of the hurricane striking West
Palm Beach, Fla., sometime later in the
week.
The hurricane brought nearly 18
inches of rain to Puerto Rico, where the
Russia opposes
strikes on Iraq for
economic reasons
Javier Torres rides his bicycle through the flooded streets of the Plaza de Ponce coastal area of Ponce, Puerto Rico, yester-
day, after Hurricane Hortense passed through the island.
victims included a 2-year-old boy and a
3-year-old boy killed in mudslides and
the two sisters carried away by flood
water.
Residents spoke of watching the
girls' father trying to save the younger
child, only to have the surging water
drag her from his hands.
The sisters' bodies were found under
a bridge. Four other family members
were missing.
Three adults were also confirmed
drowned, and a woman was found dead
- presumably of a heart attack - in
her car in a west-central farming town
of Lares.
Hortense cut water and electricity to
most of Puerto Rico's 3.6 million peo-
ple. The water supply could be contam-
inated by rivers overflowing into reser-
voirs, Scott Stripling of the U.S.
National Weather Service in San Juan
said.
Hundreds of cars were stranded on
highways, which ran like rivers with
chest-high water in San Juan, the capi-
tal. The U.S. National Guard was
deployed to prevent looting throughout
the flooded areas, but there were no
reports of looters.
A U.S. Navy helicopter and swimmer
braved winds gusting to 55 mph to res-
cue 11 crewmen aboard the freighter
Isabella, swamped off the east coast
town of Humacao.
The scene at Guayama, 30 miles
south of San Juan, was among the
worst.
The Guamani Canal, part of an old
sugar cane mill network, burst its
banks, washed out the Santo Domingo
Bridge on coastal Highway 3, and
forced its way through the poor
Borinquen neighborhood, carrying
away at least 50 homes.
Jose Melendez, 36, said he and other
men tied themselves together with belts
and ropes to try to save five people. But
they had to abandon their efforts as the
swollen river rose ever higher, as did
civil defense workers later.
"There are a number of people still
missing, but we don't know how many.
They could be in the sea," Melendez
said.
Three families took refuge in a sin-
gle, one-story concrete home near
Guayama, only to be trapped by flash
flooding for nine hours.
When rescuers finally reached the
home, they found four children and a
man huddled on the top of a closet. Five
other adults and a child were missing.
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Most countries
don't like to admit it when they act for
economic reasons. But Russian offi-
cials are frank about why they so
strongly opposed last week's American
missile attacks against Iraq: There's a
lot of money at stake.
Still struggling to develop capitalist
trade relations
after the death of
c o m m u n ism,
Russia openly Ne
hungers for aA
share of Iraq's
potential oil
wealth and can
hardly wait for the
day when U.N. economic sanctions are
lifted and Baghdad can begin develop-
ing its economy again with oil exports.
Last week offered the Kremlin perhaps
its best chance yet to earn Iraq's grati-
tude.
"Sooner or later, sanctions against
Iraq will be dropped," Russia's deputy
foreign minister, Viktor Posuvalyuk,
said in a broadcast aired last week on
Russian public television. "This is a
country in which we have some very
serious plans, and we need to prepare
now for the time when the race, the
rivalry and the competition begin for
Iraqi business."
Posuvalyuk was in Iraq on an eco-
nomic mission in the days leading up to
the U.S. missile strikes.
He actually served as one of the
diplomatic channels to pass along
Washington's warning to Iraq that it
risked being attacked if Saddam
Hussein's troops pushed into Kurdish
areas in the north.
Hussein ignored the American warn-
ing, but Posuvalyuk nevertheless count-
ed his mission a success, saying he had
been assured that "all other conditions
being equal, priority will be given to
Russia and not to other major firms
interested in economic links with
Baghdad."
Russia was not alone in its criticism
of the U.S. action. France, which has its
own economic ambitions in Iraq,
refused to join in patrols of the expand-
ed no-fly zone in southern Iraq. Indeed,
Washington's own behavior in the
Persian Gulf is guided by the desire to
protect oil supplies in the region.
m
I'
But these economic objectives are
not usually identified as the main rea-
sons for action.
The attacks against Iraq also
appeared to consolidate Russian offi-
cials in a single mode.
Politicians across the political spec-
trum - from Anatoly Chubais, the pro-
reform aide to President Boris N.
Yeltsin, - to
extreme national-
ist Vladimir V.
W ~ Zhirinovsky -
. condemned the
y i U. S. attacks,
which were
intended to pun-
ish Iraq for
launching an armed assault against the
Kurdish north. The strikes "produced a
rare moment of unity in Moscow,"
Radio Free Europe analyst Paul Goble
noted.
Few, however, were more outspoken
than Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny
M. Primakov, who specialized in
Middle East affairs as a journalist and
academician during the Soviet days and
served as a special envoy for Mikhail
Gorbachev in trying to head off the
1991 Persian Gulf War. More recently,
he headed Russia's foreign intelligence
service.
Speaking recently during a trip to
Western Europe, Primakov delivered a
particularly scathing criticism of U.S.
motivations.
The U.S. attacks "cannot be support-
ed by anyone at all, except those who
put domestic politics, including pre-
electoral questions, above all else."
Referring to the United Statesrthe
next day, he said, "There are forces
which are endeavoring to create a
mono-polar world, are eager to have
only one superpower in the world that
could dictate its terms to others:'
Moscow's representatives at the
United Nations followed up by block-
ing a British-sponsored Security
Council resolution criticizing Iraq's
oppression of its own people, even.after
Britain had softened some provisions.
Primakov's resentful tone showed
that more than just economics was at
work - that Russia is also trying to
rebuild its prestige in world affairs,
especially among former Soviet client
states such as Iraq.
Lawmakers warn of computer crisis in 2000
I Clocks unprepared for
complications of next
century's calendar
WASHINGTON (AP) - Unless the
government moves fast, Americans may
return from celebrating the new millen-
nium to find that their drivers' licenses
are expiring, their tax returns aren't
being processed and their Social
urity checks are far from being in
e mail, lawmakers said yesterday.
These foul-ups could occur because
of what would appear to be a siinple hi-
tech glitch - the failure of many com-
puter programs to accurately date infor-
mation submitted after the calendar
reaches 2000.
With only 39 months before that
date, many federal agencies appear
enable to meet the challenges of the
t century because of a lack of aware-
ness and preparedness, said Rep.
Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), chairman of
the House Government Reform and
Oversight subcommittee on technology.
In past hearings before Horn's
panel, experts have roughly estimated
that it could cost the federal govern-
ment $30 billion - $1 for every line
Management and Budget.
She said the government has estab-
lished an interagency working group to
of computer
code that needs
to be changed
- to correct the
problem.
Most comput-
ers operate on a
two-digit dating
system, so 1999
is read as 99 and
2000 would be
read as 00.
Computers
would interpret
that as 1900.
That could
create serious
problems in how
benefits are
computed, eligi-
bility is deter-
"Some have
invoked the
analogy of
rebuilding a rocket
shir while it is on
the way to the
moon."
- Sally Katzen
Administrator in the Office of
Management and Budget
raise awareness
of the problem,
share expertise
and ensure that
solutions work
for all networks
that a federal
agency's com-
puter might
connect with.
The fixes
must be made
while the cur-
rent system
contiques to
operate. "Some
have invoked
the analogy of
rebuilding a
rocket ship
while it is on its
Horn displayed an evaluation of
individual agency responses. The
Social Security Administration and
Small Business Administration got
"A" grades for their preparedness, but
most agencies received low marks.
Veterans Affairs got a "D" and Labor
and Energy an "F"
Yesterday's hearing concentrated on
how state governments and private
industry are coping with the 2000 dead-
line.
Harris Miller, president of the
Information Technology Association of
America, said "the year 2000 software
conversion is arguably the largest and
most complex global information man-
agement challenge society has ever
faced."
Most foreign countries are behind the
United States in recognizing the prob-
lem, he said.
Miller said most new personal com-
puters and software can recognize the
dates of 2000 and beyond, but con-
sumers should ask dealers whether the
equipment they buy is year 2000 com-
pliant.
mined and expiration dates are calcu-
lated, said Sally Katzen, administrator
of the Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs in the Office of
way to the moon,' she said.
One proposal is that all computer
software in the future use four digits for
dating.
A - s
MACEO PARKER h
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
"If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost.
That is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them."
-Henry David Thoreau
Learn Your Way Around The World
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for a summer, for a semester or for a full academic year
" Courses in liberal arts and international business
" Fluency in a foreign language not required
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