A series of scandals – children kept in cages, doused with ice-water and scrubbed with wire brushes – culminated in the death of a 14-year-old girl forced to swallow lye and left in agony for three days Compassionate indeed.. Vice-President Al Gore yesterday set the seal on his own election defeat, confirming George W Bush as the winner of the US presidential election in November. Vice-President Al Gore yesterday set the seal on his own election defeat, confirming George W Bush as the winner of the US presidential election in November.
In the final irony of the bitterly contested election, it fell to Mr Gore, as Vice-President and President of the US Senate, to open and count the electoral college votes cast by the state electors and pronounce the result. The ceremony, before both chambers of the US Congress, is usually no more than a formality, attracting little attention. This year, however, the proceedings were closely watched because of seething resentment among Democrats about the way the contest closed – in a ruling by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court that ended the Florida recounts.With the 25 electoral college votes from the state of Florida in his column, Mr Bush won the election by 271-267, the narrowest victory ever. Mr Gore, had gained the popular vote by more than 500,000, but failed to win the electoral college by narrowly losing some of the key smaller states, including his home ground of Tennessee.Even as members of Congress gathered on Capitol Hill yesterday morning there was a frisson of doubt that Mr Bush would be declaredvictor.

Democrats within a black caucus in Congress had threatened to formally challenge the Florida result, a move that could have delayed confirmation of the result, and then the inauguration, which takes place in two weeks’ time.Mr Gore apparently told the 37 members of the caucus privately that he did not want a challenge on his behalf. When he conceded victory to Mr Bush three weeks ago he said that while he disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling, he accepted it and the later electoral college result.But Alcee Hastings, a representative from Florida and a leader of the move to contest the result in Congress, said: “It is not necessarily about him. We suffered serious exceptions and irregularities in Florida. These need to be rectified.”The challenge, however, was thwarted, as the black caucus could not find a Democratic senator prepared to support them, despite their approach to half a dozen left-wingers. The defeat of Carol Mosely Braun as senator for Illinois two years ago left the Senate with no black members. Mr Hastings said his approaches had received a “lukewarm but sympathetic” reception.As Mr Gore was inspecting the votes that lost him the presidency, Mr Bush was entertaining 18 Republican state governors at his newly completed Texas ranch house.

He was expected to thank them for their early support for his campaign – they formed the bedrock of his initial efforts – and sound them out about his legislative plans.. As American, Israeli and Palestinian diplomats shuttle around in the vain hope of securing a peace deal, their every move is being watched by millions of impoverished refugees whose fate rests in their hands. As American, Israeli and Palestinian diplomats shuttle around in the vain hope of securing a peace deal, their every move is being watched by millions of impoverished refugees whose fate rests in their hands.
These people have no connection with the negotiators from Yasser Arafat’s entourage, who act on their behalf but whom they distrust. Many have never set foot in their lost homeland, from which their forefathers were driven out during Israel’s creation in 1948.And yet their claim to a right of return is one of the most critical issues of all – and one which Bill Clinton has failed to solve in his attempts to lure Israel and the Palestinians back into talks in his last few days in the White House.But the current round of diplomatic manoeuvring mostly concerns America’s attempt to save Ehud Barak from electoral defeat next month, and to crown the Clinton legacy. The constant speculation on television about a deal before Mr Clinton leaves office is infantile. It cannot be done.As there is no military solution to the Palestinian intifada, negotiations must resume sooner or later. What can the millions of Palestinian refugees expect when, or rather if, this agonising process finally does come to an end?Israel will never allow them to return in significant numbers.

That much has always been clear, and was reinforced at the failed Camp David talks in July. According to Akram Hanieh, a Palestinian summit participant, the committee set up to discuss refugees “did not move one inch forward”.Since then, the Israeli position has remained unaltered. The Prime Minister, Mr Barak, repeated it forcibly again this week, saying his refusal to allow their return is absolute.In the past decade, Israel has admitted one million arrivals from the former Soviet Union, many of whom are not Jewish, as ground troops in its demographic war against the Arabs who live in Israel. But the Israeli Jewish majority fears – and with good reason – that a flood of returning Palestinian refugees would ultimately destroy their state.The manner in which they deal with Israel’s one million Arabs is testimony to their anxiety. Israeli Arabs are denied equal rights, live under constant suspicion of being a fifth column for the neighbouring Palestinians and are the subject of institutional attempts to stop their population from expanding.The number of refugees – Palestinians who fled or were driven out by Israel, and their descendants – stands at between 3.5 million and four million Their conditions vary markedly. Those marooned in Lebanon – officially 370,000 but closer to 180,000 – are cooped up in camps, denied residence permits, unable to work (they are legally barred from 95 different jobs by the Lebanese government) and largely destitute.For those crammed into the tiny and overcrowded Gaza Strip, imprisoned by an electric fence and under the economic chokehold maintained by Israel – whose army is currently blockading the strip – life is barely less miserable.In contrast, the 380,000 refugees registered by the United Nations in Syria have special Syrian passports and can serve in the army. In Jordan, which has 1.5 million refugees and where the majority of the five million population is of Palestinian origin, the refugees are entitled to full citizenship.

However, the levers of political power in the Hashemite kingdom remain in the hands of the pre-Palestinian population.From all these corners of the Middle East, Palestinians have been watching, with suspicion, as American, Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators manoeuvre warily around one another. Feelings among them run high and so do fears that Mr Arafat might sell them out – for instance, by trading sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount for the right of return, which appears to be part of the Clinton plan.An almost religious status is attached by Palestinians to the right to return or to be compensated, as spelled out in the non-binding UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Practically every refugee family can produce a rusting key to a house in Israel, many of which were destroyed in the aftermath of 1948. During Camp David, refugees waving gigantic model keys took to the streets, to warn their own negotiators to stand firm.The intifada, with the loss of 300 Arab lives, has done nothing to diminish these passions. “We will not sell our land for all the money in the world … we want our homeland,” said Fathiyeh, a refugee living in a squalid camp in Jordan with a family of 22 others.Similar sentiments run through the camps. The bilingual, computer-trained young Palestinian refugees – the third generation since the exodus – feel as strongly as their grandparents.