Assignment: The World; 1993, Unidentified Episode

<v Speaker>This is Assignment: The World for the week of December 16th, 1993. <v Speaker>Hi and welcome to Assignment: the World. I'm Ginnie Bacheler. <v Speaker>Our top story, Yeltsin's new constitution wins, but reformers lose <v Speaker>in Russian elections. Even though Russian President Boris Yeltsin's new constitution <v Speaker>won approval Sunday among Russian voters, the parliamentary elections show Yeltsin's <v Speaker>reform measures may be in trouble. <v Speaker>The results of the parliamentary elections demonstrate the struggle ahead for Yeltsin as <v Speaker>he tries to move Russia from a communist country to a market economy. <v Speaker>The reform politicians were angered with Yeltsin after the elections because they felt <v Speaker>this year of turmoil caused their party to divide. <v Speaker>The nationalist and communist parties won over the divided reformers and the <v Speaker>parliamentary returns. The leading nationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said his <v Speaker>party stands for what Russia used to be. <v Speaker>The new constitution that passed gives Yeltsin great powers to appoint the government

<v Speaker>and overrule the legislature because he won so much power Sunday with this new <v Speaker>constitution. Yeltsin now says there are no plans for presidential elections <v Speaker>in June. Instead, he will complete his presidential term, which run through the end of <v Speaker>1996. <v Speaker>One hundred ninety years ago this week, December 20th, 1803. <v Speaker>The Louisiana Purchase was formally transferred from France to the United States. <v Speaker>Purchased for a total of 15 million dollars, the Louisiana Purchase extended from the <v Speaker>Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to British North <v Speaker>America. This doubled the national domain, increasing it 828,000 <v Speaker>square miles, though the final boundaries of the territory were not settled until many <v Speaker>years later. <v Speaker>U.S. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin surprised everyone with the announcement of his <v Speaker>resignation at a White House press conference Wednesday. <v Speaker>He made the statement with President Clinton at his side. <v Speaker>Aspin gave only personal reasons for his resignation. <v Speaker>President Clinton praised Aspin for the job he has done over the past year, saying that <v Speaker>Aspin has handled a tough job well.

<v Speaker>Clinton is expected to name Aspin's replacement, former CIA deputy director <v Speaker>Bobby Inman, this week. Aspin's said heart surgery to install a pacemaker <v Speaker>during this past year was not a factor in his decision, but speculation over <v Speaker>the stresses of the job followed his announcement. <v Speaker>Those close to the Secretary of Defense said the failed attempt to capture Aidid <v Speaker>in Somalia was weighed heavily on him, especially because Republican members <v Speaker>of Congress called for his resignation after the Somalia event. <v Speaker>Also, a dispute this week between Aspin and Pentagon budget director Leon Panetta <v Speaker>was said to cause irritation for Aspin because President Clinton was prepared to <v Speaker>step in and settle that dispute. <v Speaker>After years of failed negotiations and disappointment, participants in the 117 <v Speaker>nation effort to change the rules of world trade race to wrap up <v Speaker>loose ends Wednesday and passed the GATT Treaty. <v Speaker>GATT, which stands for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, seeks to lower <v Speaker>taxes on manufactured and agricultural goods while lowering other barriers to

<v Speaker>trade in areas such as agriculture, protection for copyrights, and banking. <v Speaker>A standoff developed Sunday between the U.S. <v Speaker>and the 12 nation European Community over barriers on two of America's leading <v Speaker>export industries, American films and television shows and aircraft <v Speaker>manufacturing. Until late Wednesday afternoon, it looked as if the dispute would cause <v Speaker>the treaty to fail. But at the last minute, the US and E.C. <v Speaker>agreed to compromise. Other compromises took place in the final hours of negotiations <v Speaker>in order to meet the Wednesday deadline. <v Speaker>The French agreed to accept the agricultural rules they had originally argued about. <v Speaker>British Prime Minister, uh, John Major and his Irish counterpart, Albert <v Speaker>Reynolds, arrived at an agreement Wednesday, creating a framework for peace between <v Speaker>Ireland and England. The two leaders are working toward ending 25 years <v Speaker>of violence between their two countries. <v Speaker>The battle between them has been over British rule in Northern Ireland. <v Speaker>The Irish Republican Army, or the I.R.A., has led the struggle against British

<v Speaker>rule with violent tactics such as bombing Brit busy British shopping areas. <v Speaker>John Major announced that the peace plan includes incentives for the I.R.A. <v Speaker>to stop the violence against the British people. <v Speaker>Major says he hopes to begin negotiating directly with leaders of the I.R.A. <v Speaker>within 3 months after a ceasefire can be negotiated. <v Speaker>Looking briefly at other stories in the news, the charges against Jack Kevorkian, the <v Speaker>Michigan doctor was assisted with the suicides of 20 terminally ill people may be dropped <v Speaker>soon. In a court ruling Monday, a judge ruled the Michigan law banning assisted suicides <v Speaker>as unconstitutional. <v Speaker>The U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the controversial tool used in the war against drugs <v Speaker>on Monday, ruling that prosecutors must notify drug suspects before they seize their <v Speaker>property. The high court said the drug defendants are entitled to due process and a fair <v Speaker>hearing and Eduardo Frei won a landslide victory in Chile's national presidential <v Speaker>elections, Frei promised to amend the constitution, giving him the ability to fire the <v Speaker>former dictator, General Augusto Pinochet and other top military commanders. <v Speaker>And now it's time for the answers to last week's clues in the news.

<v Speaker>Find the role of our newsmaker. And you discovered that Robert Malval is Haiti's prime <v Speaker>minister, who resigned Wednesday as a result of the problems in Haiti. <v Speaker>Malval announced his resignation because his country was unable to gain the return <v Speaker>of ousted President John-Bertrand Aristide. Malval said he would remain acting <v Speaker>prime minister, the post for which he was chosen by Aristide, until his successor <v Speaker>is named. Find the location of our second clue and you'll get Jericho, the occupied <v Speaker>territory in Israel, where Monday marked the schduled withdrawal of a U.S. <v Speaker>of Israeli troops ,excuse me, as agreed upon in the peace pact between Israel and the <v Speaker>PLO. With a peace agreement in crisis, Israel's Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin <v Speaker>announced he would not pull troops out because the West Bank and Gaza regions remain <v Speaker>too violent. Rabin feels the withdrawal of his troops would put Israeli residents <v Speaker>of that region in serious danger. <v Speaker>PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Rabin said they plan to meet again in 10 days <v Speaker>to reevaluate the situation in the occupied territories. <v Speaker>In the meantime, extremist groups on both sides who are opposed of the peace pact are

<v Speaker>hoping the 10 day delay will give them time to dismantle the peace process altogether. <v Speaker>And unscramble our third clue and you get Japan's rice market. <v Speaker>Despite heated opposition from Japanese rice farmers, Japan's prime minister opened <v Speaker>the Japanese rice market Monday. <v Speaker>As part of the gap talks, the US asked Japan to lift its decades old ban <v Speaker>on rice imports. Japan had banned rice imports to protect its politically <v Speaker>powerful farmers who receive the highest prices for rice than farmers in other parts <v Speaker>of the world. Opening the rice market would ultimately force Japanese farmers to lower <v Speaker>their prices to remain competitive. <v Speaker>The announcement came just after 7,200 tons of rice arrived in Japan <v Speaker>from California as part of Japan's first emergency rice imports since <v Speaker>World War 2. Japan is suffering from its worst rice harvest in years. <v Speaker>[music playing] <v Speaker>Time now for our first pop quiz. In our story about the Russian elections, why did <v Speaker>Yeltsin cancel the presidential elections this June?

<v Speaker>Was it because of poor voter turnout Sunday? <v Speaker>His new constitution passed? <v Speaker>He resigned as president? <v Speaker>And the correct answer is number 2. Yeltsin gained great power with a new constitution <v Speaker>that passed. <v Speaker>Their appearance may be frightening and many people are fearful of their defense <v Speaker>mechanisms. But a closer look may dispel some of those fears. <v Speaker>Wyatt Doremus has more. <v Speaker>For many people, coming face to face with a venomous spider or a scorpion would be a <v Speaker>terrifying experience. Robert Cooper, curator of zoology at the Rochester Museum <v Speaker>and Science Center, hopes to dispel the myths that these insects are vicious killers. <v Speaker>It's kind of fun to see things that, you know, people who have, have real fears about. <v Speaker>Arachnophobia, the movie brings out those fears and plays upon those fears. <v Speaker>But it's fun to see the things in reality in a little cage so that they aren't a <v Speaker>potential danger. And what it basically tries to tell is they fact that insects <v Speaker>are one of a larger group of animals.

<v Speaker>Uh, we call these arthropods for jointed legged animals. <v Speaker>The exhibit contains a variety of exotic insects from several countries around the world. <v Speaker>We figure the upper range of black widows would come in round right around Virginia and <v Speaker>south. Some of the southwest. <v Speaker>Uh, of course, you'd have to travel to South America for some of the flamboyant flower <v Speaker>beetles or over to Africa to see the African Emperor Scorpions, Madagascar hissing <v Speaker>cockroaches and Madagascar off the coast of Africa. <v Speaker>Many people fear the venomous insects, but Cooper shows that with proper care and <v Speaker>handling, they can be examined quite easily. <v Speaker>One exhibit we have here are the black and brown widow spiders, which are highly venomous <v Speaker>spiders. They aren't fatal. People do get bit by them. <v Speaker>They can survive fairly easily. We have, uh, both the Bird Eating Tarantula as well as <v Speaker>the Mexican Redleg Tarantula. They eat insects predominantly, but the Bird Eating <v Speaker>Tarantula is named for the fact that it does prey upon small mammals, birds every once in <v Speaker>a while. African Emperor Scorpions are absolutely beautiful, large scorpions <v Speaker>which under black light or ultraviolet light, they fluorescent cobalt

<v Speaker>blue. <v Speaker>Most of these insects use their environment as a defense mechanism against any would be <v Speaker>predators. <v Speaker>Well, the stick insect particularly looks like a stick if it has no movement at all. <v Speaker>Uh, the cockroaches, of course, also have the same colors as the environment that they're <v Speaker>in. They look like dead leaves or they look like bark. <v Speaker>This exhibit gives people a chance to see these insects live, and to see they aren't as <v Speaker>fearsome as they might have believed. <v Speaker>For Assignment: The World, I'm Wyatt Doremus. [music playing] <v Speaker>150 years ago this week, December 19th, 1843, Charles Dickens first <v Speaker>published his classic Yuletide tale, A Christmas Carol. <v Speaker>One of the giants of English literature, Dickens was appreciated for his characters and <v Speaker>descriptions of poverty and injustice, which were the growing social conscience of his <v Speaker>public. His other works include Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. <v Speaker>During one of the Hubble Repairs Mission spacewalks, the astronauts released a huge solar <v Speaker>panel into outer space or what is called space dumping. <v Speaker>During the years since man first entered space, we have been dumping broken satellite

<v Speaker>parts and jet rocket engine units instead of bringing them back to Earth. <v Speaker>There is so much space junk that it now more than triples the number of working <v Speaker>satellites orbiting the earth. <v Speaker>Scientists claim that the parts will burn up if they enter our atmosphere and that over <v Speaker>time they will slowly disappear into outer space on their own. <v Speaker>Also, the astronauts would probably have to spend a big portion of their spacewalks <v Speaker>trying to store huge broken parts, time better spent on repairs. <v Speaker>But others worry that since no one is policing the junk sent into space, we are polluting <v Speaker>one of our few remaining frontiers. <v Speaker>Finally, scientists are required to continually track all of the 7,000 pieces <v Speaker>of junk in space because if a shuttle were to hit parts in space, it could be very <v Speaker>dangerous. While we'd like to know what you think, should space dumping be stopped? <v Speaker>Discuss this issue with your classmates after the show and write to us with your <v Speaker>opinions. We received nearly 2,200 letters in response to our issue question, <v Speaker>will the Brady Bill work? The results were fairly close. <v Speaker>55 percent of you thought that the Brady Bill will not work.

<v Speaker>40 percent of you thought that the bill will work. <v Speaker>5 percent were undecided. <v Speaker>Many of you felt that the bill would only stop law abiding citizens from acquiring <v Speaker>handguns, while most criminals are not law abiding. <v Speaker>Katie Wasilewski of North Syracuse, New York writes: "It is a fact that only 17 <v Speaker>percent to 27 percent of the guns used to commit crimes were purchased legally. <v Speaker>In most big cities, you can buy handguns on the street". <v Speaker>Shannon Weipert of Waterville, Iowa agrees and writes, "A criminal already <v Speaker>has a record and won't buy a gun from a gun shop. <v Speaker>They will either buy it through the black market or steal it". <v Speaker>Jade Fletcher of McCook, Nebraska, also agrees and writes, "It will only keep people like <v Speaker>you and me from getting guns, but criminals can still get them illegally". <v Speaker>But others of you found that a background check on people who want guns is a good idea. <v Speaker>Ian Glass of Liverpool, New York writes, "Now the police have at least 5 days to check <v Speaker>the background of the buyer and to make sure the buyer is fit to own a handgun". <v Speaker>Jennie Draper of Fort Defiance, Virginia, agrees and writes, "I believe that thorough <v Speaker>checking of handgun purchasers will work because handguns won't get into the hands of

<v Speaker>teenagers using false identification and previous prisoners". <v Speaker>We look forward to receiving your responses to our 2 latest issue questions. <v Speaker>Who would you choose as person of the year and should space dumping be stopped? <v Speaker>If you'd like to receive an Assignment, The World press card include a self-addressed <v Speaker>stamped envelope with your letters, drawings and poems and send it all to us here to <v Speaker>Assignment: The World Post Office Box 21 Rochester, New York, 1 4 6 <v Speaker>0 1. And now it's time for our next show is Clues in the News. <v Speaker>Our first clue is a scrambled letter name. <v Speaker>Two words. First word. S-S-R-Y-A-I. <v Speaker>Last name. T-F-R-A-A-A. Our second clue is <v Speaker>a location. It's 44 degrees. <v Speaker>48 minutes north latitude. 20 degrees. <v Speaker>32 minutes east longitude. <v Speaker>And our third clue is an event. <v Speaker>Find the meaning of E.M.I. <v Speaker>Merger. These are clues to stories we think will happen in the coming weeks. <v Speaker>Look for the answers in newspapers and news-magazines and on radio and television

<v Speaker>newscasts. We'll reveal the answers on our next show. <v Speaker>Good luck. <v Speaker>Time now for our second pop quiz. In our story about Japan, why are Japanese rice farmers <v Speaker>opposed to opening the rice market worldwide? <v Speaker>Is it because their prices will drop? <v Speaker>They can't grow enough rice? <v Speaker>They only like Japanese rice? <v Speaker>And the correct answer is number 1, their prices will drop if they want to stay <v Speaker>competitive in the world market. <v Speaker>That's it for this week's show. From all of us here on Assignment: The world. <v Speaker>I'm Ginnie Bacheler. We wish you all the best of holidays. <v Speaker>And we'll see you again in the New Year. [music playing]