Tanks for Nothing
USA
Today , the Los Angeles Times , and the New York Times lead with Wednesday's
onset in Washington of the Israel-Syria peace talks. The Washington Post puts the talks above the fold but goes
instead with the continued Russia vs. Chechnya fighting in the Chechen capital,
Grozny.
The Israel-Syria leads all describe the day starting with a Rose Garden
ceremony in which President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara spoke. Clinton's and Barak's remarks were
brief and cordial, the papers agree, but then Shara used his remarks to tick
off at some length a list of Syria's grievances against Israel. The papers make
it clear that this soured the mood and created considerable awkwardness. Both
the LAT and the NYT make this point high up, while USAT
holds it for the penultimate paragraph. But, says the NYT , by the end of
the day, after several hours of three-way talks, the atmosphere seemed much
improved.
The WP and NYT report that a Russian armored column's
penetration into Grozny was met with strong resistance from Chechen rebels.
Both papers, relying on a Reuters reporter on the scene, say the three-hour
battle left 100 Russian soldiers dead, with the NYT noting that the
total Russian KIA in this year's Chechnya fighting before yesterday's battle
was 400. The LAT dispatch is more noncommittal about the battle, leaving
the clear impression that it had no eyes on the battlefield. Indeed, the
caption on the paper's front-page illustrated reefer to the battle story inside
reads "RUSSIANS ROLL IN." The Wall Street Journal runs an AP dispatch stating that the
Chechens have "repulsed" Russian forces.
USAT reports that the Federal Aviation Administration has reversed a
long-standing position with its announcement yesterday that it will require
special safety seats for small children traveling in airliners. The story
doesn't mention who will pay for these seats, the parents or the airlines, but
it does say that under the new policy, the parents will probably be buying a
separate ticket for their toddlers, something they can avoid now by holding
them. The story saves for the 10th paragraph the total number of unrestrained
babies who've been killed in plane crashes in the past 20 years: two.
Everybody reports inside that yesterday, for the first time, former
Democratic fund-raiser and Clinton administration Commerce Department official
John Huang testified before a committee of Congress. The papers report that
Huang denied that he had any part in channeling money from the Chinese
government to the Clinton-Gore '96 campaign but that he did admit to receiving
$40,000 in "gift money" from James Riady, a wealthy Indonesian with ties to
Bill Clinton. The WP observes the hearing was poorly attended: out of 43
committee members, only five Republicans and one Democrat were present.
Following up its report yesterday on a federal investigation of MTV's
possible restraint of trade, the WSJ reports that major music companies,
including Sony and Time Warner, have talked with federal antitrust officials
about settling allegations that they have illegally discouraged retailers from
discounting CDs.
An inside WP story details the extent of domestic drug production in
this country. According to information supplied by the Clinton administration's
drug policy office, marijuana has become the No. 1 cash crop in poor areas of
Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, while "speed" manufacturing is on the
upswing in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa.
The WP and NYT report inside that Al Gore released a summary of his medical records
yesterday, which indicate he's in "outstanding overall health for a 51-year-old
man." The only real risk factor revealed is that his cholesterol is borderline
high--231. Meanwhile, here are some of the questions from the WSJ online
edition's candidate questionnaire that Bill Bradley "declined to answer": "What
single figure has had the greatest influence on the development of your own
political thinking?" "If you had to rely upon a single person as your foremost
economic policy adviser, who would it be?" "If you had to rely upon a single
person as your foremost foreign policy adviser, who would it be?" "What
contemporary American liberal do you most admire? Why?" "What is your favorite
television program?" "Which book that you've read this year has been most
important?" "What book (excepting the Bible) that you've ever read has been
most important to you? Why?" "What is the best movie you've seen in the past
year?" "What is the best movie you've ever seen?"
