Word: convoying
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Wednesday, 12:15 p.m., Kosovo. An armored van carrying Holbrooke stops along a one-lane dirt road just south of the hamlet of Istinic. Rusted farm implements obstruct traffic, one of many barricades K.L.A. insurgents have set up. U.S. security agents scan the surrounding forest, fearing that the halted convoy may become a target for stray gunfire. Holbrooke orders the vehicles to head back to the town of Decane, which Serb forces burned last month. Coming through the town earlier, the convoy passed deserted buildings, but in the town's center, two dozen people sat at an open-air cafe...
Wednesday, 12:40 p.m., the village of Junik. Holbrooke's convoy makes an unplanned stop after passing through Serb security forces guarding a nearby Serb refugee camp. Friendly Kosovar guides usher the diplomats through alleys to a walled compound, where they take off their shoes to enter a Muslim home. Holbrooke, his jacket off and his tie loosened, is introduced to Gani Shehu, 31, who identifies himself as Rugova's party leader in the village. K.L.A. "morale officer" Lum Haxhiu, 40, fondles a European assault rifle as he tells Holbrooke he was formerly a poet in Denmark. Outside, a bearded...
...calls flew between Treasury and Tokyo's Finance Ministry. In close consultation with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin pushed Finance Minister Hikaru Matsunaga to deregulate his economy and jump-start it with permanent tax cuts. Especially important to Rubin was a Japanese pledge to abandon its so-called convoy system, whereby strong banks must support weaker ones no matter what their financial condition. Convoying has left the banking system as a whole with some $600 billion in bad debt. The question was what the Clinton Administration was prepared to do in exchange for fast Japanese action...
...then somberly replied that intervention by itself would accomplish little. What really mattered was concrete Japanese actions. He headed back to Treasury. At 9 p.m., a Rubin aide called the White House. After more talks, Japanese Finance Minister Matsunaga had outlined specific actions, including a promise to end the convoy system. Rubin okayed...
...quite. The unwieldy convoy hardly constitutes a rapid response team, and Iraqi officials had been notified of the inspection ahead of time. UNSCOM is keeping its expectations low for these early ?baseline? visits. Whether they will turn up anything in future trips remains to be seen. More important to Iraq is how many trips it will take before Baghdad is granted a clean bill of health. One crumb of comfort for the Iraqis: Richard Butler, the belligerent UNSCOM chief, is being rotated out as the inspections begin...