Asia-Pacific leaders, taking concrete steps at their summit to forge the world’s biggest free trade zone, backed today U.S. plans to free global commerce in information technology. President Clinton hailed the qualified support of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit as a big deal that would boost U.S. exports and create better jobs. Support for cutting tariffs on an annual $500 billion global trade in computers, memory chips and telecommunications equipment was a highlight of a declaration by leaders of APEC’s 18-member economies after a summit in Subic Bay.

Meanwhile, protesters in a motorcade of 500 gaily decorated jeepneys, minibus copies of World War II U.S. Jeeps, denounced free trade as fantasy. Organizers halted the caravan more than halfway north along the road from Manila to Subic, saying confrontation with heavily armed riot police would be suicide. At least five people were injured today in a clash between supporters and foes of APEC near Subic Bay. The Manila People’s Forum on APEC urged politicians to “wake up to the reality that our legacy, our dignity, our culture and poor natural world are being drained away instead into the offshore accounts of global robber barons.” Philippine President Ramos brushed aside such concerns, saying the aim of APEC was to create a bigger and bigger pie to divide. Tomorrow, we’ll be joined by Walden Bello, who is head of the Manila People’s Forum from the Philippines.

The technology accord was Clinton’s second APEC 1996 breakthrough. On Sunday, he agreed with Chinese President Jiang Zemin to swap visits to each other’s capitals and end an almost decadelong chill.

And this news from Rwanda: Tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees returned home in tattered clothes to cold receptions from survivors who remember the dead of the 1994 genocide. Meanwhile, Western and African military officials said they had developed options for missions to help refugees in Zaire, ranging from a low level of assistance to an increased level of protection and security for humanitarian relief. Lieutenant General Maurice Baril of Canada, designated to lead any multinational force to help refugees in eastern Zaire, said a meeting of the military leaders agreed that as many as 250,000
refugees may still be in eastern Zaire.

President Boris Yeltsin’s Communist opponents in parliament said today they may try to impeach him over his order to withdraw all Russian troops from Chechnya and over Moscow’s accord with the region’s separatists. The Communist chairman of the State Duma Security Committee told reporters an emergency debate called for Friday should discuss impeachment and a vote of no confidence in the government. Impeachment moves, which have failed against Yeltsin before, have almost no chance of success under the constitution.

A Serbian court voided recent election results showing opponents of Milošević’s ruling socialists had captured the Belgrade mayoralty and many other municipal posts. Some 30,000 people gathered in the capital to protest the ruling. Meanwhile, NATO troops confiscated heavy weapons at a Muslim police station in northwestern Bosnia.

Israel has charged six border policemen with beating Palestinians in two incidents, including one captured on videotape that sparked outrage when shown on Israeli TV. Meanwhile, a tense standoff has developed when Arab motorists in Gaza tried to use a road designated for use by Jewish settlers.

The Democratic Party returned $450,000 to an Indonesian couple on Friday, saying they hadn’t filed 1995 taxes. The woman’s father was a Lippo Group official, and the propriety of the contributions was questioned because the couple, though legal U.S. residents, made them while living in Indonesia.

Former President Bush appeared at ceremonies in Buenos Aires on Saturday to launch a newspaper owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Bush, who reportedly was paid $100,000, said the Unification Church leader respects editorial independence.

Democrat Loretta Sanchez, the political newcomer, has defeated conservative nine-term Congressmember Bob Dornan, this according to results of the ongoing official count. Sanchez held a 665-vote lead over the firebrand Republican, 47,205 to 46,540, with as many as 15,000 provisional ballots untallied countywide. Orange County Registrar of Voters Roslyn Lever said on Thursday she determined that 1,300 of those provisional ballots apply to the 46th District, meaning Dornan would have to win 983 of them, or more than 75%.

The nation’s Republican governors are sending their wish list to Congress that includes streamlined jobs training programs and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The GOP governors have assembled in Michigan for the first major post-election Republican gathering of any sort.

Hillary Rodham Clinton says she’ll seek a formal role in the administration’s welfare reform policy. That’s according to a Time magazine interview released yesterday. The first lady says she would also like to tour the country to check the progress of welfare reform in various states and report her findings to her husband. The interview with Mrs. Clinton was the first one since the election.