News In Brief

The US

The Senate urged President Clinton to consult Congress before undertaking new Bosnia missions to hunt down war criminals. The nonbinding amendment to an appropriation bill was approved on a voice vote. Meanwhile, Clinton came under pressure from politicians and more than 80 groups, among them Amnesty International, to take the lead in ensuring that all Bosnian war criminals are brought to justice.

The Senate probe of campaign-finance abuses revealed direct evidence that fund-raiser John Huang helped to funnel $50,000 to the Democratic Party from a giant Indonesia-based company in 1992. Testimony and documents showed that the Lippo Group reimbursed a US subsidiary, of which Huang was an executive, for a $50,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee. The committee said it would return the money.

The commander of the Green Berets is the front-runner to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, administration sources said. US Army Gen. Hugh Shelton has won praise for his role as ground commander in the 1994 US operation in Haiti. He would replace Gen. John Shalikashvili.

Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr ruled that Vincent Foster was a suicide victim - the same conclusion reached in three previous official inquiries into the death of the former White House lawyer. Starr's report, filed with the US Court of Appeals in Washington, won't be released until the court reviews it.

Administrators of a small-business program in the Treasury Department wrote fake memos after learning Congress planned a review of their files, department officials confirmed. But they said lending decisions had not been politically motivated. GOP lawmakers are questioning four agency loans, totaling $11 million, to Shorebank Corp. of Chicago and three related companies, saying that a college roommate of Hillary Clinton was a Shorebank official and that the first lady was a board member of one of the firms.

The House voted to retain $110 million budgeted for the National Endowment for the Humanities. On a 328-to-96 vote, a measure that would have eliminated NEH funding was defeated. The agency provides grants for education, museum, broadcasting, and research programs. The action contrasted with a recent House vote not to fund the National Endowment for the Arts.

Consumer prices rose a scant 0.1 percent for the fourth month in a row in June - advancing at their slowest pace in 11 years during the first half of the year, the Labor Department reported. Wall Street analysts had expected the Consumer Price Index, the government's most widely used measure of inflation, to rise 0.2 percent in June.

Plans to provide the public greater access to antismut software were to be announced by computer-industry officials at a White House news conference. In the wake of a US Supreme Court decision that declared unconstitutional a law designed to protect children who use the Internet, the Clinton administration is urging the industry and parental groups to take steps to make the Internet safer for youngsters.

The US Education Department launched a probe into admissions policies at three University of California law schools to determine whether they are racially discriminatory. The department said it opened the inquiry in response to a complaint filed by six civil rights groups.

Mississippi received a $170 million payment from the tobacco industry, making it the first state to be compensated by major cigarette makers for the cost of treating ailing smokers.

Eight county governments and an independent California agency have joined San Francisco and the state in suing the nation's third-largest bank, attorneys said. The multimillion-dollar lawsuits allege that a BankAmerica unit mismanaged municipal bond funds by overcharging bond issuers, improperly investing some accounts, and failing to return unclaimed funds.

The World

Massive crowds turned out in major Spanish cities for a fourth straight day of protests against the Basque separatist group, ETA, for its July 12 slaying of a kidnapped politician. But while demonstrations in Seville, Zara-goza, and other cities were peaceful, protesters in Bilbao pelted the offices of ETA's political wing, Herri Batasuna, with rocks and bottles. The group responded with calls for a counter-demonstration by its supporters in San Sebastian on Saturday.

A US soldier was stabbed from behind in Serb-held Bosnia - the first reported direct attack on peacekeepers since NATO troops arrested one war-crimes suspect and killed another. The unidentified soldier's wound was treated and a hospital released him to his unit, NATO sources said. The incident followed three nights of bombings apparently directed at international elections organizers working in Serb areas.

Dismissing a strong new UN rebuke as "a regrettable side-show," Israel resumed work on the controversial Har Homa housing project in Jerusalem. The UN resolution, approved 131 to 3 in the General Assembly, condemned Israeli settlement activity. Palestinians complained that the move did not include economic sanctions.

In what analysts called a bid to give his regime the appearance of legitimacy, Cambodian Premier Hun Sen appointed Foreign Minister Ung Huot as co-leader of the government. Hun Sen, however, was expected to reserve virtually all powers for himself. Despite being a member of ousted co-Premier Norodom Ranariddh's political movement, Ung Huot nonetheless rejected the prince's call for armed resistance against Hun Sen's forces.

US astronaut Michael Foale was preparing to help make vital repairs to Mir, Russian space officials said. But a NASA spokeswoman, while confirming the Russian account, said Foale's participation in restoring power to the troubled space station was still under review. The astronaut was said to have checked a Russian-made spacesuit and studied diagrams for the repair mission, scheduled for July 24.

The two Koreas accused each other of escalating tensions after an exchange of gunfire along their heavily armed border. North Korea said several of its soldiers were wounded when South Korean troops fired at them during a reconnaissance mission. In Seoul, military officials maintained their troops were responding after the North Koreans fired at two guard posts.

Malnutrition in North Korea has doubled since March, despite international donations of hundreds of thousand tons of food, the relief agency Caritas reported. Spokeswoman Ann Zellweger said North Korean officials "feel ashamed" that an estimated 800,000 children are underfed. Summer rains are late, she said, and officials worry that drought could damage this year's crops.

The European Union's executive commission approved closer ties with Turkey and identified six other countries as its best prospects for future membership. But the commission said Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, and Cyprus (see list at bottem of page) must make further progress with economic and political reforms before EU membership "in the medium term" is possible.

Flood waters in Poland bore down on the town of Glagow as parliament rushed to consider legislation that would increase the funds available for emergency aid. Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said the damage to more than 900 communities and 40,000 farms "cannot be compared with anything in the past." He urged opponents not to use his government's response to the crisis as an issue in the country's Sept. 21 elections.

Etceteras

"Life must go on. We have suffered too much."

- New Cambodian co-Premier Ung Huot, rejecting his own party's calls for armed resistance against coup leader Hun Sen.

As far as the British courts are concerned, the clergy literally work for God - and no one else. An Anglican priest in London was denied permission to appeal his dismissal to a labor review board because his employer wasn't "terrestrial," had no known address, and couldn't be served with a summons.

Pssst! Wanna learn how to become a computer hacker and do neat stuff like breaking into secret corporate or governmental files? Now there's a course that teaches exactly those skills. "Culture, Computers, and the Law" is offered as part of a master's-level program at Salve Reg-ina University in Newport, R.I. But before signing up, you should know that all the other students in the course are law-enforcement officers . . . in training to catch future computer criminals.

A porker named Dora turned out to be no pig in a poke when Lee and George Everest of Prescott, Ariz., paid almost triple the going rate for her at a livestock show. Dora's squeals awakened the Everests at 3 a.m. - in time to bring a fire in their home under control. Damage was only minimal.

The Day's List

Six Countries Given Edge To Join European Union

The EU's executive commission has designated six countries as front-runners to join to the 15-nation bloc in the next few years. Ten countries from Eastern Europe had hoped to be invited for talks early next year, but only five joined Cyprus on the commission's short list. The nations that were to be present-ed to the 626-member assembly - and those that will not:

Chosen

Poland

Hungary

Czech Republic

Slovenia

Estonia

Cyprus

Not chosen

Slovakia

Romania

Bulgaria

Latavia

Lithuania

- Associated Press