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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 28, 1994)
Monday, March 28, 1994 The Battalion Page 5 Ie heirs ofu >nt - Mowed ;iar 'y of Alt ! anddaiioiuT rliainent. ; nservativeil ocated anJ le even y fortune i nd entertitj > niomhsj(| s three b|l lilan daily J companit" f soccuerii ni would fJ lecisions if] 1 lie would 1 >ct ofintereT '•i ore tm;l Forces attack Serb fighters in Inorthern Bosnia The Associated Press i to court J Page 1 -ople arei i the cm;:] No actin;| 1 port,: >r not I )rv to | just the if iju said, : ill that's i: im portal e brought :■ liligent." ' / • m SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Government forces attacked Serb fighters in northern Bosnia on Sunday, leading the Serb leader to threaten a counterattack and hardened negotiating stance. Bosnian radio claimed govern ment forces had captured key Bosnian Serb positions near Maglaj, killing 70 Serb fighters, and were advancing. There was no confirmation of the report. Belgrade’s Tanjug news agency said Bosnian Serb military sources reported “intensive” attacks by government forces but claimed the attacks had been repelled. On Friday, U.N. peacekeepers destroyed a Serb bunker near Maglaj, SO miles north of Saraje vo, after a seven-hour battle. A few days earlier, Bosnian Serbs looted an aid convoy headed for Maglaj. Speaking to his Serbian Democ ratic Party in Banja Luka, a Serb stronghold in northern Bosnia, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said the government’s “spring offensive must be bro ken.” “If they do not stop this offen sive, I will order a counteroffen sive and then they shall not be able to get the territories they would be able to by political ne gotiations,” he said, according to Tanjug. “They can never get the territories on which they are now killing our men.” Another round of talks among Bosnia’s Muslims, Serbs and Croats has not been scheduled, overshadowed by the creation of a Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia. But Karadzic has never been willing to concede much land in peace talks anyway. The Serbs control about 7 0 percent of Bosnia’s territory. For months, all sides in Bosnia’s two-year war have threat ened a spring offensive, but it wasn’t clear if the weekend fight ing was part of that offensive or an isolated attack. It is much easier to get around Bosnia’s snowy, mountainous and often bad roads in the spring. In Sarajevo, meanwhile, ethnic Serbs loyal to the Muslim-led Bosnian government held an as sembly and asked that their repre sentatives be included in peace talks since Bosnian Serbs led by Karadzic want to form a separate state. Ljubomir Berberovic, assembly president, praised the new Mus lim-Croat federation for begin ning “the process of stopping the Sewing up "Toadie" Amanda Sonlev/The Battalion Lisa Powell (left), a third year veterirtarian student, shows 9-year-old Meredith Gardner how to re pair her stuffed frog "Toadie" in Teddy Bear Surgery in the Small Animal Clinic during the First Annual College of Veterinary Medicine Open House Saturday morning. Vet students at Teddy Bear Surgery showed children how to sew their stuffed animals when they had a tear in them. Average Russians not aware of U.S., international aid assistance The Associated Press MOSCOW — One winter day, 80-year-old Antonina Vizhinskaya got a call from her district social workers; Would she and her husband, Viktor, care to visit a sani tarium outside Moscow, free of charge? The couple, along with about 100 other elderly Rus sians, spent the next three weeks enjoying the sanitari um’s clean rooms, good food and attentive personnel. “It was a good rest for old people like us and we could never afford it on our pension,” Vizhinskaya said. "We wouldn’t mind going there a second time.” What she did not know was that they had Uncle Sam to thank, at least in part. In complex, often roundabout ways, some US. aid is making its way through a burea- cratic web to ordinary Russians. A recent report by the Senate Foreign Relations Com mittee concluded that the average Russian is not “aware of or affected by international assistance or the reforms that it is supposed to foster.” Apart from “George Bush’s thighs” — a popular name for chicken legs sent by the Bush administration — few Russians could point to any specific U.S. aid. But some of it does trickle down. Unlike the World War II shipments of canned beef remembered by many older Russians, today’s American aid focuses on programs more than people. It includes defense conversion plans, agricultural commodities and advisers sent to promote democracy and free enterprise. In Vizhinskaya’s case, the tangled chain of transac tions that led to a sanitarium stay began with U.S. agri cultural products sold at commodity exchanges. Russia’s humanitarian and technical aid commission distributed the proceeds to social, health and farming programs. ‘ You could say there’s U.S. money in those sanitari ums, but people in the street might not know it,” said the commission’s humanitarian-aid director, Nikolai Anisimov. The commission expects to get the equivalent of about $32 million from 1993 safes of U.S. grain, corn, peanuts, rice, chicken and other products, Anisimov said. Some U.S.-financed programs show quick results, such as a $6 million housing project for discharged army officers in the Volga River city of Nizhny Nov gorod, to be completed this summer. Others take longer. For example, Washington has as sisted the effort to privatize state property and has con tributed more than $5 million to the International Fi nance Corp., which assists in privatization. Many U.S. programs send volunteers to help with farming or industry, and experts on economics, the ju diciary or democratic institutions. Those are the ones that raise the most doubt about the direction and efficiency of American efforts. The Senate committee report suggested that too much mon ey was spent on short visits by U.S. experts, and ques tioned the effectiveness of exchange and training pro grams. Brady Bill not welcomed by all Texans The Associated Press FIOUSTON — The Brady Bill came to Texas a month ago looking to bring its own brand of or der to the way Lone Star residents buy handguns. But the new stranger in town hasn’t received the traditional Texas welcome. “I hate it!” gripes Cindy Smith, an Alvin resi dent. “It’s talcing our rights away. We have the right to bear arms,” says gun-owner Brenda Lege of nearby Dayton. “You don’t want to depend on other people to defend you here in Texas'’ This is the state where the most honored souls are those who fought and died for independence “It’s taking our rights away. We have the right to bear arms. Brenda Lege, gun-owner at The Alamo. Texans love their freedom, and they have a long history of fighting those who try to mess with it. Enter the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which took effect Feb. 28. It requires the state’s estimated 21,605 federally licensed gun dealers to run background checks on anyone try ing to buy a handgun. A month later, law enforcement agencies across Texas are struggling with the extra work needed to complete the checks while gun dealers are handling questions from a confused public and buyers are mad for many reasons. Opposition to the bill seems to often stem from the belief that the bill is causing much work but won’t do much to reduce crime. “Criminals can just buy them off the street,” says Houstonian Robert Dodd. “Criminals are not going to go into gun stores. The way they’re go ing about it is not going to hurt anybody but law-abiding citizens.” FDA commissioner may try to regulate cigarettes ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONALS Discover a challenging future with opportunities to advance. 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Travel Study May 30-June 4 Courses are offered in political science, journalism or library and information studies at the Catholic University of America $560/$615 V Summer in France June 29-August 13 Study the French language at the Sorbonne in Paris - $2,600 V Summer in Mexico July 10-August 7 Study the Spanish language at Hotel Colonial in Puebla - $1,495 For more information call: College of Continuing Education (800) 522-0772 ext. 5101 or (405) 325-5101 Department of Speech Communication and TAMU Debate Society presents PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE Resolved: Affirmative action policies are still necessary in 1994 and should be maintained. Date: Wednesday, March 30, 1994 Time; 8:30 p.m. Place: 601 Rudder Come and voice your opinion! The Associated Press r~€: 7 WASHINGTON — David Kessler stunned even supporters when he announced he was considering regulating, perhaps banning, cigarettes. It was merely the latest controversy for the fiery Food and Drug Ad ministration commissioner. Now the public is waiting to see if the pediatrician who cracked down on everything from orange juice to powerful drug makers will re ally rein in the $60 billion tobacco industry. “There is no greater public health issue,” Kessler insists. But critics say this time Kessler has gone too far. “It’s another example of Kessler seizing an issue to advance his agen da, which is to make the public think Doc Kessler is Mr. Enforcement,” said Kim Pearson, a Washington lawyer who publishes an FDA-watch dog newsletter. Kessler doesn’t think that’s bad; it’s an image he has cultivated in his three years as head of the agency charged with protecting Americans from bad food or medicine. In that time, he has: • Seized orange juice mislabeled “fresh.” • Banned silicon breast implants because of evidence they were sick ening women, although he later allowed some for reconstructive surgery. • Cracked down on drug makers that don’t follow FDA manufacturing guidelines, saying the lapses could compromise product safety. The biggest company hit so far is Warner-Lambert, which in August briefly halted production at a loss of millions of dollars. • Prohibited makers of dietary supplements from issuing unproven health claims. But Kessler says a lack of authority sometimes hinders him. The FDA can’t force the recall of contaminated products, can’t even look at com pany records to see if food is properly chilled. “I have had food decomposing in plants and I have not had the ability to look at where that food’s been shipped,” he said in a recent interview. And that question of authority may halt his quest to regulate nicotine. To do so, Kessler must prove tobacco companies intentionally control nicotine levels to cause or sustain addiction. We invite you to join 80 Former Students on June 19-Jtme 25, 1994as tkey return to campus this summer for a weeh of classes and campus life. Student Hosts Applications for AggieHostel '94 are now available in the Campus Programs Office of the Association of Former Students in the Clayton Will iams Jr. Al umni Center, the MSC Student Pro grams Office and the Department of Student Activities. Deadline: April 4, 1994