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- <text id=93TT2391>
- <title>
- Feb. 01, 1993: The Price of Clinton's Plan
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Feb. 01, 1993 Clinton's First Blunder
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 15
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>By JANICE CASTRO
- </p>
- <p>The Price of Clinton's Plan
- </p>
- <p> Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is
- gently making it known that if President Clinton lifts the ban
- on gays and lesbians in the military, he just might resign.
- General Powell has strong moral and pragmatic objections to the
- idea, according to close friends. In comments that went
- unnoticed during a recent visit to the U.S. Naval Academy,
- Powell said that if "you find it completely unacceptable and it
- strikes to the heart of your moral beliefs, then I think you
- have to resign." He may not be alone. Meeting with Secretary of
- Defense Les Aspin last week, the other five members of the Joint
- Chiefs forcefully backed Powell's opposition to Clinton's idea.
- </p>
- <p>Under Palace Arrest
- </p>
- <p> Kuwait's royal family is retaliating against relatives who
- may have jeopardized the country's financial stability. At
- least two low-ranking members of the SABAH FAMILY are under
- house arrest in Kuwait, their assets frozen. They are among
- royals accused of depleting the funds of the Kuwait Investment
- Office in London, which managed about $35 billion of the
- country's $90 billion in reserves. During the 1980s, according
- to an insider with close knowledge of the fund, royals lost
- about $10 billion in unauthorized deals that failed, kickbacks
- to relatives and other questionable withdrawals. Top family
- members allegedly participated in the scams.
- </p>
- <p>A Chinese Puzzle for Clinton
- </p>
- <p> To the end, George Bush clung to his policy of normalizing
- relations with China. Five days before leaving office, he swept
- aside vehement objections from the Defense Department, the Joint
- Chiefs of Staff, the intelligence community, the Arms Control
- and Disarmament Agency and several members of Congress to go
- ahead with plans to sell a Cray Supercomputer to the People's
- Republic. China maintains that it will use the M92 computer only
- for weather forecasting. But it could easily enhance China's
- nuclear weapons and missiles programs. Capable of executing 650
- million calculations per second, the M92 can simulate nuclear
- reactions to test designs, for example, speeding development of
- weapons. Worse, critics fear that the Chinese may share the Cray
- with Iran, which is pressing hard to develop nuclear capability.
- President Clinton can stop the sale, but he'll also need to
- reassure allies like Japan and Israel. Says one federal
- proliferation expert: "We have extreme security concerns with
- China. They are exporting technology for weapons of mass
- destruction to very bad places."
- </p>
- <p>Look Out, Xerox
- </p>
- <p> Forget how many copies a machine can make without jamming.
- RICOH has a new photocopier that automatically translates
- documents from English to Japanese, producing a subtitled copy
- within two minutes. Focusing on the key words in each sentence,
- the IMAGS530 prints Japanese equivalents under them and
- provides a backup sheet listing alternate meanings. It also
- sends faxes, serves as a digital printer, makes coffee...
- </p>
-
- <p>Friends in High Places
- </p>
- <p> Bezek, the Israeli national phone company, has launched a
- popular service: faxes to God. Bezek employees carried more than
- 300 faxes to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem last week, many of
- them sent from as far away as Tahiti, India and Norway. One
- hopeful Israeli faxed his lottery number. International
- supplicants, dial 011-972-261-2222.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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