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what he was about to do. As historian Peter Kuznick explains, those consequences included not only the wanton slaughter of over 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the condemning of additional scores of thousands to a life of torment, |
but the inauguration of the nuclear era in a fashion that Truman and others understood could ultimately end life on the planet. The major mobilization this May around strengthening the Non- Proliferation Treaty during the review meetings at the United |
Nations is designed to reverse the spread of nuclear weapons and the further increase in nuclear weapons states to make sure that that dire prospect is never realized. Japan Focus introduction. TITUSVILLE -- There were 12 men onboard the B-29 |
that dropped the world's first atomic bomb in war, annihilating 70,000 people that day in Hiroshima, Japan, and killing about 130,000 more in the aftermath. Historians still disagree about whether the bombing was necessary to prevent the loss of more |
lives in battle, but the man who flew the aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945, remains proud of his role in the closing days of World War II. Col. Paul Tibbets with the Enola Gay on Tinian prior to takeoff for |
Hiroshima "I regretted it was necessary, but to me it was necessary to do it. I tell everybody I never lost a night's sleep over it," said retired Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, who is telling tales of those heady days |
and meeting fans this weekend at the 28th annual Tico Airshow in Titusville. Col. Paul W. Tibbets stands next to the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay" which he piloted over Hiroshima, Japan, Aug. 6 1945, to drop the world's first atomic |
bomb in combat. Tibbets, 90, makes about a dozen appearances a year, promoting his book and talking about his place in military history. But the Enola Gay, and it's payload, Little Boy, weren't always something he talked about. For the |
first 10 or 12 years after the war, nobody wanted to revisit the Manhattan Project and the two atomic bombs it produced -- at least not publicly. Everyone was just so tired of killing that talking about it was shunned, |
Tibbets said. It was when the tide of public and scholarly opinion began to turn against the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that Tibbets went on the offensive. Ever since, he's talked about the special B-29 developed under his supervision |
to carry Little Boy, and details about the bombing run into Japanese skies. That bombing has been ranked as the most important news event of the 20th century, and one that changed humankind forever, said Peter Kuznick, director of the |
Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington, D.C. As a scholar who believes it probably wasn't necessary to drop the atomic bomb to end WWII, Kuznick said the ultimate lesson about the event is that once such terribly effective |
weapons are developed, they are extremely likely to be used. Moral debates and a scientific awareness of potential long-term problems won't be enough to prevent their use, just as they weren't enough to stop President Harry S. Truman from giving |
the order to drop the bomb. "He knew it wasn't just another bomb. He knew it wasn't just a bigger, more terrible bomb. He knew that he was beginning a process that could ultimately mean the annihilation of the human |
species," Kuznick said. Proof of the bomb's destructive power is displayed in old photographs on the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum's Web site. Survivors closest to the blast, a little more than half a mile from the explosion's center, suffered severe |
burns. One woman is shown with the pattern of her kimono burned into her back. A Japanese child later wrote that the bomb turned people instantly into ghosts. Despite the atomic bomb's aftermath, Tibbets said humankind may again witness nuclear |
destruction. But this time, it's difficult to know who's the enemy. "There's gonna be some people who play with it. They're doing it now," he said. Christine Girardin wrote this story for the News Journal, Daytona Beach, Florida, March 10, |
genetic heterogeneity in human illness by introducing many new variants in each generation. Current sequencing technologies offer the possibility of finding rare disease-causing mutations and the genes that harbor them. Genetic heterogeneity in human disease. For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on th... |
about the science studying these ancient people. From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome. The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some |
Introduction / History Jews represent the oldest monotheistic religion of modern times. Because of the uniqueness of their history and culture, all Jews have a strong sense of identity. Persecution of and discrimination against the Jews have been the historical |
reasons for their migrations and settlements around the world. The Jews of Europe arrived on the continent at least 2,000 years ago during the early days of the Roman empire. Since then, they have been a significant influence in the |
history and culture of Europe. Much of what is considered "Jewish" today finds its roots among the European Jews. One of the unique features among European Jews is the distinction between the Ashkenazic Jews and the Sephardic Jews. The word |
Ashkenaz is derived from a Biblical word for the larger Germanic region of Europe. Therefore, Ashkenazim Jews are those whose ancestry is linked to that area. This group traditionally speaks the Yiddish language, which is a German dialect that has |
Hebrew and Slavic elements. The word Sephard was the name used by Jews in medieval times for the Iberian peninsula. Sephardim Jews, then, are the descendants of the Jews who lived in Spain or Portugal prior to expulsion in 1492 |
by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Sephardim also have a distinctive language called Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish. This is a dialect of Castilian Spanish with Hebrew and Turkish elements. What are their lives like? During the last few centuries, Eastern Europe |
had the largest Jewish population in the world. National attitudes toward the Jews were ambivalent, depending on the usefulness of the Jewish inhabitants to the nations' rulers. Anti-Semitism was prevalent and frequently led to either persecution or expulsion. The Holocaust |
of World War II was the climax of Jewish persecution in Europe, leading to the extermination of six million Jews. Many Eastern European countries lost the majority of their Jewish population in this tragedy. As a result of the Holocaust, |
thousands of Jewish survivors and their descendants have emigrated from Eastern Europe to Israel, the United States, or Western Europe. The recent memories of the Holocaust as well as the centuries of discrimination and persecution play a strong part in |
modern Jewish identity. European Jews are strong supporters of "Zionism," a revival of Jewish culture and support of Israel as a national, secure, Jewish homeland. Since the dissolution of the Soviet empire, former Soviet Jews no longer live under oppressive |
government rule. Anti-Semitism is still a concern, but Jewish life has been revitalized in recreated countries like the Ukraine. Synagogues are functioning and kosher (traditional, acceptable) food is once again available. The Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe is cause for |
concern among the remaining aged Jewish population. As the older Jews die, the Jewish community dwindles. Many of the younger Jews are unlearned in their Jewish identity. They are either non-observant or have assimilated into the prevailing culture. However, strong |
efforts are being made to maintain a Jewish presence and clarify their identity. Jewish schools are being opened and Judaic studies are being promoted in universities. Jewish hospitals and retirement homes are being built. Community centers also promote cultural events |
such as the Israeli dance, theater, Yiddish and Hebrew lessons, and sports. Western Europe now has the largest concentration of European Jewish residents. The Netherlands received a large influx of Sephardic Jews from Portugal in the late 1500's, and another |
contingent of Ashkenazic Jews after World War II. They have been very influential in the development of Dutch commerce. England's Jews are concentrated in the Greater London area and have been politically active for over 100 years. They have been |
avid supporters of Zionism and solidly committed to the settlement of Diaspora Jews in Israel. A large percentage of England's Jews are affiliated with the traditional Orthodox synagogues. Italy's Jewish population is primarily Sephardic due to its absorption of Spanish |
Jews in the 1500's. France's Ashkenazic community received 300,000 Sephardic Jews from North Africa in recent decades. What are their beliefs? For religious Jews, God is the Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe, and the ultimate Judge of human |
affairs. Beyond this, the religious beliefs of the Jewish communities vary greatly. European Jews are extremely diverse in religious practice. The Ashkenazic Jews are the most prevalent, representing the Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements. The unusual and adamantly traditional |
Hasidic movement was born in Poland and has gained a strong following in the United States and Israel. The Sephardic denomination is similar to the Orthodox Ashkenazic, but is more permissive on dietary rules and some religious practices. Each Jewish |
denomination maintains synagogues and celebrates the traditional Jewish holiday calendar. While most European Jews are religiously affiliated, there is a significant minority which is not religious. What are their needs? The Jews have a wonderful understanding of their connection with |
the Abrahamic covenant. However, they also have a history of rejecting Jesus Christ as Messiah, the one who has fulfilled that covenant. Pray that as the Gospel is shared, it will not be viewed as anti-Semitic, but rather as the |
fulfillment of what God promised through Abraham centuries ago. Prayer PointsView Jew, Eastern Yiddish-Speaking in all countries. * Ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth loving Christians to work among the Jewish communities. * Ask the Holy Spirit |
to grant wisdom and favor to the missions agencies that are focusing on the European Jews. * Pray that the Jewish people will understand that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. * Ask the Lord to soften the hearts of the |
Jews towards Christians so that they might hear and receive the message of salvation. * Pray that the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to the Jews through dreams and visions. * Pray that God will grant Jewish believers favor as |
they share their faith in Christ with their own people. * Pray that strong local churches will be raised up in each Jewish community. * Pray for the availability of the Jesus Film in the primary language of this people. |
By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - In the latest installment in the mammogram debate, a new study finds that getting a mammogram every other year instead of annually did not increase the risk of advanced breast cancer in women aged 50 to 74, even in women who use hormone therapy or have dense breasts, factors tha... |
risk. The findings, released on Monday by researchers at the University California, San Francisco, support the conclusions of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an influential government panel of health advisers, which in 2009 issued guidelines that said women should have mammograms every other year starting at a... |
to reduce the frequency and delay the start of mammogram screening were based on studies suggesting the benefits of detecting cancers earlier did not outweigh the risk of false positive results, which needlessly expose women to the anguish of a breast cancer diagnosis and the ordeal of treatment. The matter, however, i... |
women be screened for breast cancer every year they are in good health starting at age 40, but the group is closely watching studies such as this. "I don't think any one study ought to change everything," Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said in a telephone interview. But he added... |
several studies that are all pointing in the same direction over the last several years." Brawley said he did not expect screening recommendations from professional organizations to change in the next year, but he does see doctors moving toward a more personalized approach over the next five years. There may be some wo... |
months and others every two years depending on their breast density, family history and genetic testing. In the latest study, Dr. Karla Kerlikowske of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues wanted to see whether risk factors beyond a woman's age play a role in the decision of when to start mammogra... |
considered whether women had dense breast tissue - which has a higher ratio of connective tissue to fat - or took combination estrogen and progesterone hormone therapy for more than five years, both of which can increase the risk of breast cancer. "If you have these risk factors, would it help if you got screened annua... |
said Kerlikowske, whose study was published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. To study this, the team analyzed data from 11,474 women with breast cancer and 922,624 without breast cancer gathered from 1994 to 2008. Even after looking at these other factors, the team found no increased risk of advanced cancer in women 5... |
other year instead of every year. "It didn't matter whether you screened that group every year or every two years, the risk of advanced disease or having a worse tumor was no different," Kerlikowske said. More frequent screening in these women did result in more false-positive results. Women aged 50 to 74 who had annua... |
risk of having a false-positive result over a 10-year period, but a 31 percent risk when they were screened every other year. Studies suggest a false positive can have lasting psychological effects. A March study in the Annals of Family Medicine said, "Three years after a false-positive finding, women experience psychos... |
a normal mammogram and those with a diagnosis of breast cancer." Breast density was a factor in younger women, however. When the team looked at screening frequency in women 40 to 49, they found those with extremely dense breasts who were screened every other year had a higher risk of having a more advanced cancer than ... |
every year. Younger women also were far more likely to have false-positive results and undergo unnecessary procedures. Without getting a mammogram in their 40s, Kerlikowske said, "women aren't going to know if they have extremely dense breasts." Among women in their 40s, about 12 percent to 15 percent have extremely de... |
that they get a mammogram if they have other risk factors that might put her at risk of breast cancer, including having a first-degree relative that a common term, or just "close relative"? such as a mother or a sister with breast cancer. "Once we see their breast density is high, we will offer annual mammography," she... |
College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging, groups that represent radiologists, said the study's methodology was flawed because it used early and late breast cancers to determine the outcomes of breast screening rather than more refined measures of tumor size, nodal status and cancer stage, which could dete... |
faulted the study for not being a closely controlled, randomized clinical trial. The study used data from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium, a national mammography screening database that gathers information from community mammography clinics on millions of women. "We're never going to have a randomized study. ... |
hope for," said Brawley, whose group monitors scores of breast studies from around the world each year. He said such a study would take decades and would be prohibitively expensive. Catching cancers earlier does not always translate into lives saved, according to a November study published in the New England Journal of... |
Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice in New Hampshire. That study suggested that as many as a third of cancers detected through routine mammograms may not be life-threatening, contradicting the deeply ingrained belief that cancer screening is always good. Kerlikowske said the strength of her study is that it... |
density, allowing doctors to offer women personalized choices about when to start breast cancer screening. "We're trying to move it away from this idea that it all should be based on age. There should be some thoughtfulness to it," she said. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Additional reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing... |
INDO-CHINA: The New Frontier TIME. Monday, May. 29, 1950 The U.S. now has a new frontier and a new ally in the cold war. The place is Indo-China, a Southeast Asian jungle, mountain and delta land that includes the Republic of Viet Nam and the smaller neighboring Kingdoms of Laos |
and Cambodia, all parts of the French Union. For more than three years this land, in prewar times the rich French colony of Indo-China, has been suffering, on a lesser scale, the ruinous kind of civil war which won China for Communism. The Mao Tse-tung of the Indo-Chinese is a |
frail, but enduring comrade, who looks like a shriveled wizard; his nom de guerre is Ho Chi Minh (or One Who Shines). Chiang Kai-shek has no counterpart in Indo-China. The initial brunt of the Red attack has been borne by French soldiers. Meanwhile, the job of rallying native anti-Communist forces |
falls mainly on the meaty shoulders of the Emperor Bao Dai (or Guardian of Greatness), who now bears the official title of Chief of State of Viet Nam. While the dust of the Chinese civil war was settling before the bemused eyes of the State Department, the U.S. paid scant |
attention to the Indo-Chinese struggle. It seemed largely a local affair between the French and their subjects. Since the dust has settled in China, Asia’s Communism is thrusting southward. Indo-China stands first on the path to Singapore, Manila and the Indies (see map). Last January, led by Peking and Moscow, |
the world’s Communist bloc recognized Ho Chi Minh’s “Democratic Republic.” It was more than the Kremlin had ever done for the Communist rebels of Greece. Over the past several weeks, arms and other supplies were reported passing from Russia and China to the comrades in Indo-China. The stakes in Southeast |
Asia were big—as big as the global struggle between Communism and freedom. A fortnight ago in Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson drew a line in the dust that has so long beclouded U.S. diplomacy. He implicitly recognized that the war in Indo-China is no local shooting match. He |
pledged U.S. military and economic aid to the French and Vietnamese. The U.S. thus picked up the Russian gauntlet. What kind of frontier and what kind of ally had history chosen for the U.S.? A Golden Asset. Unlike China, where U.S. traders and missionaries began a fruitful acquaintance more than |
a century ago, Indo-China has had little contact with Americans, either commercial, cultural or diplomatic.* The last comprehensive U.S. book on the country was published in 1937. Among other things, its author observed: “IndoChina lies too far off the main scene of action to play any but a secondary role |
in the Pacific drama.” In the pre-French past, most of Indo-China had been conquered by the Chinese, who had left their culture indelibly behind.† Through the last half of the 19th. Century, the French converted Indo-China into a tight, profitable colonial monopoly. They explored its fever-laden jungles, lofty ranges, ... |
river valleys. They discovered its antiquities, including the majestic loth Century towers of Angkor Wat in northern Cambodia. They wrote about its mandarins, its Buddhist temples and Confucian family life. The French invested $2 billion, built up Indo-China’s rice and rubber production; before World War II, the colony... |
Siam and Burma, was one of the world’s three leading rice exporters. Its surplus went to rice-short China, a fact of great significance these days in Communist China’s support of Communist Ho Chi Minh. All the raw rubber France needed came from Indo-China. There were other lucrative items: coal, wolfram, |
pepper, opium (which, to French shame, was sold to the natives through a state monopoly) and many jobs for a white bureaucracy. French politicians called the colony “our marvelous balcony on the Pacific.” A Dangerous Liability. Indo-China is no longer a golden asset for France. As everywhere in the East, |
the old colonialism has died beneath the impact of Western nationalist, egalitarian ideas, a process greatly hastened by the Japanese march in World War II under the slogan “Asia for the Asiatics.” The French have bowed grudgingly to the times. In an agreement signed March 8, 1949 with Bao Dai, |
they promised limited freedom for Viet Nam within the French Union. Under its terms, a Viet Nam cabinet has charge of internal affairs, the right to a national army. Paris keeps direct control of foreign policy, maintains military bases and special courts for Frenchmen, retains a special place for French |
advisers and the French language. By that time the French were up to their necks in a costly campaign to crush Ho Chi Minh and his Communist bid for power. The civil war has cut rice production in half and disrupted the rest of Indo-China’s economy. It has tied down |
130,000 French troops, about half of the Fourth Republic’s army, and thereby weakened the contribution France might make to Western Europe’s defense. In lives, the Indo-China war has cost the French 50,000 casualties. In money, it has cost $2 billion—just about the sum of ECAid to France. Indo-China, in brief, |
has become a dangerous liability for France— nor does any realistic Frenchman think it can ever again be an asset. Why, therefore, spend more blood and treasure in thankless jungle strife? Why not pull out? The answer is: more than French war weariness and prestige are at stake. If Indo-China |
falls to Communism, so, in all probability”, will all of Southeast Asia. For U.S. citizens, the first fact about their new frontier is that it will cost money to hold—much more than the French can pay alone, much more than the $15 million in arms and $23 million in economic |
aid thus far promised by Washington. The second fact is more compelling : the new frontier, if it is not to crumble, may need U.S. troops as well as French. Otherwise, the U.S. might surfer another catastrophic defeat in the Far East. A Question of Sympathy. The French have made |
more than the usual colonial mistakes. All too often, especially since they put the Foreign Legion and its German mercenaries to the work of restoring order after World War II, they have been arrogant and brutal toward the Indo-Chinese. They are paying for it now, for the bulk of Communist |
Ho Chi Minh’s support comes from anti- French, or anti-colonial Indo-Chinese. A sign over an Indo-Chinese village street tells the story; it reads “Communism, No. Colonialism, Never.” But the issue of native sympathy is complex. The vast majority of the people are simple rice farmers, who want peace and order |
so they may tend their paddy-fields. Ho Chi Minh himself does not now preach Communism openly: his explanation is that his people have no understanding of the word. Besides a crude, hate-the-French appeal (including atrocity propaganda—see cut), he has another effective persuasion: terror. His guerrillas and undergroun... |
countryside; his assassins and bomb-throwers terrorize the cities. Indefatigably he spreads the word that he is winning, as his comrades have won in China. The result is that many are cowed into helping him, or at least staying out of the anti-Communist effort. Others, especially among the intelligentsia, sit on |
the fence, waiting to jump on the winning side. This is where Bao Dai comes in. A Display of Strength. It is Bao Dai’s mission, and the U.S.-French hope, to rally his countrymen to the anti-Communist camp of the West. In this undertaking he needs time. “Nothing can be done |
overnight,” he says. He needs time to organize an effective native government, train an army and militia that can restore order in the villages, win over the doubting fence-sitters among the intelligentsia. Besides a military shield, he also needs a display of winning strength and patient understanding by his Western |
allies. As a national leader, Bao Dai has his weaknesses, and largely because of them he does not enjoy the kind of popularity achieved by India’s Jawaharlal Nehru. But, as the lineal heir of the old monarchs of Annam, he is his nation’s traditional “father & mother,” its first priest |
(Buddhist) and judge. The French say that Bao Dai should act more decisively; whenever he does, there is impressive popular response. Nehru’s government of India, trailed by Burma’s Thakin Nu, Indonesia’s Soekarno and even by the Philippines’ Elpidio Quirino, has so far refused to follow the major Western democracies i... |
recognizing Bao Dai’s Viet Nam Republic. They look on him as a French puppet. But Bao Dai has shown a judgment on the crucial ideological conflict of his time that compares strikingly and favorably with the petulant, third-force position of Pandit Nehru. Recently, for example, Bao Dai told a TIME |
correspondent about his impressions of Ho Chi Minh in 1946, when both leaders were cooperating with the French to establish a new Viet Nam regime. “At first,” recalled Bao Dai, “we all believed the Ho government was really a nationalistic regime . . . I called Ho ‘Elder Brother’ and |
he called me ‘Younger Brother.’ . . . “Then, I saw he was fighting a battle within himself. He realized that Communism was not best for our country. But it was too late. He could not overcome his own allegiance to Communism.” A Royal Notion. Bao Dai is essentially a |
product of the old French colonialism—the best of it thwarted by some of the worst. Born in 1913, the only son of the ailing Emperor Khai Dinh, he studied under Chinese tutors until nine. Then his father’s French advisers decided he should go to France for a Western education. The |
emperor put on a parasol-shaped red velvet hat and a golden-dragon robe, accompanied his son on the first trip abroad for any of their dynasty. In Paris he put the prince under the tutelage of former Annam Governor Eugene Charles. “I bring you a schoolboy,” said Khai Dinh. “Make of |
him what you will.” Three years later, Khai Dinh died. He was buried in a splendid mausoleum, at Hué; at the foot of his tomb lay his prized French decorations, toothbrush, Thermos bottles and “Big Ben” alarm clock. Bao Dai, who had come ‘home for the funeral, was crowned the |
13th sovereign of the Nguyen (pronounced New Inn) dynasty. He turned the throne over to a regent, and hurried back to Paris. The young Emperor continued his Chinese lessons, studied Annamite chronicles, browsed through French history, literature and economics. He was especially fond of books on Henry IV, the dynast |
from Navarre who began the Bourbon rule in France with the cynical remark, “Paris is worth a Mass,” and the demagogic slogan, “Every family should have a fowl in the pot on Sunday.” Bao Dai put his money in Swiss banks (and thereby saved it from World War II’s reverses), |
collected stamps, practiced tennis with Champion Henri Cochet, learned ping-pong, dressed in tweeds and flannels, vacationed in the Pyrenees, scented himself heavily with Coty and Chanel perfumes. Up to this point the Emperor had absorbed a good deal of the education of an intelligent, progressive French adolescent. He... |
notions of applying what he had learned back home. In 1932, at 19, Bao Dai formally took over the Dragon Throne at Hué; two years later he married beautiful Mariette-Jeanne Nguyen Huu Thi Lan, the daughter of a wealthy Cochin-Chinese merchant. The Empress Nam Phuong was a Roman Catholic, educated |
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