Word: excepted
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...subject appears to have been rethought. White House and Pentagon sources say the Clinton Administration is expected to announce soon--perhaps this week--that no later than the year 2001, the U.S. military will unilaterally abandon the use of mines, except to protect South Korea and the Persian Gulf. White House officials even suggest that the ban could begin as early as 1999. "We've all agreed we're going to have to get rid of land mines," says a senior Pentagon policymaker. "We have to lump them together with chemical and biological weapons. Even though we used them more...
...bill sponsored by Vermont's Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. The legislation outlawed the export of U.S.-made antipersonnel mines for one year. Later, Leahy succeeded in extending the law through 1997. Then in 1995 he won the votes for a one-year ban on the use of all mines, except along international borders and in demilitarized zones, to take effect in 1999. "Mines are the worst of human depravity," Leahy argued...
Unfortunately, except as an example to the world, a U.S. ban will have scant practical effect. The Geneva conference offered little hope. Because of opposition by countries like Russia and China, which have stockpiled tens of millions of mines, the conference stopped well short of calling for an outright prohibition. "The Chinese have told us flat out that they'll give up nukes before they give up antipersonnel mines," says a senior State Department negotiator. But the conference did establish new guidelines, under which freshly laid mines must contain enough metal to be detected and would eventually self-destruct. There...
...Worker retraining. Another good idea--except Clinton wanted to force employers to create their own programs, on penalty of having to pay a new, mandatory 1.5% payroll tax. Political error! The tax threat exposed the attempted sleight-of-hand a bit too nakedly. It was never enacted...
PHENOMENON (July 3). The morphing is metaphorical here: a regular Joe (Travolta) is zapped with psychic powers and an Einstein IQ. Naturally, he's a freak to be avoided, except by one (Kyra Sedgwick) who loves him. Sounds sappy, but could work: director Jon Turteltaub has fashioned some improbable hits (Cool Runnings, While You Were Sleeping), and Travolta is a perpetual charm machine...