For non-Americans, the target was too juicy to resist. WHAT A MICKEY MOUSE WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY jeered The Express, a British tabloid. “Americans aren’t as technologically advanced as they think they are,” said Markus Wenske, a paralegal in Berlin. “They can’t print a decent ballot, don’t know how to fill it in properly and can’t even count correctly afterward.’ But the painstaking vote count impressed some people in countries where the process isn’t always honest. “Indonesia could learn much from [the] U.S. election,” wrote The Jakarta Post. For better or worse, Ameria’s cliffhanger was a global sensation–“the strangest of nights” said Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, “the most humdinger of any election.”
WINTER SPORTA Disaster in Austria’s Alps
It was a perfect day in the Austrian Alps. Blue skies and fresh snow awaited thousands of skiers and snowboarders on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier high above the little town of Kaprun, an hour’s drive south of Salzburg. To get to the top they could ride in the world’s first underground ski lift–a cable car pulled through a two-mile tunnel climbing upward at an angle of 45 degrees. Then, at about 9 a.m. last Saturday, disaster struck. An ascending cable car, carrying about 180 people, suddenly exploded into flames. When the fire died down, three hours later, even the aluminum had burned. Nearly all of the passengers–many of them children and teenagers–were dead.
About nine people survived. “One strong man broke a window of the train with his ski pole,” said Claudia Hollaus, a psychologist caring for the injured. “Then they climbed out with their heavy boots on. They figured fire and smoke would move up, so they walked downward along the tracks.” But most of the passengers escaped from farther forward in the car. They struggled up the narrow stairs leading out of the tunnel and were overcome by fumes. The smoke was so thick that three people were killed by it in a waiting room at the top of the tunnel, more than a mile and a half from the fire.
Most of the victims were Austrian and German, but among them were about 23 Americans from military families based in Germany. “We have no idea about the cause of the catastrophe,” said Franz Schausberger, governor of Salzburg province. Austrian television said a fire caused by an electrical short circuit was the most likely cause. Klaus Eisenkolb, an engineer who helped design the railway, said the blaze had to have been started by “some kind of external event.” He ruled out nothing, including terrorism. Whatever the cause, the fire was the worst disaster in history for an Austrian ski industry that prides itself on safety.
SOUTH AFRICABrutal Tale of The Tape
THE TAPE IS BRUTAL AND raw. Off camera, a voice announces the start of a “dog-training video.” Then six white South African policemen set their German shepherds on three defenseless black men. As the dogs chew on the victims’ arms, legs and faces, the men scream and beg for mercy. The cops respond with punches, kicks and racial slurs. Toward the end of the edited 14-minute tape, one of the policemen draws his gun as if to execute one of the men. Another throws rocks at one of the victims as he shakes with fear. When the South African Broadcasting Corp. aired the film last week, it provoked an outpouring of grief, threats of violence against police and complaints of similar cases. (The policemen reportedly entertained friends by showing the 1998 home video at barbecues.) The victims must have seemed safe targets–the SABC said all three were suspected illegal immigrants from Mozambique. Since the broadcast, the victims have come forward, and the SABC reports that one is actually South African. The officers were arrested on charges of attempted murder. The government announced that the use of dogs will be restricted and that members of dog units will receive psychological screening. Little solace for a shocked nation.
MIDEASTTaking an Eye For an Eye
As the Israeli-Palestinian standoff continued, both sides last week played to their strengths. The Palestinians, too weak to get what they want on the battlefield or in negotiations, sought help from outsiders. Yasir Arafat appealed to the United Nations Security Council to send 2,000 peacekeepers to stand between the Israeli Army and Palestinian militiamen. But Israel, which believes Arafat is encouraging violence in order to gain international support, made an altogether different point: hours before Arafat was to meet with President Clinton in Washington, Israeli helicopter gunships assassinated Hussein Abayat, the leader of a Palestinian paramilitary unit in the area of Bethlehem. Ephraim Sneh, Israel’s deputy Defense minister, explained the latest escalation this way: “Whoever wants a guerrilla war,” he told Israeli television, “needs to understand that it’s a two-sided thing, " The laser-guided missile attack on Abayat also killed two 50-year-old women who happened to be standing nearby. Palestinian paramilitary leaders threatened to strike back, even as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak flew to Washington for his own meeting with Clinton. Before he left, Barak said he’d like to “lower all our expectations.” But it was hard to imagine they could get much lower.
