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Show THE WORLD DIGEST Israel asks for U.S. intervention A . POPE URGES RELEASE OF .,, ,~~ KIDNAPPED MONKS IN '----~- ~. ~ ~ , ALGERIA: Pope John Paul II, speaking ,... _ ._~, after Palm Sunday ceremonies, appealed for the release of seven French monks kidnapped in Algeria."Lct them return, safe and sound, to their monastery and again find their place among our Algerian friends," John Paul told tens of thousands of worshipers gathered under bright sunshine in St. Peter's Square. The monks, members of the Trappist order, were kidnapped from their mountain monastery Pope fohn Paul II Wednesday by a group of armed men believed to be Muslim militants. The fouryear civil war has killed more than 40,000 people, at Least 109 of them foreigners. U.S. SOLDIERS TO BEGIN AIDING WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATORS: For the first time, U .S. troops this week will provide security and other limited support for U.N. war crimes investigators, the commander of the NATO-led peace force m Bosma said yesterday. Adm. Leighton Smith told reporters he did not expect any major confrontations when investigators from the U.N. War Crimes Tnbunal search for mass graves and other evidence of atrocities near Sreb,-enica, in eastern Bosnia. The U.N. search, which is expected to start Tuesday, will be in Serb tcrritorv at sites of alleged massacres of thousands of Bosnian Muslims last summer. MONTANA FREEMEN PREPARED FOR LONG, POSSIBLY VIOLENT, SIEGE: The fugitive Freemen militants holed up on an isolated wheat farm have built btmkcrs and openly stockpiled food, fuel and weapons possibly including military armaments, neighbors said Saturday. " We know they've been planning a siege for a long time because they've talked constantly about Ruby Ridge and Waco and s:µd they were going to be better prepared," said Kenneth Coulter, a neighboring rancher, referring to the shootouts between anti-government groups and federal agents. CLINTON DEPOSITION HAS CRITICS PONDERING POTENTIAL TV ADS: b court order for President Clinton to give videotaped testimony in a Whitewater criminal trial has producers of Republican attack ads pondering potential uses of the footage in the fall campaign. Whether Clinton's testimony ends up appearing in GOP ads depends on its public release by a federal judge in Arkansas, a likely scenario if it is played before jurors, legal experts say. "I'd love to get my hands on the president on the stand," says Alex Bill Clinton Castellanos, a Republican political ad man who most recently worked for the presidential campaign of Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas. UTAH COAL PRODUCERS LOOK TO PACIFIC RIM FOR FUTURE GROWTH: Utah coal producers depend on instate power generators to buy more than half the fuel they mine, but the mining companies are banking a piece of their future on a California coast construction project. Three of the state's largest mining companies have invested $22 million in an expansion of the Port of Los Angeles that they hope will boost exports to the Pacific Rim; considered one of the hottest coal markets in the world. NEW INSTRUMENTS WILL MEASURE UTAH EARTHQUAKES: Six new earthquake sensors that will help engineers design safer buildings were installed in St. George, Beaver, Santaquin, Draper, Kaysville and Tremonton last week, and a seventh is planned for Gunnison. The devices will measure the strength of ground shaking during moderate and large earthquakes. Gary Christenson, applied geology manager at the Utah Geological Survey, said the devices will fill gaps in a network of 30 existing accelerometers operated by federal agencies. The older sensors are located on Bureau of Reclamation dams in Utah and at U.S. Geological Survey sites in Cedar City, Richfield and along the Wasatch Front. I JERUSALEM (API - After launching an allnorthern Israel, said Hezbollah has repeatedly fired on Israel from the place where the civilians night retaliatory assault on suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Lebanon, Israel appealed were k illed. yesterday to the United States and Syria to help After Hezbollah leaders vowed revenge, avert an escalation of the figh ting. hundreds of Israelis in the north of the country spent the night in underground shelters. Israel's tank and artillery shelling of 15 Shiite "It is quiet, but we always have our suitcases Muslim villages fo rced hundreds of families to flee, security sources said. in ham: :1nd arc prepared to return to the shelters, A 2-year-old boy in the village of Haris was unfortunately,'' Shlomo Bouhbout, mayor of the injured by shrapnel, they said. town of Maalot, said The shelling came after yesterday. The Israeli army guerrillas of the Iranianconfirmed that several backed Hczbollah, or Party of God, fired 28 rockets hit the western • Galilee region, while Katyusha rockets at northern Israel Saturday O Israeli reports said one civilian was slightly night. That attack was to ~ wounded. avenge the deaths of two !i: Shiite Muslim civi lians 1- .___ _ _ _ On Orr, I'srael's deputy killed by an lsraeli Heavily-armed Israeli soldiers patrol defense minister, said Israel had also had contacts helicopter gunship attack along a road in Israeli-controlled southern Lebanon. with "everyone involved in earlier in the day. Foreign Minister Ehud - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - this conflict that has Barak told U.S. Secretary of State Warren influence over the Hczbollah," including Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon. Christopher that those deaths were a mistake "We have clarified that we want the area quiet and asked him to intervene to ensure there would be no escalation of the fighting. and it is worthwhile for the other side too to keep the area quiet," Orr said. Amiram Levi ne, the army commander in ~-....------------1 Yeltsin announces combat halt MOSCOW (AP) - Desperate to show voters he will stop the war that is sinking his presidency, Boris Yeltsin yesterday announced a halt to combat operations in Chechnya, limited troop withdrawals and a willingness to hold indirect talks with the rebels' leader. But his long-promised peace plan stopped short of promising an end to the fighting and left scant hope for an imminent settlement. Yeltsin refused to budge on the separatists' two main demands - full withdrawal of Russian troops and independence for Chechnya - and his tone was more tough than conciliatory. "Without-aoubt, we will not put up with terrorist acts and we will respond to them adequately," Yeltsin said in taped remarks broadcast on television yesterday night. The announcement came just 11 weeks before Russia's presidential election, with the unpopular Yeltsin trailing Communist Gennady Zyuganov and voters demanding an end to the bloodshed in Chechnya. It also capped a month of withering air and ground attacks on Chechen strongholds, apparently in tended to push the rebels into the southern mountains before the plan was announced. Thousands of troops were reportedly continuing large-scale operations yesterday in eight sealed-off mountain villages of southeastern Chechnya, and Yeltsin's openended statement left it unclear what would become of troops in such hot spots. The announcement was met with skepticism by politicians, analysts and even Russia's military commander in Chechnya, who cast doubt on the feasibility of the unilateral ceasefire, which Yeltsin said would begin within hours. " It's unlikely that combat operations will be stopped right after the president's statement," Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov told NTV Independent Television from Chechnya. Shuttle Atlantis returns safely EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) Space shuttle Atlantis and its five astronauts landed in the California desert just before sunrise yesterday after cloudy skies prevented a Florida touchdown. Atlantis touched down at 5:29 a.m. PST, ending a successful trip to the Russian space station Mir to drop off NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid. Mission Control tried for two mornings in a row to send Atlantis to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but on both days thick, low clouds interfered. Flight directors finally gave up and ordered commander Kevin Chilton and his crew to Edwards Air Force Base, where the weather was good. Appreciate all the effort you made to try to get us into KSC. A lot of folks are disappointed, but we're looking forward to going back to California," Chilton, a Los Angeles native, said before beginning the hourlong descent. 11 NASA prefers landing the space shuttles at their Florida home port because of the nearly $1 million cost involved in ferrying them across the country atop a modified jumbo jet. It also saves time preparing shuttles for their next flights - in Atlantis' case, a trip back to Mir in August to pick up Lucid. Atlantis dropped Lucid off at the Russian station last week for a five-month stay. She is the first American woman to live full time in orbit, aboard a space station. Although cloudy skies in Florida prevented Atlantis from returning on Saturday, ·the shuttle almost had to Land anyway when its cargo-bay • doors would not open in orbit and allow heat to radiate into space. Flight director Jeff Bantle said he would have ordered an emergency landing if the problem had continued 10 more minutes, but the two doors finally swung open and the shuttle was able to remain safely in orbit. |