4
Tuesday, September 10,1996
Tobacco issues light
up on, off the Web
■ Advocates for and
against regulation spark
discussion and activism.
If there’s one topic that has people
fuming on and off the Internet, it’s
tobacco. With President Bill
Clinton’s new Food and Drug Adminis
tration regulations on nicotine and with
13 states suing to recover smoking-re
lated health care costs, it’s easy to see that
this issue is smoking.
A plethora of sites debate the regula
tion issue from both ends of the spec
trum. And die friends and foes oftobacco
do not hesitate to offer their stance on
North Carolina’s biggest cash crop.
Most web pages hope to incite action
by encouraging browsers to contact their
representatives.
The source of the problem can be
found at http://www.netaxis.com/
~cb/smoke/, the “smokers source of
news and reviews.”
Created for the tobacco smoker, brows
ers can look up the latest news on Con
gress’ fight to ban and tax cigarettes,
located under “the enemy” and “the
news” categories. Click on the no smok
ing sign to see what the enemy, a k a the
FDA, is doing.
As an added benefit for smokers
those who might want to switch brands
perhaps it reviews various cigarettes
from Camels to Marlboros. The authors
cover such factors as the package design
(they seem to like the green and blue
colored ones), cigarette construction
(flimsy vs. sturdy) and cigarette taste.
The creators of the smokers’ source
would probably like to join forces with
the Kinston-based “Friends of Tobacco"
at http://www.fujipub.oom/fot/.
While somewhat out of date, the group
made a strong effort to organize tobacco
advocates into one group in a rational,
nonradical way.
Through a series of statistics from the
Tobacco Institute, the organization lays
out tobacco’s financial contribution to
the U.S. economy to illustrate the crop’s
impact and to fight the anti-tobacco move
ment. The text is a bit dry and could have
used some graphic advice in designing
the web site. Despite this, if one wants to
argue on the “pro-tobacco” side of the
issue, this information will best back up
the argument.
If you’re not on the tobacco industry’s
sifle, then you might want to set your
browser to Smokescreen, the Tobacco
Control Network, at http://
www.smokescreen.org.
_ . DTH/GRAHAM BRINK
I raftic signals around Chapel Hill remain battered from Hurricane Fran's whipping winds
Power remains out in parts of Chapel Hill but should be restored by midweek.
IN THE NEWS
Top stories from the state, nation and world
Clinton orders tightening
of airport security
WASHINGTON Promising safer
skies, President Bill Clinton issued or
ders Monday to tighten airport security
and challenged Congress to support a
sl.l billion anti-terrorism crackdown.
“Terrorists don’twait,” the president said.
“And neither should we.”
Clinton unveiled the proposals in an
Oval Office ceremony designed to reas
sure jittery Americans after last year’s
Oklahoma City bombing and the explo
sion of TWA Flight 800 less than two
months ago.
“Asa result of these steps, not only
will the American people feel safer, they
will be safer,” the president declared of
the proposal that comes just two months
before the election.
The White House Commission on
Aviation Safety and Security, which un-
Tobacco con- _ __
trol activists will
be impressed. To
proceed from the \ j
opening page of BfflS
a cigarette smok- . _
ingdollarbill,the ■ ~
browser needs to vN.
enter his or her bsssißsiaSJ)
zip code in order
to personalize
the web site’s information.
Upon doing so, the browser will reach
a menu that lists your local representa
tives, their record on tobacco (check out
Jesse Helms’ long list of PAC contribu
tions), and how to reach them via e-mail
or fax.
To find other ways of political action,
the site lists a directory of tobacco control
groups in the browser’s local area.
And although a good idea, the cre
ators need to develop further their list of
smoke-free eating establishments. To
date, there were only listings for three
states.
The most pseudo-objective site seems
to be at http://www.tobacco.oig. It
doesn’t scream out with cool graphics
but is thorough in the links it leads brows
ers to.
The authors describe their “Tobacco
BBS” as a free resource center focusing
on tobacco and smoking issues.
Recent tobacco news, alerts for to
bacco control advocates and an arena for
debate are just a few of the highlights of
the web site.
The site is broken down into catego
ries of news, health, resources, docu
ments, culture and activism.
In the health section, there is an inter
esting debate about the nicotine patch
versus nicotine gum, as well as a section
on how to quit smoking.
Among the resources I found useful is
a map on state smoking laws in the work
place at http://www.toollrit.cch.oom/
guidebook/text/Pos_s2oo.htm. (I’m
into localizing, or finding location-spe
cific information for the less literate
browsers, in case you haven’t figured it
out). Click on your respective state to get
information about your state’s general
rule and various policy requirements.
Finally, in the culture category is a site
on tobacco history, complete with time
line, and subsections <3n art and books.
Tobacco sites are growing as rapidly
as the crop itself. No matter what side
you’re on, you’ll find something to huff
and puff at.
E-mail descriptions of interesting and unique
web sites to jlbanov@email.unc.edu.
LIGHTS OUT
veiled its recommendations last week,
formally presented them to the president
Monday. In embracing the report,
Clinton:
Ordered immediate criminal back
ground checks of airline workers with
access to secure areas.
Ordered the Federal Aviation Ad
ministration to set up a system in selected
airports to match each piece of luggage
with a passenger.
Promised to sign an executive or
der making the National Transportation
Safety Board the point agency to help
families of plane crash victims.
Announced that the U.S. military
will provide several dozen specially
trained dogs for security at key airports.
The airport safety recommendations
would cost $429.4 million.
Netanyahu wants peace
talks with Syria reopened
WASHINGTON lsraeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked to
the Clinton administration Monday to
reopen peace talks with Syria, but ruled
out a pullout on the Golan Heights as a
precondition for peace with the Arab
nation.
“Like us, the United States wants the
talksresumed/’Netanyahusaid. “Idon’t
know if Syria wants it. We are looking for
a solution in words.”
A senior Israeli official said the main
Company gives schools free access to Internet
BYTIFFANY CASHWELL
STAFF WRITER
Starting on next month’s Net Day ’96,
about 460 North Carolina schools will
receive free Internet access for a year
from Bell South.
State and local educators are excited
about the prospect of better school tech
nology. “Businesses are good partners
with die schools,” said Elsie Brumback,
director of instructional technology at
the N.C. Department of Public Instruc
tion. “They realize these children are the
future users of their services.”
Bell South announced Monday that
they will set up 4,000 schools in nine
states with wiring and Internet accounts.
The contribution also provides each
school with Bell South volunteers to in
stall the wiring, accounts and telephones
for five classrooms, training video tapes
Traffic officers were out in force after Hurricane Fran downed power lines and traffic lights. Even though officials asked residents to remain at
to engage in life-sustaining activies, Chapel Hill streets were littered with cars.
Saddam supporters capture city in northern Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DOKAN, Iraq Kurdish allies of Saddam
Hussein captured the last stronghold of their
rebel rivals Monday, giving the Iraqi leader
control over much of northern Iraq for the first
time since the Persian Gulf War.
With Iraqi troops trailing close behind, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party claimed control of
the city of Sulavmaniyah after the crumbling
forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan aban
doned their posts, U.N. workers in the city said.
“The PUK had withdrawn and the KDP
walked in,” said Stafford Clarry, the head of a
U.N. guard unit in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi
Kurdistan’s second-largest city.
About 50,000 of Sulaymaniyah’s 400,000
people fled in advance of the offensive, leaving
the city quiet after its fall, Clarry said.
The United States, which launched missile
strikes against southern Iraq last week, made
clear it has no plans to take sides in the fighting
between the Kurdish factions, who have fre
quently shifted alliances in the course of then
conflict.
The missile strikes appeared to discourage
obstacle was Syria’s insistence that Israel
first commit itself to a withdrawal from
the Golan Heights as a part of a peace
accord.
The official, insisting on anonymity,
said Israel would not agree to a land-for
peace arrangement, meaning that itwould
not give up the strategic high ground it
won in the 1967 Six Day War.
Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres’
Labor-led government, which Netanyahu
ousted in national elections May 29, im
plicitly agreed to Syria’s demand, the
official said, but it was not binding on the
new government in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu is also telling the adminis
tration the Mideast peace process could
fall apart iflsraeli troops were withdrawn
from the volatile West Bank town of
Hebron without solid security guaran
tees.
Deflecting a U.S. call for a prompt
redeployment, restricting the troops to
guarding some 400 Jewish settlers,
Netanyahu said he had told Secretary of
State Warren Christopher that “improv
ing the security in Hebron is not only an
Israeli interest but it is a Palestinian inter
est.”
Former adviser called
before House committee
WASHINGTON Former cam
paign adviser Dick Morris has been asked
by a House committee chairman to an
NEWS
and Internet courseware books for grades
K-12. The offered services are worth $25
million.
Bell South’s contribution is in conjunc
tion with Net Day ’96, a national
grassroots initiative developed to wire a
large number of schools to the Internet
on Oct. 26. Local educators and
Bell South will choose which schools will
receive services. Guidelines must be pub
lished before schools are picked.
Bell South will release implementation
details next week, Brumback said.
Brumback said she hoped the contri
bution will create a ripple effect. “Hope
fully BellSouth’scontribution will prompt
other companies to make similar an
nouncements,” she said.
The contribution reflects the reliance
by public schools on outside funding for
supplies. Brumback said corporate finan
cial help in education is needed. North
DIRECTIONS ANYONE?
swer questions about his reported state
ment that Hillary Rodham Clinton was
behind the collection of hundreds of con
fidential FBI files on former Republican
officials.
Rep. William Clinger, R-Pa., chair
man of the Government Reform and
Oversight Committee, said in a state
ment that he “was astonished to leam
from news reports” that Morris “has in
formation linking the first lady to the
improper review of at least 900 confiden
tial FBI files.”
In a letter dated Saturday and made
public Sunday, Clinger asked Morris to
“affirm by sworn statement" the truthful
ness of his reported contents and to sup
ply all “correspondence, e-mail, memos,
talking points, briefing papers, polling
data, telephone records and other
records” on the subject. Clinger said
Morris had agreed to respond by 5 p.m.
today. Clinger said his committee, which
has led the investigation into how the
FBI files ended up in a White House
security office, “may need to take addi
tional efforts to secure sworn testimony
from you. ” He has suggested that Morris
may be subpoenaed to appear before the
committee.
The Star supermarket tabloid released
exceipts Friday from the diaries of a
prostitute in which she wrote that Morris
had blamed Mrs. Clinton for the White
House’s acquisition of the files. Morris
resigned after the tabloid revealed what it
Carolina’s share of the program is $4.2
million. TheN.C. General Assembly will
also take notice, Brumback said. Public
schools asked fors7l million this year for
technology purposes, but only received
S2O million, she said. “Next year, we’re
asking for $lO7 million.”
The board has a five-year technology
plan that will have all state schools com
pletely wired for Internet access. “Even
after Net Day, we will still need other
equipment,” Brumback said.
News of the Bell South program was
also welcome locally.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro elementary
schools could benefit tremendously from
Bell South’s efforts, saidDougNoell, sys
tems analyst for Chapel Hill-Canboro
City Schools. “We are focusing on our
elementary schools because most other
schools are already wired for Internet
access,” he said. The area’s elementary
Saddam’s forces from taking a direct role in the
fighting, but it has not slowed the Saddam-allied
KDP.
KDP fighters claimed they entered
Sulaymaniyah on Monday evening after resi
dents rebelled to force out a rival, Iranian-backed
Kurdish faction and its leader, Jalal Talabani.
The city was the last stronghold left in the
hands of the PUK forces after they lost Irbil, the
area’s de facto capital, on Aug. 31 in a KDP
offensive backed by the Iraqi army.
The capture of Sulaymaniyah means Saddam
effectively wields control over much of northern
Iraq for the first time since the U.S.-led forces
established a Kurdish “safe haven” after the
1991 Gulf War.
The town of Dokan fell to the KDP earlier in
the day, giving the Kurdish group control of a
dam that supplies water and power to the region.
A long convoy ofKDP fighters entered Dokan
with strips of yellow ribbon—the faction’s color
tied to their guns.
Some Dokan residents offered water to KDP
fighters and waved yellow flags, yelling “Piroz
be!” “Congratulations” in Kurdish.
said was his longtime relationship with
the call girl.
White House Chief of Staff Leon
Panetta, appearing Sunday on CNN’s
“Late Edition,” said it was his under
standing that Morris “did call the cam
paign to indicate that there was no truth
to this story.”
“I think you also have to look at the
source of this story,” Panetta said. “I
mean, we’re still operating off of a tab
loid story.”
Perot promises to abolish
existing tax system
DALLAS ln his second TV
infomercial of the campaign, Ross Perot
promised to abolish the existing tax sys
tem if elected president and use com
puter-generated models to come up with
a simpler, fairer alternative.
Perot said he would use the Internal
Revenue Service’s computer databases
to test several tax ideas —including a flat
tax, a consumption tax, a national sales
tax, a savings tax, a value-added tax and
a financial transaction tax—and find the
best plan. “The computer will have the
same role in this effort that a wind tunnel
would have in creating anew airplane,”
the Reform Party candidate said Sunday
night in a half-hour campaign infomercial
broadcast on NBC.
Perot said he would also rely on the
help of IRS employees and “the leading
Slfp latlg Sar Heel
schools have Internet access in their me
dia centers and administrative offices,
and Net Day could bring the Internet to
classrooms and teachers’ homes.
Internet access enables students to tap
up-to-the-minute information from
sources around the world. Internet skill-;
are also essential to succeed in future job
markets, said Deb Spicer, a Bell South
spokeswoman.
“Bell South has a long-term relation
ship in the educational community.
Thirty percent of the schools in our nine
state region will benefit from Net Day,”
she said.
After a full school year of free services,
schools can continue to carry the services
at a reduced rate. Bell South will still offer
support.
In addition, Bell South Foundation will
offer $600,000 in grants to help teachers
organize curriculum.
As his fighters claimed the town, KDP leader
Massoud Barzani stood on a hill just outside,
saluting his men as they entered.
“This is the end of the collaborator, ” he said,
referring to PUK leader Talabani’s alliance with
Iran.
Traveling in trucks, taxis and even old
Mercedes-Benz sedans, the KDP troops encoun
tered a few sniper ambushes, but quickly re
sponded with heavy artillery fire into hills cov
ered with dry golden grass.
The PUK had put up stiff resistance until
Monday, but appeared unable to hold back the
onslaught. Iraqi forces were advancing across
the region behind the front-line KDP fighters but
were not playing a major role in the fighting,
according to most accounts.
In Washington, President Bill Clinton said
the conflict won’t be resolved until the Kurds
stop fighting among themselves.
“I would still like to do more to help the
Kurds,” Clinton said. “But frankly, if you want
the fighting to be ended, the leaders of the
various factions are going to ha ve to be willing to
go back to the peace table and talk it through.”
authorities on taxes,” including several
members of Congress, to come up with
creative alternatives.
The idea, he said, is to scrap the cur
rent complicated income tax code for a
simpler one that is paperless and not
shaped by special interests that lobby
Congress.
“As your president, I will return our
tax system to one that will pay our bills
and tap the creativity and entrepreneur
ial spirit of America to create millions of
newjobs here in the U.S. A.,” he pledged.
“We must carry this same spirit of
reform to the other programs in govern
ment that have runaway costs such as
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and
welfare —and we will,” he added.
Part biography, part testimony and
part oratory, Perot’s ad included not only
a plan to revamp the IRS, but also a plea
to send in money for his presidential
campaign.
In 1992, when the Texas billionaire
won 19 percent of the vote, he paid for his
own independent White House bid,
spending S6O million. This time, under
his new Reform Party banner, Perot
agreed not to dip into his own pocket in
exchange for receiving more than $29
million in federal funds to campaign. In
contrast, President Clinton and Republi
can presidential candidate Bob Dole each
got twice that amount for the general
election contest.
FROM WIRE REPORTS