http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpin1v.htm

150 Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- The Nobel Peace Prize committee picked a new leader and began trimming a record 150-name nomination list at its first meeting of the year on Wednesday.

President Clinton, a small Albanian town and American peace envoy George Mitchell, as well as groups like the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, were among the candidates.

Geir Lundestad, the committee's nonvoting secretary, said 36 groups and 114 individuals were nominated, but the lists are always cut to 20 or 30 at the first meeting of the year. He said the winner will most likely be announced on Oct. 13.

The secretive five-member committee never releases or confirms the names of nominees, although those making nominations often announce them.

The number rose to 150 from the 144 announced on Feb. 11 because more valid nominations postmarked by the Feb. 1 deadline arrived and the committee added their own nominations.

``There is nothing dramatic about committee members proposing candidates. They add people to the list, but that does not mean they feel bound to support them,'' Lundestad told The Associated Press.

Committee members are appointed by, but do not answer to Norway's parliament.

Clinton was nominated by two Norwegian legislators for helping secure world peace. Mitchell, a U.S. senator, was nominated for trying to broker peace in Northern Ireland.

Other nominees include Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for their Balkan peace efforts; the Salvation Army; and the Albanian town of Kukes for sheltering thousands of refugees during the Kosovo crisis.

The Nobel Prizes are always presented on the Dec. 10 anniversary of the death of their creator, Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist. The peace prize is awarded in Oslo and the other Nobel prizes in Stockholm, Sweden.

The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders won last year's prize.

AP-NY-02-23-00 1351EST

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), February 23, 2000

Answers

Clinton for first "Publicly acknowledged piece in the White House."

-- JB (noway@jose.com), February 23, 2000.

Oh well, wrong again, I thought it was for ''piece in our time''?

-- PHO (owennos@bigfoot.com), February 23, 2000.

http://www.newsday.com/a p/rnmpne02.htm

French, Maybe U.S., Troops To Kosovo

WASHINGTON (AP) -- France is sending 600 to 700 more troops to help quell the rising violence in a divided city in northern Kosovo, and the United States may send in a Marine unit, U.S. and French officials said Wednesday.

``We have already decided'' to dispatch a French Army battalion to the city of Kosovska Mitrovica, in a part of Kosovo controlled by French peacekeepers, French Defense Minister Alain Richard said at a news conference with William Cohen, the U.S. defense secretary.

Cohen said no decision has been made on whether more American troops would go. But a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Marine Expeditionary Unit was on standby for possible movement into the French sector of Kosovo.

The rising tensions in Mitrovica over the past three weeks prompted the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, to call a special meeting for Friday in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia from which Yugoslav forces were pushed by a NATO bombing campaign last spring.

A U.S. official said Army Gen. Welsey Clark and the German general in charge of the NATO peackeeping operation in Kosovo had requested three additional NATO battalions for the French sector. That would be roughly 1,800 to 2,000 soldiers, in addition to the approximately 30,000 NATO troops in all of Kosovo now.

Richard said France immediately would dispatch one battalion. NATO authorities were to meet later this week to decide how to allocate the other two battalions Clark said are needed to control the ethnic violence.

Several NATO countries had designated units as a strategic reserve in case a problem such as the one in Mitrovica arose. They reinforcements include units from Italy and Poland, plus the U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit.

AP-NY-02-23-00 1658EST

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), February 23, 2000.

Piece...LOL JB and PHO. Homer's contrast reinforces this spelling.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.

So if Clinton wins it we will have to call it "The Nobel Piece Prize"?

-- Carolyn (94301@aol.com), February 23, 2000.

A piece on his/her time!

-- Eagle Feather (eaglefeather8@yahoo.com), February 23, 2000.

1) Shoot, I should have nominated our sysops...

2) I wonder if I'll make it past the first cut this time...

3) William Jefferson Clinton? I know I should have nominated our sysops...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), February 23, 2000.