NATION/WORLD The Michigan Daily - Friday, January 21, 2000 5 * Clinton meets with Arafat to accelerate talks WASHINGTON (AP) -President Clinton tried yesterday to pick up the pace of slow-moving talks between Isral and the Palestinians, telling the two sidcs "no one can get every- thing" in an accord. Calling Jor compromise as he sat down with Yasser Arafat in the White House Oval Office, Clintoa: said he would be disappointed if a settlement was not reached. "We have the leaders who can do it," he said, offering again to do whatev- er he could to resolve their differences. Arafat agreed there would be difficulties "along the way," but he said negotiations would deal with them. He declined to say whether he was willing to accept less than 100 percent of his demands. White House spokesperson Joe Lockhart, underscoring deep differences, said, "It's obvious how difficult the chal- lenge is they face." If Israel and the Palestinians need more time, he said, "we will work with them on that." With Clinton's support, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat last year set Feb. 13 as the deadline for resolving their disputes over Palestinian statehood aspirations and the future of Jerusalem, at least to the extent that Israel and the Palestinian Authority could complete a framework accord. A final settlement, which also would deal with refugees and other knotty issues, is due in the fall. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright lunched with Arafat at her home in the capital's Georgetown neighbor- hood, State Department spokesperson James Rubin said, "We do regard it as a formidable challenge." . Clinton, meanwhile, is trying to juggle slow-moving nego- tiations on the Israeli-Palestinian front with sidetracked peace talks between Israel and Syria. Rubin said Syrian officials would come here next week, to be followed by Israeli experts, in an effort to deal with some of the nagging issues on that track. Direct Israel-Syria talks had been due to resume Wednesday at Shepherdstown, W.Va. But they were sus- pended indefinitely, with Albright and other US. offi- cials saying each side wanted its demands given immedi- ate priority. Clinton said Wednesday he would take on the task ofnudg- ing Syria and Israel along, and that neither side was giving up despite the suspension of talks. In Damascus, Syria's state-run newspapers urged Washington to push Israel harder to spell out its intentions on returning the Golan Heights. The administration must become "a more active definer and interpreter of the broad terms that the Israelis have already accepted in previous rounds of talks," said the English-language Syria Times. And Al-Baath, the newspaper of Syria's ruling Baath party, called the border issue a "substantial difference ... that can- not be bypassed." "The American co-sponsor should not be evenhanded on a basic issue on which the establishment of peace or the con- tinuation of the state of war heavily depends," it said in an editorial. Arafat met first with Albright alongside a roaring fire in her seventh floor office and then went off to her home *through snowy streets in a motorcade to continue the talks before calling on Clinton. Melting Moments Helms unleashes at U.N. security council Los Angeles Times UNITED NATIONS - Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the United Nations' severest critics, told the Security Council exactly what he thought of the United Nations and its place in the world in a speech yesterday that he admitted was not in "the elegant and rarefied language of the diplomatic trade." The North Carolina Republican, who has called the U.N. community "dysfunctional" and "cryba- bies" in the past, said he came to extend a "hand of friendship." But that genial gesture quickly turned to finger-pointing as he launched into an extended criticism of the organization. Helms declared the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina "a disaster," efforts to dis- arm Iraq "a failure" and warned that the United States would withdraw from the body if it didn't serve America's interests well. Helms is the first U.S. senator ever to address the 15-member council, a meeting arranged by U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to repair rocky U.S.-U.N. relations. After years of refusing to pay its U.N. dues in an effort to force reform, Congress late last year allocated $926 million of the-$1.6 billion the United Nations says it is owed. Helms sought to sweeten his speech with a little North Carolina charm, joking, "I hope you have a translator here who can speak Southern." But the message was clear: that he regards the United Nations as a tool to serve U.S. interests, not the other way around. Sitting at the head of a horseshoe-shaped table in the Security Council chamber, Helms said he resents the United States being labeled a "dead- beat" nation. Washington may have withheld its dues, Helms said, but in 1999 alone, the United States con- tributed more than $10 billion in military and other support of U.N. operations and peacekeeping efforts around the world. "Now, I grant you, the money we spend on the U.N. is not charity," he said. "To the contrary, it is an investment - an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return. They expect a reformed U.N. that works more efficiet- ly and which respects the sovereignty of the United States of America." As ambassadors from around the world watched with faces fixed in diplomatic inscrutability, Helms emphasized that the United Nations- "some of whose members are totalitarian dictator- ships" - has no power over American national interests. "A United Nations that seeks to impose its pre- sumed authority on the American people without their consent begs for confrontation and, I want to be candid with you, eventual U.S. withdrawal." AP PHOTO A Baltimore-Washington International Airport worker de-ices a jet parked at a terminal gate yesterday in Linthicum, Md., after the state's first major snowstorm of the winter shut down several of the airport's runways. Candidates cross Iowa before caucuses DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A year before the next presidential inauguration, a. bickering band of White House candidates crisscrossed the state yesterday to rally sup- porters for their first' election test. The top Republicans tangled over abortion in the runup to Iowa's caucuses. In a rare convergence of nearly the entire presidential field, the Iowa air echoed with incrimination after Republican front-runner George W. Bush was asked what he would do if a relative was raped and was considering abortion. "I would hope I would be able to evoke enough sympathy in a rape case to help com- fort her as a friend. It's up to her," said Bush, who reiterated that he is opposed to abortion except in case of rape, incest and when the mother's life is in danger. Four of his words - "It's up to her" - were seized upon by rival Steve Forbes as evidence that Bush is not committed to elim- inating abortion. "I think it's part of a pattern where he is not willing to truly fight for the life issue. It's part of a pattern that demon- strates, I think, that he's abandoned the fight," Forbes said in a telephone interview from his campaign bus. On the Democratic side, Bill Bradley said he is the only candidate willing to take "the risk of leadership" on issues such as health care reform. Vice President Al Gore, gaining steam against Bradley, accused his sole rival of showing disrespect to the caucus system. On a personal note, the former New Jersey senator confirmed that he has suffered four irregular heartbeat episodes since the non-life threatening condition was revealed more than a month ago. Though he dismisses the condi- tion as "just a nuisance," a presidential candi- date doesn't want to be answering questions about his health four days before an election. The Iowa contest is raw grassroots politics: About 10 percent of the state's 1.8 million registered voters gather in living rooms, schools, churches and even grain elevators to announce their support of candidates in full view of friends and neighbors. Though technically designed to pick coun- ty delegates in a process that ends with the presidential conventions, the caucuses are an early barometer of campaign organizations. Momentum is gained and lost in Iowa. The love affair is brief: Within hours of the vote, the candidates and their entourages flee Iowa to prepare for New Hampshire's prima- ry eight days later. "Iowa is the center of the political universe right now," GOP consultant Scott Reed said. Seven of the eight major Republican and Democratic presidential candidates will compete Monday, hoping for a jump start down the road that ends with the Jan. 20, 2001 presidential inauguration. Arizona Sen. John McCain bypassed the caucuses to focus on New Hampshire, though he has a huge stake in the Iowa results. Bush has led Forbes by about 20 points in most polls, a margin he may have to sustain to claim momentum for his dead heat race against McCain in New Hampshire. Confident of his chances, Bush didn't bother to mention McCain or Forbes in his main speech. A question-and-answer session prompted him to say that President Clinton's impeachment left him "embarrassed for our country." Bush, however, said he doesn't discuss the issue on the stump because "we're moving forward." Forbes needs to narrow Bush's lead in polls to get a boost into New Hampshire, said Reed and other analysts. Courting conserva- tive voters, Forbes toured a center that coun- sels against abortion. "On the issue of (abor- tion), Governor Bush and Senator McCain are pacifists," he said. The conservative millionaire opposes abortion, with the sole exception being when the mother's life is at risk. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the governor's response to the question about a raped relative "is consistent with his long- stated position. He is opposed to abortion except in the case of rape, incest and the life of the mother. He's pro-life." With Forbes on the attack and reporters' peppering him about abortion, Bush issued what may be his clearest denunciation of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abor- tion. "Roe v. Wade was a reach. (It) over- stepped the constitutional bounds as far as I'm concerned," said Bush, who appeared irked at the intensity of abortion questions. Power plant deaths create flap I U Los Angeles Times SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. - Dozens of sea lions, seals and even threatened turtles sucked into power plants along Southern California's coast are dying every year - and critics accuse the fed- eral agency in charge of protecting these creatures of doing little more than recording the growing death toll. Regional regulators have known for decades about marine creatures being drawn into power plants, yet little has been done to enforce federal laws that limit the death or even disturbance of sea animals, records and interviews show. But officials from the National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, say that the effects on burgeoning seal and sea lion populations are negligible and that their time and limited resources are better spent fighting larger threats to more sensitive species. "Nowadays, everybody wants to pro- tect every single animal whether it needs protection or not" said Joe Cordaro, a biologist at the service's southwestern regional office in Long Beach. "Common sensibility out there is lacking. Enough animals still need protection. We need to direct resources and money to them." Environmentalists challenge the agency's philosophy, saying that its job isn'i to interpret federal laws. "They ought to just enforce the law rather than playing God," said Mark Massara, a Sierra Club attorney. Although the problem is seen across the nation, it is particularly acute in Southern California, where several power plants depend on ocean water to cool the super-hot steam that powers energy-generating turbines. DON'T MISS THIS MAJOR OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN FIRST-HAND ABOUT FROM PRESENT AND FUTURE PRACTITIONERS DURING PHARMD NIGHT 2000 TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2000 6-8 P.M. ROOM 1544 C.C. LITTLE BUILDING COMPLIMENTARY REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED