MonitoRadio Daily Program; [1996-04-25]

Better late than never, the White House and GOP leaders agree on a budget for Fiscal 96. I'm David Brown and this is Monitor Radio. Monitor Radio is the worldwide broadcast edition of the Christian Science Monitor on PRI, Public Radio International. All sides seem happy with a budget deal hammered out, but will Congress bite? Also, desperation in Baghdad. This is the first thing I realized when I changed to $100, I got a malbred duty free bag full of cash back that their money had inflated beyond nothing we've ever seen. Plus, nuclear fallout, ten years on the name Chernobyl still strikes terror for many, especially those who lived in the power plants shadow. We'll have those stories and much more coming up on Monitor Radio. First, this news. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Judy Ewell at the Monitor Radio News Desk. U .S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher is urging Israel and Syria to settle their differences over a proposed ceasefire to end fighting

between Israel and Hezbollah Gorillas and southern Lebanon. Monitor Radio's Clay Scott has more from Beirut. After an early morning meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez, Secretary Christopher headed back to Damascus for talks with Syrian President Hafiz al -Assad. Christopher was reportedly not optimistic about the chances of a U .S. negotiated ceasefire in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, who is militia Israel, is trying to eradicate that it will only agree to a ceasefire if Israel withdraws from land it is occupied in southern Lebanon since 1982. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al -Hariri, speaking Wednesday after a meeting with Secretary Christopher warned that instability would prevail as long as part of Lebanon is occupied. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes continue their attacks on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon as the Gorillas fired rockets into northern Israel. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Clay Scott in Beirut. Israel's governing labor party has ended its opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Labor Party's Central Committee

overwhelmingly approved a new platform that omits the clause ruling out the creation of a Palestinian state. The vote comes one day after the Palestine National Council deleted part of its charter that calls for the destruction of Israel. Prime Minister Perez told the committee that if the Labor Party is reelected next month, its primary aim will be to eliminate all conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The White House is welcoming a budget agreement to keep the government going through the rest of this fiscal year. spokesman Mike McCurrie says the package protects President Clinton's priorities. The House began debating the plan a short time ago from Washington U .P .I.'s Carol Van Damme reports. The House and Senate are expected to make fast work of a $163 billion budget agreement with the White House that ensures nine government departments and dozens of agencies will be fully funded for the rest of fiscal year 96. The compromise ends in nearly seven month battle that caused two government shutdowns. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston says some individual differences in the House remain, but he believes both bodies will pass the agreement because it cuts discretionary spending by

$23 billion from last year. Republicans agreed to restore funding for education, job training and environmental protections. In addition, they agreed to rescind a three -month -old regulation that mandates the discharge of military personnel who test HIV positive. The White House says President Clinton will sign it. Carol Van Damme, Capitol Hill. Ford Motor Company is recalling more than 8 million cars and trucks because of a problem with the ignition. A short circuit in the ignition switch is blamed for hundreds of car fires. The recall covers Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars and trucks built between 1988 and 1993. Just before the hour, the Dow Jones was down 33 points in New York. This is Public Radio International. Police in London say a bomb that failed to blow up Wednesday night contained the most explosives ever used on the British mainland. Monitor radio Stephen Beard has that story from London. No one was hurt in the blast which happened near Hammersmith Bridge in West London. Its believed only part

of the device went off. Before the explosion, a caller claiming to represent the IRA had phoned a warning to a news agency using a recognized code word. Some homes in the area were evacuated. This is the sixth bomb to be planted in the British Capitol since the IRA ended its ceasefire in February. It follows an announcement on Wednesday that the pro IRA party Shinfane will take part in special elections in Northern Ireland next month. The elections are designed to pave the way for all party peace talks. Shinfane, however, has been told it will not be allowed to join the talks unless the IRA ends its bombing campaign. For the Christian Science Monitor, this is Stephen Beard in London. Police in Jerusalem say a would -be suicide bomber died when a bomb he was making exploded. The man's body was found in an Arab neighborhood of the city. Islamic militants claimed responsibility for forced suicide bombings that killed at least 58 people, most of them Israelis in February and March. Palestinian security forces say they have the number two man and the military wing of Hamas

in custody. He was arrested Saturday during a police raid in Gaza City. Prosecutors in Japan made their opening statements Thursday and the murder trial of the sec leader charged with masterminding last year's nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Subway. Prosecutors Kintan Shoko Asahara believed he had the right to kill people to save their souls. They alleged he ordered the subway gassing to deter police from their investigation into the abduction of a sec member. That's a summary of this hour's top stories. From Monitor Radio News, I'm Judy Ewell. On PRI. This is Monitor Radio. I'm David Brown. Seven months overdue

after government shutdowns and layoffs and posturing by both parties, it appears politicians in Washington at last have reached a deal for a federal budget for fiscal year 1996. How Speaker New Gingrich calls it a great achievement, the White House says the administration satisfied two and that the president will sign it as soon as it lands on his desk. Which could be before days end. So is everybody happy at long last? Monitor Radio's Jim Kane picks up the story. Republicans and Democrats and the president are breathing a sigh of relief over the agreement for a fiscal year 1996 appropriations bill. Several government departments which had spent nearly seven months operating on temporary spending bills will now have funding for the remaining five months of the fiscal year. Republicans quickly took to the floor of the House this morning to take credit for the fact that under this bill the government will spend $23 billion less this year than last year. How Speaker Newt Gingrich touted the savings in a Capitol Hill news conference. To have a Congress able to save nearly $700 for a working

family in a situation where you have a liberal president trying to get more spending and trying to get more bureaucracy is a remarkable achievement under our constitutional process. And I think it's a great success. While Republicans were able to get billions of dollars in savings they had to give up a number of provisions which the White House said would damage the environment. The environmental measures that remain in the bill have provisions that allow president Clinton to choose not to enforce them. Democrats were able to include a repeal of legislation that required the military to immediately discharge anyone testing positive for HIV. The White House was able to protect billions of dollars in spending for education, job training and environmental programs while giving up billions from other programs such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund. Despite the budget agreement there is no sudden sense of harmony and cooperation on Capitol Hill. Democrats are still on the attack against Republicans and try again today unsuccessfully to bring an increase in the minimum wage up for a vote in the House. President Clinton himself criticized the Republicans for

blocking the increase but he also called for Democrats and Republicans to work together toward balancing the budget by the year 2002. This agreement shows what we can do when we work together. Yesterday with assigning the anti -terrorism legislation we showed what we can do when we work together. I look forward to joining with the Republican and the Democratic leaders in Congress to give the American people the balanced budget they deserve. I hope they will join with me. We show today that that's the way to get things done in the American system. House Speaker Gingrich says the president will have to indicate a willingness to have real reform this year as a condition of budget talks and that so far he has not done so. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Jim Kane in Washington. $2 .23. That's what it'll cost you to pump one gallon of gas at one station in Santa Barbara,

California today. If you filled up your tank recently you probably noticed that it's emptied your pockets more than usual. Most of the country hasn't hit the $2 mark yet but in many places gas prices are the highest they've been since the Gulf War. An analyst say that they're unlikely to tumble anytime in the near future. We asked correspondent Kathy Jones to examine why. Just in time for summer vacations, gasoline prices have again gone up. In some places dramatically, California has been especially hard hit. Bill Berman is the automobile association of America's energy analyst. It looks like we're going through what might be called an extreme gas price increase in California but really we're just continuing a modest price spike in the rest of the country. What you probably will see is a stabilization of gasoline prices nationally but that does not mean that you won't get some extremes in certain parts of the country and that could be extreme increases and extreme drops in price. Experts say a number of factors are to blame. For one thing, last winter

severe weather meant oil companies turned more petroleum into heating oil and less into gasoline, creating a shortage now. Expectations that the United Nations was going to allow some Iraqi oil sales may have exacerbated the problem. Many refiners delayed purchasing crude oil expecting lower prices. When talks broke down yesterday, those refiners had to buy more expensive crude on the open market, according to some industry analysts. But Pietro Nevola, an energy policy specialist at the Brookings Institution, sees the situation differently. The main force behind it is economic growth. The big price increases are in California where the economy is really picked up over the past year. And as growth and incomes rise so does fuel consumption. It's really that simple. Drivers have more discretionary income, Nevola says, and one way they've been spending that money is by driving more. As demand for gasoline has risen, so has the cost. But Nevola says that we don't have to worry about gasoline priceikes producing overall inflation. There's been a

lot of flak in energy prices over the years, in the mid -80s, so we're sort of catching up a little bit now, but that's not enough to really spark inflation. The way that energy markets have created inflation in the past is when you've had a major price shock, not just a gradual increase like we're seeing now. The AAA says it doesn't expect the price hikes to continue for very long, but neither do they expect increases in the near future. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Kathy Jones in Washington. The breakdown of talks over the sale of Iraqi oil may be a factor in increasing oil prices, but consider the impact on Baghdad, where food prices soared 20 % in one day on news that the oil embargo wouldn't be eased. The embargo has been in place since the Gulf War, and it's taken a heavy toll on ordinary Iraqis. If the UN deal had gone through, Iraq would have been allowed to sell four billion dollars worth of oil a year to buy badly -needed humanitarian supplies. Now it appears that won't happen until at least May. British

writer Paul William Roberts recently traveled through Baghdad for Harper's magazine. He joins us now from Toronto. Paul, give us some sense of how this embargo has affected daily life in Iraq. Well, really appallingly, is the only thing you can say to that, that now used to it, of course, 20 % is perhaps an average day's hike, but the overall atmosphere is one of despair and fear. When you say despair and fear, could you give us some example of what you witnessed? Well, I was there during the Gulf War, during Desert Storm, as well, and there was a feeling of euphoria then, because they felt Saddam would be gone, and they want to get rid of it more than we do remember. But now, after several years of this, there's no food, there's no medicine, there's no paper, people have sold everything they have to sell, the money is worthless, it's inflated at an unbelievable rate, it was

$16 ,000 to $1 ,000, now it's $4 ,000. They see no future for themselves, and they're living within, perhaps, the most tyrannical, oppressive regime ever on the face of the earth. Do they blame Saddam Hussein more than they blame, say, the Americans or the United Nations for the embargo? Ultimately, yes, if you're talking to a reasonably intelligent person, not that they're going to say that publicly, of course, but they don't understand what the Allies did, particularly America, and many times people said, what have you got against this? Why do you hate us? Why did you bomb our cities? I mean, people would say that to you? Yes, I mean, a cab driver I had suddenly turned around and said, I'm very angry. Why do you do this to us? Because they don't understand what happened. They saw the war as the end of Saddam, and instead he came back in triumph, and it's presented there, of course, as a great victory. How did you respond to that taxi driver? I said I was Canadian very quickly,

and our forces didn't reach there in time. There's one story that you relate in your article in which you spoke with a young woman named Ala. Yes. Could you describe her situation? I think, in a way, you spoke of it as having – you said that you – when you first came to Baghdad, you were somewhat amused by all of the attempts to maintain a sense of normalcy, but this almost moved you to tears. Yes. The facade, the cracks, though, is showing very quickly in the facade, and it came first of all through her, and her name is changed, and somebody does the change to protect her because she did work for the government. But she finally cracked out of her lunch, and started telling me the circumstance under which she was living. There were now about nine people, depending on her job, which was earning her the buying power of about a dollar a month. And her brother had been arrested on trumped -up charges, mainly because she

wouldn't sleep with the police chief. But she had been, in fact, raped by Hussein Kamal, who allegedly committed suicide, or was killed not long ago, the general, who defected. And when her husband -to -be found out that, he dropped her, and she went into this of classic life of misery, a woman in that position, would do in the Arab world during the course of which she ran into Saddam Samuday, who is actually more feared there than Saddam is known as himself, and became one of Uday's in Invertecamas girls. And, in fact, procured girls for parties for him only to eat. Let's talk a bit about the money problem. Apparently, Iraqis have lots of money. It's just that the money won't buy anything. Yeah. I mean, that's the first thing I realized when I changed $100 and got a

Marbra duty -free bag full of cash back, that their money had inflated beyond, I think, anything we've ever seen since the Vyma Republic. In fact, nobody really knows what happens to an inflation that's allowed to just continue like this, because Saddam is just printing up money. But as a result, the highest denomination in common circulation is 100 deniers. And that's $4 ,000 of the dollar. You've got an awful lot to carry around. Cash registers get emptied twice or so an hour, and there are boxes of cash everywhere. I mean, at first you feel rather conspicuous of these huge bundles, but when you realize even beggars have got huge bundles of cash, you realize they're used to it. And so who do Iraqis look to when they consider their condition? Who do they hope will solve this crisis, if not Saddam Samuday? Well, they do seem to have someone unwarranted, you think, faith in the United Nations and the sanity of the West and powers. They

really have a great faith in our ability to change things if we see their situation. They can't understand why we've done this to them and left Saddam in power. Paul William Roberts is a British writer living in Toronto in his peace on his visit to Baghdad, appears in Harper's. Thanks very much for joining us. Thanks David. This is Monitor Radio, stay with us. Just a head, a decade after the worst nuclear accident in history. Another radiation leak is reported at Chernobyl. We'll hear about the legacy of the disaster

and the cloud that still looms over those who once lived and worked in the shadow of the reactors. All that's coming up here on Monitor Radio. This is Monitor Radio. There's been a radiation leak at Chernobyl today, a small one, nothing like what happened almost ten years ago to the day. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine was the site of

the world's worst ever nuclear accident, a meltdown that spread a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and exposed some five million people to fall out. Ukrainian authorities have promised to shut down the Chernobyl plant by the year 2000, but environmental activists say it should be closed for good and now. As Jennifer Glass reports from Moscow, the fear of Chernobyl still looms over much of the former Soviet Union. A recent poll of Russians found that half are concerned that a catastrophe like Chernobyl could happen in Russia. Russia has nuclear reactors like the Chernobyl plant still working. And on television and in the press, Russians have seen the health consequences of radiation and they are learning it is a long -lasting problem. In Ukraine, it is hot and dry, unusual for this time of year, and on Tuesday in the restricted area around the Chernobyl power station, a fire broke out. Families who evacuated the area a decade ago in the wake of the Chernobyl accident returned for a day to tend relative graves. Officials think maybe

someone dropped a cigarette. Somehow the fire ripped through grasses, trees, destroying homes in five abandoned villages. But the concern was for a danger that can spread faster than wildfire, radiation. Edward Gismatulin is with Greenpeace Russia. In the place where we were, they have 4th fired now, nearby this village, Tolstoyalev. The contamination is really huge, sometimes it's up to 200 curies, just create kilometers in prison. Those radiation levels are 200 times the normal ones, contamination that is in the soil and the plants and trees. This week's fires help stir up the ground, and the smoke and hot air carried radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Ukrainian officials insist that the increase in radiation levels only affected the restricted zone in the area of the fire. An official said the levels were not exorbitantly high. They said the power station itself was never in danger since the fire was at least 6 miles away. But a day after the fire inside the plant itself, another release of radiation. This one caused by careless plant workers who let radioactive

dust from inside destroyed reactor number 4 spill out into a room. Radiation levels 7 times the norm were registered, and some workers were contaminated, although a plant spokesman said not beyond acceptable levels. Officials there say it was a minor incident, earning the lowest rating on the International Nuclear Accident Scale. They say the dust was cleaned up immediately, and there was no danger to the environment. But even 10 years after the explosion, it's Chernobyl, when it took days to notify the public. There is still this trust of nuclear technology here. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Jennifer Glass in Moscow. Jennifer mentioned those fires that swept through the deserted villages, believed to have been started accidentally, perhaps by a cigarette dropped by a former resident revisiting the area. Many people who once lived in the shadow of the reactor make an annual pilgrimage to 10 family graves to remember the existence they once had there. As Eric Engelman discovered, many of those who once made their homes near Chernobyl

are still coming to grips with the aftermath of that calamitous day in April of 1986. The town of Slavutich in Western Ukraine is eerily quiet. The buildings are modern, the central square is clean and white, but hardly anyone is out enjoying the cool spring weather. Many Chernobyl plant workers and their families live here now. They were evacuated to this place 10 years ago, after the Soviet government deemed the reactor zone unsafe. Ludmila Ustinyenko, a school administrator, remembers the hurried Exodus. She says she left many of her cherished belongings behind. How was it? Just like that, they told us the buses are waiting and the people had to be ready to go. We only had a few hours to collect our things. We weren't told where we were going or for how long. Everyone thought it was temporary that they'd only be leaving their homes for a

short time. But the move turned out to be permanent. Today there's an 18 -mile exclusion zone around the troubled Chernobyl plant. A few residents are returning to reclaim their abandoned homes, but the vast majority have chosen to stay away. The explosion at Chernobyl's reactor number 4 killed 31 plant workers on the spot, but it's the long -term effects of radiation exposure that of doctors and health officials here worried about the future. The blast on April 26 shot a cloud of reactor fuel high into the atmosphere, and scientists estimate as many as 5 million people across Europe may have been exposed. Dr. Viktor Klemenko, a hematology specialist, was sent to the Chernobyl area days after the accident. He remembers seeing children playing outside their hair and clothes saturated with radioactive dust. Today Klemenko treats dozens of what he calls Chernobyl related diseases at the Institute for Clinical Radiology outside Kiev, a large number of cases, he says, are young people. Chernobyl is a very

tragic situation, millions of people were exposed to radiation. The environmental group Greenpeace says the damage done by Chernobyl may take decades, if not centuries, to dissipate. The group estimates up to 62 ,000 square miles around the plant are contaminated, and not just the land, radioactive material has seeped into the groundwater as well. Scientists fear it could rise to the surface during heavy rains, or worse, taint the drinking supply. In Belarus, the former Soviet republic that borders Ukraine to the north, Chernobyl is a major national problem. Radiation from the Chernobyl plant drifted over 70 percent of Belarusian territory. Today, the country's president admits that up to a quarter of the national budget is devoted to combating the effects of the accident. Michelle Carter, the author of the book Children of Chernobyl, has spent much of the past few years in Belarus. She says one of the most important and least recognized aspects of the disaster is the stress and psychological pressure that comes from living in the radiation zone. The biggest problem is a general

malaise of spirit and hopelessness that seems to cause people to just give up. They fear, without a doubt, what lotus radiation is going to mean for them for the rest of their lives, because they're going to live the rest of their lives in their children's lives, in their grandchildren's lives, with elevated background radiation. Many residents of the area around Chernobyl report a lingering sense of despair 10 years after the accident. Memories of the incident are still very much alive, and few have put the matter behind them. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Eric Engelman in Ukraine. Earlier this week, when the Russian news agencies reported the death of Chechen leader Jokar Dudayev, the expert said that the peace process between the government of President Yeltsin and the Chechen rebels would move ahead. Well, apparently, it has not. Today Russian aircraft bombarded rebel positions in Southeast Chechnya. According to the commander of the Russian forces there, the strike was

in retaliation for rebel attacks on Russian helicopters yesterday. The man who the Chechen say is Dudayev's successor has reportedly told Itaartas that their late leader's final words to his followers were to, quote, not give up the cause, bring it to an end. But it seems as if President Yeltsin, in China on a state visit, may have taken those words to heart, reportedly Mr. Yeltsin has now ordered his man to take all measures to prevent outbreaks by the rebels. You're listening to Monitor Radio, the worldwide broadcast edition of the Christian Science Monitor, a reminder that our listener line is always open for your comments. You can call us at 617 -450 -7779, that's 617 -450 -7779, or send us an email, our internet address is radio at csps .com, that's radio at csps

.com. And when you do contact us, please make sure to include your name and where you hear the program. I'm David Brown. P -R -I, public radio, international. -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I

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-I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I -I Get those green thumbs ready, we're planning summer gardens. Well, have those stories and much more coming up on Monitor Radio? Stay with us. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Kathy McLaughlin at the Monitor Radio News Desk. The US House of Representatives is debating a compromised bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. The Senate is expected to do the same later today and President Clinton is expected to sign it. Monitor Radio's Jim Kane reports from our Washington Bureau.

The $160 billion package would spend $23 billion less this fiscal year than last year, and Republicans are pointing to that fact and claiming a major victory in their battle to shrink the federal government. House Republican WIP Tom Delay of Texas. Republicans were finally able to cut back on Washington's spending, and I'm very proud of that. But Democrats are blaming Republicans for the fact that it took this long seven months into the fiscal year to get a spending bill passed. And now, attention is turning to the budget for the coming fiscal year. Republicans are still considering President Clinton's offer to resume talks on a plan that would balance the federal budget by the year 2002. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Jim Kane in Washington. US Secretary of State Warren Christopher continues efforts to bring about a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah gorillas in southern Lebanon. He's in Damascus, earlier in Jerusalem, Christopher urged Syria and Israel to resolve their important differences. Meantime Israeli

planes and artillery continued attacking targets in southern Lebanon and the Baka Valley. Edward Uranian reports from Beirut. An armed stockpile burned and shells continued to explode for several hours Thursday after Israeli fighter jets bombed the munitions depot near the Syrian border. Anti -Arafat Palestinian leader Ahmed Jabriel who runs the depot had been accused by Israel of supplying rockets to Hezbollah gorillas. Israeli planes bombed several villages in southern Lebanon earlier, wounding a number of civilians. UN sources say Hezbollah also fired more cutusher rockets into northern Israel. Lebanon's main coastal highway was again shell by Israeli gunboats and a new makeshift bridge built by the Lebanese army also came under fire. In Beirut, Iran's foreign minister said international observers were needed to oversee an eventual ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Edward Uranian in Beirut. Israel's governing labor party has approved a new platform that drops its long opposition to a Palestinian state. At a meeting in Tel Aviv, the party's central committee

approved the new platform in a show of hands. The decision came just a day after the Palestine National Council voted to remove clauses from the 1964 PLO Charter calling for Israel's destruction. The number two US automaker Ford Motor Company is recalling nearly 9 million vehicles that have faulty ignition switches. The switches have been blamed for hundreds of fires, but there have been no reports of any injuries. This is PRI, Public Radio International. The White House is trying to prevent President Clinton's videotape testimony at the Whitewater trial in Little Rock, Arkansas from being released outside the courtroom. spokesman Mike McCurry says the president's lawyers will ask a federal court to keep the videotape for fear it would wind up being used in a Republican campaign ad. The judge has given lawyers involved in the case 30 days to submit written proposals about how

to handle the tape. Officials say a minor radiation leak occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine last night, the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Monitor Radio's Eric Engelman reports from Moscow. A spokesman at Chernobyl said the leak occurred during a routine change of equipment at the plant. Workers apparently replaced a filter used to pump air from the sarcophagus, the massive concrete and steel casing that covers the damaged reactor. They left the old filter unattended in a room where at leak low levels of radiation. The spokesman said the radiation had been cleaned up overnight and that no workers had been in danger. The incident was the latest in a series of safety mishaps at Chernobyl. Last November, a plant worker received a dose of radiation during a minor accident and this week a fire swept through the exclusion zone around the plant. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are all planning ceremonies tomorrow to mark the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster which killed 31 plant workers and exposed millions of people in the surrounding area to radiation.

For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Eric Engelman in Moscow. After widespread protests, the president of Paraguay Juan Carlos Wasmosi says he will not fulfill a promise to promote his rebellious army chief to defense minister. The army chief holed up in a barracks Monday refusing orders to step down. He emerged Tuesday after Wasmosi promised him a promotion. Critic said Wasmosi had caved into the general for fear of a coup. I'm Kathy McLaughlin on PRI. I'm Kathy McLaughlin on PRI. I'm Kathy McLaughlin on PRI. I'm Kathy McLaughlin on PRI. I'm David Brown. He says

he's committed to stay in the Middle East until he brokers a ceasefire but Warren Christopher suddenly gloomy tone is raising speculation that he may be in the Middle East an awfully long time if he's to hold to that pledge. The Secretary of State is on a shuttle diplomacy mission to bring about a truce between Israel and hisbala gorillas who have been exchanging rocket fire over the Lebanese Israeli border. Correspondent Jim Letterman has been keeping watch on the negotiations from his post in Jerusalem. Jim Warren Christopher was headed off to Damascus today and he made a cryptic remark. He said that there are differences that can be resolved only by the parties assigned perhaps his best efforts are coming up empty. No, his problem is that the both sides, the Israelis on the Syrians, believe the time is on their side. In other words, they can probably hold out for a better deal if just they can keep things going as they are right now for a little longer. When you say both sides, we have to consider the two parties we're really talking about here. Hafiz al -Assad of Syria and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez and I suppose Jim it's important to remember that its election season in Israel. Oh, no question about that.

The elections are certainly going to have a major effect on the way the Israelis treat things. Paris can't appear to be weak. The Lee Kud needs to support Paris both in terms of the campaign in Lebanon and in terms of the Christopher mission. And as a result, the Israeli election campaign that was expected to be very raucous and very bitter has in fact come to a standstill. Well, there's a development today in a fairly large one too. Today, Israel's labor party, the party Paris leads, announced that it no longer opposes a Palestinian state. How significant is that? It's not that they announced that they no longer oppose a Palestinian state. They took out a section from the platform of the previous election campaign that said that they would oppose a Palestinian state. In other words, they hadn't approved of it, but they no longer publicly oppose such an idea. And that's a major move on the Israeli part. And I think it has a great deal to do with the decision yesterday by the Palestine National Council

to drop those sections from the Palestinian covenant that deal with the destruction of Israel. At the same time, there's still this war going on between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas. How will that factor into the campaign? Well, as far as Alikud, as I say, hasn't been able to oppose it, but no matter what happens, whatever deal Christopher strikes with the Syrians on this entire issue, undoubtedly Alikud will then say at the end of it all, it's not enough. And that's what they're going to use if they're opening shot against Paris once the campaign gets underway in earnest again. Correspondent Jim Letterman speaking with us there from Jerusalem, as the fighting drags on entering week three, it's becoming more and more evident that despite Israel's efforts to stamp out Hezbollah, this military campaign may be having the opposite effect from Beirut. More than 100 Lebanese civilians have died so far and hundreds

of thousands have been forced to flee their homes, but not only has the bombing not put a halt to Hezbollah activities, it seems to be winning new adherence for the organization every day. Hassan Sabah is the director of a temporary school and site on set up 10 days ago for children who have fled the fighting in the south. The sympathy of the people, they are making Hezbollah more strength. I don't know if they mean it. Hassan describes himself as apolitical but patriotic. For him, as for many Lebanese of different backgrounds, Hezbollah has become a symbol of Lebanese nationalism. We agree or disagree with Hezbollah. We see that any Lebanese person, any Lebanese party, whatever their political views are, has the right to resist military and from all points of view to resist the Israeli occupation in the south.

Hassan Farhat is a 12 -year -old Shiite Muslim boy who fled with his family to site on on the first day of the Israeli campaign. He describes the chaos of his family's flight from the air raids in which they left everything behind. But he says he isn't afraid of the Israelis. They should be afraid of us, he says. They're the terrorists. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Clay Scott in Beirut. When in Washington, be careful about saying the words Iran and arms in the same sentence. Together they conjure up memories of secret deals between Washington operatives and officials of a pariah state. Today the House Intelligence Committee is looking into whether President Clinton's intelligence oversight chief gave the green light to arm shipments from Tehran to the Bosnian government. The White House says its role was entirely passive, that it only looked the other way. But House Speaker Newt Gingrich has vowed to set up a special panel to investigate.

The mere scent of scandal underscores the official hostility the U .S. maintains toward the Islamic Republic. But as Monitor Radio's Gene Hacklander reports, Washington can't seem to muster much support for that position among its allies. There are few governments more despised by Washington than the government of Iran. The United States accuses the Iranians of sponsoring terrorism, undermining Middle East peace efforts and developing weapons of mass destruction. In an effort to pressure Tehran to change its ways, the U .S. has been trying to isolate the regime politically and economically. There's little argument from European countries that Iran is a troublemaker. But Washington's appeals to the international community to snub the Persian nation have largely fallen on deaf ears. For instance, the French Foreign Minister met with his Iranian counterpart in Damascus this week to discuss the Lebanese Israeli crisis. Martin Walker is a Washington correspondent for the Guardian, a London Daily. The European point of view is veil, politic,

rational. Iran is there. You've got to deal with it. And just as the Americans argue that the way to bring the Chinese Communist government towards civilized behavior is to trade with them, which President Clinton argues, the Europeans say exactly the same thing about Iran. Many American observers of Middle East politics also support the European strategy. Shibli Tel -Homme directs the Near Eastern Studies Program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. They think that any country Iran included will respond to both threats and incentives. And their position, which I think is a correct one, at least on this point, is that you need to care it. That American foreign policy toward Iran has had absolutely no carrot, that we have basically said in the context of what we have called the policy of dual containment, that this is a regime beyond reform, that we will not stop until we see this regime essentially collapse.

United States policy toward the Middle East focuses these days on the Arab -Israeli peace process. Tel -Homme says that's an important point when it comes to understanding Washington's reluctance to improve ties with Iran. To some extent, we need to keep the situation and the Persian Gulf static. We need to not create strategic shifts that would alter the party's strategic thinking on the Arab -Israeli front. In a way, we want to freeze the status quo in the Persian Gulf for some time, at least, until we manage through the Arab -Israeli conflict. The Clinton administration's unbending policy toward Iran is also because of U .S. domestic politics. Among other things, the American public doesn't appear ready to forgive Iranian revolutionaries for overtaking the U .S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and holding 52 Americans hostage. Anthony Cortesman is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Domestic political realities are such that an administration simply cannot ignore the congressional

emphasis on Iran. And right now, one way to win a congressional seat or pick up at least bonus points in an election year is to be very visible in being seen as harder on Iran than anyone else. Just last month, the House International Relations Committee unanimously passed a bill to tighten sanctions against Iran and Libya. The measure would penalize foreign companies, many of them European, that trade or invest in either country's oil sector. The full Senate passed similar legislation last December. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Gene Hacklander in Washington. Tobacco giant Philip Morris is holding its annual meeting today. Among the shareholders in attendance, many of the nation's state governments. 47 states have tobacco securities in their investment portfolios. The pension fund of Massachusetts, for example, owns millions of dollars worth of Philip Morris stock.

The state's treasurer, Joe Malone, says he wants to use the clout that comes with that investment to make the company conduct new research into the hazards of smoking. But critics say Massachusetts is guilty of hypocrisy and should sell at stake pronto. From Boston, station WBUR's Aaron Schechter has our story. Treasurer Joe Malone controls some 95 million dollars worth of Philip Morris stock. The resolution he is backing would require the company to reduce nicotine levels in its products to non -addictive levels and to end research challenging the potential health hazards of secondhand smoke. But with the resolution sure to fail, some Massachusetts legislators say the treasurer's symbolic vote isn't enough. The point is should money always make public policy. State Representative John Bussinger is leading the fight for the state to divest itself of tobacco holdings. He says making millions of dollars off tobacco companies while the attorney general is suing those same companies to recoup a billion dollars in health related cost is blatantly hypocritical and

sends the wrong message to base state citizens. If we always make public policy off of who makes the most money, then our system is based not on public health or social justice or economic justice. It's based on who can wield the biggest stick with the biggest money and that's what people are crying about politics these days. But deputy state treasurer Thomas Tremarco maintains the state has an obligation to get the best return possible on its pension funds and will continue to hold tobacco stocks unless told to do otherwise. Absent a legislative mandate or prohibition. We do not think it's in our position to make investment decisions based on social policies. But some analysts say investing in tobacco companies is too risky. Patrick McVey is a vice president with the Franklin Research Corporation. We believe that the financial liability from the lawsuits far outweighs the potential growth and earnings that they may be experiencing. McVey claims tobacco stocks have performed

well below some common Wall Street benchmarks. But Jerry Buckley, a vice president with the investment firm AG Edwards says there's nothing to be gained by selling off stock into tobacco companies such as Philip Morris. You really don't accomplish anything quite frankly by selling the Philip Morris from an investment standpoint and you certainly don't hurt the tobacco company. What you probably do is provide an opportunity for somebody else to pick up value at depressed prices. House Speaker Thomas Finnerin says the legislature may vote this session on a bill that would mandate tobacco stock investment. But with dozens of tobacco industry lobbyists roaming the halls of the state house, no one is banking on passage of the bill. For the Christian Science Monitor, I'm Aaron Schachter in Boston. This is Monitor Radio.

Stay tuned. Coming up, turn off, tune out, drop in, a call to all couch potatoes to junk the remote at least for a few days, and dig this. It's not so hard to garden, honest. Some advice and encouragement just ahead here on Monitor Radio. This is Monitor Radio. You hear that?

It's a sound of televisions being switched off across America. Well, that's what the group TV Free America would like to believe at any rate. Their national TV turn -off week is now underway, an attempt to get people to cast aside the cathode ray tube for more active pursuits. Alex Banoss reports on this latest attempt that must not see TV. It's a rare person these days who's not watched a lot of television, some good, some bad. And sometimes, frankly, it's just plain hard to turn off. But the national group TV Free America wants families and individuals to do just that. They cite figures that average Americans watch more than four hours of television a day, which adds up to about nine years out of the life of a 65 -year -old, and that says Henry Le Balm is too much. Consider whether you, when you lie on your deathbed, when that day comes, will ever say, gee, I wish I'd spent more time watching Baywatch. Melrose Place, beat the clock or the film Donahue Show. Le Balm is executive director of TV Free America, and he

says that last year the campaign caught the eyes of five state governors and convinced more than a million people to take part in no TV week. All this is not a statement against technology. Even TV Free America's own office is filled with computer screens and word processors. The point is to help families improve their time together. DC restaurant manager Andy Shalal says his seven -year -old daughter at first thought giving up TV was a joke. But then she got used to it, and now, a year and a half later, with no TV in the house, Shalal says his daughters found plenty to do. My daughter plays with clay. I always have a hunk of clay sitting in the middle of the room, where the TV used to be. And it's cheap, 25 pounds for five dollars, and it lasts for a long time. When we turned off the TV in August, the holiday season was right around the corner. We always brace ourselves to the latest must -have toy for that season, but that year, that

didn't happen. TV Free America avoids the debate over television content, is it good, is it bad, in order to focus on viewing habits. But still, its concern is driven by what is perceived as a great change that's come over television and its presence, or omnipresence. I think the TV has changed a lot as well. Now they have on their way to having 500 channels. Kids are also getting most of their information and most of their values from television nowadays. By the time, you know, the kid is not even weaned, the mother is back to work. And a lot of schools use TV to calm the kids down, quote unquote. I know that I had my daughter in a school where the whole afternoon was watching movies, one after the other. Participants can return to the likes of Big Bird, Seinfeld, and Oprah on May 1st, if they so desire. For the Christian Science Monitor, this is Alex Fanos in Washington.

Well Spring has been officially here for several weeks now, but that didn't mean old man winner had been put to rest in much of the country. Finally though, it seems he has. Spring flowers are coming up in the northeast, the baseball seasons underway, and yes, it's time to start thinking summer. And that's just what we're thinking today with cookbook author Kathy Gunnstoo joins us every so often to talk about food. Today's assignment, Kathy, should you accept it, is planning your garden for the dinner table. How do you begin? You begin by thinking about what you like to eat. I mean, people that love to eat and love to cook generally love to garden because there's nothing finer in the world than picking a tomato out of your garden or snapping off those first peas or clipping off that first head of lettuce. Because there is no taste that you can buy in a store that is equivalent to that. Do you find that you end up with too many tomatoes at the end of the summer? I don't think you can have too many

tomatoes. Says the tomato lover. I mean, we make buckets of sauce, wonderful sauce, some sauce that we put pesto in, and some that we put capers and olives in, and some that we make spicy, and we make tomato sandwiches with just mayonnaise and salt and pepper. We also eat tomatoes for breakfast where we'll cut them into thick slices and coat them in a little bit of season flour and saute them and eat them with eggs and toast and home fries. Tomatoes, there's endless possibilities for them, and I don't think you can plant too many. Have you gotten into this salsa craze? I mean, everyone seems to be trying to cook up their own version of salsa. I forgot about that. That's the great potential also. You can make fresh sauces, you can also make sauces that you can can, and then in the middle of February, when you're feeling like you've never tasted a fresh food, there's your garden in a can. This is something else you want to be thinking about this time of year. It's really like planting a dinner party several months ahead of time. Think about what do you love to eat? What is it that you're buying in the fruit and vegetable section

of your store? That's what you want to be planting. You mentioned lettuce too, and I'm thinking about how one goes about planting for the cold winter ahead, so that you don't have 20 heads of lettuce early on in the season and nothing else toward the end. This is a very good point and very important. If you just plant three rows of lettuce and let them go, suddenly, you know what, the end of June, you're going to wake up one day and have 60 heads of lettuce to deal with. And salad for about three weeks. Yeah, I mean, you know, you can have a few potluck parties, but you're going to get pretty sick of that. You want to do successive plantings. In other words, you want to plant a small row of lettuce this week, another one the following week, skip a week. So you will have food for the entire season. You want to do this with all your foods, really. And then you can take that lettuce and you can have gorgeous salads, but you can also do something unusual. You can take lettuce, a crisp variety is best, and make a cone out of it. Literally, I'm talking like a sushi cone or an ice cream cone. Just roll it up. Just roll it the leaf. Just roll it up and then take some chicken breasts and chop them up with ginger and

carrots, peas, whatever you've got growing in the garden and saute or stir fry all of those. Fill the cone with this fabulous mixture of chicken and vegetables and some fresh mint leaves and then make a little dipping sauce for it with soy sauce and sesame oil. And you have transformed a plain head of lettuce into this edible cone that is extraordinary. Oh, you've got me in the mood. Now, one of the question, one of the question that I want to ask you, you know, one of the thing I should mention before I ask the question and that is, I'm always revved up to go with planning the garden, but then some time around, I don't know what do you know July. Yeah, exactly. It begins to be so overwhelming all the work that's involved. I think that's a really good point. You have to plant a realistic garden. Many people are out there thinking, well, I don't even have a backyard. You can plant a garden in a container. You can get a large pot and plant three varieties of herbs and that's a garden. You will feel that you are involved with earth and growing food and there is a deep sense of satisfaction with that. Or you may have a large plot. You might also want to find a community garden to be a part of

and to bring your children along and to get them educated about where food comes from. When they put a seed in the ground and put some water on it, their understanding of food and the whole chain is so expanded beyond any kind of lesson they can ever learn in school. Oh, all that talk about tomatoes instead. You got me wanted to eat one of those beef steak tomato sandwiches with lots of salt on top. Don't forget also zucchini and all the squashes. Everybody gets upset because they get too many zucchini. The beginning of August and they think, I should just plant a few. But something that shouldn't be overlooked are those beautiful blossoms. You get a flower, a gorgeous orange flower that comes up with squash plants. You're talking about right on the end of the squash. Exactly. And most people throw them out. They are so delicate. The Mexicans eat them quite a bit. But what I like to do is make a stuffing with various vegetables or even chopped meat. You stuff it into the blossom, dip it into egg white and saute it in olive oil. Oh my goodness, you won't believe this taste. Delicate, fresh and plus you get the

zucchini. I've got to run off to dinner now to your Kathy. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Cookbook author Kathy Guntz does her cooking and gardening in Southern Maine. You're listening to Monitor Radio, the worldwide broadcast edition of the Christian Science Monitor and I'm David Brown. Monitor Radio is made possible in part by your public radio station and by the Christian Science Monitor with subscribers in all 50 states and in more than 140 countries worldwide. For subscription information, 1 -800 -227 -1344.