The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight full coverage of the big flood in North Dakota; a report on the falling juvenile crime rate in Boston; a look at the Netanyahu investigation in Israel; and a conversation with the new university president in South Africa. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: 75 percent of Grand Forks, North Dakota, was underwater today. Nearly all of its 50,000 residents left for high ground. Rescue and evacuation efforts continued in and around the 10 + square mile city. A White House spokesman announced President Clinton will visit the area tomorrow. Across the swollen Red River, the mayor of East Grand Forks, Minnesota, described the plight of the evacuees.

MAYOR LYNN STRAUSS, East Grand Forks, Minnesota: They left their home with basically the shirt on their back and a small suitcase, if they had that. They have no money. They have no place to stay, and we have had to tell them that they have to stay out of town for at least two weeks. We have to do that for the safety of people. The water is contaminated, and also just coming back and trying to get to your home, the current is so severe out there it is really moving, and anything could happen. We do not want to lose any life at this time. And that's one thing both East Grand Forks and Grand Forks have been so fortunate to this point; we have not heard of any loss of life. And that's the most important thing.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. In the Colorado Rockies today bad weather prevented a closer look at the wreckage believed to be a lost Air Force fighter plane. Gray metal fragments sticking out of the snow were sighted yesterday on a two-mile high peak near Vail, Colorado. A recovery team stood by to drop into the site today, but snow and high winds stopped that mission. The A-10 plane and its pilot disappeared 18 days ago on a training flight. The U.S. Supreme Court today supported the law requiring schools to give equal treatment to women's sports. Lower courts ruled Brown University was wrong when it cut funding for its women's gymnastics and volleyball teams. The court said those cuts unfairly discriminated against women. The Supreme Court let the ruling stand. In labor news today contract talks resumed between Goodyear Tire and the United Steel Workers Union. More than 12,500 workers at plants in seven states walked off their jobs this weekend when negotiations over wages and benefits stalled. Goodyear is the nation's largest tire maker. The company said it will continue production, despite the strike. Chrysler plants in Indiana and Mexico ran out of parts today and told their workers to stay home. They are among 22,000 employees now idled by an 11-day strike at a Chrysler engine plant in Detroit. Overseas today transportation in and around London was paralyzed by bomb threats. Five railway stations and three international airports were closed, morning rush hour motor traffic stopped. We have more in this report from Howell Jones of Independent Television News.

HOWELL JONES, ITN: Disruption, not destruction, that was the aim of the men who made the coded warnings, paralyzing the capital at its very center. This was Paddington Station, deserted at 9 o'clock this morning, and King's Cross sealed off too, trains to the rest of Britain canceled after just a few phone calls.

INSPECTOR BOB PACEY, Transport Police: We have received an authenticated bomb warning which has resulted in evacuating a large area and a severe disruption in the area.

HOWELL JONES: It was a rush hour where only those dealing with the alerts were able to rush. The rest simply had to wait or find another way. London's commuters are used to security alerts. Getting to work can often be a gamble, but rarely have they seen disruption on this scale. Trafalgar Square was sealed off, but while the center was deserted, further out the roads were gridlocked, scenes all too familiar from recent alerts in the Midlands and North of England. If traveling in was difficult, flying out was impossible, Gatwick, Heathrow, and Stanstead all hit by alerts. Chaos by road, air, or rail, a real misery Monday in London.

JIM LEHRER: In Israel today Prime Minister Netanyahu said he will name a committee to oversee his future appointments to high government posts. Israeli prosecutors decided yesterday not to charge Netanyahu in a political scandal over his choice for attorney general. Israeli police had recommended Netanyahu's indictment. And opposition parties in parliament called for him to resign and hold new elections. We'll have more on this story later in the program. An advanced party of 40 Chinese troops rode into Hong Kong today. The unarmed group of the People's Liberation Army will be followed by more soldiers as China prepares to take control of Hong Kong from Great Britain on July 1st. The Chinese will be housed with the remaining British forces at an army barracks and a naval base. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the North Dakota floods, juvenile crime, the Netanyahu story, and a South Africa success story. FOCUS - SPRING SIEGE

JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to the floods in North Dakota and to Fred De Sam Lazaro of KTCA-St. Paul-Minneapolis.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Warm temperatures are normally welcomed in this land of long winters, but today, they only hastened the torrent of melting snow that inundated Grand Forks, North Dakota and sister city, East Grand Forks, Minnesota. The Red River, which separates the two cities, is expected to crest sometime in the next day at nearly double its flood stage. Over the weekend downtown Grand Forks was battered by fires; they raged unchecked because the water was too deep for fire trucks to navigate. The cause is still unknown; officials suspect broken gas lines ignited. Eleven office buildings were gutted.

MAYOR PAT OWENS, Grand Forks, North Dakota: It's almost a war zone. It's unbelievable to see the magnitude of the damage done to the two cities--Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The drinking water in Grand Forks is contaminated, and the city's sewer system has collapsed.

SPOKESMAN: They were supposed to have evacuated the entire downtown. I can't believe this gentleman's still here, but he's signaling us to go around to the other side of the building.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: A mandatory evacuation is in effect for 90 percent of the city's 50,000 residents. National Guard troops said they would arrest those who refuse to leave their homes, something which Mayor Pat Owens says places their lives in danger.

MAYOR PAT OWENS: The water is cold and if you go in and walk or fall in that water, three or four minutes and you will have hyperthermia, and we don't want anybody hurt during this time. And we have still to this date been very fortunate. There have been no deaths, and that is what we are trying to accomplish.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Emergency shelters house many of those who fled the city, including 2,000 at Grand Forks air force base some fourteen miles West.

PATRICIA GLINAS: See, I was on pure, dry land. I didn't think it was going to affect me at all. And then the dike broke, and it just came at us. It was like a tidal wave. I've never seen nothin' like it before in my life.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: What's the mood like here?

ELEANOR STROTHMAN, American Red Cross: I think considering the circumstances that people are surprisingly upbeat. I've listened to some of our mental health professionals describe the situation, and I'd say that that may be because of the--they're relieved to be out of their month of sandbagging and worrying and so forth, and still a little bit in shock, and this is kind of a novelty, like camping out. Eventually, reality will settle in, and what happened to them was, was just terrible.

MAYOR PAT OWENS: I did get to visit one of the shelters out at the air base last night. I had a hard time because one of the people in there was telling me she was really excited about going home and so forth, and her building is one of the buildings that burned downtown. I did not have the heart to tell her that her home is not there any longer.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Patients at Grand Forks's only hospital have been moved to medical centers as far away as Minneapolis and Iowa; schools and stores are closed, as are large segments of Interstate 29, the major North-South route in the area. The bridge connecting Pembina, North Dakota, and Canada washed out, closing the busiest border crossing between Seattle and Detroit. Across the river, the entire town of East Grand Forks, Minnesota is flooded and residents have been forced to leave. Two weeks ago, a blizzard hit the Grand Forks area, adding to record amounts of snow leftover from last winter. That snow has now melted and is contributing to the flooding. So far, there have been no deaths or serious injuries. Still, officials say the river will likely remain at record levels for at least another week, and they estimate it could be three weeks or longer before Grand Forks will have clean water and a working sewer system. President Clinton will visit Grand Forks air force base tomorrow.

JIM LEHRER: Now, more on this situation. Sen. Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, met with White House officials about the situation today. Michael Armstrong is regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency; his region includes both North and South Dakota. Cheryl Parks is directing American Red Cross efforts in the Red River Valley from Breckenridge, Minnesota, North to Canada. Frank Richards is chief of the Hydraulic Information Center, the branch of the National Weather Service that tracks floods and precipitation. And Edward Schafer is the Republican governor of North Dakota. Governor, help the rest of us understand the magnitude of what this means in human terms to the people of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

EDWARD SCHAFER, Governor, North Dakota: Well, it's a very difficult situation, you know, 50,000 people having to pack up, leave their belongings, leave this community, and not knowing what they're going to come back to. They left with conditions such where their houses may be or may not be inundated with water when they come back. They don't know when their utilities, whether their infrastructure is going to be restored, when they're going to have water, or if their jobs are going to be here when they return home.

JIM LEHRER: I mean, it's devastation of the kind that it's hard to even imagine, much less live through, is that what you're suggesting?

GOV. EDWARD SCHAFER: It is very, very difficult. You can't understand it. We just have hundreds and hundreds of stories of people who have lost everything, and the rest don't know what they're going to return to, so it's a difficult situation. We're trying to get information back to people to see where the floodwaters have come, where damage might be done, how high the water might be in their homes, but it just--it's impossible to comprehend the human emotional destruction that takes place when your whole community, not only your home and your neighborhood, but your whole community is displaced out and scattered all over other areas of the state.

JIM LEHRER: Senator, what would you add to that, just to help us understand what this means?

SEN. BYRON DORGAN, [D] North Dakota: I'm almost out of adjectives. This is a devastating tragedy to our region, and, you know, we had three years' worth of snow in three months, raging blizzards.

JIM LEHRER: Three years of snow?

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Three years' worth of snow in three months, raging blizzards, people sandbagging in blizzards to fight a flood. The head of the Corps of Engineers, the general, told me today that this was the greatest effort he'd ever seen by local people to fight a flood, and yet, you know, in Grand Forks, that flood broke the dikes, and--

JIM LEHRER: Why did the dikes break?

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Well, I mean, there was just so much pressure, and this is a 500-year flood. It's not going to break the human spirit. These are wonderful people in our region of the country. You know, what we face now is to get through--this is sort of a slow-motion disaster. You know, most of the time a tornado hits, and it's over, or an earthquake. We're going to see a crest probably tonight in Grand Forks, and it'll be around for five, six days. And it'll be weeks before people get back into their homes, so--and--

JIM LEHRER: Because the water has to go down, and how long will it take for that water to go down?

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Well, it will be around at crest level for five to seven days, we're told. You see, this river runs North into an ice bed up in Canada, and so it runs very slowly, and this is not like most river floods where you have a torrent going down that takes houses with it.

JIM LEHRER: And it ends up in the Gulf of Mexico or somewhere.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Right. I flew over twice this weekend, and I mean, it's just--you can't see a river. All you see is a mass of water throughout the Red River.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Richards, 500 year flood, is that right?

FRANK RICHARDS, National Weather Service: Could very well be that magnitude, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what does that mean?

FRANK RICHARDS: That means that, on average, we'd see that twice a millennium. It doesn't mean that we couldn't have it next year, but, in general, it means it's an extremely rare event. The term "act of God," this is appropriate for this event.

JIM LEHRER: Now, you heard the Senator's description of what caused this to happen.

FRANK RICHARDS: Very good meteorology.

JIM LEHRER: But is he right, that five or six more days of crest, that means that the water at its highest level that it's going to be, and it's going to stay there for another five or six days?

FRANK RICHARDS: That's right. It's very, very slow responding. It's a very flat area. The ice slows it down, and in addition to the ice, the slope of the river is only one foot per mile. There's nothing pushing that.

JIM LEHRER: What do you mean? You mean, there's no place for it to run off here?

FRANK RICHARDS: The slope is very, very gradual. If you've put a bowling ball on this table here, it wouldn't go any place because the table is flat. The river is almost that flat. There's not gravity pulling it North to the Canadians.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: And the other key here is this is one of the only rivers in America that runs North, so it's running into Canada and running into ice.

FRANK RICHARDS: It melts from the South, tries to move forward into the ice that slows it down.

JIM LEHRER: Why does it run North?

FRANK RICHARDS: That's just the way that Mother Nature put it together. The basin, itself, was formed by a glacier hundreds of thousands of years ago, and it's very, very flat, and it essentially drains into Lake Winnipeg.

JIM LEHRER: I see. All right. Ms. Parks, tell us about what's going on on the ground from your perspective. What are the basic needs of the people of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks right now?

CHERYL PARKS, American Red Cross: Well, many of the folks are leaving the town, and they need a place to stay, so we've opened up a shelter, and at that shelter we're meeting the needs that they may have. They may have needs for comfort items. They may need medical care.

JIM LEHRER: Did they leave with their clothes? For instance, do they have clothes? Were they given enough notice to where they could take some of their own belongings with them?

CHERYL PARKS: Yes. Some of them were, but they grabbed things quickly and left, and what the American Red Cross is doing, is we are planning to help them with additional clothing needs. We're meeting with the individuals one on one. We're also doing bulk distributions of sweat suits and underwear and T-shirts and things for they--to have a second change of clothing.

JIM LEHRER: Is it cold, what's the--what's the temperature up there right now?

CHERYL PARKS: It's about 50 degrees during the day, so it gets cool at night, and we are using a lot of blankets and linens and pillows to make them as comfortable as possible. We do have cots that people are sleeping on.

JIM LEHRER: And where are those cots set up, in what kind of places?

CHERYL PARKS: Well, our larger shelters at the Grand Forks Air Force Base and where we have over 3,000 residents in there, we also have 11 shelters--

JIM LEHRER: Now, excuse me. That's in an old hangar, right, an- -I mean, an air base hangar? We saw a shot of it earlier at the beginning. Those people are all in one big, huge room, is that right?

CHERYL PARKS: Well, actually it's three hangars.

JIM LEHRER: Three hangars.

CHERYL PARKS: Right. About a thousand per hangar, and we also have shelters set up at schools, and for colleges as far East as Red Devils, and then also as far West as Devil's Lake.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. And how--for those of us not familiar with the geography, how many miles are you talking about there--each way?

CHERYL PARKS: I would say over 120 miles outside of the city.

JIM LEHRER: All right.

CHERYL PARKS: Of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, both ways. We also are receiving for people here in Fargo, which is 80 miles South of the area, and also there are people going into Canada, evacuating out of the area.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Armstrong, what are you telling the folks that their government at any level can do for them right now?

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG, FEMA: [Grand Forks, ND] Well, I think the first thing that we can do is offer people a sense of hope, a sense that they're not in this by themselves, and that we're working to support their state and local government. We have mobilized the federal government from a variety of agency levels. The Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Transportation, the Public Health Service, the General Services Administration, the Department of Defense have all been terrific in supporting this effort, getting facilities set up for emergency shelters, working with the American Red Cross, and making sure that the basic needs of people displaced out of their homes are being met.

JIM LEHRER: What do you anticipate is going to happen next? I mean, when the water does finally recede and when--when people can start going back in there, what are you going to do then? What are they going to come back and see?

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG: Well, the first thing we need to do is make sure that victims work with their local public health officials so that it's safe to go back in, and that they're not endangering themselves further. Secondly, we want to make sure that everybody uses our 1-800 number, which is: 1-800-462-9029.

JIM LEHRER: Say that again.

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG: 1-800-462-9029.

JIM LEHRER: And what will they get if they call that number?

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG: If they call that number, they will be put in the process of applying for assistance, so that they can start to rebuild their lives after the waters recede. We don't make any promises that we can make people hold, but we can people started again. And it's a cooperative effort that requires a partnership between federal, state, and local government. And it's also going to require some smart rebuilding and some smart local planning in terms of how to build and where to build in the flood plains, so we have long-term mitigation issues as well.

JIM LEHRER: Governor, have you all had a chance to think about that? I mean, what happens to Grand Forks when this is all over with? Do you try to rebuild it the way it was before, or do you try to move it? What do you do?

GOV. EDWARD SCHAFER: Well, I think the basic infrastructure is here. Obviously, we'll have to look at some of the rebuilding along the river and along this flood plain, but we feel that Grand Forks is a good, solid base here. The economy of the region is good. We had an emergency cabinet meeting today with our state services and state agencies, and we're going to be putting all of our efforts back in here as soon as possible to rebuild the community. And I'm every bit convinced that Grand Forks, North Dakota, when we get through this disaster and we rebuild this community, it is going to be better than it was before that we started this disaster.

JIM LEHRER: Just to go back through the situation now, Governor, and Ms. Parks and Mr. Armstrong and Senator, if you would add to this as we go through, there's nobody going to school now in Grand Forks, is that right?

GOV. EDWARD SCHAFER: That's correct. The schools have been closed, and students are being taken into other community schools in the area so they can continue their education.

JIM LEHRER: There's no running water of any kind, right?

GOV. EDWARD SCHAFER: That's correct.

JIM LEHRER: No clean water. When do you think there would be clean water? Don't know? No way to know?

GOV. EDWARD SCHAFER: Our anticipation now is maybe two weeks before we could get the water facility back up. It could be as much as three weeks before that public water plant will be in place. Now, we do have several million gallons of water capacity coming in. We'll be able to set up stations where water--clean water--will be available. That would be on a temporary basis and only at certain collection spots.

JIM LEHRER: And that's outside of Grand Forks, right? You're talking about outside of Grand Forks, where the evacuees are.

GOV. EDWARD SCHAFER: Yeah. Where the evacuees are. We do have running water, and the infrastructures there, but this would be when people start returning to their communities if the water plant isn't up and running that we will be able to have temporary positions for water, where people can go get their water and still get moved back into their neighborhoods.

JIM LEHRER: Senator.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Jim, if I might make a point--that the flood circumstance in Grand Forks is devastating, but the flood has not yet hit Pembina, Grafton, Drayton, North Dakota, and it's going to be difficult--

JIM LEHRER: These are on--further up--

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: They're further up North. And second, it's not just the flood. You know, the devastating circumstances of Grand Forks are obvious to everyone. We lost 150,000 head of cattle in all of these--

JIM LEHRER: A hundred and fifty thousand--

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: A hundred and fifty thousand. And we have nearly 2 million acres of agricultural land that's flooded, underwater. Much of it probably will never be planted this year, so, you know--

JIM LEHRER: Plus, it's usually planted in--would be--

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Wheat in the Red River Valley, and sugar beets, potatoes, but, you know, this--this disaster is fairly widespread and results from a significant number of events this winter, blizzard on top of blizzard, about seven of them, the last of which put nearly two feet of snow in North Dakota, and we have never experienced this in our lifetime, and never will again, I expect.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Yes, go ahead. Yes, Ms. Parks.

CHERYL PARKS: Yes. I just like to say that the emotional trauma that everyone is having to go through in this area is just unbelievable; that clients are coming into our shelter, coming into our service centers, responding to other chapters; they are so distraught. They don't know what is going to happen to them. They don't know where they're going to go. The American Red Cross is here to help--

JIM LEHRER: What do you tell these--what do you tell these folks?

CHERYL PARKS: Well, we take 'em and we talk with 'em and we show 'em there is hope, and we tell 'em about the resources that are going to be available to them. We help 'em focus on what their immediate needs are, and then we help 'em turn around their lives and get back to recovery.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Jim, you know, they had this movie "Fargo" that pictured our part of the country.

JIM LEHRER: Right. I remember.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: The real story captured on film these days is about the human spirit upthere, of tough people getting through this crisis together. I mean, I can't tell you about the heroes, so many of them in so many ways struggling to get through this. They are wonderful people, and the governor is absolutely right. I mean, we will get through this, and we will build, and it'll be a better day, but, boy, this is a time when we need to have the rest of the country reach out and help our region.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Mr. Armstrong, you are there as a representative of the rest of us, in other words, the rest of us in terms of the government of the United States. What is it that the government of the United States can do to make this thing work for these people and make it--make them whole not only in their physical properties, but also in their minds at this point?

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG: We provide crisis counseling. We provide answers in terms of where to find money to start over again, but I think there's a healing process that has to occur that, that no government can provide. We have been fighting disasters here in this state. We've had seven presidential declarations in the last five years, and so what--to understand the full impact of this disaster it isn't just the drama of the film footage in Grand Forks; it's the fact that we've had standing water on many acres of farmland in this state for many years running that people have lost their businesses; that major transportation routes have been underwater. We've been in a wet cycle now for a number of growing seasons, so there are other long range issues that have psychological and emotional impacts that we are just going to see surfacing now at this latest incident. And so we as a government work closely with volunteer agencies and other organizations that can provide counseling, that can provide a sense of a future. The future may not be the same as the past, but there is a future ahead. We're already starting a recovery effort in other parts of the state, in the western part of the state, and in South Dakota. And that recovery will come to North Dakota s well. It's just going to take a little bit longer this time.

JIM LEHRER: The story is a long--

CHERYL PARKS: May I--

JIM LEHRER: This story is a long way from being over. Yes, ma'am, just quickly, Ms. Parks, yes.

CHERYL PARKS: Yes. I just want to thank all the other voluntary agents that are working together with all of us.

JIM LEHRER: All right.

CHERYL PARKS: The Salvation Army, United Way, and all the community workers that have been working so hard to meet the needs of the folks here.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Ms. Parks, gentlemen, thank you all very much. FOCUS - CRIME DROP

JIM LEHRER: Now, the falling crime rate: a national statistic with local roots in places like Boston. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Two years ago most of these teenagers were afraid to go to their local community centers to play basketball because many of the centers, like many of the streets of Boston's inner city neighborhoods, were controlled by gangs.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: What was it like a couple of years ago?

BRANDON SOWERS: There was just, you know what I'm sayin', fights, gang fights, drive-bys, drugs.

TYRONE BROWN: Drive-by shootings, lots of drug slayings, you know, just fightin'.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Things were so bad in Joshua Rankins' neighborhood that his parents kept him and his siblings inside most of the time. But that is changing.

JOSHUA RANKINS: They never used to let us outside and stuff, because they was scared we were going to get shot or something. But now we can go outside and do anything we want most of the time 'cause there's not other people here to do all the bad things.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Rankins' belief that there are not as many bad things happening is supported by statistics. Overall violent crime in the city of Boston has been declining, and not a single juvenile under the age of 17 has been killed with a gun since July of 1995. Police Commissioner Paul Evans says that's because of a comprehensive, coordinated attack on juvenile crime that grew out of a way of youth violence that came to a head seven years ago.

PAUL EVANS, Police Commissioner: In 1990 we broke the city's homicide record. We had 152 homicide victims. Nightly we were experiencing six, seven shootings a night. Guns and at that time crack cocaine were just terrifying the city. At that time I think it was a real concern will the city continue to be a viable city. And in some ways I think that was a catalyst for some of the partnerships you're seeing today in the city.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: One of those partnerships was made with two researchers from Harvard. David Kennedy and Ann Piehl pinpointed just who was involved in the violence.

DAVID KENNEDY, Harvard University: About 75 percent of the youth 21 and under who've been killed in the city for about five years 75 percent of them have been arrested for something before, about a third of them have ten or more priors, about half of them have been in jail or on probation.

ANN PIEHL, Harvard University: We tried to summarize the extent of the landscape, the extent of the community involved in the high violence and came up with a number of 1300 kids in the city of Boston that were responsible for about 70 percent of the homicides.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: With this knowledge a carefully crafted strategy was developed that focused on those kids and their gangs. The first step was to bring all the law enforcement and social service agencies together for the first time. Criminologist James Alan Fox of Northeastern University said that was a crucial move.

JAMES FOX, Northeastern University: For a number of years our leaders had been concerned about a growing problem of youth crime and concerned about the future. And they decided to put down their differences and their politics and enter and work together to solve the problem, and it's paid off.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The next step was to issue a warning to gang members: If you continue to commit acts of violence, you will be prosecuted, perhaps even under federal law. Police detective Tito Wittington.

TITO WITTINGTON, Police Detective: We told them that we're going to be imposing certain federal sanctions. The sentencing is going to be federal. It's not going to be sent away to your local jail, where you meet your friends and you play basketball and you watch TV, and it's a joke. Now you're going to be placed in federal prison, where you're going to be serving 85 percent of your sentence before you're even eligible for any type of probation or parole.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Did they believe it?

TITO WITTINGTON: They didn't.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: So federal prosecutor Donald Stern--backed by every city, state, and federal law enforcement agency--went after one of the worst gangs in the city--the Intervale Posse.

DONALD STERN, U.S. Attorney: We knew that they were not only a violent organization but had become to some extent a bad symbol in the neighborhood, basically threatening and terrorizing people, and kind of taking over the neighborhood. I mean, they really, they were in control; we weren't.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The National Guard bulldozed an eight-acre piece of property the gang used for target practice and to hide drugs. Twenty-three members of the Intervale Posse gang were arrested. Many face federal prosecution, with sentences up to 20 years without parole. Hewitt Joyner says word of the arrests hit the street almost immediately. He knows. He's the director of the Streetworker's program. Every day he and his colleagues walk the troubled neighborhoods in Boston, keeping track of activities, helping kids find alternatives to gang life.

HEWITT JOYNER, Streetworker Program: So like every day if you do something extra or you do excellent, then they give you like 2, 3 dollars added on to what you make, so you could mess around and make $10 an hour; messing right, you'll be making more than what I make.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And Joyner wants his kids to know that once the federal law is involved he can't do much to help them.

HEWITT JOYNER: We let the kids know that because we're usually the saviors. We can save you in a lot of things, but when you get federally indicted on gun charges, bullet charges, murder, and things like that, we're not touching you.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: After the arrest of the Intervale Posse gang, the violence stopped almost overnight. But the Boston effort did not stop there. The city also began to aggressively search out and arrest juveniles with outstanding warrants. Boston police are now aided in their efforts by transit authority cops and by the state police.

PAUL EVANS: When warrants were issued, for a long time in this city also, they didn't mean anything. The kids wouldn't show up in court, and the warrant would lay in somebody's desk, and, in fact, it--it had no impact. It was a joke. Now almost on a daily basis if there's a default warrant issued, if somebody doesn't show up to court, the next day we're looking for them, particularly if there's violent crime.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: More cops are also making sure juveniles keep the terms of their probation. Under Operation "Night Light," a partnership of probation officers and cops, the officers check the homes of juvenile offenders to make sure they're in compliance with their curfew. When they're not--as on this stop--charges are filed the next day. Technology has also been brought into the partnership. Under the sponsorship of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms, the Boston police use state of the art computers that can link guns and bullets to other crimes. Sgt. Robert Scobie is director of the ballistics lab.

ROBERT SCOBIE, Police Ballistics Unit: What this does here in one hour it would take a firearm examiner to do throughout the entire course of his career. In one case we matched this one firearm up to four separate shootings in which three people were murdered, and five people were wounded. We were able to determine that gun was at that scene.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Computer technology also helped them track down and prosecute several big-time gun runners who were selling weapons to juveniles. The Boston plan is not just about intervention and enforcement. Teaching teens how to interview for jobs and providing safe places for teenagers to play are just two of the ways that Boston leaders try to prevent kids from getting involved in violence in the first place. Criminologist Fox applauds the city's efforts but says they will be short-lived unless Boston leaders keep the pressure on.

JAMES FOX: We now have 39 million children in this country under the age of ten, and they'll be teenagers before you can say juvenile crime rate. By the year 2005, we'll see 17 percent more teenagers in this country. Unless we invest in these kids now when they're young and impressionable, we may see a future blood bath of teenage violence that will be so bad that we'll look back at the 1990's and say, boy, those were the good old days.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Harvard researcher Kennedy thinks the changes that Boston has experienced just might be permanent.

DAVID KENNEDY: It seems like once the gangs believed that they really would have a response they really didn't want, then that's where the dynamic that got set up, and if they stop, as they seem to have stopped, then the temperature on the streets goes down because the kids aren't being shot at and they're not being threatened.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: At least 16 other cities are attempting to replicate portions of the Boston experiment, but Boston city officials say to be successful other cities will have to do what they have done--make the program comprehensive, involving all law enforcement and social services agencies.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, two stories from overseas; from Israel and from South Africa. FOCUS - POLITICS & JUSTICE

JIM LEHRER: To the Israel story and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Last week a political shock jolted Israel. Police investigators recommended that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be charged with corruption. But yesterday the country's top legal authorities, the state prosecutors, made a different decision. We start with this report prepared yesterday by Tristana Moore of Independent Television News.

TRISTANA MOORE, ITN: It was a decision that everyone had been waiting for and most had anticipated. After spending a week poring over a thousand page police report, state prosecutors announced that they would not be pressing charges against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his aides. The state attorney said the whole police report was based on insufficient evidence.

ELYAKIM RUBINSTEIN, Attorney General, Israel: [speaking through interpreter] We have decided to close the files for lack of evidence against the prime minister, the minister of justice, and attorney Bar-On.

TRISTANA MOORE: In a televised speech to the nation the Israeli Prime Minister was quick to protest his innocence.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Prime Minister, Israel: [speaking through interpreter] I made a mistake but I did not commit a crime. In future I must put around me people I can trust.

TRISTANA MOORE: But the whole affair has played into the hands of the opposition Labor Party whose leader, Shimon Peres, called for Mr. Netanyahu to step down, despite being cleared by the state prosecutors. Shimon Peres demanded that fresh elections be held as the accusations raised in the report were so strong. He said it was the public's right to defy it, and the prime minister's fate. The Israeli newspapers were calling this judgment day, the closest Israel has got to Watergate-style scandal. The affair centered on the appointment in January of Rani Bar-On as attorney general. He was put in place it was claimed as part of a deal with the leader of the Shas Party, Aryeh Deri. Deri was on trial for corruption and offered to back Netanyahu so that charges against him could be lessened. Now Mr. Netanyahu's political survival depends on the support of his coalition partners. The opposition Labor Party may also decide to bring charges in the high court sometime in the near future.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, for a further exploration of these developments and the likely fallout we're joined by David Makovsky, chief diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, and special correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. Welcome, David. Explain a little more about this charge was. What exactly was the prime minister accused of doing?

DAVID MAKOVSKY, Ha'aretz, Israel: He was accused of essentially making a deal whereby Mr. Bar-On would be appointed. In return, he would agree to a plea bargain for Mr. Netanyahu's coalition ally, who was facing charges of corruption. Actually, the police didn't bring charges against Mr. Bar-On for the deal, but they questioned whether there was some sort of a conspiracy to do such a deal once Mr. Bar-On was in office.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, explain how the police could be indicting Aryeh Deri, the man accused of generating all of this, putting the pressure on to have this deal happen, and yet not indicting Netanyahu, who supposedly carried it out. What were the missing pieces?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Well, Mr. Deri was accused by the state prosecutors of actually threatening--saying, if you don't take my man as attorney general, I'm going to bring down this government, and he wouldn't vote for the Hebron deal, which was the one big movement forward in the peace process, so they said he was definitely trying to extort a decision for personal gain, so he could get this sweetheart deal. But there's no evidence that Mr. Netanyahu when agreeing to name Mr. Bar-On actually had agreed to such a plea bargain at all. So what was really missing here was a smoking gun whereby Mr. Netanyahu will have admitted to say, I took Bar-On because we had this deal to do a plea bargain. But that part of the puzzle was missing.

MARGARET WARNER: Or someone who would say, I took this deal to the prime minister. That was also missing?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Right. And, therefore, some of his aides are still under active investigation. That was one of the findings of the state prosecutors; they would continue to investigate. The only one who they said they would press charges against was Mr. Deri, who's already facing a corruption trial. And he was the one who was considered to have triggered this whole thing by making the initial threat to bring down the government.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, the prime minister is treating this decision as an exoneration. From the legal point of view, under Israeli law is it that?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Under the legal point of view there is--he looks like he's in the free because the opposition members are going to go forward in the Supreme Court and petition that the state prosecutor's ruling be overruled essentially. But it's unclear if the Supreme Court will overrule their own prosecutors. That's considered very slim. From a strictly legal point of view, it looks like Mr. Netanyahu is in--is in the free right now.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu, in addressing this over the weekend blamed the charges and all of this on what he called the political elite, so he said, we're out to destroy him and his government. Who is he talking about?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: He basically sees four different establishments- -in his words--working to overthrow him. He looks at the business community. He looks at military leaders, he looks at the legal establishment, and he looks at the media. And he's basically saying, I'm an outsider; all these four elites, these four elite groups were pro Labor. And they're not just pro Labor. Where he may be right technically--

MARGARET WARNER: Labor being the opposition party.

DAVID MAKOVSKY: I'm sorry. Being supportive of the opposition party. But he takes it a step further and says, no, it's just that they were for them in the election. But they are trying to bring me down. And that is a charge--what I would call the politics of resentment that I think resonates with some of Mr. Netanyahu's own voters who were blue collar, Safartic, meaning Jews of North African origin, who have traditionally felt left out, along with other immigrants, and they feel that charge is something they could identify with, so it could be it's a winning charge. I just feel it's one that is going to be inevitably divisive and bring a lot of resentment to the body politic.

MARGARET WARNER: But now it was the police investigators who had actually recommended that he be indicted. He's saying that the police are politicized?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Some of his people are saying, yes, that the police leaked because they are somehow politicized. I think it should be pointed out that it was Mr. Netanyahu who actually made the police inquiry after a lot of public pressure. But he started this ball rolling, so people are wondering how that exactly fits. But his people around him have certainly made that charge. I don't think that he personally has made that charge, but all of his top assistants have.

MARGARET WARNER: So what do you think is going to be the domestic political fallout from this in terms of his own standing and his coalition and his alliances?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: It seems that legally he's in the clear as it stands now, and politically the one group that can really bring him down were some of his junior coalition partners, and they seem to be right now taking the position that if there are improved procedures to the future nominees and if the justice minister is replaced and there is some sort of a minor cabinet reshuffle, then they believe that they could go along with this government, so both in terms of the legal standing and in a political sense it seems that Mr. Netanyahu's coalition remains intact.

MARGARET WARNER: Now based on a lot of commentary in the American papers this morning that this is going to make Mr. Netanyahu more dependent than ever on the "far right party," do you agree with that assessment?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: I think that's true because the third aspect of this is that it seems to dash what was the most hopeful sign of a broad-based political coalition involving the two big parties, Mr. Netanyahu's Likud Party and Labor's--and the Labor Party. And there's been a lot of speculation about that. But even though he's legally clear and he might be politically clear, there's still somewhat of an ethical cloud that is kind of lingering over his government. And that makes it much harder for the Labor Party to join at this time. And, therefore, it seems that Mr. Netanyahu's- -soldiers on--seems to be more reliant on some more right wing elements of his party, and makes it much harder for the Middle East peace process.

MARGARET WARNER: And why does it make it harder for the peace process?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Well, because Mr. Netanyahu's coalition barely scraped through the first pullback of the West Bank, which was mandated under the Oslo Accord, after it did do Hebron, and in Mr. Netanyahu's words--

MARGARET WARNER: That was the withdrawal from the city of Hebron that you referred to earlier.

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Exactly. And for Mr. Netanyahu he has come a long way. But it's unclear that the narrow margin by which he secured the progress of the peace process he did will be sufficient to deal with the hard--what I call the cores issues that are coming up. I mean, we've kicked the can down the road on the core issues, and now we're at the end of the road. And now some tough decisions have to be made. And it seems that the compromises can only be struck if there's a broad-based coalition in Israel to take those tough decisions. Mr. Peres, who used to be the head of Labor and was Mr. Netanyahu's predecessor, he seemed willing to join the coalition. But now that there's this kind of ethical cloud, he is now calling for Mr. Netanyahu's resignation, so the hopes of a broad-based coalition that's going to be able to take the tough choice in the peace process, that seems to have been diminished for now. Maybe within a few months when this scandal fades a bit, it'll resurface, but, for now, the hopes of a broad-based government have been reduced, and Mr. Netanyahu is going to have to rely on more of his right-wing allies to hang--to keep this coalition intact.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you very much, David.

DAVID MAKOVSKY: My pleasure. CONVERSATION - ACROSS BOUNDARIES

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks with a South African who rose from radical street activist to head one of the country's top universities.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: She is Mamphela Ramphele, now vice chancellor, the American equivalent of president of the prestigious University of Capetown. Along with Steve Biko, she was one of the founders of South Africa's Black Consciousness movement in 1969, was exiled for six years to an impoverished resettlement area for blacks in the northern part of the country. There, pregnant with Biko's son, she heard he had died in police custody. By the time the banning order was lifted in 1983, Ramphele, a trained anthropologist and medical doctor, had built health clinics, a day care center, and an adult literacy program. The 49-year-old academic has recently chronicled her life story in "Across Boundaries." We spoke with her on a recent visit here to promote the book and raise funds for the university. She told us her greatest challenge was trying to overcome years of apartheid educational policies designed to keep blacks inferior.

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE, University of Capetown: You can't simply equalize educational opportunities by taking away from those who are over-endowed and giving to those who were under-provided for because the world doesn't work that way. But more important is the human capital, the quality of teachers, is really showing how successful the apartheid system has been. It has left a mark in the form of demoralized teachers, teachers who are really not up to the challenge that we face. At the university level what we're doing is to increase access to higher education. Universities such as the University of Capetown started off in the early 80's with less than 10 percent of students being black. Today, as we sit, 46 percent of the students at the University of Capetown are black.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How have you done that?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: And that has happened through making sure that we go out to the schools and encourage and let people know that there is an opportunity such as the University of Capetown, and secondly, to test those even though their metric--their high school scores may not be good--we test their ability to learn English and mathematics. And if they show the capacity to learn through a teach-test-teach program, then we admit them.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Is that your brand of affirmative action?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: It's our brand of affirmative action and affirmative action, which is within a wider vision of Africa because we're not going to simply affirm people because they happen to be black. Thedifficulty is how one helps young people coming from this divided past to see themselves as South Africans and to celebrate the diversity that they bring to the University of Capetown.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: On the black side and the white side?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: Yes.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you find this in both?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: Yes, indeed. And so what we do is to take our transformation process further than just simply access but to transforming the institutional culture of the university.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How do you do that?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: Well, we do very interesting things, including taking graduation ceremonies, for example, and making them much more into occasions for celebration. You know, graduation ceremonies stem from the European very austere kind of approach to pomp and ceremony. And we have transformed that. We keep the gowns, but we--we whistle, we clap, we dance. We really have incorporated the African way of celebrating into what is originally a European ceremony. When I was installed as vice chancellor, my mother was there to sing my praises. They'd never seen anything like that.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: A praise singer?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: Yes. She's a praise singer. And she really just took the floor.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Tell us what a praise singer does.

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: A praise singer in African culture is someone who weaves together the story of the extended family and celebrates the heroes, ridicules those who have gone astray, and admonishes those who think that they can go on without attention to the extended family. And so you're constantly reminded of your roots. So as she prowls up and down the stage she was telling me I come from great stalk and I have to succeed but I have to remember where I come from.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: That must have been amazing.

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: An electric moment.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And they had never seen anything like it?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: They had never seen anything like that. And so that immediately says to the African students who are there that you, your culture too, matters, and that makes them proud. And of course the fact that I'm there as the vice chancellor symbolically also creates an environment of self-confidence, but I also do on many occasions, whenever I have the opportunity, say to young people, when they say to me, but UCT is still a white university, I say, yes, the professors are still largely white, but that is what UC has given us. I can't produce professors out of my pocket, but you must behave like you own this place.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In the 70's you were a part of the Black Consciousness movement, one of the most radical of the anti- apartheid opposition. How did you go from that to being at the top of the educational establishment, member of corporate boards? How did you get from there to here?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: That Black Consciousness movement experience was essential to that because even though I grew up as a very confident child because I knew I was smart, and that helps a great deal, but piecing the pieces of South Africa together, beginning to understand that black people were not visible in leadership positions not because they were not smart but because there was, in fact, a policy that actively generated a feeling of inferiority amongst blacks and the feeling superiority amongst whites, and understanding that and then liberating oneself psychologically from that trap, there was no stopping me. I was able through all sorts of linkages with people, with fellow activists, to really transcend the constrains that keep people down. And I think for me there is no contradiction in moving from being an activist to being a community developer, to being a corporate board member, and to being a vice chancellor is all part and parcel of living out the dream that we had over in South Africa, which is free, democratic, and equitable.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see a role for Americans in this?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: They have a huge role to play because one of the ingredients of the human capital development is education. And given the backdrops in education it's very difficult for the government to have the results to plow into all levels of education. And I believe that as the high education level, the international community, particularly the United States--we have great institutions--can help through partnerships with institutions in South Africa--can help through direct offerings of opportunities for our young people to come over for some semester courses.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Finally, let me just ask you about the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and the fact that several policemen have come forward and confessed their role in the killing of your comrade, Steven Biko. How do you feel about that process and the prospect that they will get amnesty?

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: I know that there are people who think that we should be trying those perpetrators and punishing them in kind of Nuremberg type trials. I don't think that that's the way to go. There are just too many perpetrators. We'll be at it until the next century. On the other hand, the view that we must forget the past is also wrong. I think what the Truth & Reconciliation Commission is doing is allowing us to lance those boils, including allowing those perpetrators who killed people to be able to make their confession, and for society to be able to make peace with the fact that, yes, we as a society in South Africa created an environment which made those murders possible. So it's not just those individuals who actually bashed your head, but it is the politicians who created the policies that created the environment. The voters wrote to those politicians. So in my view [a] I really didn't need to know who they were and [b] I didn't really need the details of how they killed him because they didn't actually kill him. Although they did the actual, physical killing, it is the apartheid system that killed him. And I think to the extent that the Truth & Reconciliation Commission is allowing South Africans to come to terms, confront the low level talks to which we had actually descended in the country, and to be able to make a commitment that never again will we abuse human rights, I think that alone would have made his death worthwhile.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mamphela Ramphele, thank you for joining us.

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE: Thank you very much. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday 75 percent of Grand Forks, North Dakota, was underwater and nearly all of its residents have left for high ground. And snow and high winds hampered efforts to examine the wreckage believed to be the Air Force jet missing for 18 days. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.