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Show THE DAILY HERALD (www.HaitTheHerald.coml SUNDAY. APRIL 16,2000 V- GL02AL ; Finance leadleirss We'll cooperaKe - j BRIEFING Explosions close subway - France. from Japan, Germany. period since the end of World War II. Clinton, .who was spending the Britain, Italy and Canada. weekend in California away from the not did The group's statement also expressed confidemonstrations, the mention huge plunge specifically in the dence strength of the U.S. econin U.S. stock prices this past week, but financial markets "go that of view omy, saying they stressed an upbeat down but I think and econofor the go they'll global up growth prospects are trends long-terpositive." my which they said "continue to The Group of Seven statement brighten." The group did encourage the voiced support for the work done by IMF and the World United States to make greater efforts the. to boost national savings while at the Bank while saying that both institusame time noting that growth tions needed to continue with reform efforts. For the IMF. the rich countries "remains very strong, unemployment low and inflation well contained." stressed the need for the organization Summers and President Clinton to be "transparent to the public and accountable to its members.". made similar points Saturday in sayThe statement outlined in two of the fundamentals believed ing they the U.S. economy remained strong accompanying documents some prineven after a week in which nearly $2 ciples7 tharhouldveTTrrefcrm-T)- f trillion of wealth evaporated on Wall the lending institutions and efforts to make sure the private sector carries Street. The Group of Seven statement its share of the burden in financial urged Japan to keep interest rates as However, the statements contained low as necessary to make sure the is second able world's only broad guidelines, leaving details largest economy to be worked Out later. Sharp disto mount a sustained economic recovagreements still exact between the ery following its worst recessionary The WASHINGTON (AP) world's leading financial officials, hoping to calm investors jolted by a record plunge in U.S. stock prices, on Saturday pledged cooperation to promote global prosperity. The finance ministers and central bank presidents of the world's seven wealthiest countries also promised to keep pushing ahead with reforms of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. But the proposals in their joint communique were unlikely to placate throngs of demonstrators on the streets who see both institutions as the embodiment of all that is wrong with global capitalism. Police arrested hundreds of protests for parading without a permit a scant three blocks away just as finance officials were issuing a statement was being issued at ' the end of six hours of discussions. The sessions were led by Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan with their counterparts . - Several thouMONTREAL (AP) sand people were forced from the' city's subway system Saturday after a series of small explosions shut down the entire underground line. No injuries were reported. The blasts Saturday morning in knocked out the transit system's communications board and killed contact with subway train drivers, closing down all 65 of the city's subway stations. Limited subway service was restored by Hundreds of thousands of people ride the subway on Saturdays, transit spokeswoman Odile Paradis said. Clinton protects sequoia e SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Dwarfed by towering Calif. (AP) trees that are among the oldest and largest living things on earth, President Clinton set aside 328,000 acres of federal forests Saturday to permanently preserve 34 groves of giant sequoia. "These giant sequoias clearly are the work of the ages," the president said. "They grow taller than the Statue of Liberty, broader than a bus." He said they were so perfectly adapted to their environment that none has ever been known to die of old age. In a decision praised by environmentalists but scorned by loggers and others as a federal land grab, Clinton ordered the formation of a national monument that will halt commercial timber sales, mining and some recreational activities. vehicles Motorcycles and will be allowed only on regular roads while snowmobiles will be restricted to areas. Hiking, horseback riding and other recreational activities will be permitted. Protesters pray for MIAMI . well-travele- d Teacher donates kidney CHAPEL HILL, Michael Carter had a new kidney Saturday, thanks not to a close relative but to his science teacher. ' Carter and Jane Smith, a teacher at R. Max Abbott Middle School in T Fayetteville, were both in fair condi- - ..' tion Saturday, said officials at UNC. Hospitals in Chapel Hill, where the transplant took place Friday. i "Although we believe anyone donating an organ to benefit another person is an exceptional human being, the fact that a teacher would be so moved to offer her student such a gift is phenomenal," said Dr. Jeffrey Fair, chief of the abdominal transplant program at UNC. Hospital officials said Smith could return home Monday, while Michael likely will remain in the hospital until Wednesday or Thursday. Michael had one kidney that failed to grow and another that functioned only minimally. N.C.(AP)-Fifteen-yea- Squatters kill r-old' fanner HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) . Squatters occupying land shot to death a farmer and white-owne- d abducted four others, farmers leaders said Sunday, a killing mat could deepen the crisis oyer Zimbabwe's tense land standoff. David Stevens was abducted from his occupied property near Macheke, 75 miles east of Harare and driven into the bush where he was shot dead, said Commercial Farmers Union officials. Four of Stevens' neighbors who went to his assistance after he was confronted by squatters Saturday were abducted and their Whereabouts were not immediately known, the union said. ' , (AP) - Dem- ' been living with his Miami relatives, and fretted that the little boy might be spending his last weekend in Little Havana. More than 250 people .kept their vigil into a muggy Saturday night, with many waving American flags. At one point, the crowd began chanting that the boy's father is a coward and a traitor, and that he should return to Cuba without his son. The 4 custody struggle was in the hands of the federal appeals court in Atlanta, which issued a temporary injunction Thursday blocking Elian from leaving the country, The Justice Department also agreed that day to hold off on reuniting Elian with his father for a few days. The government wants the appeals court to suspend the injunction and order the to hand great-unclhim over. The relatives want the court to let them meet with Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, without being required to let Elian go. The Justice Department also pointedly reminded the Lazaro Gonzalez, great-unclthat he lost legal custody of Elian on Thursday when he defied the government's demand that he take the boy to the airport for a flight to Washington. Elian's father has been waiting there since ' April 6. A Newsweek poll released Saturday found that a majority of Americans now felt the NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall f Street's sharp has wiped out billions of dollars in mutual funds and broker, - LOS ANGELES (AP) Media baron Rupert Murdoch has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is to receive several weeks of radiation treatment. A News Corporation spokesman said that Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation learned last week t hat he has prostate cancer after undergoing routine medical tests in lxs Angeles. The spokesman said doctors told Murdoch the prognosis for halting the cancer is very good. The Australia native does not plan to change his work schedule during the radiation therapy. News Corporation is a worldwide communications company whose holdings in the United States include the Fox television network, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Post. accounts, spooking age American investors who say they're starting to rein in their spending. It could be the prescription to cool the economy and put somecurbs on inflation thing the Federal Reserve has been trying to achieve through interest rate hikes. Or it could help push the country toward a recession. 'There are a lot of people out there now saying, 'Oops, I don't have as much money today as I did last week,'" said Kathleen Stephansen, senior economist with the investment firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. "If they then go on and change how they spend, that could really slow this economy down." i rtii i ttn i ne u.o. economy nas Deen KINSHASA Congo (AP) -Cross workers dug through the ruins of a collapsed hangar Saturday in a desperate search for survivors, a day after a mysterious chain of deadly explosions struck Kinshasa's international airport.. Official radio put the death toll at 10. But reports from Belgium, Congo's former colonial ruler, said bet ween 40 and 50 people had been killed including victims hit by debris up to several miles away. Hospital officials said 216 were seriously injured. The death toll could rise much higher, with customs officials saying more than 100 people could still be trapped in . the hangar. were conflicting' .. There explanations of what caused the.at blasts Friday Kinshasa's N'Djili international airport, ranging from a short circuit to a soldier dropammunition while ping unloading a plane full of ; '.' weapons. "First there was the big explosion. Then we saw rock- ets and shells flying. People were running everywhere but the hangar collapsed before many could get out," said cusKalala Ngoy, a toms inspector. "Soldiers were running. The bosses were running. Poor people were running. We were all the same in the face of death." The government initially declined comment on the aster, but Saturday night' Information Congolese Minister Didier Mumengi said the government was setting up an investigative commission to look into the cause of the explosions. The explosions occurred on the first full day of a new Red x V &' r'Vlr.'t'f- 'vfJV Jf s or- v . , - ; ' : TONY (UTIKKRK7. he .Waited ftt Still trying: Supporters of Elian Gonzalez's Miami family stand under a large Cuban flag Saturday. Sequoia National Forest in California, said: "We have to let the court cases be decided, but I think the main thing is I hope all the people who came to the United States because we have freedom and rule of law will observe the rule of law." A few hours after Clinton's comments, a lawyer for the family stepped outside the home and said that the family would not try to stop the government from taking the boy, but it would not help. family was not cooperating enough with' government and court efforts to resolve the case. Both disapproval numbers were up from a week earlier. 53 But the same amount thought Elian percent should be returned to his father in Cuba. The poll was conducted among 752 adults and the results on April have a 4 percentage point error margin. Also Saturday, President Clinton, speaking in the ; 13-1- 4 Scare from Wall Street sell-of- Murdoch has cancer aw h e 7 Search for survivors on at Congo airport Cuban boy chanted and onstrators prayed outside the home where Elian Gonzalez has United States and its allies over the way to achieve an overhaul of the IMF and World Bank and how to involve the private sector in future crises. Summers and Greenspan held a series of discussions with finance officials from several countries in Summers' office before the start of the afternoon G-- talks, which" were held at the Blair House, the government's official guest house across the street from the White House. Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi told reporters that Miyazawa Summers told the Japanese delegation that the plunge in American stock prices had not altered the strong fundamentals of the U.S. economy, which is" currently enjoying the lowest hiwhk ployment rates in three decades and is in the midst of the longest economic-expansioin the country's history. Both the Dow Jones industrial average and the technology-heavNasdaq composite index suffered record point losses on Friday, capping off a dismal week. .. - best expanding for a record 109 consecutive months, and it is showing few signs of leveling off. Fed policy-makerconecocerned that nomic growth could spark inflation, have raised interest rates five times since June, but their efforts have done little to cool the economy. The economic slowdown they're seeking could be hitting now, thanks to the stock market. Prices have plunged on Wall Street in recent weeks losing almost $2 trillion in value las"t week alone because of growing concerns about inflation, and interest .'rates as well as investors' too-rapi- d increasing disillusionment with stocks. Among the worries as the new trading week begins is whether there will be additional fallout from the heavy borrowing by traders to buy y . ui. signed last week by the parties in Congo's 20-- . month civil war. ,. President Laurent Kabila toured the wreckage-strewsite Saturday morning and was seen speaking with sever al victims' families. Congolese state radio said about 10 peo-- : pie were killed. In the jumbled remains of a hangar used by customs and tax officials to handle incoming cargo from Europe, local Red Cross workers used crowbars and shovels to dig for surcease-fir- e ; vivors. Soldiers did not allow journalists to talk to the rescuers, and. if was unclear whether any victims were found alive. Limp bodies were seen pulled from steel the twisted, wreckage- of and 'Concrete: ;""' .. ' The corpses were dragged to another hangar where four Red Cross trucks waited to carry them off. ;, Several customs officials feared more than 100. people both officials and customers had been collecting cargo trapped inside. A wall and ceiling of the hangar collapsed when a munitions depot behind it exploded during the chain reaction of blasts. 'An airport postal facility also collapsed but it was uncertain whether there were people inside at the time. Many other buildings and several planes were also dam-- , aged. Practically the only building left unscathed was the airport control tower. Family members swarmed ' onto the wreckage-strewmac in hopes of hearing news of loved ones. Antoinette Kaku. a student, looked dazed as she searched for her father. Mutombo Ngeleka, a baggage n handler at the airport . could stall economy sell-o- ff stock as the market's bull ran stampeded ' 1990s. As the the through vBS sell-of- f ' took hold in the past month, many who bought stocks with borrowed money were forced to sell shares to meet collateral requirements for margin debt. Those traders couldn't always find buyers for some of the more speculative issues and had to sell shares of more established stocks to meet margin calls from the brokers holding the loans. That selling helped lead to record declines in major market indexes Friday. The Nasdaq composite index was e down 34 percent from its high reached March 10, and the Dow Jones industrial average is 10 percent below the peak it reached in January. That has some Americans , 5 Tv ' $ . d - g MAX all-tim- n WHITTAKER The Associated Press You're kidding me: Tommy and Angelica Bui, of San Francisco, watch the stock ticker in shock Friday. many of whom have wealth greater thanks to the long bull mar enjoyed ket boom end. worrying that the times are coming , to an |