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1150372_6 | REDESIGNING NATURE: A special report.; Squash With Altered Genes Raises Fears of 'Superweeds' | the field and to abide by a number of safety procedures. If deregulated, the squash could be freely sold or planted anywhere in the United States. So in 1992, Dr. Quemada and Mr. Tricoli petitioned the Agriculture Department, the main government body overseeing genetically modified plants, requesting that the squash be deregulated. (The Environmental Protection Agency regulates plants engineered to produce pesticides; the Food and Drug Administration does not require engineered products to go through an approval process, but is available for consultations.) In its petition, Asgrow, then part of the Upjohn Company, stated that the plant presented no risk to the environment. Industry officials and environmental groups watched the case closely. The squash was the second plant to be considered for deregulation, after the Flavr Savr tomato, and the first to raise the possibility of significant ecological threats. ''It was a test case,'' said Dr. Margaret Mellon, director of the agriculture and biotechnology program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group. ''We were all testing the waters.'' Scientists were concerned that the squash might turn its relatives into virus-resistant weeds by interbreeding with them. The squash also posed the risk that its virus genes or the coat proteins they produced might interact with other viruses to produce new diseases. And, as with any genetically engineered crop, the squash posed the risk that its new genes might cause it to spread and become difficult to control. Still, after two months the Agriculture Department issued a proposed ruling approving the squash. Environmental groups and some state agriculture departments protested, prompting the federal agency to commission a report by Dr. Hugh Wilson, a squash expert at Texas A&M University. But instead of backing up Asgrow and the Agriculture Department, Dr. Wilson agreed with critics. In his report in July 1993, Dr. Wilson found there was insufficient scientific information to draw conclusions about safety and that studies ''point toward the clear presence of risk.'' Dr. Wilson's report revealed that Asgrow's petition contained crucial errors and omitted information that pointed toward risk. For example, Asgrow claimed that wild squash was unlikely to interbreed with genetically engineered squash, despite much scientific evidence to the contrary. Dr. Wilson's report also noted that the wild relatives of the new squash were already problematic weeds in parts of the country, suggesting it might take little to push them into the category of superweed, another fact omitted |
1149962_2 | France Shocks New Zealand to Advance | and it was us,'' said French Coach Jean-Claude Skrela, who looked nearly as stunned as the New Zealand brain trust as the game evolved and then ended with his players' impromptu and improbable celebration. His team had played with passion, with optimism and with that stereotypical but lately quite invisible French flair, and what made it all the more remarkable was that there had been nary a clue in recent months that this was coming. After dominating European rugby in 1997 and 1998, the French became the doormat earlier this year, finishing last in the Five Nations tournament behind Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland and experiencing humiliation on a trip to the South Pacific last summer when they were beaten by the All Blacks reserve team and then by 54-7 by the All Blacks in a game in which Lomu did not play. The French were racked by injuries and doubts; they were regularly roasted in print and on camera at home. And though they spent the last three and a half months training with this tournament in mind, pushing themselves physically and even rappelling down mountains to rebuild team unity and trust, they hardly appeared transformed when they struggled to beat Fiji in pool play. Yes, they were the only European team to reach the semifinals, but that appeared to have a lot more to do with their remarkably easy draw than with any remarkable turnaround. But tonight, the French arrived at Twickenham disguised as world beaters. ''As our captain, Raphael Ibanez, has often said, we are a strange team,'' Skrela said. ''Today they wanted this victory so much, and they managed to rise to the occasion.'' It began as New Zealand's games always begin: with the All Blacks dancing their traditional and menacing haka in front of the opposition. When the performance had ended, the French formed a circle and gave a much more private recital. ''I told the team that they have to get ready for war,'' Ibanez said. ''Because that's what the All Blacks have been proposing for a long time. Sometimes before going to war, soldiers get together and sing, so we sang 'La Marseillaise.' '' Wilson said later: ''Obviously, we're devastated.'' Obviously, the French are delighted. Little more than a year after their athletes won one World Cup, in soccer, some of their other players are now somehow in position to win another. RUGBY |
1149952_7 | Odessa Journal; An Aged Beauty Gets a Face Lift From a Geologist | Dranov, now the keeper of the theater where he sang for 25 years, to figure out what to do. Merely staving off collapse would require drilling 1,800 50-foot holes beneath the foundation into underlying rock, then filling the holes with concrete to create pilings. To avoid future cracks, the width of the foundation would have to be doubled. All that would go for naught unless the roof was replaced, cracks in interior walls repaired, heavy firewalls replaced with lighter material, and so on. The pipes and wiring were shot. Upper floors had to be encircled with metal bands to put a stop to further flowering. ''First we get the patient on her feet, and then we repair the head,'' Mr. Voloschuk, the restoration engineer, said of the foundation and the roof. ''Then we put on the bandages.'' This week he displayed for a visitor the recently removed brass handle from the service entrance door, which performers used to leave and enter the building. Once plump as a man's middle finger, it had been worn by 112 years of use to the thickness of a pencil. ''This is one of the handles that Tchaikovsky grabbed,'' he said reverently. But replacing it -- and all the other long-neglected aesthetics -- must wait until the building itself is saved. Experts say that will cost nearly $18 million -- a lot of money for a theater whose finest seat costs about $5.50. Ukraine's government can help some, but is mostly broke. Odessa, while comparatively prosperous, has far fewer golden rubles to spare these days. So Mr. Dranov has organized a fund-raising committee and is seeking contributions to save the old lady. By ''selling'' foundation pilings for $1,000 apiece -- a donor gets a glass paperweight depicting the building, mounted beside a chip of the Italian brick foundation -- the theater has amassed about 10 percent of its budget. The good news is that the money has allowed workers to install 1,200 of the 1,800 pilings. The bad news is that the third of the theater still without pilings is continuing to sink. And unless the opera house somehow finds more money to fix the foundation -- and the cracked walls, and the roof and the rest -- its day of reckoning with the forces of Mother Earth has only been delayed. ''I'm a geologist,'' Mr. Dranov said. ''So I know this better than anyone.'' |
1154707_2 | Rebuilding the Path to Peace in Northern Ireland | goes to the leaders of the two parties, David Trimble of the Ulster Unionists and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein. The leaders of the other pro-agreement parties, especially John Hume and Seamus Mallon of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, played critical roles. Demonstrating personal and political courage, they and the other leaders of their parties set aside their hostility for the good of their society. Neither side will get all it wanted, and both will endure political pain. But there is no other way forward. A ''solution'' that entirely favored one side over the other would be no solution at all. If this process succeeds, the real winners will be the people of Northern Ireland. In a recent poll published in The Belfast Telegraph, 85 percent of those surveyed said they wanted my review of the peace process to succeed. The process will now move forward swiftly: within a few days, ministers for the new cabinet will be nominated. Then the British Parliament will formally devolve authority to the Assembly, the new British-Irish agreement will come into effect, the cabinet will meet, and other political institutions will be established. On the same day, the I.R.A. will appoint its representative to the independent commission on disarmament, which will issue its first report a few days later. Major hurdles remain. In both communities there are those who are still trying to disrupt the peace process with threats, murders and bombs, and many on both sides are skeptical. An early, critical test comes next Saturday, when Mr. Trimble seeks the approval of the Ulster Unionists' governing council; dissidents in his party will almost certainly challenge his leadership. If Mr. Adams and Mr. Trimble can carry their parties with them, if the other pro-agreement parties stand firm and if the British and Irish governments persevere, then this bitter conflict can finally end. I have been involved in the peace process for nearly five years and have come to know and admire the people of Northern Ireland. They deserve better than the troubles of the past quarter-century, during which thousands died, tens of thousands were wounded, and a mood of despair saturated daily life. Now, perhaps, they will be able to begin the new millennium in a spirit of peace and reconciliation. George J. Mitchell, Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1995, was chairman of the Northern Ireland peace negotiations from 1996 to 1998. |
1154734_0 | Army Increases Incentives for Some Who Enlist | Trying hard to fill its ranks in an era of prosperity and relative peace, the United States Army is offering bigger enlistment bonuses and shorter hitches for some recruits. The inducements vary widely, and the Army's Web site encourages prospective soldiers to contact recruiters for more details. But even a cursory visit to the site is apt to be startling for middle-aged veterans who recall a somewhat less hospitable Army. Sign-up bonuses up to $20,000 await some enlistees qualified for the specialities most in demand, like intelligence posts. Moreover, for the first time qualified recruits will not have to choose between a sign-up bonus and money for college. Some who qualify for the $20,000 bonus may also be eligible for up to $50,000 in college aid later. Enlistees who score high enough on their military-aptitude tests can sign up for two years, instead of the traditional three, and receive up to $26,500 for college or vocational training. The new bonuses are not a surprise in view of the military's difficulties in finding and keeping people. There has been no draft since 1973, and with a booming civilian economy there has been little incentive for many young people to join up. For the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, the Army fell short of its recruiting goal for the second straight year, recruiting about 7,000 fewer men and women than the 74,500 it said it needed. For the current fiscal year, the Army needs to recruit about 80,000 people to stay at its Congressionally mandated level. The Air Force and Navy have also had trouble keeping up their strengths, although less than the Army. But their Web sites make it clear that they, too, recognize the need to project themselves as friendly and full of opportunities. (The Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, continues its spartan approach: ''The few, the proud.'') The Army bonus offers include $4,000 for enlistees who sign up for three or more years and report for active duty no later than Dec. 27. Recruits with some college training can get $4,000 to $8,000. Enlistees who choose airborne training will get a $3,000 bonus, which can be combined with some other bonuses. |
1154688_0 | Corrections | A letter on Thursday about trade with Cuba misstated Havana's relationship with the World Trade Organization. Cuba is indeed a member; it is not making a bid to join. |
1152678_0 | In I.R.A. Message for Negotiators, a Hint That Accord Isn't Dead | The Irish Republican Army, having submitted a long-awaited message to peace negotiators, has raised a slim, last-minute hope that former Senator George J. Mitchell's rescue mission might still succeed in moving forward the stalemated Northern Ireland peace agreement. The specifics of the statement were not known -- nor how far it went toward meeting the demands of politicians seeking assurances of guerrilla disarmament. But it represented enough of an olive branch to prompt David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, to hold a series of sounding-out meetings throughout the day with party members gathered in the nearby Stormont parliament building. In a preliminary vote tonight, his colleagues narrowly rejected what Mr. Trimble put to them, but they later summoned Peter Mandelson, Britain's secretary for Northern Ireland, for a ''clarification.'' They continued meeting and said on adjournment that they would return for more discussion Friday morning. ''It would be wrong to write this off,'' a spokesman for Mr. Trimble said. ''We will be back tomorrow; the party leader is determined to try to make this work.'' The Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, emerged from the Mitchell talks to say that he had been expecting a more accepting response from Mr. Trimble's party and that he was dismayed by word of the rejection. Under Mr. Mitchell's prodding and a well-maintained news blackout, the Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist leaders have been talking to each other in recent weeks with unaccustomed candor. Before driving away tonight, Mr. Adams said, ''I am asking everyone to reflect on this and appreciate the seriousness of this.'' In a dispute that has frozen in place the peace agreement greeted with euphoria in April 1998, the Unionists have insisted that the I.R.A. begin shedding its weapons before its political wing, Sinn Fein, occupies its leadership positions in the new Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Fein has objected to the demand as a newly imposed condition not included in the original agreement, and has claimed it does not have the power to order the organization to turn over its weapons anyway. The I.R.A has maintained a cease-fire for two years but has viewed disarmament as a form of surrender. In its latest message, the I.R.A. was not expected to have relaxed that position. But it may have addressed Ulster Unionist wishes for a statement disavowing violence and pledging commitment to the peace accord. The original agreement stated that all parties |
1152729_0 | ONE EUROPE, 10 YEARS: Surprising Strengths; In East German Soil, Some Companies Thrive | When the Berlin Wall collapsed 10 years ago, Stephan Schambach was 18 and had never set foot in a capitalist country. Karsten Schneider, then 29, worked listlessly at the bloated Kombinat, a huge Communist-era electronics factory in this small city south of Leipzig. Today, about their only link to Communism is the name of their software company: Intershop Communications, a name they mischievously lifted from East Germany's old hard-currency stores for foreign tourists. ''No one remembers who first thought of it,'' Mr. Schneider recalled recently. ''But it seemed perfect.'' Intershop sales doubled this year to $40 million, and the company employs 500 people worldwide. Its stock, now publicly traded in Germany, has a value of about $2 billion. Ten years after the Berlin Wall came down, such buoyancy seems wildly at odds with eastern Germany's enduring image of shuttered factories and stagnant growth. Eastern joblessness is still 18 percent, twice as high as in the west. But in the midst of this despair something else has happened. Parts of the east have become magnets for entrepreneurs and high-technology start-up companies. In Saxony, eastern Germany's most populous state, industrial production is climbing at double-digit rates, faster than all of western Germany. In Jena the renaissance is striking. The old Kombinat is dead. But the city has been a seedbed for nearly a thousand new ventures in the last few years. Many fizzled, but just as many have taken off, and unemployment, about 20 percent two years ago, is now about 14 percent. ''I tell my west German friends that we have gone through what they still need to go through,'' said Kurt Biedenkopf, the pro-business premier of Saxony and a westerner himself. ''East Germany, by reason of its peaceful revolution against an all-powerful state, has unleashed tremendous development,'' he said. ''People here are more adaptable, more elastic. It has been painful and they didn't want it, but it was a consequence of their desire for freedom.'' The wave of new companies has yet to offset the loss of old industry. Nor has it solved what may be eastern Germany's most intractable problem: high wages. Partly as a result of efforts to equalize pay in the east and the west, hundreds of thousands of low-skilled jobs that might have been ideal for eastern Germany have been lost to lower-cost rivals in the Czech Republic, Poland and elsewhere in Central Europe. Indeed, eastern |
1152716_6 | Biotech Companies Take On Critics of Gene-Altered Food | shrill statements and outrageous tactics by people who are attacking biotech foods,'' said Gene Grabowski, a spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Alliance for Better Foods. ''Our site is intended to be based on fact; it's decidely pro-biotech but it's not intended to be strident.'' The companies have reviewed their stunning public relations loss in Europe and now acknowledge that there were a number of missteps. ''I think there was a certain naivete in our initial approaches to the European market,'' Mr. Shapiro said in an interview. ''We had been operating on a model that had been used in the U.S. If the question is have we learned anything in recent months in the sociology, the media orientation, yes, we have learned something.'' In many cases, the trade groups and other coalitions are expected to take the visible lead in the months to come. ''There's a feeling that some of the companies have been vilified, and so it's more credible if scientists and academics and farmers stand up on the issue,'' said Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Washington, which is lobbying on behalf of Monsanto and others. ''If it's the company, people say, 'Well, it's got a commercial interest.' So it's better this way.'' Some of the leading environmental groups, however, say they believe the new campaign will backfire because it will raise even more questions about biotech foods. ''They are under the misguided assumption that the more information they put out the more light at the end of the tunnel,'' said Mr. Rifkin, who is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, an environmental group. ''But the more information they put out the more questions people have about G.M. foods.'' He asserted that the products were dangerous and said, ''They think it's public relations disaster but it's more than that.'' Environmental groups in the United States pounced on the issue last May, when a Cornell University study showed that pollen from corn producing the insecticidal toxin Bt could stunt the development of monarch caterpillars in the laboratory. Since then there has been growing coverage by the news media of the concerns about the safety of genetically modified crops. On Wednesday in Washington, a bipartisan group of 20 members of Congress introduced legislation that would require labeling of genetically engineered food products because of concerns about food safety. In the coming weeks, the |
1152791_2 | At Least 14 Die as Apartment Building Collapses in Italy | construction and even abusivismo, ''abusive'' or illegal construction. ''For now we have no information about a possible case of abusivismo,'' said Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, who went to Foggia today and declared a state of emergency in the city of 150,000 people. ''But in any case, we are fighting abusivismo and even knocking down houses.'' Interior Minister Rosa Russo Jervolino, who also traveled to Foggia, said the local prefect had received no complaints about the building, which was erected between 1968 and 1971 in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. She said she had reviewed the city permits and thought it unlikely that the building had been illegally built. One of the building's still-missing residents was the man who constructed it, Antonio Delli Carri. Parliament held a minute of silence for the victims. Pope John Paul II sent his condolences. The archbishop of Foggia, Domenico D'Ambrosio, spoke to survivors at the site and called the building's collapse a tragedy that had ''brought this city to its knees.'' The building began to tremble and rock around 3:15 a.m. Firefighters said that they received a telephone call from someone in the building about five minutes before it collapsed, but that they arrived at the scene too late. Five members of one family fled the building when they heard suspicious sounds. Once outside, they said, they rang apartment buzzers to try to warn sleeping residents. The building's superintendent, Luigi Laconta, 50, said he was awakened around 3 a.m. by a resident who reported creaking noises. They left the building, and he also rang buzzers to alert people. ''At this point I took a step back, thinking I would see someone stick their head out of the window,'' Mr. Laconta told reporters, ''Instead, I saw the entire building crumple in front of me.'' The uncle of a year-old boy who lived in the building said he had found his nephew trapped under the smoking ruins. ''As soon I saw his little hand in the rubble, I started digging,'' Nicola Crincoli told the Italian news agency ANSA. ''I heard cries, and I screamed, and threw myself on the rubble and started digging with my bare hands.'' The child was hospitalized. The collapse may be one of the worst accidents of its kind in Italy in the last 20 years. Last December, 27 people died when a five-story apartment building in Rome collapsed. |
1152650_1 | Driving and Talking Do Mix | a decree of this sort applies to cabbies. In England, Singapore and Brazil, drivers must use hands-free attachments on their phones. New York, Nevada and Maryland have recently considered bans. Does outlawing cell phones while driving make sense? It seems like a no-brainer -- sure, cell phones should be banned if they are the cause of many fatal accidents. But are they? According to a study based on federal and state accident reports that Paul C. Tetlock and I recently completed, cell phone use in cars will cause about 10,000 serious accidents this year, leading to 100 fatalities -- less than 1 percent of the 41,000 expected traffic deaths. Compare that cost to the benefits. Would you take the small risk of being one of those few fatalities if you could summon help on a lonely highway? Or remind your spouse that your daughter's school play starts in 20 minutes? Or tell your boss you'll be late for the 9 a.m. meeting? Moreover, lots of activities -- tuning the radio, drinking cappuccino, refereeing the sibling wars in the back seat -- can lead to fatal crashes. No one is banning these although, all told, such mundane distractions contribute to some 4,000 deadly accidents annually, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Society doesn't regulate these activities because people want to decide when they will take small risks in the name of convenience or productivity. What about requiring drivers to pull to the side of the road to make calls? As a practical matter, that would come pretty close to a total ban, since most drivers probably wouldn't be willing to stop when the phone rang. And if drivers did try to stop -- in a hurry, weaving through highway traffic -- the ban could actually cause more accidents than it prevented. Well, then, what about mandating hands-free devices like headsets? Some studies say they would have no effect on the number of accidents, while others suggest the reductions could be sizable. Until we know more, it seems imprudent to mandate a multibillion-dollar expenditure. Washington and the states should find out what makes a material difference in safety. Until then, state and local governments should let the 77 million Americans who own cellular phones make their own decisions about when and where to use them. Robert W. Hahn is director of the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. |
1154266_0 | As Northern Ireland Waits | The promises coming out of Northern Ireland this week stirred hope, once again, that 30 years of internecine warfare between Roman Catholics and Protestants could yield to what one negotiator calls simply ''a decent, democratic society.'' As the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Mandelson, put it, the ordinary Northern Irish are ready to give this peace process ''a go.'' The Catholic and Protestant party leaders have also found a modest stretch of common ground where the Good Friday peace accords of 1998 could finally move into reality. The problem, however, comes with the party regulars. After unusually conciliatory statements at the close of 11 weeks of negotiations, David Trimble, the head of the Protestants' Ulster Unionist Party, and Gerry Adams, leader of the Catholics' Sinn Fein, must now win the support of their rank and file. Mr. Adams must make certain that the Irish Republican Army follows through on a process for disarmament, undoubtedly a stronger possibility after the I.R.A. announcement yesterday. For the first time, the I.R.A. declared that it was ''unequivocally'' backing the peace accords and agreed to appoint a go-between to the commission set up to collect arms from the paramilitary group. With those promises, far short of what some Unionist hard-liners are demanding, Mr. Trimble must somehow convince those bucking the peace process that the time has finally come to step forward into a new Northern Irish government shared with Sinn Fein representatives. A Nov. 27 meeting of the 850-member Ulster Unionist Party council will be a telling obstacle for Mr. Trimble, but if he can convince the Protestants of the I.R.A.'s intent to disarm, the power-sharing agreement could be set up within a few days. Disarmament by Ireland's paramilitary groups is scheduled by the agreement for May 2000. Under the steady guidance of former United States Senator George Mitchell, the leaders of Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist Party worked in what Mr. Mitchell called ''an unprecedented manner'' to untangle this latest knot in the Good Friday peace agreement. Mr. Trimble should be especially encouraged for his acknowledgment that in his own community there is need for more ''mutual respect and tolerance rather than division and alienation'' from Catholic neighbors. The ''hard men,'' as they are called on both sides, can always destroy this progress, moving their disagreements back to the streets. As Mr. Mandelson explains, at this stage ''only those who are opposed to peace |
1154235_0 | Promise of Irish Peace | To the Editor: ''Pledges by Ulster Rivals Break the Deadlock at Talks'' (news article, Nov. 17) demonstrates that each side has achieved more through arduous negotiations than it obtained from a generation of bitter conflict. The revived peace effort is a joint victory. Northern Ireland's nationalist and Unionist communities, long divided by their differences, now have the opportunity to share in the dawn of a new era that promises peace and prosperity for all the people of Ireland. DANIEL J. DONOVAN Brooklyn, Nov. 17, 1999 |
1154296_0 | I.R.A. Pledges To Help Disarm Ulster Fighters | The Irish Republican Army said today that it ''unequivocally'' backed the Northern Ireland peace agreement, and agreed to appoint a go-between to the panel charged with disarming the paramilitaries. The long-sought statement made no reference to an actual turnover of weapons, and it conditioned the naming of the middleman on the establishment of the new power-sharing Northern Ireland government called for in the April 1998 peace accord. But in what was seen as a meaningful omission, the message did not include the I.R.A.'s previous defiant claim that the group had no intention of ever disarming. It had always dismissed disarmament as a form of surrender. The statement came after considerable concessions by the Ulster Unionist Party, which had insisted that disarmament precede setting up the local parliament. It also represented the most dramatic move yet in a choreographed series of reciprocal conciliatory comments and pledges this week from those involved in the rescue talks, which were mediated by a former United States senator, George J. Mitchell. The I.R.A. has maintained a cease-fire for more than two years in support of the role of its political wing, Sinn Fein, in peace talks. But today it made its belief in the accord explicit. ''In our view,'' the outlawed organization said, referring to the April 1998 accord, ''the Good Friday agreement is a significant development, and we believe its full implementation will contribute to the achievement of lasting peace.'' Attributed to the traditional authenticating signatory, ''P. O'Neill,'' the message expressed continuing confidence in the leadership of Sinn Fein and pledged the I.R.A. to ''the search for freedom, justice and peace in Ireland.'' The statement was welcomed by supporters of the accord as a significant step forward, and denounced by opponents who object to moving ahead with the Protestant-Catholic coalition government without any turnover of arms beforehand. The quickened sequence of events has turned what had become a gradually flagging effort at bringing stability to this conflicted British province into a sudden push for peace with onrushing momentum. Where there was growing despair just days ago among the negotiating parties, frustrated by 19 months of delay, there is now the prospect that in two weeks, they could be taking up their positions in a new Northern Ireland government with a carefully crafted division of power between the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority. The 1998 accord had become deadlocked over the refusal of the |
1153541_0 | Label Altered Foods | To the Editor: If genetically modified foods have the advantages that biotechnology companies claim (front page, Nov. 12), why is the biotechnology industry opposed to labeling them? DANIEL SUITS East Lansing, Mich., Nov. 12, 1999 |
1153630_2 | Tight Labor Supply Creates Jobs for the Mentally Disabled | of employment is highest among young adults with mental retardation who have left school in the last five years, with about 23 percent holding ''competitive,'' or unsubsidized jobs, according to Arc, an advocacy group for people with mental retardation. Just last month, President Clinton directed government employers to aggressively recruit workers with disabilities. And a bill pending in Congress would sharply increase the ranks of disabled workers by allowing them to keep their Social Security health benefits if they take jobs. Fear of losing benefits has been a roadblock to increasing employment among people with disabilities. The changing fortunes of people with mental disabilities are part of a trend, experts say, reflecting a broader change in societal views of the mentally retarded, especially among younger people who were raised in what are called mainstreamed classrooms, where disabled children learn with other youngsters, and were taught that diversity means more than different races or religions. The self-image and expectations of the mentally retarded, and their families, have been enhanced in recent years, as advocacy groups for disabled people have become a potent political force. Notions of the proper role for the mentally retarded were far different when Miss Andrajewski was young. She was kept at home most of her life by her parents, a custom of a time that called for the retarded to be sheltered, but rarely challenged. Moreover, people with retardation were not always welcome in public. ''In those days, if you were retarded, that was that, and there was nothing more to be done,'' said Miss Andrajewski's older sister, Victoria Peetz, who farms in Prairie du Sac. ''My mother simply took care of her. Virginia never used the telephone. She didn't even know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.'' Now Miss Andrajewski is taking dance lessons, learning to swim and calling relatives on the telephone. She soon will join the choir at St. Bernard's Catholic Church. ''My sister has come alive,'' Mrs. Peetz said. ''It is so wonderful to see.'' After her mother died in August, Miss Andrajewski was placed in a home with another woman with mental retardation and a caretaker. Her caseworker referred her to a job broker for people with disabilities, Successful Work Options, which promptly found several employers looking for help. ''Virginia said she wanted to fold clothes, since that's what she did at home,'' said Doug Quinn-Gruber, a manager at |
1156483_4 | A Deft Maestro Who Got Ulster To Harmonize | the failure of marathon talks they had presided over during the summer to break the deadlock. They would stay in the background and give him a free and independent hand, they said. The Ulster politicians were angrier than Mr. Mitchell had ever seen them. ''It really looked hopeless,'' he recalled, but he said he would be back in Belfast in September to begin his formal review. He told his wife it would take two weeks, maybe three. It took three months. He announced that his review would focus solely on the dispute over empowering the new government and beginning the process of guerrilla disarmament that had stalled progress. Mr. Mitchell quietly decided to focus the talks themselves on the two warring parties, Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists, while keeping the other six parties that had signed the agreement fully informed. He began by letting them all vent their grievances, and that alone took up three weeks. ''It was confrontational and acrimonious,'' he said. ''There was nothing but harsh words and recriminations.'' He resolved to set no deadlines, indulge in no pressure tactics. He put his thoughts and proposals down on paper, but he never circulated the documents, choosing instead to read them to the participants in an effort to allow them greater flexibility. One participant described his unfailing serenity, even when tempers were high around him, as ''infectious.'' He was determined to keep the talks secret, and he imposed on all the participants a no-comment order, which they honored. Remembering the publicity during the original talks, he said, ''You have no idea how much time we used to waste every morning on going over what was in the papers and having people accuse each other of planting things.'' A British official, he said, called the exercise ''chasing the hare of the day,'' and it regularly wasted a couple of hours. One day in September, one of the leaders entered the conference room in a fury at an article that had appeared that morning. Mr. Mitchell calmed him by predicting that one of his rivals would probably march in with his own angry remark about another article. In moments the door opened, and the man he had just mentioned appeared. He was holding up a newspaper page and jutting an accusatory finger at a column he had circled. The complaining over press leaks ceased. The talks dragged on in the |
1156446_3 | When a Quake Strengthens a Basilica | the work on the cloister, restorers were surprised to uncover a fountain under its floor, directly behind the apse of the church. For more delicate restorations, innovative techniques were used for the first time. Probably the most precarious involved the safeguarding of the badly damaged tympanum near the ceiling of the left transept, which was in danger of falling. The partly rebuilt structure was finally affixed to the roof with wires made of a special material known as shape-memory alloy, which not only reinforced it but also greatly absorbs the force of earthquakes. The vaulted ceiling of the basilica required the most work. After more than a thousand tons of debris was removed from under the roof (the weight may have contributed to the collapse) the fallen sections of the vault and the supporting entrance arch were rebuilt using as many of the original bricks as possible. To reinforce and consolidate the vault, a giant rib cage made of thin strips of flexible wood covered with a composite made of aramidic fibers, the material used in bulletproof jackets, was glued to the back of the Gothic arches and ribs that crisscross the basilica's interior. The structure, both flexible and light, is five times as strong as steel based on its weight. The vaults were also attached to the roof with 40 odd cables. Finally, many miles of cracks in the vaults were filled with a special nonsaline mortar. Giorgio Croci, the engineer who masterminded the structural restoration of the basilica, is proud of the results. ''This was a unique and exceptional project,'' he said. ''It gave us the chance to experiment with a series of innovative measures that now can be used in other situations.'' Some work remains to be done. Repairs to the convent attached to the basilica, most notably the refectory and the friars' cells, are still under way, and the interior of the basilica also needs to be completed. The remaining six saints of the entrance arch are to be recomposed by Easter, but it is unlikely that they will join St. Rufino and St. Vittorino until after 2000 because church officials do not want the interior marred by bulky scaffolding. The vault section at the entry of the church with the figure of St. Jerome, also traditionally attributed to Giotto, will be put into place at the same time. The two other destroyed vault sections, Cimabue's |
1150989_3 | Toughen Up the Rules of the Sky | ground. For instance, at many airports intersecting runways are now used simultaneously. And at busy airports, an airplane can be cleared to land or take off on a runway before the plane already on the runway has left it. This has led to at least two near-misses at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and a steady increase in incidents of planes moving inadvertently onto runway space assigned to other aircraft. Cargo and mail are still being loaded onto passenger jets without being screened for explosives or radioactivity, although two presidential commissions on aviation security have recommended that the practice no longer be allowed. In some areas it regulates, the aviation agency is not even living up to the safety requirements in its rule books. For example, it is allowing safety systems in some new airliner designs to be evaluated by analysis based on past tests, mathematical models and computer simulations, rather than requiring actual testing. The agency waived full-scale emergency evacuation tests for the Boeing 777-300, for example, and certified the plane in 1998 to carry 550 occupants even though actual tests had been used only for a smaller model model (the Boeing 777-200) that carried 419 people. Every year, the agency also grants the airline industry an astounding 300 waivers or exemptions from federal safety rules. For example, while a rule requires that the aisle between seats leading to emergency window exits be 20 inches wide, the F.A.A. has made exceptions to allow spaces as small as 14 inches and is considering a further relaxation to 10 inches. Today there are more than 3,000 waivers of various kinds. It is true that commercial air travel continues to be among the safest forms of travel. But if standards are not kept high, the industry's record could quickly deteriorate. To assure that they are, the United States should establish an independent federal aviation safety and security agency, leaving the F.A.A. to operate air traffic control. Congress should also form an air passenger association, financed in part by a two-cent refundable fee on each ticket and controlled by passengers, to counter the powerful airline industry lobby. And Congress should hold regular, vigorous aviation safety oversight hearings. Neglecting air safety is like stretching a rubber band. At a certain point, the rubber band snaps. Ralph Nader is co-author of ''Collision Course: The Truth about Airline Safety.'' Paul Hudson directs the Aviation Consumer Action Project. |
1151058_1 | Religion Journal; Armenian Church Gets a New Worldwide Leader | assembly of more than 400 lay and clerical delegates representing Armenian communities around the world. (About 50 came from the United States.) Until his election, he was Archbishop Karekin Nersissian. He is 48 and a native of Armenia. The election occurred on the very day that gunmen entered the Armenian Parliament, opened fire and killed government officials including Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian. The attack in the capital, Yerevan, was less than 20 miles from the church assembly's meeting in Echmiadzin, where the catholicos lives and governs. News of the killings got to the gathering as Catholicos-elect Karekin was making his acceptance speech, according to a report from the diocesan offices in New York. The meeting was adjourned after a brief religious service to pray for the victims, and the enthronement, originally scheduled for last Sunday, was postponed. Although he speaks English, Catholicos Karekin II is not so well known in the United States as was his predecessor, Karekin I, who died in June and had long worked in international ecumenical circles. Karekin II was born near Echmiadzin and graduated with honors from the seminary there in 1971. Ordained a monk in 1972, he pursued graduate-level studies in Austria, Germany and Russia. He became a bishop of the diocese that includes Yerevan in 1983. Nine years later, Catholicos Vasken I, then head of the church, elevated him to the rank of archbishop. The Philosopher-Diplomat Another overseas event of some religious interest in the United States has occurred in Indonesia. The newly appointed foreign minister there is Alwi Shihab, a scholar of Islamic philosophy who happens to have been a recent visiting professor and faculty research associate at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. Dr. Shihab worked at the seminary for two years beginning in 1996, teaching courses and helping edit The Muslim World, a publication of the seminary's Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, said Barbara Brown Zikmund, the seminary's president. Before his government appointment, Dr. Zikmund said, he also helped develop a program, with the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs, in which Muslim and Christian students from Indonesia can study at the seminary. The 53-year-old Dr. Shihab, who holds degrees from universities in Egypt and the United States, was appointed foreign minister last week, as his country's new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, formed a cabinet. Mr. Wahid has signaled that his predominantly Muslim nation is ready to seek closer economic |
1157211_3 | After the Storm, an Ecological Bomb | is turning to next spring's warm-up, and researchers all along the mid-Atlantic Coast are stepping up their monitoring activities, from satellite observations to aircraft surveys to old-fashioned measurements from boats, in an attempt to track what happens. No one really knows how long it will take for abnormal flows of organic nutrients into the estuary to subside, or how long after that it will take for bottom deposits of the nutrients to diminish. No one would invite a disaster like the Carolina flood, of course, but it has nevertheless given scientists a stellar research opportunity. ''This is a sort of an ecological experiment on a very grand scale that no one would ever be given permission to do if they had asked for it,'' said Dr. Gene Feldman, an oceanographer with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who oversees satellite-borne observations of the developing situation. So far as is known, this is the first time that virtually every river basin feeding the estuary has flooded at the same time, said Dr. Pat Tester, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based in Beaufort, N.C., whose research team is coordinating the air-sea-satellite monitoring. While it is likely that floods of this magnitude have occurred before, experts say, they have never done so in conjunction with such widespread ecological disturbances caused by humans. These include, for instance, increased erosion caused by the cutting of forests and plowing of fields, deposition of pesticides and of nutrients in the form of fertilizer from farms and lawns, livestock waste and sewage systems that overflow in floods. Inland waterways, estuaries and coastal ecosystems around the world have been subjected to a chronic, long-term increase in organic matter washed off the land. One major consequence of this, for instance, is an oxygen-starved dead zone off the Louisiana coast that has at times been as large as the state of New Jersey. More generally, many experts say, over-fertilization from organic runoff has surpassed industrial pollutants as a threat to aquatic ecosystems. North Carolina's waters, too, have been subjected to this long-term, increasing inflow of nutrients. ''Smaller doses were already having a negative impact on fish habitat,'' says Dr. Larry Crowder, a marine ecologist at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, who studies the estuary's marine life. Now, he said, the lower-level chronic dose of extra organic matter has become a ''high-level acute dose.'' Dr. Feldman |
1157314_2 | No Improper Influence Seen on Part of Builder in Fatal Collapse | another set of political supporters of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani last year. The former buildings official said he was ''led to believe'' that he was forced from his job by an aide to the mayor, Bruce Teitelbaum, after shutting down a job site at 26 Heyward Street, also in Williamsburg, that was being developed by a builder who he believed had connections within the administration. Mr. Trivisonno was not fired, but was offered another, unspecified job within the department, which he chose not to take. ''We are looking to see whether political influence led to irregularities in personnel changes at the Buildings Department, which may have led to dangerous conditions,'' Kevin Davitt, a spokesman for District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, said yesterday. Mr. Trivisonno said last night: ''Perhaps if I had been there, things might have been different. Maybe I would have required another level of supervision that might have avoided the collapse.'' Mr. Teitelbaum, who had been Mr. Giuliani's chief of staff and now helps direct his Senate campaign, was reached in Texas last night where he was traveling with the mayor. He said he had no comment. But Deputy Mayor Joseph J. Lhota said that politics played no role in the oversight of projects and described Mr. Trivisonno's account as ''a web of fiction.'' ''It is unfortunate that he does not understand now and did not understand then that he was removed for job performance-related issues, not politics,'' Mr. Lhota said. ''This is nothing more than sour grapes on his part.'' But investigators said they planned to review the circumstances of Mr. Trivisonno's departure to see whether political pressure was often used to override inspectors, thereby creating the possibility of dangerous conditions. Last summer, Mr. Ostreicher's company was allowed to resume work one day after a section of flooring in another part of the development collapsed. Three people were hurt in that incident. But the company submitted amended plans, certified by a licensed engineer, that showed how the floor would be redesigned, and officials said that was sufficient to let the work resume. The officials also said that the section of floor would have been reinspected before the building was approved for occupancy. Frank B. Mandel, a lawyer for Mr. Ostreicher, said he was pleased to hear that Mr. Trivisonno had clarified the circumstances of his removal. ''It had nothing to do with my client,'' Mr. Mandel said. |
1157194_1 | A Romance With a Rain Forest and Its Elusive Miracles | level was almost normal. Within a few days she was well enough to work in her garden again. ''I was knocked over,'' Dr. Plotkin said. ''He literally raised that woman from the dead.'' Alas, the medicine did not pan out back in the lab at Shaman Pharmaceuticals in South San Francisco. And when the Food and Drug Administration sent the company's most promising new drug prospect, a diarrhea remedy from an Amazon tree, back for more clinical trials, Shaman Pharmaceuticals' stock slid until it was virtually worthless. In February 1999, the company abandoned the quest to make drugs from rain forest remedies and decided to sell dietary supplements instead. Dr. Plotkin has since severed his ties with the company, which has changed its name to ShamanBotanicals.com. He also had the company remove every reference to his name from its Web site. He renounced bioprospecting, the search for medicines and other useful products, because it had become too controversial in South America, where indigenous tribes had complained that bioprospectors were stealing their secrets and getting rich from them. Dr. Plotkin said the idea that bioprospectors were profiting from Indian knowledge also hindered his ability to raise money for his own nonprofit organization, the Amazon Conservation Team, which works with shamans in Colombia and other countries to preserve their knowledge. For Dr. Plotkin, 44, this falling out represented a career crisis, although he played down its significance. His experience is emblematic of the changes that have occurred in a field in which old-fashioned botanists once toiled in obscurity until saving the rain forest became a cause celebre, and ethnobotanists like Dr. Plotkin linked their fortunes to the pharmaceutical industry, only to discover that medical miracles are rare, even in the rain forest. Dr. Plotkin had built his reputation on the claim that the rain forest was a pharmacy filled with wonder drugs known to traditional healers who were eager to share their knowledge. Shaman Pharmaceuticals was one of many companies that wanted to find the proof and help provide a financial incentive to save the rain forest. ''We all had a mantra that we had to save the rain forest because it was a repository of natural drugs,'' said Dr. Wade Davis, who studied ethnobotany at Harvard and watched Dr. Plotkin's rapid rise. Dr. Plotkin had followed a roundabout path to the rain forest. The son of a Jewish shoe salesman in |
1150119_0 | Some Jeep Wranglers to Get New Plastic Roofs | Taking a big step forward in the development of automobiles with plastic bodies, DaimlerChrysler announced today that it would equip 5,000 of its Jeep Wranglers each year with lightweight, low-cost roofs made from a new kind of specially hardened plastic, starting in the 2001 model year. A different kind of plastic, made by taking sheets of plastic and pressing them into shapes in big machines, is already used to produce current Wrangler roofs and to make many exterior body panels of Saturn cars. The new plastic, made by injecting liquid material directly into giant molds, can make stronger, cheaper and less brittle auto parts that could replace steel for structural auto body parts within 10 years, DaimlerChrysler officials and outside experts said today. ''You remember where, in the 1960's movie 'The Graduate,' they whispered 'plastics,' '' said James P. Holden, the president of DaimlerChrysler's former Chrysler operations. ''Well, we're finally here.'' The new hardtop roof will weigh 47 pounds instead of 70 pounds for the current one and will cost 10 percent less to make, Mr. Holden said. DaimlerChrysler makes 90,000 Wranglers a year and will equip only 5,000 a year with the new roofs partly because its suppliers have only make one machine so far to produce them and partly because DaimlerChrysler wants to assess the new material's performance in the field. The rest of the Wranglers will continue to be sold with sheet-molded hardtop roofs or with soft, canvas roofs. All Wranglers have roll bars that are designed to support the vehicle's weight if it tips over, so the roof does not need to be very strong. Mr. Holden said that the new roofs would be just as safe as existing roofs. DaimlerChrysler has not decided which Wranglers will have the new roofs, he said. Automakers have been searching for high-strength, lightweight substitutes for steel because lighter automobiles tend to have better fuel economy and lower emissions, allowing manufacturers to meet ever-tighter regulatory standards and prepare for any future sharp increases in gasoline prices. Aluminum, the most common alternative to steel, weighs half as much for a similar-sized auto part but tends to cost twice as much. Injected plastic is strong enough to provide an automobile's structure, many auto engineers say, although steel makers question this. The injected plastic can also be dyed, so it does not need to be painted. The dyed product is not glossy enough |
1150088_1 | After a Crash, Fear Overtakes Logic | where there are so many details regarding times, dates, locations, manufacturing specifications, grieving relatives, political intrigues and other items of possible relevance, there will undoubtedly be some seemingly unlikely links. Our ability to separate the possible from the probable tends to deteriorate under this torrent of information, leading us to speculate about cause and effect based on the flimsiest of connections. A related foible is our often unconscious belief that if we can vividly imagine something, this makes it more likely. The Egyptair Boeing 767 rolled off the production line immediately before another Boeing 767 jetliner that crashed eight years ago in Thailand. It's easy for us to envisage tired workers suffering a momentary lapse of attention. But this isn't proof. Then there is the fact that the only person to get off the Egyptair flight during its layover in New York was a ''grief counselor.'' Is this some grand paradox, or just one of countless possible oddities whose complete absence would be the oddest coincidence of all? A useful media exercise would be to examine -- in as focused and relentless a way as the details of the Egyptair flight are being examined -- any ordinary flight from New York to, say, Madrid that did not end in a horrible crash. Undoubtedly, we'd find approximately as many disquieting stories about the plane's history, approximately as many last-minute changes in the passenger list and approximately as many of the million and seven other things that investigators and reporters are now considering. The statistics that really matter on the safety of air travel are reassuring. As Arnold Barnett of M.I.T. has noted, we have one chance in seven million of dying in any given domestic jet flight. That is, a passenger who daily and randomly takes a jet flight between American cities would, on average, go 19,000 years before dying in a crash. For international flights on American-owned airlines the chances are one in 1.5 million flights. Egyptair and Swissair are also safe airlines. But stories and scenarios are more seductive than statistics and induce in us a suspension of disbelief and critical thinking. What happened to Flight 990 is still a mystery, but it's more likely to be something ordinary than not. This doesn't lessen anybody's grief, but it should allay some fears. John Allen Paulos, a mathematics professor at Temple University, is the author of ''Once Upon a Number.'' |
1151737_7 | Now Putting A Big Stamp On the Era Of the Internet; Pitney Bowes Is Updating The Business of Business Mail | not all be Internet related. Unlike the Internet start-ups it now competes with, Pitney has a stable of conventional products that yield a steady cash flow to support its Internet forays. Indeed, although its stock may be slumping, its sales and earnings have been solid. Its 1998 revenues of $4.22 billion were 8 percent higher than 1997's $3.92 billion, while its net income of $576.4 million was up 10 percent from the prior year's $526 million. Pitney postage meters still dominate the United States market, despite solid competition from digitally savvy companies like Neopost and Francotyp-Postalia A.G. of Germany. And analysts expect Pitney to garner 30 percent of the international postage meter market by 2004, up from just about 14 percent now. Companies numerous and huge, including U S West, Cigna and General Motors, are using Pitney's equipment to address, stuff, stamp and mail bills and customized literature. Many others have hired Pitney to run their mailing operations. In either model, the client provides Pitney with demographic information about customers, and Pitney sees to it that, say, a young family's bill comes with an insert promoting products for children, while a retired widow's bill might include data on care for the elderly. ''The Internet has certainly not lessened the importance of personalized content inside an envelope, or of customized printing on the outside,'' Mr. Critelli said. Even with paper mailings, computer networks are playing a role. Pitney now sells systems that help companies glean custom-tailored mailing lists from e-commerce Web sites, and use them for direct marketing -- or, in the case of smaller businesses, hire Pitney to handle the mailing for them. It has database products that double check the accuracy of addresses and their listed occupants against post office records, so as to guarantee error-free mailing lists. And, it is testing a system at the General Motors Acceptance Corporation's mail room in Detroit whereby Pitney will scan some of the nonpersonal incoming mail into a computer, and deliver it to employees electronically. ''Paper isn't going away, and only Pitney has the bricks and mortar products to offer a hybrid approach,'' said Mr. Lundy, the Gartner analyst Pitney has even figured out a novel way to get the float on a customer's money. Pitney set up a chartered bank in Utah in 1998. Then last June, Pitney's Financial Services division started offering free postage, representing about a 2 percent |
1157113_1 | Basque Rebels in Spain Ending Cease-Fire After 14 Months | has been stalled for months. There was only one round of talks between the government and the rebels, last May 19 in Switzerland, but the rebels said in August that they would not attend a second meeting, accusing the government of seeking political gain from the truce. ''The process is blocked and poisoned,'' the rebels said today. ''Responding to a pledge to defend the Basque country, the decision has been taken to reactivate the use of armed struggle. From Dec. 3, it is up to E.T.A. to inform its operational commandos when to take action.'' E.T.A., whose initials stand for the Basque words for Basque Homeland and Freedom, has insisted on self-determination for 2.6 million people who live in Spain's four historic Basque provinces and 250,000 others in the Basque region of France. But the government said it was willing only to discuss possible leniency for hundreds of Basque prisoners and exiles. It called on the rebels to renounce violence permanently. ''The Government has done, is doing and will do all it can to achieve a lasting peace,'' Mr. Aznar said today, ahead of national elections due by next April, when the peace effort is likely to be a backdrop to his campaign for a second term. The rebels' peace overture last year followed in the steps of the Irish Republican Army, but while the peace effort in Northern Ireland has lurched forward, the effort here has deteriorated to its lowest ebb. Spanish political leaders of all stripes expressed deep disappointment today over the end of the cease-fire, but they urged Spaniards not to lose hope for peace. Six million people marched in the streets in July 1997 to demand peace, after the rebels kidnapped and killed a Basque town councilman, Miguel Angel Blanco. That outpouring of public sentiment was seen as a turning point in the fight against terrorism, along with the increasingly efficient police crackdown against the rebels in Spain and in their rear-guard hideouts in France. Rebel supporters complained that even after the cease-fire took effect, the police continued to arrest E.T.A. leaders, including Belen Gonzalez Penalva, who was detained last month and who reportedly represented the rebels at the talks in May. Recently, the police said they had detected rebel attempts to prepare for new attacks, including the robbery of industrial dynamite in France in September. But Xabier Arzalluz, the head of the moderate Basque Nationalist |
1157093_1 | A Carnival of Derision to Greet the Princes of Global Trade | responds to the needs and interests of the very rich and corporations, but it doesn't respond to the needs of the environment, labor, the poor, women or indigenous people,'' said Alli Starr, a dancer in the radical group Art and Revolution, who flew in from San Francisco to protest and do street theater. Borrowing a page from Vietnam War protests, the trade organization's critics have scheduled a weeklong cavalcade of activities, including teach-ins, concerts, mock trials of corporations and appearances by sympathetic members of Congress. Like the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago, the trade meeting has become a magnet for all manner of protest. On Monday night, hundreds of protesters plan to form a human chain around Seattle's exhibition center to demand that wealthy nations cancel the debt owed by the world's poor nations. The biggest event will be a protest march on Tuesday sponsored by the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which wants the trade group to allow trade sanctions against countries that violate core labor standards, like prohibitions against child labor. Some of the groups hope to persuade the trade body to change its ways, while others want to disrupt it, with the ultimate goal of destroying it. In 1919, Seattle endured one of the nation's first general strikes, but it has never experienced protests with people from so many different groups -- labor unions, farm groups, environmental groups -- and so many countries, including Canada, France, Panama and India. Ten years ago, trade ministers' meetings attracted only a handful of protesters who were largely seen as cranks, but the protests have mushroomed and include many mainstream groups. The protests have been fueled by the Internet, anxiety about globalization and anger with World Trade Organization rulings. In the most-criticized ruling, the United States was found to have acted illegally in barring imported shrimp caught by fishing fleets whose nets do not contain devices allowing sea turtles to escape. The protesters also attack a ruling that an American requirement for a smog-fighting gasoline additive was an unfair trade barrier and another that concluded that Europe had no scientific basis for barring hormone-treated beef from the United States and Canada. ''So many people are upset with the W.T.O. because of the expansiveness of its limits on government health and safety actions,'' said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a Ralph Nader group that has been the main coordinator of the |
1157079_0 | Trojan War Victims Lie on Normandy Beaches | War is hideous glory in Homer, elevating combatants to achievements that astound them, terrifying them with death and abandonment among the shades below and debasing them with runaway lusts. And the performance of ''The Iliad: Book I'' by the Aquila Theater Company, the first mixed British-American company approved by Actors Equity, at Lincoln Center draws an audience so deep inside the great poem that one seems to experience what Homer's heros did. Seven actors and the director, Robert Richmond, conceive it in terms of the Normandy invasion during World War II. With no props but combat gear and four metal boxes the size of steamer trunks they create Olympus, a storm-tossed armada, altars in temple sanctuaries and the beaches before Troy strewn with corpses and wrecked ships. If the contemporary idiom of Stanley Lombardo's new translation is off the streets and out of barracks, the company's choreographed movement, the chants, occasional dances and the rhythms of the speeches convey much of the feeling of the Greek verse: its rumbles and melodies and silences, the beat of its pulse. The Normandy metaphor is thrillingly embodied. Of course, the Greeks and the Allies came ashore in much the same way: here under the roar of aircraft suggested by Anthony Cochrane's musical arrangements. Later, enthralled by an argument between Achilles and Agamemnon over rejecting a ransom offered by a priest of Apollo for his daughter, we might forget Normandy. But Apollo in vengeance flings his whole quiver of arrows at the Greeks, and they soar over us into the soldiers' hearts with the same sound. Further on, as Odysseus and his men row a fleet of penitential offerings out to Apollo's priest in the harbor, we see they are manning the LST's of 1944. And at the end, when Zeus, to humiliate Agamemnon on behalf of Achilles, turns the war against the Greeks, they fall in bursts of machine-gun fire. The fit of the wars is perfect. The depth and emotion of the epic become palpable throughout. The anger of opposing leaders in war councils -- their own passions are more lethal to them than the Trojans -- is mean and degrading as they fight for booty, but they argue at the heart of moral philosophy, over trust, equity, justice, truth, compassion, mercy. Humor is irrepressible. A groveling appeal by the crippled god Hephaestus to his mother, Hera, is high comedy, and a |
1155646_0 | Ways to Tame Menopausal Hot Flashes, Without Estrogen | Hot flashes are a staple of menopause jokes, but there is nothing funny about them, and certainly nothing imaginary. They are experienced by at least 75 percent of American women at some point in menopause, including just before and just after. (They can also be brought on by the popular breast cancer drug tamoxifen and by the bone-building drug raloxifene.) They can vary from occasionally annoying to life-disrupting, and they can last for as little as a few days or as long as 10 years or more. Hot flashes are especially disruptive for women awakened repeatedly with night sweats, leaving them unable to get restful sleep. A desire to suppress hot flashes is the main reason women start hormone replacement therapy; estrogen in appropriate doses can eliminate them. But there are millions of menopausal women who cannot or will not take estrogen. Many have had breast cancer or know they are at high risk for developing this disease, and because breast cancer cells are stimulated by estrogen, these women and their doctors are reluctant to risk it. Other women experience unpleasant side effects from hormone replacement or are simply uncomfortable with the idea of dosing their bodies with hormones that nature has turned off. For such women, there are a number of simple, safe ways to reduce -- and sometimes even eliminate -- hot flashes without having to take hormones. Nature of a Flash Hot flashes occur because the brain decides that the body is overheated. It sends out signals that dilate outer blood vessels and induce sweating, which results in heat loss. Skin temperature may rise as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit. To a bed partner, a woman having a night sweat may feel like a radiator. Typically, a hot flash is felt most intensely in the upper body, especially in the face, neck and back. A woman may experience a feeling of intense heat for a minute or more or, in more severe cases, she may become very flushed and dripping wet. Her heart may beat faster, she may experience palpitations and, in rare cases, she may faint. Hot flashes may occur a few times a day or six or more times an hour. Contrary to what some people think, susceptibility to hot flashes is unrelated to a woman's emotional, mental or physical well-being, although these factors may aggravate the problem. Nor are flashes the sole result of |
1153741_1 | A Sex Guide for Girls, Minus Homilies | With It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a Gurl'' (Pocket Books, $15), written -- or, more accurately, choreographed, produced and emceed -- by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald and Rebecca Odes. Based on a Web site, gURL.com, that the three women started in 1996, the book offers a frank, detailed and zealously nonjudgmental take on all aspects of girlhood. It is a funny book, vividly designed in today's de rigueur style of bold colors, cartoon icons and choppy text blocks. The cover is a two-parter, showing a young woman on the front standing with her back to the reader, throwing open her yellow raincoat in the manner of a flasher. Flip to the inside cover, and the flasher is turned frontward in fetching bra and panties. Inside the book, tampons are drawn with grinning faces; an emotional ''crush'' is shown as a sneaker squashing a bug underfoot. Yet the book's purpose is serious. It addresses virtually everything a young woman might want to know about herself, and herself in relation to others. Some of the text is written by the three authors, based on information screened by a variety of experts, and some consists of the comments and asides of girls. Girls talk about their pubic hair and the hair around their nipples. To one alarmed query, a girl-commentator replies: ''Relax! This is normal! It's called vaginal discharge.'' Girls talk about the even more ''gross'' realization that their parents have sex and sometimes even enjoy it. The most incendiary topics are presented in clear, nonincendiary language. If a girl is pregnant, ''Deal With It!'' lays out her options, from the considerable challenges of life as a teenage mother to what an abortion involves and which states require parental notification or consent. The entire pharmacopeia of recreational drugs is described in detail, each one's effects and risks outlined without hellfire, brimstone or fearmongering. ''We wanted to give girls resources and information, but not be preachy about anything one way or another,'' Ms. McDonald said in an interview. ''In our way of thinking, girls are smart; they can make choices; and what they need most is accurate information.'' The intended audience for the book is girls from ''the edge of their teens'' to those ''who are way past them but still reeling from the trauma.'' As such, the book covers topics that while arguably fine for a |
1153762_2 | Northern Ireland Talks Get Push Forward | bringing pressure on the Ulster Unionists and their leader, David Trimble, to obtain party backing for the deal brokered between them and Sinn Fein by Mr. Mitchell. When Mr. Trimble presented the outlines of that deal to Ulster Unionist legislators Thursday night, not enough of them supported it to enable him to take it to the full party for the needed endorsement. The impasse that has held up progress in putting the April 1998 peace accord in place centers on the Ulster Unionists' refusal to allow members of Sinn Fein into the leadership of the new Northern Ireland Assembly unless the I.R.A. begins disarming. All that the agreement obligated the parties to do was to use their best influence to persuade affiliated paramilitary groups to disarm by May 2000, and Sinn Fein has contended that the Ulster Unionist demand amounts to adding a new condition to an agreed-upon treaty. After the parties praised Mr. Mitchell today, they were followed by John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general in charge of the independent commission on guerrilla disarmament, who gave a promising assessment of possibilities for dismantling arsenals. Whatever the outcome of Mr. Mitchell's effort, it has produced an atmosphere of dialogue among men who have been lifelong enemies in the polarized politics of Northern Ireland, where more than 3,300 people have died in sectarian violence during the last three decades. The deal that has emerged from the Mitchell talks includes plans for naming an I.R.A. go-between to the de Chastelain commission and the establishment of a verifiable disarmament timetable that would begin the end of January and conclude by the May deadline. The goal of achieving a breakthrough in the deadlock over disarmament that eluded negotiators in a series of marathon talk sessions in the spring and summer has been replaced by a lower-key arrangement to get to the same objective through a series of interlocking reciprocal steps. Accordingly, Mr. Mitchell laid out a choreographed sequence today, with General de Chastelain calling this afternoon for paramilitary groups to appoint representatives to his commission, and the parties scheduled to make cooperative statements Tuesday pledging to work together to put the peace agreement into practice. Then on Wednesday, the I.R.A. is to issue a public statement about its commitment to the peace agreement, and on Thursday Mr. Mitchell will make his conclusions known, file his final report and return to the United States. |
1153740_2 | Tapping Into the Vibrations of the Cosmos | from three separate points. This would allow scientists to calculate the direction from which a gravitational signal reached Earth, and to determine whether the wave coincided with some other kind of signal -- a gamma-ray pulse, a flash of light or some other kind of radiation. One such signal might come from a pulse of neutrinos coinciding with a gravity wave, said Dr. John Bahcall, a leading astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J. In his talk, Dr. Bahcall described gravity waves, like neutrinos, as ''new messengers for astronomy,'' capable of probing vast and hitherto unfathomed parts of the universe. A far more ambitious project than LIGO, the space-based Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, is planned by the European Space Agency for launching a decade from now. NASA is considering joining a partnership with the European agency to support the project, which is expected to cost $450 million. LISA would consist of three satellites arrayed at the corners of an equilateral triangle, each separated from the other two by 5 million kilometers (3.1 million miles). The entire assemblage would be launched into an orbit around the Sun, trailing Earth by about 20 degrees. With luck, scientists hope, gravity-wave ''telescopes'' will detect the collisions of black holes and neutron stars, the explosions of certain types of supernovas, the behavior of supermassive black holes at the hearts of most (or perhaps all) galaxies, and even the relic gravitational ripples left from the Big Bang, the huge explosion theorized to have resulted in the birth of the universe. Dr. Michael Turner, an astrophysicist from the University of Chicago, described the search for gravity waves as vital to the detection of ''cold dark matter,'' invisible matter believed to make up most of the mass of the universe. Dr. Turner described this search as ''the greatest challenge of the 21st century.'' The quest for gravity waves goes back many years. The general theory of relativity published by Albert Einstein in 1915 predicted that disturbances in large gravitational fields should propagate at the speed of light as ripples in space-time. Theory predicted that a gravity ripple passing through a detector should alternately lengthen and shorten space-time within the detector, and that supposition was the basis of several experiments. In the early 1960's, Dr. Joseph Weber of the University of Maryland based one of the first detectors on a huge aluminum bar that |
1155949_0 | Definition of Abortion Is Found to Vary Abroad | The recipient of the largest amount of American birth control aid is Bangladesh, a Muslim country that languishes among the world's sickest, poorest and most populous. Despite a decision by Congress last week to limit federal spending on groups that promote abortion rights abroad, the way the United States' contribution is spent in Bangladesh depends much more on local laws and practices than on anything done half a world away on Capitol Hill. Officially, Bangladesh prohibits abortion except to save a mother's life. But the government of Bangladesh, an emphatic proponent of birth control, and the nongovernment Family Planning Association of Bangladesh, an affiliate of International Planned Parenthood Federation in London, do condone a practice that amounts to the same thing in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. In the procedure, which the government and the federation call ''menstrual regulation,'' a woman who complains of having missed a period, rather than being given a pregnancy test, can be treated by a health care worker who suctions away the lining of the uterine wall, including any fertilized egg. The government defines this as ''an interim method of establishing nonpregnancy,'' according to a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a women's research organization in New York. It does not consider the procedure an abortion, because the woman does not take a pregnancy test and therefore is never officially deemed to be pregnant. In the legislation Congress passed to restore American financing of the United Nations, Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, won inclusion of a clause restricting the United States Agency for International Development from using its money for family planning -- $385 million for a fourth consecutive year, down from $547 million in 1995 -- to perform or promote abortions. Once it was negotiated with the White House, however, the provision left family planning groups with many ways around the restrictions. It prohibits agency financing for organizations that perform or promote abortions, whether with United States money or with their own. But it applies only to foreign, nongovernment organizations. Foreign governments and American organizations that operate abroad can still get the aid. In a country where abortions are already illegal, like Bangladesh, if the organizations continue to promote contraception but agree not to lobby for looser regulation of abortion, they are operating within the boundaries established by Congress and can continue to receive money. And the definition of terms |
1155949_3 | Definition of Abortion Is Found to Vary Abroad | a long history. In 1973, Congress prohibited subsidies to foreign nongovernment organizations that used them for abortion, and that law remains in effect. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order prohibiting the organizations that received American financing from using other money -- their own or foundations' or other countries' contributions -- to promote abortion. President Clinton revoked the Reagan order upon taking office in 1993, and Mr. Smith's provision put the terms of the Reagan order into law. While Americans argued about the provision, international family planning groups have worked to decrease their dependence on American financing. At the same time, they say, their efforts are helping reduce birth rates in many nations. The United States remains the world's largest source of nearly $2 billion a year that the United Nations estimates that industrial countries spend to subsidize family planning in developing countries. But the Netherlands, once a relatively small contributor, is now the second largest, followed by Germany, Britain and Japan. Private American donors, including the Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, Packard, Mellon and Gates foundations, have been stepping in, too. The Agency for International Development reports that in the developing countries that receive its family planning support, the fertility rate, or the average number of babies born to a woman, dropped from 4.4 in 1985 to 3.3 in 1997. In populous Indonesia, the rate had fallen by half, from 5.6 in 1971 to 2.6 two years ago. Bangladesh has achieved a major objective of its national population policy in cutting its rate from an average of six babies per woman to three. With the world population now at 6 billion and climbing by 70 to 80 million a year, nations are still far short of achieving the fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman that demographers say would stabilize the population and relieve pressure on world resources. Most women in sub-Saharan Africa have six or more children. ''There are still large numbers of unwanted children,'' said John Bomgaarts, vice president of the Population Council in New York. ''Forty-five percent of pregnancies worldwide are unintended -- mistakes or unwanted.'' From the beginning, the abortion opponents' No. 1 target has been the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London. With affiliated family planning services in 140 countries, the federation dwarfs all other foreign nongovernment groups in promoting birth control and abortion. Pramilla Senanayake, assistant director general of the Planned Parenthood organization |
1150745_0 | Looking Backward Toward the Future | BUILDING A BRIDGE TO THE 18TH CENTURY How the Past Can Improve Our Future By Neil Postman 213 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $24. It's clear from his previous books that Neil Postman hates our technology-obsessed culture. In such earlier volumes as ''Amusing Ourselves to Death,'' ''Conscientious Objections'' and ''Technopoly,'' he has assailed television as a corrupting influence, lamented the decline of the written word and called for a revamping of our educational system. In his sanctimonious new book, ''Building a Bridge to the 18th Century,'' he rehashes those themes under the pretense of looking ''for guidance about what to do and think in the 21st century.'' In looking for a source of ''good ideas'' from the past ''that may be revived,'' Mr. Postman rejects ancient Greece as being ''too far from us and too strange and too insular and too unacquainted with the power of technology'' for us to use ''as a social or intellectual paradigm.'' He also rejects the God-centered outlook of the Middle Ages, arguing that ''in a theocratic world, everyone is a fundamentalist,'' and in a technological, multicultural world, ''fundamentalism is a side issue.'' And so Mr. Postman settles, rather arbitrarily, on the Enlightenment as an archive of ''ideas that offer a humane direction to the future.'' As Mr. Postman sees it, the world today consistently comes up short in comparison with that of the 18th century. We suffer from meaningless information and data smog; they reveled in knowledge -- or information with purpose and context. We are plagued by deconstructionists who harp on the problematic relationship of language to reality; they enjoyed philosophers who believed that ''language was capable of mapping reality.'' We treat our children as tiny consumers, bombarding them with advertisements and sexually explicit images; they treated childhood as ''a distinct stage of life'' to be protected from ''the information environment of adults.'' Not only are these attempts to idealize the 18th century riddled with rationalizations about child labor, slavery and the oppression of women, but also Mr. Postman's overall argument about looking to the Enlightenment for instruction is constructed on a series of faulty premises, all delivered in a snide, holier-than-thou tone. To begin with, he tends to lump the Enlightenment together with the Romantic reaction against it, arguing that the assault on reason and the call for more ''poetic insight and humane feeling'' made by the likes of William Blake is ''part |
1150786_2 | Zvi Griliches, 69, an Authority On Analysis of Economic Data | Social Security benefits and many other federal expenditures. Mr. Griliches served on the Boskin Commission, which was appointed by Congress to review possible biases in measures of inflation and reported in 1996 that the government's index overstated inflation by 1.1 percentage points a year. His research also refuted prevailing arguments about the impact of education on lifetime earnings. Economists observed that students who attended school for more years earned higher income -- about 7 percent more for each additional year of schooling. The question was why. The straightforward reason was that students who stayed in school longer acquired skills that employers were willing to pay for. But economists also thought that cause-and-effect ran in the opposite direction: students with more skills chose to stay in school longer because they could most effectively take advantage of further schooling. If this was true, encouraging less-skilled students to stay in school longer might not do much to lift their earnings. Mr. Griliches's work powerfully put this anxiety to rest. By designing careful measures of skills, he was able to show that more schooling would raise wage offers even for less-skilled students who would ordinarily not choose to stay in school longer. His findings buttressed arguments of those who called for government programs to help high school graduates attend college. Mr. Griliches also helped develop techniques of statistical estimation, including methods for analyzing ''panel'' data that trace the behavior of many individuals or companies over time. Social scientists could tackle these large data sets only after the 1960's, when powerful computers became widely available. The common thread through Mr. Griliches's work was the pursuit of accurate measurement. He helped devise techniques for measuring productivity -- output per hour of work -- and the benefits of research and development that spill over from one sector to another. Before Mr. Griliches, economists had trouble identifying the reasons behind the historical increases in productivity. By devising better measures of the quality of educated and uneducated workers and of the quality of different types of equipment, Mr. Griliches and Mr. Jorgenson, writing together, provided explanations for some of the previously unexplained trends in productivity. Mr. Griliches wrote that his work showed ''that education, investment in research and economies of scale were the important sources of productivity growth in the long run.'' Prof. Alan Krueger of Princeton said Mr. Griliches was influential because ''he got his hands dirty with |
1150846_6 | A Long-Distance Tether to Home; New Technology Binds College Students and Parents | Ms. Coburn said most of the calls were initiated by the students and there was ''very little complaining about parents being intrusive.'' One of Ms. Coburn's freshman advisees, for instance, described making a quick call to Mom on the cell phone while a dinner companion was in the restroom. The constant chitchat is overwhelmingly the province of mothers and daughters, educators and students said. Sons prefer e-mail. Fathers tend to be terse on the phone. Meghan Werth's father is typical: ''Are you O.K.? Do you need money? Here's Mom.'' Then Ms. Werth, an 18-year-old freshman at Seton Hall, and her mother in nearby West New York, N.J., dissect the day -- on a daily basis. The daughter reports that she got a good grade, describes the drug-addicted babies at the hospital where she volunteers, says that an aunt in Florida sent a package. Her mother says her father has a cold and her little cousin said something adorable. Students who crave privacy know how to get it. They use caller ID as a screening device. They turn off cell phones, pagers and the ringer on dorm phones and let voice mail take messages. They ignore certain e-mail. They adopt two screen names for instant messages and give parents only one. ''Students, for the most part, feel they have control,'' Ms. Coburn said. ''They are very creative at defending themselves. This is their medium, and they can use it the way they want.'' Mr. Crabb at Penn State disagreed, saying that easy access causes a loss of self-control in young people. Faced with frustration, anger or disappointment, students mindlessly reach for the phone to ''seek succor,'' he said. ''The call makes them feel better. But they are not learning to control their emotional states, which is part of becoming an adult,'' he said. Msgr. Robert Sheeran, the president of Seton Hall, quarreled with the notion that students could not be taught to use telecommunications wisely. The monsignor, who has neither a cell phone nor a beeper but likes to send e-mail, compared it to the vending machines on campus that tempt with fat, salt and sugar at every turn. ''If we don't make the right choices about what to consume, it will make us flabby or sick,'' he said. ''We need to learn what it takes to say no. Just because we have it doesn't mean we have to use it.'' |
1150833_3 | An F.A.A. Study Shows Few Gains In Improving Security at Airports | costing about $1 million, have been deployed at 80 airports. In addition, about 600 machines that are used to detect traces of explosives in carry-on luggage are also in use. But an audit by the Department of Transportation's inspector general published earlier this year found that the machines were vastly underused by airlines, which are responsible for screening baggage. The report -- which assessed a variety of security issues at a number of unnamed airports -- estimated that each machine was capable of screening 750 bags per day, or 5,350 per week, but that in the last quarter of 1998 they were screening only an average of 223 bags per day, or 1,559 per week. ''Our position is they have to get this expensive equipment that does a good job used more,'' said Alexis M. Stefani, the assistant inspector general for auditing. In defense, airline representatives say that using the machines more frequently would be impractical and add hours to boarding times. They also say that general use is not recommended even by the F.A.A.. ''That is not what the security directive from the U.S. government says,'' said David Fuscus, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the airline trade group. ''They are not saying screen all bags.'' Admiral Cathal Flynn, retired, the associate administrator for civil aviation security at the F.A.A., said that the agency had managed to increase the use of the machines since the audit was done last year. The F.A.A. is now encouraging airlines to pool the use of individual machines. He said that each machine was now scanning an average of 2,000 bags each week. The transportation department's inspector general also found that the effectiveness of the new machines was compromised by their operators. In many cases, the report found, passengers who were identified as potential threats by a special computer profiling program did not have their bags scanned by the machines because security workers simply did not bother. One recommendation of the Gore Commission was for airlines to raise the standards of airport security personnel. They have long been seen as a weak link in the chain because security companies, under contract with the airlines, routinely pay low wages and suffer high turnover. ''The more sophisticated the machinery the higher-quality people you need to operate them,'' said Robert W. Overman, vice president of human resources at Guardsmark, a security company based in Memphis. Guardsmark used |
1124956_0 | WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE NORTHERN IRELAND: FOCUSING ON PEACE Former Senator George J. Mitchell will conduct a ''tightly focused'' review of the halted Northern Ireland peace settlement, Prime Minister Tony Blair said. Mr. Mitchell will meet with party leaders in Belfast this week, then break for August and resume talks in September. The parties failed to meet a deadline last week for starting up the new assembly that divides power between Catholics and Protestants because of an impasse over guerrilla disarmament. Warren Hoge (NYT) EUROPEAN UNION: PARLIAMENT ELECTION The European Parliament elected Nicole Fontaine of France as the new President of the 626-member body. Ms. Fontaine belongs to the center-right Union for French Democracy and to the Christian Democratic Group in Parliament, where she has been a member since 1984. She got 306 votes. Mario Soares, a Socialist and former President of Portugal, came in second with 200 votes. Marlise Simons (NYT) BRITAIN: SOCCER RIOT CHARGES A court ordered two retired police officials to face trial on manslaughter charges stemming from a riot in Hillsborough, North England, in 1989 that killed 96 soccer fans. The victims' families brought the case against former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, 54, and former Superintendent Bernard Murray, 57. Warren Hoge (NYT) FRANCE: QUESTIONS OVER KICKBACKS The Mayor of Paris, Jean Tiberi, was questioned in court for six hours in connection with kickbacks allegedly paid by construction companies, court officials said today. Magistrates are investigating whether kickbacks from public housing contracts went into the coffers of the Rally for the Republic in the period from 1991 to 1994, when President Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris and Mr. Tiberi worked for him. Mr. Tiberi has not been formally charged. Marlise Simons (NYT) SPAIN: INDICTMENTS IN BASQUE KILLING In the latest in a series of cases examining a shadowy campaign against Basque terrorists in the 1980's, a judge in Bilbao, the largest Basque city, indicted a former Interior Ministry official, Julian Sancristobal, and eight others for their roles in the killing of a Basque leftist leader, Santiago Brouard, in 1984. Meanwhile, Spain's highest court ordered the release of 22 leaders of a Basque leftist coalition who were sentenced in November 1997 to seven years each for collaborating with separatists. Al Goodman (NYT) THE AMERICAS MEXICO: INDIANS SENTENCED Twenty Indian villagers were each sentenced to 35 years in prison for the killing of 45 rebel sympathizers in the hamlet of Acteal |
1124936_0 | FOOD CHAIN | Dissolving Yeast in Milk or Water Q. Why does yeast dissolve in water but clump in milk? A. Yeast will clump in any liquid that is cold, whether water or milk. The temperature must be about 105 degrees to dissolve it. But milk, unlike water, needs to be scalded first, or heated to 198 degrees, to break down enzymes that inhibit yeast growth. After scalding, the milk must be cooled to 105 degrees (it will feel very warm to the touch) and stirred to eliminate any hot spots that can kill the yeast. (Uneven heating is common with milk because of its fat and protein content.) The yeast can then be safely added. It's easier and less risky, however, to dissolve yeast in a small amount of warm water and add the milk later. Explaining Modified Food Starch Q. Modified food starch is listed as an ingredient in many foods. What is it made from, and why is it used? Are there any health drawbacks? A. Modified food starch is simply a starch from a vegetable like corn that has been chemically treated to make it easier to incorporate into processed foods like puddings and gravies. It may also be found in baby food, where it works to keep the purees from secreting liquid. According to the Food and Drug Administration, modified food starch is perfectly safe to consume. Chipotle Chili Powder, So Distinctive Q. I want to make a chili recipe that calls for chipotle chili powder. Can I use regular chili powder instead? A. Chipotles are actually smoked jalapenos. It's difficult to find a substitute for the powder because the flavor is so distinctive. Penzey's Spices, (800) 741-7787, sells chipotle powder at $2.99 for one ounce, plus shipping. The flavor fades as the powder sits, so you may want to buy whole chipotle chilies, which keep almost indefinitely. Penzey's has them for $3.69 for one ounce, plus shipping. They are also at Kalustyan's, at 123 Lexington Avenue (28th Street), (212) 685-3451, for $3.49 for one and a quarter ounces. To use them, toast them in a dry skillet for about a minute a side, and grind them in a food processor or by mortar and pestle. You could also consider the canned chipotle chilies in adobo sauce sold in large supermarkets and Mexican markets. Stirring in one or more of the chopped chilies will impart that characteristic smoky |
1123041_2 | Picking Apart Manners, Morals and Misbehavior | that this would lead to raising the quota, the workers used an elaborate protocol to keep their output a little below it. This included craps games, gossip and resting and was enforced by a ''bing'' (a painful arm-poke) to anybody who worked too fast. The binged one was allowed a bing in return (in those days the notion of punishment did not exclude the notion of dignity), but the lesson was taken. Several of Mr. Caldwell's subjects are tired and tiring. We don't really need pages and pages about the growth of expenditure on weddings and funerals, or American mobility, or the changes in dating mores over the decades. The author soil-sifts where others have broken ground: much of his diligent research seems to have been in primary sources and fresher books, and in newspapers and magazines. The cultural studies field draws a lot from such material, as well as from advertising and television programs. It is in keeping with the academic trend to seek authenticity, as Marie Antoinette sought it in milkmaid and shepherdess games, in what it deems popular culture. On the other hand -- junk food in, junk food out -- it doesn't do much for the reader. Anyway, the point of junk-food studies is not to sling the evidence but to use it for interesting ideas. Only some of Mr. Caldwell's ideas are interesting; many are decidedly fuzzy or wander off in different directions at once. After writing of the lavish growth in American spending on weddings and funerals -- consumerism replacing ritual, he nicely calls it -- he argues that it is a kind of democratizing. You don't need to be well born or educated to achieve status; all you need is money. Ingenious up to a point, but what do you get in a Depression: a bread line armed with ''Brides'' magazines? He writes of Internet flaming and asks, reasonably, how real this ''virtual'' viciousness is. He makes an interesting comparison with the ritualized melodrama of grand opera and the verbal slanging in 1930's film comedies. Yet here as elsewhere he misses an obvious distinction. On Internet chat rooms (voyeurism reversed: the user is Godiva looking for Peeping Toms), we are not just spectators but actors, even if virtual. A chapter on children notes that the nurturing and expansive approaches of Dr. Spock and Robert Coles have been eroded by harsher institutional attitudes; the |
1123092_0 | British Putting More Pressure On the I.R.A. To Disarm | With only days left before a make-or-break decision on a new government for Ulster, Britain today proposed rush legislation aimed at obtaining Protestant support by requiring the Irish Republican Army to follow an enforceable disarmament timetable. The issue of when and how the largely Catholic I.R.A. will disarm has been the main objection raised by Protestants to carrying out the Northern Ireland peace settlement, agreed to 14 months ago and put into effect haltingly since then. The complex measure contained what Prime Minister Tony Blair called a ''fail-safe mechanism'' with procedures for banishing Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political arm, from the new all-party Government if there were a delay in dismantling the guerrilla arsenal. Protestant politicians have been demanding such assurances before they will agree to allow the new government in the conflicted British province to begin operations by naming its cabinet this week. David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, indicated he was still not satisfied and met tonight with Mr. Blair at 10 Downing Street to press the argument. ''There are still continuing problems, but also there is still continuing consultation,'' Mr. Trimble said. Mr. Blair spoke by phone during the day about the stalemate with President Clinton and with Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland, whose Government is a co-sponsor of the peace agreement. While politicians tried to nail down compromises in London, uniformed members of the Protestant Orange Order were observing the most important day in their annual marching calendar, to celebrate long-ago Protestant victories. The marches have often caused conflict with Catholics. There were 20 flute-and-snare-drum parades across Ulster, including one that attracted 30,000 people to a park ringed with barbed wire in downtown Belfast across the Lagan River from a large Catholic neighborhood. The parades went off without major disruption under the strictest security by police and British troops yet seen in the annual Protestant marching season. A 25-foot steel and concrete barrier was erected to block a bridge to the Lower Ormeau Road community. Orange leaders marched up to it and handed a letter of protest to a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer. July 12 is the date on which Orangemen commemorate the victory of the Protestant King William over the Roman Catholic James II in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. In past years, the parades have led to widespread violence, but this year security was tightened and the Order urged troublemakers |
1121555_3 | World Briefing | military and the Government had a ''complete understanding'' about Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's promise to seek a withdrawal of Pakistani-backed forces from the Indian side of Kashmir. He said the Islamic militants would be asked to leave their bunkers, and, ''It is to be seen what will be their reply.'' Barry Bearak (NYT) CHINA: PROTEST ON PAPUAN TIES -- China protested a decision by Papua New Guinea to open diplomatic ties with Taiwan and suggested that it would sever relations if the Papuan Government did not reverse the decision. Deputy Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called in the Papuan Ambassador to lodge a ''strong protest,'' a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. (AP) CHINA: U.S. SHIPS BARRED -- China has turned down requests for two U.S. warships to visit Hong Kong this month, a U.S. Consulate spokeswoman said. The refusal is in line with a ban announced after NATO planes bombed China's embassy in Belgrade on May 7. (Reuters) MYANMAR: EUROPEANS ADDRESS RIGHTS -- A special European Union mission arrived for talks expected to focus on human rights and the military Government's bitter political standoff with the opposition led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The mission will attempt to re-establish a dialogue between the E.U. and the Government, frozen since 1996 over allegations of rights violations. (Agence France-Presse) MALAYSIA: PLAN TO HEAD OFF FOREST FIRES -- Southeast Asian governments announced an urgent plan to try to prevent forest fires and avoid a repetition of the choking smog that shrouded the region two years ago. Environment officials from the Association of South East Asian Nations, meeting in Kuala Lumpur, said they had agreed on a coordinated campaign that would first be tested in Indonesia. (Reuters) MIDDLE EAST IRAQ: U.N. AIDE ORDERED OUT -- Iraq has ordered the expulsion of a New Zealand employee of a U.N. mine disposal program, accusing him of trying to damage crops by burying locust eggs, a Government spokesman said. The man was identified as Ian Broughton, who is in charge of disposing of hundreds of thousands of mines in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq. (Reuters) IRAQ: TURKS PRESS DRIVE -- Turkish troops backed by strike helicopters and fighter jets pushed into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurd guerrillas loyal to Abdullah Ocalan, sentenced to death last week. Turkey says a military campaign has pushed Mr. Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party into Kurdish-held northern Iraq and Iran. (Reuters) Compiled by Terence Neilan |
1121595_5 | U.S., Avoiding Castro, Relaxes Rules on Cuba | extended soon to others like students, artists and representatives of religious groups. In March, the Administration moved to streamline the sale and donation of medicines to Cuba, and next month, a Florida pharmaceutical company is to start shipping medicines to Cubans from benefactors in the United States. Under Federal rules that will take effect this month, Cuban emigres and others will be able to send money to Cubans by Western Union, reducing the cost of transfers that have been handled by travel agencies and other small businesses. Americans can now send up to $300 to the island every three months, as long as the money does not go to senior Government or Communist Party officials. How much advantage Americans will take of the new rules remains to be seen. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, Maria Ibanez, said travel to Cuba had steadily increased since the new regulations were issued in May. The expected addition of direct charter flights from New York and Los Angeles is intended to accommodate that rise. Since baseball games in the spring between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national team, Washington has offered proposals for other sports events. Those plans have been set back, however, by differences over how to avoid generating revenue for the Cuban Government, a State Department official said. But the Administration move last month to explore a more cooperative antidrug relationship with the Cuban Government has run into stronger opposition, mainly from a few members of Congress, who say the Cuban authorities are involved in the drug trade. Administration officials who have read a recent Central Intelligence Agency assessment of Cuba's role said it concluded, to the contrary, that although traffickers in the Caribbean might have bought the complicity of low-level Cuban officials, there was no evidence of high-level drug corruption. Although some officials said the Administration's new approach was gaining momentum, others predicted that it would increasingly be filtered through Mr. Gore's Presidential campaign. Mr. Gore, the officials said, has taken a relatively hard line on Cuban policy in the past, playing a prominent role in the decision to suspend charter flights in 1994. A spokesman for Mr. Gore, Tom Rosshirt, said the Vice President supported a policy of building contacts with the Cuban people while maintaining economic pressure on the Government. Mr. Rosshirt declined to comment on specific advice that Mr. Gore has given Mr. Clinton on Cuba. |
1121534_0 | At Last, a Vitamin Pill Wrapped in a Tortilla | AT last, we know what Dilbert's nameless corporation produces: burritos. But not just ordinary burritos. Dilberitos can lay claim to the title of the first fast-food nutraceutical. Nutraceuticals, foods that have been fortified with healthful ingredients, are among the hottest marketing segments of the food and drug industries. Dilberitos, vegetarian burritos that will be showing up in stores in the next few weeks, have been sprayed with 23 vitamins and minerals, the same ones listed on the back of bottles of vitamins. Each Dilberito carries the Government's entire Recommended Daily Allowance. That makes it a vitamin pill wrapped in a tortilla -- or the Total of the burrito bunch. Named after Scott Adams's cartoon character, a put-upon engineer with an upturned red and black striped tie, Dilberitos are, in the words of the manufacturer, Scott Adams Foods of Newton, N.J., ''cubicle cuisine,'' or ''dashboard dining.'' They can be put in a microwave oven for three minutes, then eaten with one hand while sitting in front of a computer -- though the sauce that accompanies each of the four varieties (barbecue, Mexican, Indian and garlic and herb) might dribble on the keyboard or on Dilbert's tie. ''If I don't remember in the morning to take a multivitamin, by eating one of these I've gotten all the vitamins and minerals I need for the day,'' said Jack Parker, the company's president. But is this the best way to eat? Do you need 100 percent of the R.D.A. in one sitting? And by the way, does it taste good? The answers to those questions are: It depends on what you would otherwise eat for lunch, it depends on what else you eat during the rest of the day, and it depends on the level of your culinary sensitivity. Marion Nestle, chairwoman of the nutrition and food studies department at New York University, pondered the larger question of whether enhancing foods with additional nutrients is always a good a thing. ''I wonder how we got to the point where everyone thinks we have to get 100 percent of the Recommended Daily Allowance in every food we eat,'' she said. ''I don't know any evidence that having multiples of the Recommended Daily Allowance is better for you than having your R.D.A. once. At some point, you have to start worrying about how many foods are being supplemented. I think we'll see a lot more of |
1123294_0 | Business Travel; The growth of electronic ticketing among the big airlines could signal the arrival of paperless skies. | ELECTRONIC tickets may account for no more than about 10 percent of all airline tickets worldwide, but they are beginning to make enormous strides in the United States. In recent months, USAirways and Northwest Airlines joined the ranks of major carriers whose passengers travel more often on E-tickets than on paper tickets, while at the same time E-ticketing is quickly catching on with many European and Asian airlines. Some of that popularity is being driven by bargains and bonuses, including the additional 1,000 frequent-flier miles that Northwest is giving passengers who fly on E-tickets through Nov. 6 between the United States and Canada and between the United States and five Asian destinations. For the benefit of the dwindling number of passengers who still have not flown with E-tickets, which have been around since the early 1990's, they essentially amount to paperless travel. After making a reservation through an agent or on line, customers need only a confirmation number and itinerary, both of which can be issued immediately over the telephone or through the airline's Web site. At the airport, all that is needed is the confirmation number, photograph ID and credit card where necessary. The appeal of E-tickets -- not tickets at all, but reservations in a computer -- is that they benefit passengers and airlines alike. Passengers with E-tickets do not need a paper ticket, they do not need to stand in line except to check baggage and they need not worry about lost or misplaced tickets. They also do not need to have a ticket reissued when they change itineraries. Airlines and travel agents save time and money by not having to issue actual tickets. And travel managers can now track forgotten, unused tickets, which previously might have been billed to corporate accounts. That is why individual carriers and the International Air Transport Association regard E-tickets as the wave of the future. But E-tickets are not yet for everyone. Many passengers are uncomfortable showing up at the airport gate with only a confirmation number but no ticket. And the airline industry has not yet devised a system that enables E-ticket holders to travel on more than one carrier on the same itinerary. Air Fare Pricing If Runzheimer International's predictions are correct, business travel costs will rise 4 percent next year compared with a predicted 4.8 percent in 1999. Although airlines are expected to raise fares 10 percent, the |
1123377_0 | Asia's Future, and Ours | To the Editor: Re ''A Need for Foreign Aid'' (editorial, July 11): When foreign assistance is funneled into programs that reduce population growth, provide health and education for the world's poorest people and contribute to the fight against the spread of infectious diseases, we all benefit. A classic example is polio. The United States spends about $270 million a year on immunization against this disease, which has been eradicated in the Western Hemisphere but is still active in parts of Asia and Africa. The World Health Organization reports that if donor countries like Canada and the United States collectively spent about $370 million a year over five years to immunize every child in the world, this disease would be completely eradicated. If the push were made to eradicate polio, as was done for smallpox, the world would save about $1.5 billion a year in not having to immunize its children. ALAN CASSELS Victoria, Canada, July 12, 1999 The writer is a health policy researcher. |
1123316_0 | U.S. Plans Long-Term Studies on Safety of Genetically Altered Foods | Acknowledging the worsening trade tensions with Europe over genetically engineered foods, the Clinton Administration said today for the first time that it would conduct long-term studies on the safety of altered farm products. But in a speech the Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, insisted that the Administration would use all its legal remedies to compel Europe to accept American farm products like soybeans and corn even if that meant placing tariffs on European-made goods this summer. Mr. Glickman also said the Administration was considering asking the food industry to do voluntary information labeling, which is opposed by the biotech industry but has been demanded by the Europeans and some American consumers. The Secretary's speech came as American farmers were complaining of declining prices and as Europe refused to accept any new genetically altered products. Mr. Glickman also warned companies that are leading the technological advances in genetic modification of crops that they must accept responsibility for environmentally safe products and disclosure of any problems. The Agriculture Department has approved 50 varieties of crops that have been engineered to be resistant to insects or herbicides. While the Secretary stressed that most studies have indicated that there are no known health risks to consumers, there have been no long-term studies -- one of the central arguments made by the Europeans. In the past few years members of the European Union have refused to import many products that contain genetically modified ingredients. But the United States has won a major case with the World Trade Organization to force Europe to accept its hormone-fed beef. Environmental and consumer groups that have sued the Government over labeling and the lack of safety testing said they were pleased that the Administration has taken the first conciliatory steps toward consumers. ''The U.S. has realized it can't bully its way out of this problem,'' said Rebecca Goldberg, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. ''Just a year ago, I don't think there was anyone in the Agriculture Department that would have acknowledged the legitimate issues of risk.'' Concerns about genetically modified foods in the United States have only recently begun to coalesce around the finding that the caterpillars of monarch butterflies were killed by pollen from a genetically engineered form of corn in a laboratory test. The corn was modified so that it would be resistant to the corn borer. Additional preliminary research confirms the findings, although |
1125143_0 | Imaging: From Daguerreotypes to Satellites | WWW.NCDC.NOAA.GOV HAVE you ever wanted to see ''The Perfect Storm''? I am referring not to a film version of the book by Sebastian Junger but to the storm itself, which ravaged the Eastern Seaboard in 1991. A color-enhanced infrared photograph of the storm is just one of the many striking images you can find scattered throughout the exhaustive Web site of the National Climatic Data Center (itself part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is itself an agency of the Department of Commerce). The data center is one of those peculiar Government agencies whose existence most people are unaware of -- at least until its scientists become the villains of a Hollywood movie. The Perfect Storm is found at the site's Satellite's Eye Art Gallery, which uses images from Geostationery Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) that orbit the Earth, acting as extraterrestrial landscape photographers, documenting the rude swirls of nasty weather, the darkened pixels that represent the ''hot spot'' of a forest fire and the brightened focal points of volcanic activity. One of the site's most useful features is an archive of GOES data dating back to 1992, which means you can view (and order a print, for about $50) the weather patterns in just about any place at any time for much of this decade. In one case, a user ordered a photo of the Eastern United States on the day his sister's baby was born. As a bonus the data center will highlight particular geographic areas -- in this case an arrow pointed to Princeton, N.J. For my own image, I relied on imagery provided by the Pentagon's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (I'll bet you didn't know that existed, either). The program keeps a number of ''birds'' floating in a sun-synchronous orbit about 500 miles above the earth, each capable of covering more than 1,800 miles of cloud distribution in a single sweep. One of the program's products is a collection of images called the Nighttime Lights of the World, which uses photographs of everything from cities to gas flares as a ''global inventory of human settlement.'' The one that caught my eye was a poster-size reproduction showing the lights of the United States, a black-and-white image with clusters and interlinking strands of lights that looks like a drip-painting map of America. LIBRARY/PHOTOGRAPHY THEN AND NOW Tom Vanderbilt is the author of ''The Sneaker Book: Anatomy of |
1125142_0 | Imaging: From Daguerreotypes to Satellites | ONE of technology's recurring effects is to offer new ways of seeing. In the 18th century, travelers used a mirror called a ''Claude glass'' to enhance the painterly aspects of what they saw as ideal landscapes. The stereoscope, invented in 1832 by the British scientist Charles Wheatstone, was an attempt to convey three-dimensional imagery using two lenses. In the early 20th century, air travel led to aerial panoramas, used by military planners in World War I to map battlegrounds. Perhaps the most revelatory image of all was the first photographs of our planet from space. There was the Earth, truly seen, for the first time, as a single object. Given that the Internet is becoming the dominant medium through which we ''see'' the world, it seems appropriate that it should also prove to be a storehouse for any number of previous and current technologies for seeing the world. We cannot only view reproductions of stereographic images or turn-of-the-century panoramas; we can tap into one of the myriad satellites now orbiting Earth to get a personalized, localized version of a photo from space. Geographically, the world is no smaller than before, but through the Internet -- the latest trompe l'oeil technological apparatus -- we make it seem so. Sometimes a computer image does not suffice, however, and there are qualities of texture and tactility that only printed photographs can offer. Fortunately for that, there are a number of sites that not only store a variety of photographs taken throughout the history of the medium but also allow the viewer to order reproductions. LIBRARY/PHOTOGRAPHY THEN AND NOW Tom Vanderbilt is the author of ''The Sneaker Book: Anatomy of an Industry and an Icon.'' |
1125188_1 | Let's Not Get Too Wired | confidentiality on the Internet. People regularly give up Internet connections because of expense or disappointment -- ''temporary'' files accumulate on hard drives if not removed, innocuous search queries land the user at a pornographic link, malicious programs are outpacing anti-virus software, and so on. In fact, there are hints that users of public terminals may actually enjoy computing most. Douglas Rushkoff, the cyberculture journalist, has reported that a survey by some of his students at New York University found that only half of the children at private elementary schools (students who were required to have their own laptop computers) were happy about computing, while their public school counterparts (who mostly used school equipment) were uniformly enthusiastic about it. For these public school students, computer sessions are treats, not encumbrances. Somebody else maintains the hardware and software. Regular users of the Web should heed this and learn to appreciate the nonwired and occasional user, for several reasons. For example, these holdouts prod the computer industry into cutting profit margins and lowering prices for connections. If a personal Internet link really became as ubiquitous and as necessary as the telephone, the drive for new business would stop, and providers might seek growth in higher charges or more intrusive on-line advertising instead. Also, if everyone were on the Web, the rest of cultural life, although it would not evaporate, could certainly be impaired. Book sales have already slumped even though the economy has surged and on-line bookselling has exploded. Independent and small-chain bookstores are folding. Compressed on-line music formats may displace some higher-quality CD's. Internet holdouts help protect intellectual variety and choice in such areas. Paradoxically, the unconnected also benefit on-line shoppers. They help maintain the retail outlets and catalogues that are valued as alternatives (and as printed and physical showrooms) even by many of those who would rather fill electronic shopping carts. You might order your new car on line, but you'd probably swing by the local showroom to get a look first. And the sales taxes paid by patrons of local retailers are helping to buy more time for the exemption still enjoyed by on-line buyers. Universal service would almost surely mean farewell to the free ride. But the biggest benefit from the Internet holdouts is not what they consume but what they save: energy. In ''Earth in the Balance,'' Al Gore celebrated the potential of a future national computer network |
1125156_1 | Imaging: From Daguerreotypes to Satellites | through the help of satellite photography. In this world, the only way to get off the grid is to go down into a sewer. High-altitude satellite imagery is being put to a more benign use. The Internet offers imagery to geologists, news-gathering organizations, people involved in zoning disputes and just about anyone interested in seeing how the world looks from hundreds of miles high. The United States Geological Survey, in a kind of modern analogy to the photographic surveys of the West in the last century, has even undertaken what it calls the National High Altitude Photography program, with the goal of obtaining uniform photographs of the 48 contiguous states. Another common source of imagery is the satellites that were once solely the province of the military. The Terraserver site, for example, uses a Russian Sputnik, while Spot uses French military hardware. The quality of resolution and range of coverage varies. In general, each of the various satellite imagery sites allows the user to locate a place by coordinates, place name and, often, address; not every site, however, allows the user to view the image before purchasing it. As one might expect, the sites are heavy on landmarks and natural phenomena, like the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls. News-related events are also favorites: Terraserver, for example, features the Pristina airfield in Kosovo, while SPOT exhorts users to ''View SPOT's latest imagery of the Oklahoma City tornado damage.'' Since most of the sites cover almost the entire United States, though, basically anything can be made a landmark in the user's eye. The image I ordered, from Terraserver, is of the Bingham Pit near Salt Lake City, the second-largest open-pit copper mine in the world. Since I had been told on a visit last year that Bingham was one of only a handful of manmade phenomena visible from space, I was curious to see just what it looked like. Looking at the resulting photograph, it appears as though a giant being has pressed its finger to the ground, leaving a vast print of flattened whorls in an otherwise rocky landscape. For a relatively low price ($25) and a few minutes' worth of data entry, you can bring this -- or any other small corner of the world -- into your home. LIBRARY/PHOTOGRAPHY THEN AND NOW Tom Vanderbilt is the author of ''The Sneaker Book: Anatomy of an Industry and an Icon.'' |
1125301_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | INTERNATIONAL A3-9 China Expected to Issue National Ban on Sect The Chinese Government is expected today to announce a nationwide ban of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to reports in three Hong Kong newspapers. Earlier, protests erupted in Beijing and other Chinese cities as thousands of followers vented their anger against a crackdown that began Monday. A1 President Clinton said he was canceling a visit to Taiwan by Pentagon officials this week out of concern that it could heighten tensions between Taiwan and China. Pentagon officials were to discuss cooperation over air defense systems and the possible sale of military equipment, before Taiwan's President angered Beijing with his assertion that Taiwan be considered a state separate from the mainland. A8 Nuclear Agency Approved The Senate overwhelmingly approved a major overhaul of the Department of Energy, creating a new agency within the department to oversee nuclear weapons programs in the wake of allegations of Chinese espionage. A8 Protecting U.S. Embassies The House voted to spend $1.4 billion next year to protect American embassies from the sort of terrorist attack that left two embassies in East Africa in ruins last summer. A5 Russian Bishop Removed The Russian Orthodox Church, in an unusual disciplinary action, removed a Bishop accused of corruption and sexual impropriety. Church officials said Bishop Nikon, 39, was being ''retired'' from his diocese for provoking divisions among the clergy and laypeople. The decision was intended to put an end to one of the most damaging church scandals since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. A7 Yugoslav Reservists to Be Paid The Yugoslav Defense Minister, Pavle Bulatovic, said army reservists would be paid overdue wages in installments over the next six months. The announcement came during an unusual open meeting of the Government that was intended to mollify angry reservists who have been protesting around Serbia. A6 U.N. Aide Responds on Kosovo A senior United Nations official, responding to American charges that the United Nations is moving too slowly in creating a police force and civil administration in Kosovo, suggested that it was NATO members who were to blame for not fully deploying all of their soldiers. A6 Canada Halts Immigrant Boat A ship carrying more than 100 Chinese immigrants without identification papers was taken into custody by Canadian authorities off the coast of Vancouver Island in what was believed to be the largest interception of immigrant smuggling |
1125149_0 | Attachments #@%&#@ Are Full #+@&* cents# of Surprises | IMAGINE receiving an envelope that just will not open, or a sheaf of papers folded so intricately that they require an instruction manual to unfold, or a letter containing nothing but gobbledygook -- symbols and letters that are completely unintelligible. The situations may sound far-fetched in the physical world, but for E-mail users they are frustratingly common. As more and more people use E-mail to send photographs or word-processing documents as attachments to their messages, tech-support managers say, more and more people are faced with attachments that just won't open. Simply put, attachments are computer files that use E-mail messages for transport over the Net. Just as E-mail messages carry text from one computer to another, attachments carry files of many sorts, including word-processing documents, images and software programs. People usually use attachments when they are sending a file that contains something more than simple text, like a memo on special letterhead or a spreadsheet. In theory, attachments are supposed to make life easier. They can enable scientific collaborators to send one another graphs showing research results. They allow friends and relatives to send photographs over the Internet. With just a few clicks of the mouse, they can eliminate the cumbersome job of sending floppy disks through regular mail or the intimidating prospect of sending something via F.T.P., a file-transfer protocol favored by more sophisticated Internet users. That's the theory. The reality is often much different. ''There are so many things that can go wrong,'' said Greg Smith, a computer-support consultant at Stanford University. ''It's not as easy as it is supposed to be.'' Even experienced computer users become frustrated. John Mainwaring, a longtime technology professional at Nortel Networks, said that when he and his colleagues first tried to share information via attachments, ''it was a very hit-or-miss affair.'' Michael J. Day, an English professor at Northern Illinois University at Northern Illinois University, has been using E-mail in his classes for years, but said in an E-mail interview, ''There are still attachments that defy my efforts, such as Word Perfect files converted to MS Word that arrived the other day and completely crashed the two computers on which I tried to open them.'' Attachments usually show up in E-mail messages as icons. E-mail programs like Eudora, or those that come with Microsoft Office, America Online or Lotus Notes, are designed to enable people to simply click on those icons, triggering |
1126553_0 | After Affirmative Action | In a continued effort to demonstrate the worth of affirmative action, University of Michigan professors have issued a preliminary study saying minority graduates of the university's law school have careers that are just as successful as those of its white graduates. For the study, researchers sent surveys to the 750 black, 300 Hispanic and 60 American Indian graduates of the law school from 1979 to 1996, and compared their careers with those of a sample of 900 white graduates from those years. Over all, there were remarkably few differences between the two groups, the researchers said. Minority and white respondents alike reported high levels of job satisfaction and passed the bar at the same rate; minority graduates of the 1970's and 80's reported significantly lower incomes than their white classmates, but that gap disappeared among graduates in the 1990's. The study comes as the university defends its affirmative action policies in court. In August the Federal District Court in Detroit is scheduled to hear a lawsuit challenging the law school's use of race in determining admissions. The plaintiffs in this suit and another challenging undergraduate admission policies say Michigan is unlawfully discriminating against whites to achieve its goal of a racially diverse university. CARMEL McCOUBREY NOTEBOOK |
1126529_0 | FOOTLIGHTS | NEWS Whither Marbles Britain quashed speculation yesterday that the Elgin Marbles would be returned to Greece. A Culture Department spokesman denied reports that Chris Smith, Culture Secretary, was weighing a proposal to compromise with Greece's claim of sovereignty over the 2,500-year-old figures from the Parthenon by housing them in a branch of the British Museum to be opened in Athens. ''There is no reason to see them returned to Athens,'' the spokesman said. The marbles were removed to England in 1806 by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and sold to the British Museum. Dance Legacy Dancers like Alicia Alonso, Maria Tallchief, Marie-Jeanne and Frederic Franklin are seen on the seven master archival tapes newly donated by the George Balanchine Foundation to the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. On the tapes, the stars coach dancers of today in the Balanchine repertory. The video program retrieves Balanchine choreography no longer in repertory and preserves the interpretations of performers. Nobody's Perfect Some like it hot and some don't. But at the Film Forum starting on Friday, it is possible to have it both ways. For devotees of cool climates, there is the air-conditioned theater at 209 West Houston Street in SoHo. For devotees of movies there is a new 35-millimeter print of ''Some Like It Hot,'' the masterly Billy Wilder comedy opening a 40th-anniversary run through Aug. 12. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including those for best director and best screenplay, the film, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, tells the tale of two Jazz Age musicians who disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band to escape gangsters after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929. Poets' Corner Robert Pinsky will read John Keats's ''Ode to a Nightingale.'' Lloyd Schwartz will read Edward Lear's ''Owl and the Pussycat.'' Gail Mazur will read Elizabeth Bishop's ''North Haven.'' These readers will be among more than 20 prominent poets who are to participate in ''American Poets' Favorite Poem,'' in Provincetown, Mass., on Aug. 7. The event, in conjunction with Provincetown's celebration of its 100th anniversary as an art colony, is a part of the Favorite Poem Project of Mr. Pinsky, the United States Poet Laureate and a professor of English and creative writing at Boston University. The project seeks to create an audio and video archive of Americans |
1126598_2 | North Korea Urged Again Not to Test New Missile | range of up to 3,750 miles, making it theoretically able to reach Alaska or Hawaii. The new rocket is described by officials as an advanced version of the Taepodong 1, which North Korea fired over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean in August. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Masahiko Komura, said at a news conference here today that if North Korea went ahead with its test, the Japanese Government would probably withdraw the $1 billion it recently allocated for the Korean Energy Development Organization. ''Should there be another test launch by North Korea, in view of the Japanese people's sentiment, it will be extremely difficult for Japan to continue its cooperation'' with the development organization, he said. The development consortium, also backed by the United States, has agreed to build two light water nuclear reactors in North Korea in return for the Government's ending its nuclear program. The United States gives North Korea 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year as part of an effort to create an alternative to nuclear energy. A breakup of the consortium could induce North Korea to resume construction of nuclear reactors that produce plutonium usable in nuclear weapons, officials said. The Clinton Administration is also worried that another launching by North Korea would encourage South Korea to move ahead with several missile projects of its own, further fueling an arms race. South Korea recently proposed building a generation of medium-range missiles that could strike much of North Korea. The test last year, which the North Koreans insisted was for a satellite launching, set off such concern in Japan that the Government decided to make an initial investment in the United States theater missile defense program. Another launching by North Korea would almost certainly increase Japan's interest in the proposed system -- thus irritating China, which views Japanese participation in missile defense as aimed at the Chinese mainland. In their appearance together this morning, Ms. Albright and the two Foreign Ministers tried, without being very specific, to emphasize the positive incentives for North Korea not to test. Ms. Albright said the policy of the South Korean President, Kim Dae Jung, for engagement with North Korea, its longtime enemy, and a program to be announced by former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, President Clinton's special envoy for North Korean affairs, would give North Korea a ''good chance to strengthen its economic and political ties with the world.'' |
1126565_2 | Business Travel; Corporate travel managers win an important victory from Delta Air Lines on Internet fares. | to other carriers, and we believe they'll follow suit.'' Electronic Books Beginning next Monday, British Airways passengers in first-class or business-class lounges at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago will be able to pick up an electronic book filled with the equivalent of 400 pages of daily newspapers, current magazines, financial information and perhaps even current novels or nonfiction books. Daily newspapers and financial information will be downloaded twice a day. The E-books, as they are called, weigh 22 ounces and, at 7 by 6 inches, fit comfortably into a reader's hand. The trial period will last a month, while the airline gauges consumer reaction with the goal of putting the books in lounges at 22 United States airports to which it flies. It also plans to make E-books available on British Airways flights worldwide. Eventually passengers will be able to check out the E-books before their departure flights and return them upon reaching their destination, or when they complete their journey. If all goes well, passengers will be able to phone and request a specific book to be downloaded into the E-book which they can pick up at the airport. Millennium Tests Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Air System each say they have completed their Year 2000 computer tests and are now fully compliant. Nevertheless the Japan Travel Bureau, the nation's biggest travel agency, said it would not sell package tours whose flights are scheduled to be in the air midnight Greenwich mean time on Dec. 31. The reason, the agency said, is concern that other countries will not be fully compliant, and it ''puts the safety of its customers first.'' The agency said it might reconsider, however, if the International Civil Aviation Organization declared the world to be 100 percent safe from the Year 2000 computer problem. Playing Through It may be hard for some to believe, especially when they think of the Upper Peninsula in winter, but Michigan is now one of the top golfing states. A 1998 report, recently released by the National Golf Foundation, placed Michigan eighth nationally, behind Florida, South Carolina, California, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada. Among those who travel primarily to play golf, it trailed only Florida, South Carolina, Texas and North Carolina. Michigan officials say it has more public golf courses than any other state, nearly 800, and that golfers contribute almost $1 billion annually to the state's economy. |
1122228_0 | THE MARKETS: COMMODITIES | SUGAR TUMBLES. Sugar fell for the fourth time in five days, as buying from Russia dropped after shippers rushed to beat an Aug. 1 increase in import duties. In New York, sugar for October fell 0.12 cent, to 5.52 cents a pound. |
1122262_1 | World Briefing | disruption to community relations.'' Warren Hoge (NYT) IRELAND: TRIAL FOR EX-PREMIER -- Former Prime Minister Charles J. Haughey must stand trial on charges of obstructing justice, a Dublin court ruled. Mr. Haughey, 73, who made a rare public appearance in court but did not comment on the case, is accused of conspiring to prevent a Government-appointed tribunal from investigating his personal finances. The purpose of the 1997 tribunal, and another one still in session, is to determine how Mr. Haughey came to own a yacht, racehorses and an island while earning only a public salary. James F. Clarity (NYT) FRANCE: TESTIMONY ON CORSICA -- Clotilde Valter, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's adviser on Corsica, told an investigating judge on the island that the Government's chief administrative official there had told her he had not given orders to the police to firebomb a harborside snack bar that had been built without official permission. The official, Bernard Bonnet, was dismissed and arrested after the firebombing in April and is under investigation for possible complicity in arson. Craig R. Whitney (NYT) THE AMERICAS COLOMBIA: REBELS PULL OUT -- Left-wing guerrillas withdrew from a battle zone 25 miles southeast of Bogota after the army sent as many as 1,000 soldiers to the mountainous area following heavy fighting a day after the rebels gained a two-week delay in the start of peace talks. An army spokesman said at least 38 soldiers and 40 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were killed in the clash, which alarmed residents of Bogota because it took place so close to the capital. Larry Rohter (NYT) CANADA: PROTECTING MOTHERS' RIGHTS -- The Supreme Court refused to allow Ryan Dobson, 6, to sue his mother, Cynthia, both left, and claim damages for an automobile accident that happened only hours before he was born. The court said a suit would be unacceptable intrusion ''into the bodily integrity'' and privacy of women. The boy was born with cerebral palsy and the suit was brought by his grandfather to provide money for his long-term care. Mrs. Dobson had already reached a settlement with her insurance company. Anthony DePalma (NYT) CANADA: POLITICAL FALLOUT IN STRIKE -- A strike by nurses in Quebec that is inconveniencing thousands of hospital patients is also causing stress for politicians. Premier Lucien Bouchard has had to apologize for a memo sent by his party, the separatist Parti Quebecois, urging |
1122297_0 | Soccer's Move: Grass Roots to Grand Stage | When Julie Foudy attended the 1994 men's World Cup final at the Rose Bowl, the 1999 world soccer championship for women was five years on the horizon and was still being planned for small stadiums on the East Coast. ''We were saying, 'No, that's not what this deserves; that's not what it is worth,' '' Foudy, the American co-captain, said. ''When they moved it to bigger stadiums, we were like, 'Right on, this is something we can do.' We knew we had the personalities and the talent. We just needed to be promoted better.'' Convinced of their own appeal beyond the grass-roots soccer community, the American players were right. Saturday's Women's World Cup final between the United States and China will attract a sellout crowd of about 90,000 at the Rose Bowl, which will be the largest audience to watch a women's sporting event in the United States and, organizers believe, in the world. A tournament that relatively few people knew existed a month ago has commanded such legitimacy and buzz that scalpers are seeking as much as $1,000 for a pair of tickets that have a face value of $110 apiece. The match will be broadcast nationally by ABC and will provide the American women their grandest stage on which to display their skills and to convince sponsors and promoters that there is a need for a professional league in this country following the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. ''When we look back in 20 years, I really think we are going to say that the Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs tennis match, Title IX and the 1999 Women's World Cup are the three largest pillars supporting women's sports in this country,'' said April Heinrichs, a star of the team that won the 1991 Women's World Cup and now the women's soccer coach at the University of Virginia. ''We've shown that if you put enough money into women's sports, people will come to watch it.'' However, victory is by no means certain for the Americans, who have lost two of three matches this year to China by 2-1 scores and are considered by many to be the underdogs. With a fast, technically skilled team that has begun to express individual creativity and assertiveness after years of regimented, tentative play, China has swept through its first five games, scoring 19 goals and allowing 2. (The United States has scored 18 |
1127231_3 | Security Flaws In Software Are Reported | be used to trigger low-level operating system commands -- including commands that erase files or entire hard drives. Because of the extensive integration between Office applications and Windows, such a query can be sent on behalf of a cell in a spreadsheet, a field in a word document or other portions of an Office application. What makes the new flaw especially serious is that antivirus software does not monitor such queries and therefore is not effective against an attack. Mr. Dixon of Microsoft said yesterday that the company was considering giving users a new alert mechanism that would warn them about data base queries before they were executed. The second security flaw has to do with the way software shipped with computers from Compaq and Hewlett-Packard -- and possibly other manufacturers -- is designed to interact with the Internet Explorer Web browser. The manufacturers' software, designed to work with the security controls in Internet Explorer 4.0, would enable an intruder to execute commands remotely. The Compaq security flaw appears particularly serious since it can be used to spread the flaws to other brands of computers. Compaq's Presario computers, which are consumer models, are shipped with a tiny Java program that has been ''digitally signed'' -- meaning it has been authenticated by Compaq. This program is designed to enable Compaq to update programs on a computer over the Internet or other computer network. But it also has the power to execute programs -- and can be directed to do so by a Web page. It can also be sent via E-mail. While the existence of this program was posted to a European security mailing list a year ago, a recent bug that exacerbates the problem was discovered by Richard Smith, the president of Pharlap Software, in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Smith said in an interview that he had discovered a security problem on Hewlett-Packard computers as well and had notified the company. The company declined to discuss the matter. Adding to the Compaq problem, Microsoft's integrated Web browser will run any program digitally signed by Compaq, in some cases without warning. While the vulnerable program will run without any warnings only on certain Compaq Presarios in their default configurations, it can also be sent to and temporarily stored on any computer running Windows 95, 98 or NT, according to Mr. Smith. In this case, the browser will open a box saying that |
1127257_0 | Risks of Electric Power | To the Editor: According to a July 24 front-page article, the withdrawal of two cell biology papers on the link between electric power and cancer out of the hundreds of scientific studies reviewed ''appears to strengthen the case that electric power is safe.'' But the controversy is primarily a result of epidemiological studies that show the association between childhood cancer and power lines, not cell biology research. The jury is still out as to whether magnetic fields from power lines cause childhood cancer. The challenge for the scientific community is to understand what causes childhood leukemia, be it power lines or other factors. DANIEL WARTENBERG Piscataway, N.J., July 28, 1999 The writer is a professor of epidemiology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. |
1127146_2 | Evolving Answers to the Why of Suicide; Is It a Medical Problem? A Moral or Social Failure? An Assertion of Freedom? | heart disease. We see it less as an illness than as a consequence of social and relationship issues.'' In his ''History of Suicide,'' the French scholar Georges Minois traces the way attitudes toward suicide have evolved from the classical period into the modern era. Suicide seems deeply threatening at least partly because it is an assertion of individual freedom against the power of the state, Mr. Minois writes: ''It is an affront to all political and religious systems.'' ''Anyone who chooses death and its unknowns displays a total lack of confidence in the theories, ideologies, beliefs, plans and promises of all leaders,'' he continues. As a consequence, ''Whatever its nature, power seeks to prevent and conceal suicide.'' There has always been a double standard in perceptions of suicide, Mr. Minois says. In ancient Rome, there was the cult of ''the noble suicide,'' embodied in the deaths of Brutus, Cato, Antony and Cleopatra. But suicide was outlawed for slaves and foot soldiers, ''because a slave belongs to the owner and he doesn't own his life,'' Mr. Minois, 53, explained in a telephone interview from his home in Brittany. Slaves in ancient Greece were also prohibited from killing themselves because they were essential for agriculture and for the maintenance of the society, Mr. Minois said. The early Christians strengthened strictures against suicide. There was the notion that ''God gave us life,'' Mr. Minois said, and ''man hasn't got any right to take his own life.'' But the Old Testament never specifically prohibits suicide, Mr. Minois noted, only murder. In fact, the Old Testament is littered with the dead bodies of heroes who took their own lives -- Samson, for one, who brought the palace of the Philistines down on his head as well as theirs. It was St. Augustine who once and for all solidified the Church's prohibition against suicide. The estates of those who killed themselves were confiscated, and a stake was driven through their bodies to keep them from rising up and haunting others with their unquiet spirits. Their bodies were buried at crossroads under rocks. Mr. Minois said religion was not the only reason for the prohibition. The Roman Empire was expanding into a totalitarian system, and outlying regions were being colonized. The Christian church's own land holdings had also increased. ''An acute shortage of manpower dictated the requisitioning of all human lives for the service of the economy |
1122052_2 | Oshima Journal; Ah, When Nets Were Full, and So Was Life at Sea | Japanese prices down to international levels. Moreover, Japan's distribution system is so unwieldy and expensive that it costs more to transport fish to the markets in Tokyo from here in southern Japan than from China. ''We can see what's ahead for fishing, and as a parent I've no regret that my sons aren't doing this,'' said Takemitsu Takashima, a leather-skinned 58-year-old who has been a fisherman since he was 16. ''The catch is so small that it's just as well that it ends with my generation.'' Mr. Takashima was drinking beer over dinner -- rather too much beer, it seemed -- with an old fishing buddy, Yoshinobu Yamashita, 70. The more the alcohol flowed, the more enthusiastically they reminisced about the old days of fishing in Japan. ''When I began as a fisherman, we didn't have motorboats,'' Mr. Yamashita recalled. ''We just rowed our boats out onto the ocean and then used a sail.'' ''It could be dangerous,'' he added. ''So many of my classmates died fishing out there in the ocean.'' These fishing villages -- and there are hamlets like this all along Japan's endless coast -- are full of the lore of ancient glory and catastrophe. People here in Oshima still talk about the nearby island that in one day lost all of its men when a storm capsized their boats as they were fishing together. Whaling in Japan has mostly ended, but the old-timers still talk about how the villagers would surround a whale and harpoon it and feed the island for a year -- or, even more thrilling, would first capture it in a net before killing it. ''Young people now can't imagine what it was like,'' Mr. Yamashita said, reaching again for his glass. ''Even for me, it feels as if it was a different world.'' Only 205,000 Japanese households -- one-half of 1 percent of the total -- are now engaged in fishing, and even they get most of their income from other sources. Some run sports fishing charter boats or even operate sightseeing boats for whale-watchers from the cities. ''There are just fewer and fewer fish out there,'' said Tanisaku Makiyama, a 44-year-old fisherman. ''Many of the young fishermen are still single, unable to find a wife, because their incomes are so low.'' Mr. Makiyama looked out at the ocean and sighed. ''I think the fishing era is over for Japan,'' he said. |
1122129_0 | Old Buildings Had Ways of Keeping Cool | To the Editor: Re ''Answers Are Sought on Blackout's Causes'' (news article, July 8): While power was failing in upper Manhattan, my hands were going numb from the cold in my office. Instead of pointing blame, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani should be looking at ways the city can encourage and legislate energy conservation. Maybe the building codes could be changed to require more localized climate control throughout buildings. During the height of the heat wave, I heard suggestions that people turn off their air-conditioners and keep their lights off. Did anyone believe that would happen? Perhaps New Yorkers should be urged to forgo doing their laundry for a day or to leave the dishwasher off. Instead of blaming Consolidated Edison, the Mayor could have come up with real and longer-term solutions. MARK GREEN New York, July 8, 1999 |
1122152_1 | Reservists a Crucial Factor In Effort Against Milosevic | 31, a conscript who served for 65 days in Kosovo, while listening every night with his friends from Leskovac to American, British and German short-wave radio broadcasts about the war. ''We were in the field and we could see that Serbian radio was telling us lies about the war. We believed BBC. And now we are not afraid.'' In what appears to be a growing popular movement to force the Yugoslav leader from power, the wild card may well prove to be the Yugoslav Army and its reservists. In previous bouts of demonstrations against Mr. Milosevic, the army has either come out in favor of Mr. Milosevic or sat on the sidelines. But the sudden anti-Government activism of reservists in this most unlikely of cities suggests that the army could prove to be a muscular ally, if fractious opposition movement can figure out how to use it. The reservists' anger is not confined to this city. Demanding unpaid wages from the war, they have sporadically tied up roads and blocked bridges in central and southern Serbia in the last two weeks. The principal object of the reservists' frustration here in Leskovac is Zivojin Stefanovic, the local chairman of the Socialist Party, who runs this down-at-the-heels textile town of 170,000. Mr. Stefanovic declined today to return repeated phone calls. It was his house that reservists smashed up on Tuesday night, and it was his resignation that remains a non-negotiable demand of their demonstrations, which are scheduled to go on until he quits or is fired. The reservists are also demanding the release from jail of Ivan Novkovic, a TV Leskovac technician turned local hero. Stunning local TV viewers, he sneaked his own videotape on the air last week. It called for the people of Leskovac to gather in the square on Monday and demand the ouster of Mr. Stefanovic. After a huge crowd did exactly that, throwing in the demand that Mr. Milosevic resign, the TV technician was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in jail. What infuriated reservists about the local party boss was his mobilizing zeal for the war in Kosovo. Apparently trying to curry favor in Belgrade, Mr. Stefanovic organized the call-up of about 40,000 local men, according to opposition party leaders and human rights activists. The bitter joke here is that as a result of Mr. Stefanovic's mobilizing passion, there were just two combatants in the Kosovo |
1122039_4 | Props Take Off In Internet Sales | old Mafia essentially collapsed in the early 1960's. It is that old Mafia that he defends as trustworthy, at least to its friends. Today, he added, the mob hews to none of the old principles. ''I'm not defending the life style of what is known as the Mafia today,'' he said. ''I am defending a tradition of what is right and what is wrong. I am defending, pardon the expression, family values. But what happened to the rest of the country happened to us, too.'' In his movie the Government spins out of control, too. For instance, he claims that John F. Kennedy was elected President with the Mafia's explicit help, and he adds that he believes President Kennedy was murdered by a mobster, not by Lee Harvey Oswald. Now that the Showtime film is completed , Mr. Bonanno said, he expects to focus on producing other kinds of movies. He said he was considering a romantic comedy and, his dream, a western. The transition to this new world of filmmaking, he added, has been easy. ''All my life I've been in the people business,'' Mr. Bonanno said. ''This is no different.'' Young Fogies Hollywood has embraced youth culture in recent years with a zest rarely seen before. Movies are increasingly aimed at young audiences (read: audiences that see movies over and over, helping the box office) and they are often made by young filmmakers with sensibilities somewhere between MTV and ''Natural Born Killers.'' In fact, a generation of people in their 20's has been brought up making movies that essentially take little seriously, are often intensely violent or take remorseless violence as a fundamental element of movies, embrace scatological humor and love the dark thrills of life on the lam. Marni Banack, a 26-year-old Canadian, says she is not a fan of that school. She has directed a small film, produced by J. B. Sugar, that is noteworthy, if for nothing else, as an old-fashioned bit of storytelling with an O. Henry twist. In other words, it is about plot and character. And this year it won a student Academy Award in the narrative category. The film, ''John,'' which is 21 minutes long, is quiet and understated, focusing on an evening in the life of John, a soft-spoken gentleman who works as a bathroom attendant at an Italian restaurant. The camera almost never leaves the men's room. Not only |
1122110_0 | Residential Real Estate; A Rental Neighborhood Along the Hudson's Edge | From Port Imperial Boulevard, which parallels the nearly milelong Hudson River waterfront in West New York, N.J., the view is of a changing landscape. What was an industrial wasteland is being reborn as a $700 million residential community, called Port Imperial North, which is to have 4,300 residences on 100 acres hugging the river's edge in this Hudson County town atop the Palisades cliffs across from midtown Manhattan. The development's first rental neighborhood, the Landings, is rising on the northern end of the site, where rail and shipping operations once stood. And though the project is two months away from completion, 35 percent of its 276 one- to three-bedroom apartments have been leased, according to the developer, a partnership between the Roseland Property Company of Roseland, N.J., and the Prudential Insurance Company of America in Newark. The units, many with river views, have 700 to 1,520 square feet of space, and rent for $1,430 to $3,500 a month. The goal ''is to bring 500 residences a year to the market to meet the ongoing demand for waterside housing,'' said Marshall B. Tycher, a Roseland principal. A second rental project, Riverbend, with 516 units, is midway through construction. Roseland also is a partner with Arthur E. Imperatore in the development of 90 adjacent acres in Weehawken, the base for Mr. Imperatore's ferry service to Manhattan. Plans there call for 1,600 more housing units, a hotel and 1.3 million square feet of commercial space. Together, the two projects, which will offer a mix of housing, from rentals and condominiums to apartments for the elderly, make up what is among the larger riverfront projects begun in the second round of redevelopment along the Hudson's west bank since the 1991 recession. The activity resumed in mid-1995 and has steadily gained momentum. Nearly 3,000 residences, most of them luxury rentals, are in various stages of development in the Hudson County riverfront towns of Jersey City, Weehawken, West New York and Hoboken, according to the ACI Group, a concern in Jersey City that tracks waterfront development. Despite the growing supply, the rental vacancy rate for that area remains under 3 percent and the pace of absorption is steady, ACI's president, Robert P. Antonicello, said. ''The big engine for us is Manhattan,'' Mr. Tycher of Roseland added, noting that most of the leases signed at the Landings were by people from Manhattan and young professionals from the |
1120501_0 | Conference Adopts Plan On Limiting Population | A United Nations conference reached agreement today on a plan to curb the world's population growth that includes recommendations that have drawn objections from several conservative Muslim and Roman Catholic countries. The 179 nations that met to assess progress toward goals set at the 1994 Cairo population conference adopted, by consensus, recommendations including unrestricted access to safe abortions in countries where it is legal, education in ''sexual and reproductive health issues'' at all school levels, and confidential contraceptive advice to ''sexually active adolescents.'' Argentina, Nicaragua and the Vatican filed reservations. Population officials generally expressed satisfaction today with the meeting's outcome. ''Cairo has taken root and is working,'' the chief United States delegate, Undersecretary of State Frank E. Loy, said at a news conference. The 1994 Cairo agreement on population and development calls for freezing the total population at no more than 9.8 billion in the year 2050. It is currently 6 billion. Rather than merely setting numerical targets and mounting family-planning campaigns, the Cairo strategy seeks to improve the status of women in the belief that they will then have smaller families. This week's conference recommended that governments make a number of adjustments to this strategy, mainly in policies toward abortion, the 1.1 billion people in the world between the ages of 15 and 24 and the estimated 33 million people infected with the AIDS virus. It urged governments to deal resolutely with the damage done to women by unskilled abortionists, saying that where abortion is legal they should ''train and equip health-service providers and should take other measures to insure that abortion is safe and accessible.'' While Chile and El Salvador are the only countries to ban abortion outright, another 75 or so permit it only when a woman's life is directly threatened. The Cairo plan calls simply for abortion to be ''safe'' in countries where it is legal. It did not say abortions should be ''accessible'' or make governments responsible for insuring that practitioners are qualified. Almost equally contentious, however, were some of the conference's recommendations dealing with young people. The conference called for schoolchildren at all levels to be instructed in ''sexual and reproductive health issues'' in order to teach them ''responsible sexual behavior'' and protect them from ''unwanted pregnancy'' and sexually transmitted diseases. It also told governments to provide ''special family-planning information, counseling and health services'' for ''sexually active adolescents'' and to help them avoid AIDS. |
1120497_0 | Did Tarzan Use a Tire? | |
1120499_0 | Preserving Peace in Belfast | Five days of intense negotiating in Northern Ireland have not yet produced an agreement to let the historic peace plan signed last year go forward. To fill the dangerous vacuum, the British and Irish Governments yesterday offered a public proposal for Northern Ireland's politicians to take back to their constituents for discussion. Since the inflammatory season of summer marches begins Sunday, and agreement has been elusive so far, acceptance is not assured. But we can hope that a few days' consultation with their rank and file will allow David Trimble, the Unionist leader, and Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, to build enough support for the plan to overcome the objections of the extremists in their midst. The impasse is over the issue of disarming Sinn Fein's armed colleagues in the Irish Republican Army. Mr. Trimble is supposed to head a new government for Northern Ireland, but balked at allowing Sinn Fein members into the cabinet while the I.R.A. still holds its guns. The peace agreement signed last year simply commits the parties to doing what they can to get armed groups to disarm. The plan offered by London and Dublin is based on a new, optimistic report by an international commission that has been supervising disarmament talks, which indicates that the I.R.A. has softened its opposition and may now be willing to give up all its weapons by next May. Under the plan, Mr. Trimble would form his government -- with Sinn Fein -- on July 15, and would receive formal self-governing powers from Britain. The I.R.A. would not commit by then to disarming, but Sinn Fein would agree that the Northern Ireland Government would be dissolved if the I.R.A. failed to meet deadlines for disarmament over the next year. The parties have until July 15 to respond -- a shrewd deadline that keeps the plan, and thus incentive for good behavior, alive during the marches of the next two weeks. Mr. Adams has not committed to the plan, but did praise it, saying that the two sides' joint participation in government would give the I.R.A. confidence to disarm. This is a significant change from the I.R.A.'s earlier announcements that it would never disarm. Mr. Trimble, who reportedly endorsed the plan only to see it rejected by others in his party, says he needs a hard commitment from the I.R.A before letting Sinn Fein into the cabinet. He |
1120532_0 | Ulster Is Given An Ultimatum To End Impasse | The British and Irish Governments delivered an ultimatum Friday night to the feuding politicians of Ulster: resolve the impasse that threatens the Northern Ireland peace settlement or see their hard-won new legislature shut down. Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern issued their formal program after having personally devoted five grueling days to talks that failed to produce an agreement between the Ulster Unionists, the Protestant group that is the province's largest party, and the Roman Catholic group Sinn Fein, the political representative of the Irish Republican Army. The dispute had centered on which of two pivotal steps in the peace settlement formula would occur first: the creation of a Roman Catholic-Protestant Cabinet to run the new Northern Ireland Government, favored by Sinn Fein, or the beginning of the disarming of paramilitary groups, demanded by the Ulster Unionists. In the absence of an agreement, the Prime Ministers put forward a two-page plan calling for the Cabinet to form in the middle of this month, and for the I.R.A. to begin to disarm next month. If either step fails, the whole process will be suspended, depriving Northern Ireland of the chance to govern itself. The British and Irish leaders were determined to announce a plan of action, even without all the parties' agreeing, fearing a political vacuum as the season of sectarian marches begins. The marches have often been the occasion of violence. In a statement read from the steps of the Stormont Castle Buildings, where the marathon talks took place, Mr. Blair wearily cast the document in upbeat tones but acknowledged that it would be no simple task to convince the distrustful Catholic and Protestant sides to accept the plan as ''the way forward,'' as it was entitled. Mr. Ahern said the chance for peace offered by the plan gave ''the whole island a bright future, if we can agree upon it.'' Addressing what had blocked progress in putting into effect the peace agreement of April 1998, the new document specified that a power-sharing Cabinet that would run the legislature would be nominated in two weeks, to be followed by the disarmament of guerrilla forces beginning next month. Sinn Fein is entitled to two of the 10 positions in the Cabinet, in effect the new Government of Northern Ireland. Ulster Unionists have refused to permit the party to occupy its seats until the I.R.A. begins giving up its weapons. Under |
1120463_1 | Lirong Journal; Tibetans, and Vultures, Keep Ancient Burial Rite | like sky burial every day. It bespeaks a timeless adherence to old ways of life, and death, unaffected by the changes that are so rapidly affecting the rest of China. Sky burial may seem barbaric to outsiders. Yet in a desperately poor region dominated by nearly impassable mountains, where many Tibetans live without electricity, roads or telephones, the essentials of life seem to hew closely to the brutal rhythms of nature. For Tibetans, many of whom display a steady religious fervor despite decades of Chinese rule that has at times tried to undermine it, sky burial is a widely accepted and ecologically sound way to dispose of the dead. ''When the body dies, the spirit leaves, so there is no need to keep the body,'' said Garloji, a monk who came to observe the ceremony. Like many Tibetans, he uses one name. ''The birds, they think they are just eating. Actually they are removing the body and completing part of life's cycle.'' Sky burial is one of three principal ways that Tibetans traditionally return their dead to the earth. The two others are cremation and ''water burial.'' Wood was so scarce in the mountainous desert of Tibet that burning a corpse was a reserved for people of stature. Poor people who could not afford cremation or sky burial typically dropped a body into a river. Today all three methods are still used, and popularity varies by region. In towns with access to a river, ''water burial'' is now often performed by cutting a corpse into small pieces that will disappear into the mouths of fish. Chinese officials, who asserted their control over this area of western Sichuan as the army moved toward Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in 1950, still seem to regard sky burial as a bizarre ritual of a primitive people. Although the officials banned sky burials together with almost all religious practices in the 1960's and 1970's, Tibetans regained limited rights to practice religious ceremonies in the 1980's. ''We encourage cremation, but we allow sky burial,'' Nima Tsering, Vice Governor of Tibet, said last year. ''It is a Tibetan custom. Tibetans feel very strongly about sky burial. A few years ago, a Chinese soldier shot a vulture and was stoned by Tibetans. It was understandable. If vultures are fair game, who is going to do sky burial?'' In Lhasa sky burial ceremonies are performed at dawn and are |
1120498_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | INTERNATIONAL A3-6 NATO Blocks Increase In Russian Kosovo Forces The United States and its NATO allies blocked Russia from flying hundreds of troops into Kosovo this weekend, saying that details of Russia's role in the NATO peacekeeping force had to be worked out first, Administration officials said. A1 About 10,000 people gathered in Novi Sad, the second-largest city in Yugoslavia, to demonstrate against President Slobodan Milosevic. A6 French officials arrested Dragan Marjanovic, a Serbian paramilitary leader and war crimes suspect, in Kosovo. Six Serbs thought to be plainclothes police officers were detained in the southwestern town of Orahovac, and American troops apprehended five Yugoslav soldiers. A6 Bernard Kouchner, the Health Minister of France and a co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, was chosen to run the United Nations' civilian operations to be set up in Kosovo. A6 An Ultimatum at Ulster Talks The British and Irish Governments delivered an ultimatum to the feuding politicians of Ulster to resolve the impasse threatening the Northern Ireland peace settlement or see their new legislature shut down. A1 Barak Gets Down to Business Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak of Israel telephoned Yasir Arafat for their first official conversation since Mr. Barak won election six weeks ago. Mr. Barak also reproached President Clinton for his remarks about Palestinian refugees. A5 No Mexican Election Overhaul Lawmakers from Mexico's governing party killed a package of election changes that would monitor spending in presidential primary campaigns and let Mexican expatriates vote in national elections. A3 U.S.-South Korea Unity President Clinton and President Kim Dae Jung, meeting in Washington, made a show of solidarity against North Korea, warning it against further long-range missile tests. A4 Guidance on Population Growth A United Nations conference agreed on a plan to curb population growth that included proposals criticized by several conservative Muslim and Roman Catholic countries. A3 World Briefing A4 NATIONAL A7-9, 12 Lightning Disrupts Radar -- And Airline Schedules Air traffic around the eastern United States was snarled for hours, closing airports and delaying tens of thousands of travelers, after lightning hit New England's main air traffic control center, in Nashua, N.H. International as well as domestic flights were affected. A7 Technicians Assail F.A.A. Hundreds of technicians who maintain the nation's air traffic control computers picketed at 53 airports, handing leaflets to holiday travelers saying the F.A.A. had caused big delays by mishandling its modernization program, not hiring enough technicians and not consulting |
1120512_2 | In Just One Town, Phoning and Driving Don't Mix | Administration, although some countries do so. Mr. Hurd said the safety agency, while cautioning that phones could be a distraction for some drivers, had not focused on them as a particular danger. ''In general, you should pay attention to driving,'' he said. ''If you're going 55 miles an hour and you make a mistake, that's not good.'' Not so many years ago, cell phones were a toy for hard-charging business executives or those who liked extravagant flourishes. Now they are fixtures of middle-class life: there are about 35 million cell phones in the United States, and the number is growing fast. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group, opposes the Brooklyn law. Its president, Tom Wheeler, said the issue should be the driver, not the telephone, which, Mr. Wheeler said, is only one of any number of things that can act as a distraction, including ''the kid in the back seat.'' ''While driving, with or without a cell phone, you have to exercise a series of good judgments,'' he said. ''Should I turn around now and look at the kids in the back? Is this a good time to change the radio station? Is it the right time to have an argument with my spouse?'' Mr. Wheeler said new technology had often brought worries about road safety. Some states once drafted legislation to ban radios from cars, he said, and ''when windshield wipers were first introduced, people said: 'These things are going to be hypnotic. People won't be able to drive. Better stay with the goggles.' '' Mr. Wheeler also said cellular phones had made American roads safer. Nearly 100,000 calls a day are made by motorists seeking help, he said, whether to get assistance because the car has broken down or to report a drunken driver to the police. In any event, he said, the telephone industry has been running advertisements and sending mail to customers to remind them to drive safely while using a cell phone. Some states, including California, Wisconsin and Utah, have campaigns that do the same. In Brooklyn, the ban on phoning while driving has prompted mixed reactions. ''It's a crazy law,'' declared Tony Justice, a 35-year-old factory foreman who said he depended on a cell phone to make arrangements to pick up his daughter after work. ''Some people can actually talk and drive. And for people who can't function, well then, just ticket |
1120477_1 | Despite a recent report, the question of authority still divides Roman Catholics and Anglicans | ministry. The knottiest of those questions has been authority, and most specifically the authority of the Pope. That was the question, after all, that lay beneath the split between Rome and the English church when Henry VIII and the Pope clashed over the English king's desire to dissolve his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. No wonder, then, that some readers were startled in mid-May when the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which, with various changes in personnel, has been working together for three decades, issued a report that attributes a legitimate task of ''universal primacy'' to the Bishop of Rome and that proposes that Anglicans might enter into some sort of interim relationship with the papacy without waiting until full unity between the divided churches is restored. Is a 465-year-old rift about to be healed? Hardly. The commission, generally known as A.R.C.I.C., cannot speak for the churches. Despite its official status and high-level membership, the commission only proposes ideas for acceptance by church authorities. And the report itself, now being hailed by sympathizers for its nearly poetic, tightly woven and highly condensed style, will probably be found wanting by critics for exactly the same characteristics. Using a passage from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, the report's discussion of authority begins with God as the author of life speaking a ''yes'' to humanity in Jesus and being answered with an affirming ''amen,'' also in Jesus and, through his spirit, in the church. Anglicans and Roman Catholics will have to parse the exact meaning of the commission's proposals for the role of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, not only as a symbolic point of unity but as an authoritative teacher with the ministry of discerning and proclaiming the truth of the faith. The language is carefully framed with references to the whole body of bishops, ecumenical councils, freedom of conscience and fidelity to Scripture and tradition. But the very title of the commission's report, ''The Gift of Authority,'' challenges a much wider audience, especially in the United States. Authority a gift? Most Americans would instinctively title a report like this, ''The Problem of Authority.'' In this broken world, authority inevitably has a hard edge that the commission's report recognizes, although only briefly. Yet, as more than one commentator suggested, in the West simply to link the notions of ''authority'' and ''gift'' verges on the subversive. The report's positive unfolding of |
1120470_0 | Clinton and South Korean Leader Warn the North Against Testing Missile | President Clinton and President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea used a brief meeting in Washington today to make a show of solidarity against North Korea and to warn it against testing another long-range missile in coming weeks. ''We are maintaining close coordination on all issues, on economic issues as well as security issues,'' said Mr. Kim, the onetime dissident who was elected President just as South Korea plunged into its economic crisis two years ago. ''And I do hope that this close cooperation sends a clear message to North Korea.'' For all the talk of cooperation, a senior Administration official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, refused to discuss South Korea's own expanding missile program. It has become the subject of increasing tension between Washington and Seoul, with Clinton Administration officials fearing that the North will regard it as a provocation. ''I am not prepared to discuss anything about a South Korean missile program,'' the senior official said testily after being pressed by reporters. A week ago the Administration warned North Korea that a test of its long-range Taepodong missile would result in ''very serious consequences.'' The official speaking today said such a test would create ''serious obstacles to peace.'' Asked how the United States, South Korea and Japan -- the last test flew over Japanese territory -- might respond, he ruled out suspending oil shipments or aid to the North in building light-water nuclear reactors, part of a 1994 deal under which the North is supposed to freeze its work on nuclear weapons. The official said it would make no sense for the United States to violate the 1994 accord and invite the North to do the same by resuming its weapons project. Later in the day Mr. Kim met with former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, President Clinton's special envoy for North Korean affairs, for an update on Mr. Perry's recommendations to the White House for dealing with the North. Last month Mr. Perry went to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to offer a deal under which the United States would gradually lift economic sanctions that have been in place since the Korean War of 1950-53. In return the North would have to agree to stop testing and exporting missiles and to end military provocations against the South. The State Department described North Korean officials as interested in Mr. Perry's proposal. But only two weeks later, a |
1120871_10 | Now, AOL Everywhere | Until a recent promotion, his job was to run the AOL service, and he used his designer's eye to help give it a cleaner, more consistent look. The latest version of the software, called 5.0, is to be introduced this fall. Instead of simplicity, its focus is the addition of new features intended to keep users on line. One feature inspiring high hopes here is called You've Got Pictures, a joint effort with Kodak to let people send snapshots by E-mail. Another is My Calendar, which lets users keep their appointment books on line. But why bother, when a hand-held electronic organizer -- or a paper calendar -- may be simpler? As always, the answer is communication. The service will let a group arrange the soccer carpool by bringing together all the drivers' schedules. Each of these offerings is meant to weave the details of everyday life into AOL's services, so that users will not switch to other providers but instead will be exposed to more advertising and more opportunities to buy products inside AOL. The photo service sells reprints on mugs; the calendar service hawks movie tickets from Moviephone, recently acquired by the company. ''The whole game is about building the on-line habit,'' Mr. Schuler said. That is also where electronic appliances figure in America Online's plans. AOL is jockeying with many competitors for position in an ever more wired world that is connecting the Internet to the microprocessors in everything from microwave ovens to cell phones. Many other companies are focusing on helping users stay abreast of information tidbits: stock quotes, say, or news headlines. But building on its heritage as the on-line community's favorite place to chat, AOL is focusing on communication, building on its existing ''buddy list'' system, which now shows users which of their friends are on line and available for instant messaging. Say you want to crow about that great play in the N.B.A. finals. With one mouse click, you will be able to track down a fellow fan, whether she's working on his computer, watching television or sitting in the stadium with her cell phone. All this will take a while. But AOL users will be able to check their E-mail on their Palm Pilots by the end of this year. The most ambitious of the planned services is AOL TV, the company's version of a concept -- interactive television -- that has |
1120727_1 | Slowly but Surely Charting the Waters | gather data electronically, by a combination of sophisticated forms of sonar: side-scan and multibeam. Almost instantaneously, they produce picturelike images of objects on the sea bed, and can reveal sunken ships, unexploded munitions, boulder fields and many other unseen and previously uncharted features of the deep. But the process is slow. Standard operating procedure aboard the Rude is to determine the ship's precise position via satellite global positioning system, then make a series of parallel passes up and down a search field that averages about 20 square miles, offsetting each pass by approximately 500 feet. Thus Commander Verlaque's reference to ''mowing the lawn.'' Typically, he takes the helm himself as two forms of sonar are used: side scan and multibeam. The side scan, which profiles everything between the water's surface and sea floor, receives its information from a small torpedo-shaped ''tow fish'' hauled behind the ship at a steady five knots. It creates a picture of the sea bed but it cannot measure depth. This takes a multibeam scanner. Mounted within the hull, it fires 40 vertical beams simultaneously, 13 times per second. Together, the two sonars create a three-dimensional image of the sea floor that reveals all obstructions. When major or puzzling obstructions are encountered, the ship's divers descend to examine the object physically. A Rude diver once found a bullet-riddled pair of scuba tanks off the Florida coast; no one knows whether they were attached to a person when they were shot full of holes. While Commander Verlaque guides the ship, his executive officer, Lieut. Eric Berkowitz, sits immediately behind him at a console featuring five computer screens and two graph printers that constantly produce data received by the sonars. Lieutenant Berkowitz monitors the information and often calls for re-scans when there are flaws in the data. Seas higher than five feet disrupt the procedure. Schools of fish can produce confusing sonar readings. Even subtle changes in such other variables as water temperature or salinity can force a re-scan. But the biggest headache for the crew, Commander Verlaque said, is ''boaters who cut across our bow, slowing us down or creating turbulence and compelling us to re-scan. We boldly display signal flags warning boaters to steer clear, but a great number pay no attention -- probably more out of ignorance than malice. Such behavior is not only discourteous but downright illegal.'' When scans are completed to the two |
1120939_0 | The Dirt on a Dig | When Chris Ricciardi and his fellow archeologists found two glass eggs while excavating the grounds of the Hendrik I. Lott House in Marine Park, which was a family farm in the 18th century, they were clueless. Mr. Ricciardi, a graduate student and a director of the Lott House Archaeological Project, listed the glass eggs as a mystery object on one of two Web sites about the dig. ''Then someone in the Midwest wrote us an E-mail,'' Mr. Ricciardi recounted. ''He said: 'What's wrong with you? They are hen-laying eggs,' '' ersatz eggs placed under reluctant chickens to encourage them to lay the real thing. Though on-line chronicles of ongoing archaeological digs are relatively uncommon, virtual excavations have become controversial. Some archeologists contend that researchers should delay publicizing their work until it is completed. But Mr. Ricciardi said that the risk of looting is small and that the Internet helps solve nagging questions quickly and builds interest in local history. The Lott House, at 1940 East 36th Street in Marine Park, between Fillmore Avenue and Avenue S, is one of 13 Dutch farmhouses left in Brooklyn. Built in 1720 and expanded in 1800, the house was continuously occupied by the Lott family until 1989, when it was abandoned. Last year, the Brooklyn College Archaeology Research Center began excavating the site. ''We know just about zero about any type of farming in New York City,'' Mr. Ricciardi said. ''We can list a dozen things we know about daily life in Greenwich Village at that time but we can't do the same with Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island.'' WHAT YOU SEE -- At the Lott House Restoration Project Site, put up by Brooklyn College, visitors can read about the family's history and take a virtual tour of the house. At Interactive Dig: Brooklyn's Eighteenth-Century Lott House, a site created last spring by the editors of Archaeology, the magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America, visitors can read researchers' weekly field notes, hazard a guess at what the ''mystery objects'' listed were used for, learn the basics of a dig, post questions and even make suggestions. ''People are really excited to have input on an ongoing dig,'' said Elizabeth J. Himelfarb, an assistant editor at Archaeology who helped design the Web site. ''The romance of archeology is not just in finding lost cities but in coming into physical contact with the past. |
1120977_0 | Roadblock to a Peace Pact: Irish Mostly Say 'No' | John Hume, a 1998 Nobel Peace Prize winner who heads the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party, nodded toward the lumpen brick Stormont Castle Buildings where talks to keep the Northern Ireland peace agreement alive were in their fifth grinding day. ''If you took the word 'no' out of the English language,'' he said, ''there'd be a lot of speechless people in there.'' Understanding how much more readily negative responses than positive ones occur to the quarreling and distrustful politicians of this conflicted province is the only way to comprehend the bewildering week that has just passed and the perilous days for the peace settlement that lie ahead. Despite the extraordinary full-time personal involvement in the marathon negotiations of two Prime Ministers -- Tony Blair of Britain and Bertie Ahern of Ireland -- the peace accord of April 1998 remains subject to rejection, its future in doubt. It was aimed at ending three decades of sectarian violence that has cost more than 3,200 lives in the last 30 years. Unable to wrest willing compromise from the naysaying political leaders, Mr. Blair and Mr. Ahern last night issued their own solution to an impasse that had been blocking progress and said that if the Ulster political leaders did not accept it, they would lose their hard-won right to govern themselves. Their ultimatum proposed a trade-off that called for the creation in two weeks of a joint Roman Catholic and Protestant Cabinet to run the new Northern Ireland Assembly, a Sinn Fein priority, and the beginning a month later of the ultimately total dismantling of the Irish Republican Army arsenal, a Unionist demand. The take-it-or-leave-it plan was an effort to break a deadlock that had halted progress in putting the peace accord into place at a pivotal moment, the time when the British Parliament was supposed to transfer authority to the new legislature in Belfast. Under the plan, that will now occur on July 15. It became embarrassingly evident how Northern Ireland was falling behind when similar new regional parliaments in Wales and Scotland received their powers on Thursday as scheduled under Mr. Blair's ''devolution'' constitutional reform policy of distributing political power to the regions of Britain. The Prime Ministers' blueprint offered what it called ''fail-safe guarantees'' to the two warring parties that if either of the steps did not take place on time, the legislature itself would be shut down. |
1120672_1 | The Way We Live Now: 7-4-99: Salient Facts: Computer Surveillance; Software to Watch Over You | being monitored, but employers who choose to can simply switch off that warning. The cost to corporations is $5 per computer per year, but Websense lends a version of the software to schools in exchange for data on students' surfing habits. Message Inspector (Elron Software) This program inspects all outgoing and incoming E-mail for ''inappropriate'' content, searching for keywords pertaining to sex, drugs, violence and hate speech. An array of customizing options are available: messages with offending content can be blocked entirely (with or without warning) or simply tracked and recorded in a database. (Exceptions can also be made for the context: a medical conversation about breast cancer, for example, would be permitted.) The manufacturer maintains that E-mail monitoring is no more restrictive than the limits placed on other office technology. ''Would they allow you to call 1-900 lines to check your horoscope?'' Haggerty asks. ''This is the same thing.'' The software sells for $1,195 and can monitor up to 25 users. Little Brother (Kansmen Corporation) Like Websense, Little Brother doesn't just alert managers if their employees visit illicit Web sites -- it blocks those sites entirely, leaving employees with all of the punishment and none of the fun. The software's manufacturer says it keeps workers focused on their jobs. ''If they know they are being monitored, it reduces the time spent going to stock sites or sports sites,'' says Phil Lumish, the company's spokesman. Little Brother sells for $495 to cover 10 computers and $1,695 for 50 computers. Win What Where Investigator (Win What Where) Software that monitors only Web use seems positively laissez-faire compared with Win What Where, which records all computer use -- from Net surfing to game playing to diary writing. Richard Eaton, president of the company, says his customers include corporate security departments, small-business owners and ''husbands wanting to know what wives are doing.'' Installed on individual hard drives, the program costs $495 per 10 computers, $99 for a single computer. A notification system is built in, but can easily be overridden by whoever installs the software. ''I've given up trying to justify it,'' says Eaton, who recently discontinued the home version of the program. ''It is what it is, and there's a legitimate market for it.'' Prudence (Blue Wolf Network) This shareware -- which is intended for home use and can be downloaded free from the company's Web site -- must be installed on |
1120776_0 | A Market for Used Car Parts That Detroit Never Dreamed Of | IT would be hard to miss Jim Gary's modest house on a big corner lot here. It's the one with the 25-foot-tall purple dinosaur in the backyard, the 6-foot-long red and yellow ants near the front walk, and a pink, yellow and green pterodactyl holding the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Last Christmas, all the animals and trees were decorated with lights, and Santa Claus was perched on a dinosaur. The spectacle, put together for neighborhood children, drew so much attention that police officers had to be stationed on the quiet suburban street to direct traffic. Mr. Gary was glad the neighbors were understanding; apparently they have learned to accept that his artistic talents are expressed in work that tends to be big, colorful and eye-catching. Mr. Gary is a sculptor, but instead of working in clay or bronze, this burly, muscled artist can often be found with a blowtorch in his hand, roaming around junkyards looking for what he considers to be usable parts from abandoned automobiles. As Mr. Gary describes it, he builds ''20th-century dinosaurs out of the refuse of modern society.'' A 35-foot-long red apatosaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur, is part of a display at the Children's Garden opening at the New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden this weekend. Mr. Gary also contributed several oversized yellow and blue ants, a green-and-orange dragonfly, a purple butterfly and a bumblebee for the displays, part of the educational playground designed for both children and adults. Works by other artists, including a bronze statue of Walt Whitman by John Giannotti, chairman of the art department at Rutgers University in Camden, has been incorporated into the garden. Parts from up to 50 cars may be needed for each dinosaur, which takes six to nine months to make. They are usually gathered at a junkyard in Marlboro Township, where the owner sometimes saves particular cars for Mr. Gary. He pays 50 to 90 cents a pound for the junk he lugs to his studio shop in Hightstown, where he turns it into creatures weighing up to 1,400 pounds that then sometimes go on to travel the world. ''When I started, I wanted something different -- something that no one else was doing -- because there is a lot of competition out there,'' he said. ''I had built three cars out of parts when I was a kid, so I was used to |
1120902_0 | Filling Priest Gap By Ordaining Women | Regarding your June 20 coverage of the priest shortage in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, when women are included rather than excluded, there will be an abundance, rather than a shortage, of priests. Failure to sever the connection between ordination and gender discrimination worsens the shortage with every passing day. Roughly 25 years ago, Pope Paul VI commissioned biblical scholars to look into the question, and they concluded that there is nothing in Scripture to settle the question one way or the other. Theologians since then have pointed out much in Jesus's own example to indicate that he included women as disciples and as apostles although the Twelve held a unique position. There are hints that the tradition is not as unbroken as some might like us to believe. For example, we know that women were ordained as priests and deacons as recently as under communism in what was Czechoslavakia. The People of God support changes in the requirements for ordination in greater numbers every year. Rather than focus on bracing for a church devoid of priests and sacraments, we know that there are ways out of this man-made problem. EILEEN T. McMAHON President Long Island Women's Ordination Conference Massapequa |
1120616_5 | The Postindustrial Revolution | be found, but the suspicion must remain that the concept is too vague to mean much. Having described and analyzed the malaise of the mid-60's to the early 90's, Fukuyama steps back in Part 2 of his book to consider ''the genealogy of morals'' -- a Nietzschean title for a most un-Nietzschean account of social order. Although there is little new in this guided tour of game theory, evolutionary psychology and other incursions of pop science into ethics, it is perhaps the most convincing part of the book. Fukuyama plausibly argues that ''human beings will produce moral rules for themselves, partly because they are designed by nature to do so and partly as a result of their pursuit of self-interest.'' With this much established, it comes as no surprise to learn that humanity has regularly healed itself after earlier Great Disruptions. In the final part, Fukuyama briefly illustrates some now-distant recoveries from social and moral decline, like the Meiji Restoration in Japan and the Victorian era in Britain and America. AND then he drops his bombshell: our own Great Disruption is already ending. Rates of increase in crime, divorce and illegitimacy have slowed in the 1990's and even reversed in some countries. In the United States, levels of crime have returned virtually to where they were when the Great Disruption -- which is now looking not so Great after all -- first started. Welfare rolls are shrinking almost as fast. Levels of trust have recovered significantly, and there are signs that the destructive culture of rampant individualism is coming to an end. So what was all the fuss about in the first few hundred pages of the book? As with a cheap novel, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this book is marred by its happy ending. This is a paradox to which Fukuyama has only the limpest of answers. He insists that there was nothing automatic about our recovery from the Great Disruption. No doubt that is technically true. But who except Hegelians like him ever believed in historical inevitability anyway? He has given us strong reasons to believe that a recovery would come, and the evidence to show that it in fact did. You don't need an upward arrow of History to know which way the wind blows. Anthony Gottlieb is the executive editor of The Economist. His ''Socrates: Philosophy's Martyr'' will be published in September. |
1123991_2 | Irish Need Comply | powers from the British Parliament to the Assembly on Sunday. That step represented to the sponsors of the peace accord -- Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern -- the assurance of an irreversible stabilizing of public life in Northern Ireland. In the last 30 years violence in the province has taken more than 3,200 lives. The smoke clearing from Thursday's crash disclosed a political vacuum that is particularly feared here because of the opportunities such spaces have always offered Ulster's men of violence. But it also showed a reassuring new stability that is a product of two years of false starts and tortuous negotiations: paramilitary groups have maintained their cease-fires, and there has been no saber rattling from their political representatives. Construction cranes dot the skyline of Belfast, with growing business activity creating jobs for the working-class men who, when unemployed, were easy targets for paramilitary recruiters. Alan Gillespie, chairman of the Northern Ireland Industrial Development Board, said on BBC Ulster this morning that foreign investment had doubled in the last year because of the perception of peace. The politicians may pause, he said, ''but business goes on.'' Sinn Fein has transformed itself into a credible and increasingly powerful force, attracting growing numbers of voters and fielding candidates in elections for the British, Irish and European Parliaments. An I.R.A. return to violence would put all that at risk. The Ulster Unionists now speak directly to Sinn Fein delegates, something they refused to do through the entire negotiation on the agreement. In a statement directed at Sinn Fein on Thursday night, Mr. Trimble said, ''We know this can't work without you,'' an unimaginable comment to come from a Unionist leader only a year ago. Speaking in London, Prime Minister Blair said: ''People now talk; that is itself an extraordinary event. Peace is not perfect, but compare it to five or six years ago and the progress is immense.'' Confidence has always been scarce in Northern Irish politics, and the frantic recent weeks of missed deadlines, new proposals, amendments and marathon negotiations have strained even the limited trust that was evolving. Mr. Blair is widely praised for the energy he has devoted to Northern Ireland, but he is seen as having overreached and lost his normally disciplined way in trying to come up with a deal. He angered the Unionists by forcing Thursday's deadline on them, |
1124019_0 | On Altered Food, Let Market Rule; Too Little, Too Late | To the Editor: The recent announcement by the Clinton Administration that it would conduct long-term studies on the safety of altered farm products (news article, July 14) gave me little comfort as a consumer wary of the human health and ecological hazards of our food supply. Considering that a large and growing portion of the country's soy and corn crops are already genetically engineered and that most processed foods in American supermarkets contain some engineered ingredients, the call for safety assessment seemed a bit overdue. BRIAN HALWEIL Washington, July 14, 1999 The writer is a staff researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. |
1125784_2 | Restoring a Century-Old Glass Tower in Chicago | we thought, 'My goodness, you could lay this out in pretty darn good hotel modules.' '' The result -- already apparent on floors where major reconstruction is nearing completion -- will be a remarkable interior, with public hallways looking much the way they did a century ago; not like a hotel at all but like a well-appointed hive of business. THE original white Carrara marble wainscoting and ceilings are being kept, as are the mahogany trim, transoms and doors; the terrazzo floors; the glass partitions (though there are new fire-resistant walls behind them) and even the doorknobs, mail slots and ornamental hinges, made of a metal called magnetite with a coating that yields a blue-black finish. Winding through the upper floors will be the original open cast-iron staircase, whose elegant balustrade carries the same decorative device -- a four-petal Gothic flower, or quatrefoil -- that is used in the undulating ribbons of white terra cotta on the exterior. Rather than enclosing this staircase, as current building codes would require if it were the only means of exit in a fire, the developers are building two new enclosed stairways through the building. They also plan to recreate the ornate, two-story-high elevator lobby. In addition, one of the original structural columns -- an open, diamond-shaped riser built up from riveted steel sections -- will be left exposed to show how the tower was constructed. The architects are Antunovich Associates of Chicago, working with the McClier Corporation, an architectural and engineering concern based in Chicago that also prepared a historical structural report on the Reliance and oversaw the exterior restoration. Given the deteriorating condition of the terra cotta facade, there was no time to lose. ''It's amazing that it wasn't raining off the building,'' said T. Gunny Harboe, director of preservation at McClier. About 2,000 of the 12,000 terra cotta pieces were replaced. The cornice was recreated in cast aluminum. And the single layer plate-glass windows were replaced with double-glazed insulated windows. The operator will be the Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group of San Francisco. In Chicago, Kimpton already runs the 489-room Hotel Allegro (formerly the Bismarck) and the 193-room Hotel Monaco (formerly the Oxford House), both downtown. Elements like the quatrefoil motif are being used in the new furnishings and textiles, said Susan M. Caruso, president of Intra-Spec of Marina del Rey, Calif., which is designing the lobby, guest rooms and public |
1125709_0 | Scenic Tourist Trains Return to the Rockies | A CENTURY ago, it was the busiest train route through the Rockies: a ribbon of rail down a 1,000-foot-deep canyon, a granite gorge so narrow that at one point, engineers hung a bridge from the walls to suspend the rails over the rushing waters of the Arkansas River. This May, for the first time since 1967, passenger trains started running again through the ''the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas,'' a route described by one rail buff and author, David P. Morgan, in 1960 as ''the most arresting single scenic site in all of American railroading.'' With air horns echoing off the hard rock walls, the orange-and-blue streamlined locomotives of the Royal Gorge Route Railroad now pass through the gorge three times a day, making 24-mile round trips in two hours, with a pause on each run on the Hanging Bridge. Looking down about 20 feet, passengers can watch boatloads of rafters battle roiling rapids. Squinting to the sky, passengers can spy the silvery underbelly of the Royal Gorge Bridge, the world's highest suspension bridge, strung almost a quarter-mile overhead. The return of train whistles to the Royal Gorge is part of a nationwide renaissance in tourist railroads. Over the last 25 years, the number of tourist trains has roughly doubled, to about 200 today. This summer, the annual peak season for railroading, as many as five million passengers may travel on tourist trains, according to Steve Shoe, a former director of the Tourist Railway Association, a museum and train group. The leading states are California, with 19 railroads; Pennsylvania, with 15; and Colorado, with 11. In Colorado, where 2,000 miles of track once penetrated the mineral-rich mountains, some of the most scenic snippets survive as tourist railroads. The Georgetown Loop Railroad, (888) 724-5748, leaves Georgetown, 45 minutes west of Denver, and climbs through a series of loops to Silver Plume. The Ski Train, (303) 296-4754, runs on selected dates in late summer from Union Station in Denver through the Continental Divide to Winter Park. The California Zephyr, an Amtrak train, (800) 872-7245, follows the same route, attracting a good number of tourists. It leaves Denver every morning in the summer at 9:20 for Utah, Nevada and California. From the other side of the Continental Divide, the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad, (719) 486-3936, leaves Leadville, the nation's highest incorporated town (10,152 feet), for a high-altitude ride that affords stunning views |
1125719_28 | Getting The Girl | nation,'' warns Lori Knowles, the associate for law and bioethics at the Hastings Center, in Garrison, N.Y. Although the limited experience of Microsort shows a preference for girls within the United States, she says, ''it will be used in cultures where women are oppressed, and it will be used to select for male children. That will further institutionalize the discrimination against women.'' Take such prenatal screening methods as ultrasound and amniocentesis, she says. Created for the relatively benign purpose of identifying abnormalities early in a pregnancy, they are periodically used in some countries as screening tools by parents who wish to abort a fetus of the ''wrong'' sex. Lori Andrews, a professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the author of ''The Clone Age,'' describes the 258 clinics in Bombay that advertise prenatal screening as a way to end a pregnancy and avoid a dowry: ''Spend 700 rupees now and save 700,000 rupees later.'' One study of 8,000 abortions, she writes, found that 7,999 of the fetuses were female. The United States is not free from abortions performed on the basis of sex. Although numbers are not available, such abortions are known to exist, albeit to a much lesser extent than in other parts of the world. A 1995 study found that 34 percent of American geneticists would perform prenatal testing because a family wanted a son. That was a 10 percent increase from 10 years earlier. Even if Microsort is not used here as it might be in India, ethicists say, there is potential for abuse. ''People say we're not like that, but I think we have more subtle forms of sex discrimination,'' Andrews says. ''In the U.S. the tilt toward boys isn't as pronounced.'' The Microsort data, she notes, derive from a time when families are required to have a first child to be eligible. What happens down the road, she asks, if that rule is lifted? She cites a study by Roberta Steinbacher at Cleveland State University that found that 25 percent of Americans would use sex selection. Of those, 81 percent of the women and 94 percent of the men would want their firstborn to be a boy. ''Now look at that in light of other research, which consistently finds that firstborns are more aggressive, more achieving, of higher income and education then later-borns,'' she says. ''We'll be creating a nation of little sisters.'' |
1125716_9 | Nature Is Served At a New Resort | Holiday Inn in Phoenix-Tempe, where employees themselves have focused on putting into practice more environmentally sensitive management practices in guest rooms, lighting, laundry and recycling. The Cheeca Lodge has also won an industry award. In April, the United Nations sponsored a conference on sustainable development, with three days devoted to tourism. Issues discussed ranged from the loss of coral reefs to child prostitution. The International Hotel and Restaurant Association played a major role in these talks, and has been presenting awards to resorts that it finds to be making responsible efforts to recycle materials and protect the surroundings. Joint projects between voluntary organizations and private tourism companies, as exemplified at the Refuge, seem likely to expand. In May, Abercrombie & Kent Hotels and Resorts, a new division of the Illinois-based tour operator, announced a joint effort with the Nature Conservancy, an international environmental group. They will develop small eco-lodges in the Western Hemisphere, ''allowing visitors to enjoy unique, pristine areas while enabling the local community to protect and manage these areas for the future.'' Sites in Belize, Brazil, Peru and the Western United States are reported under consideration. According to the Nature Conservancy, its state chapters have operated very small lodges for some time. This is the first time, according to Douglas Meyer, a spokesman, that it has joined with a commercial operator to plan a resort. ''It's an experiment,'' he said. ''Our interest is to return something to the local community. To do this, we need three players: ourselves, for the environmental knowledge, the tourism people for their skills and the people who know the local community.'' ''For about 10 years,'' he said, ''everyone has talked about eco-tourism. But our people think that it has been mostly nature tours. For eco-tourism, you need the local people to be involved. We are seeking among the world's great places for a place for this experiment.'' No-frills resort The Refuge at Ocklawaha uses the address 14835 Southeast 85th Street, Ocklawaha, Fla. 32179, although it is really in the wilds. The phone numbers are (877) 862-8873, which is toll free, and (352) 288-2233, or fax (352) 288-6369. Reservations are taken through the Maho Bay Camps office in New York, (800) 392-9004, fax (212) 861-6210, because the Refuge has only a few telephone lines. Ask the resort to fax you directions: mine were precise and all I had to do was set the trip |
1125950_2 | Global Food Fights: The Worst Are Yet to Come | to see our black helicopters?'' one official of the organization asks, mocking the conspiracy theorists) will force changes they have long resisted. So the Japanese are trying to torpedo the talks before they start, saying they won't give an inch on rice or other products crucial to their ''food security.'' The Europeans say that, for the health of their residents, anything genetically modified will be banned. France's farm minister undiplomatically noted last week that the United States had the ''worst food in the world.'' And then there are all those unhappy American farmers, who cannot agree among themselves precisely what the United States should be trying to get out of these negotiations. Certainly not freer trade with Canada, milk and dairy farmers told August Schumacher, Undersecretary of Agriculture, because the United States would be the loser. Vermont's organic farmers sound a lot like the Europeans. They, too, rail against genetically modified products, and a few activists demanded that the corporate charters of companies like Monsanto be revoked. Big corporate farmers -- who are also big political contributors -- want the global rules written to allow them the widest latitude possible in using genetically modified seeds, which will soon account for two-thirds of America's soybeans and half its corn. ''Our goal is to give people around the world the choice of what kind of agricultural products they want to buy,'' said Peter Scher, who runs the negotiations for the United States Trade Representative's office. But what Washington calls choice, the Europeans and Vermonters call dangerous arrogance. Right now they are fighting over what kind of labels go on the American goods, because the Europeans know that a big, easy-to-read ''GM'' for genetically modified will assure that the American goods rot on the shelves. A result is that the superpowers are about to clash over supermarkets. It is the kind of battle that sounds technical, but quickly pits powerful political forces on several continents against one another. After all, the battles over bananas and beef have already risen to the presidential level several times. As elections near, both in the United States and abroad, protectionist sentiment is bound to turn small food fights into bigger ones. And for all its talk about the benefits of global trading rules, it is still unclear that Washington will be able to convince farmers here that the W.T.O. is less threatening than a carload of leaf-peeping |
1123547_1 | ACCORD IN ULSTER HITS A ROADBLOCK OVER DISARMAMENT | that the guerrillas' cease-fire, now more than two years old, proves their commitment to nonviolence. The 1998 agreement contained a general commitment to disarmament but did not spell out the timing or methods. Mr. Blair had insisted that deadlines for carrying out different aspects of the agreement, including Thursday's start-up of the government, were absolute and that failing to meet them would leave Northern Ireland staring into the ''abyss'' of its violent past. But tonight his spokesman said Mr. Blair would press ahead to find ways to revive the process. ''We have always acknowledged that the Ulster Unionists have difficulties with this,'' the spokesman said. ''We still believe this is the best way forward, and will continue to try to persuade people of that.'' Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister, a co-sponsor of the plan, said he was ''gravely disappointed'' by Mr. Trimble's action, a ''mistake of historic proportions.'' Earlier today Mo Mowlam, the British Secretary for Northern Ireland, issued the formal directive for the 108-member Assembly to meet on Thursday to nominate the 10 members of the Cabinet. This step has long posed a challenge for Mr. Trimble, the Assembly's First Minister, because two Cabinet seats belong to Sinn Fein. Letting the procedure go forward would formally provide the party its entry into the government. The votes won by the parties during last year's election entitle the Ulster Unionists and the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party, led by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate John Hume, to three seats each. Sinn Fein and the hardline Protestant Democratic Unionists, led by the Rev. Ian Paisley, have two each. The expectation now is that Mr. Trimble will refuse to name ministers from his party, thereby putting an end to the plan. Under the terms of the agreement, the British and Irish Governments will then ''suspend'' the entire accord, subjecting it to at least a summer-long review. The regional parliament, based on a power-sharing formula that permits passage of legislation only if it has the support of the Protestant and Catholic communities, was the centerpiece of the agreement but now remains powerless. Mr. Blair scrambled today to come up with assurances for Mr. Trimble to pass along to his 110-member party executive in Belfast this evening. He proposed amendments this afternoon in the House of Commons where, in the early morning hours, he had obtained a big majority for a bill |
1123460_6 | In the Tour de France, Information Can Become Power | is no less crowded. In addition to the three Radio Tour planes and the three television helicopters, five airplanes fly overhead to relay live commercial radio and television signals. The biggest danger now facing the Tour is that its communications system will turn into an electronic Tower of Babel. Because local cellular phone equipment can be overwhelmed by the estimated 3,000 wireless handsets carried by race followers, France Telecom now unfolds special truck-mounted high-capacity cellular towers at the start and finish of each day's event. Fights over radio frequencies are also developing. The Societe du Tour de France alone operates on 258 radio frequencies. In an attempt to keep order, the French Government agency responsible for assigning radio frequencies has sent technicians to the race for the first time this year. ''It's not us who has the problem now, it's them,'' said Didier Blondel, the head of telecommunications for the Tour, with obvious relief. Still, problems persist. On the way out of Nantes, the United States Postal Service riders mysteriously found themselves receiving instructions intended for a rival French team, Credit Agricole. Mr. Bryneel took it in stride: ''At least they'll have no secrets from us.'' Right now, with the exception of television, most of the Tour's communications use old-fashioned analog systems rather than higher-capacity digital devices. Mr. Blondel said that brief experiments with digital radio showed that it had trouble coping with rainstorms and the mountains. Nevertheless, Mr. Blondel is dreaming of a digital future. He sketched out his Tour car of the future while sitting in his office, which, even though it is housed in a fold-out trailer truck, nevertheless has several Gallic touches, including a potted artificial rose bush. His dream car would have integrated LCD screens on the dashboards and seat backs. A computer behind the back seat would receive and decode digital television signals, a digital version of Radio Tour and Web pages from the Tour's site. ''It's too expensive to do this now and the technology isn't perfected, but it will come,'' Mr. Blondel promised, presenting his drawing with a flourish. Until that happens, Mr. Bruyneel will continue with his cellular phones, radios and televisions while steering with his knees through narrow roads filled with rabid European cycling fans. He is, as the French say, ''au four, au moulin'' -- ''in the oven, in the mill'' -- the closest phrase in French to ''multitasking.'' |
1123529_0 | Family Planning Under Fire | Last year Congress disgracefully cut off funding to the United Nations Population Fund, an agency that supports voluntary family planning services, maternal and child health initiatives, and AIDS and sexually transmitted disease prevention programs in 150 countries. In April the House International Relations Committee wisely voted to restore $25 million for the program in 2000. A House vote on the State Department authorization bill containing that contribution is expected today. Once again, however, this worthy program is under attack by anti-abortion forces. The Population Fund does not provide or pay for abortion services in any country, and can actually reduce the need for abortions. Yet Representative Christopher Smith, a fervent abortion opponent, is expected to offer an amendment to block funds for the program. He and others have argued that the United States should contribute no money to the agency unless it ceases all family planning activities in China. This is senseless, because the fund's pilot project in China is actually designed to end coercive population policies. Under the program, the Chinese authorities have agreed to abandon quotas like the one-child policy in 32 areas covered by the pilot project, and adopt instead new strategies to slow birth rates, such as better contraception, health care and expanded economic opportunities for women. Even so, as a tactical move, the program's supporters have agreed to deduct any amount the Population Fund spends in China, which is expected to be $5 million a year, from the $25 million United States contribution. The House now has no excuse for not financing family planning efforts that can improve the lives of women all over the world. |
1123493_0 | Experimental Food | To the Editor: Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman says the Administration may ask the biotech industry to voluntarily label genetically altered foods (news article, July 14). But such a request would be no change from current regulations. Public confidence will not be assured by voluntary measures. Furthermore, Mr. Glickman requested that the food industry disclose any adverse effects from this new technology. This, too, conforms to the current situation, whereby industry is on the honor system to offer information that should be required. Mr. Glickman called for long-term evaluation of genetically engineered crops. But nothing in his remarks indicates that any testing will be required before market approval. Without mandatory pre-market testing and labeling, consumers will remain guinea pigs in this experiment on our food. CHARLES MARGULIS Washington, July 14, 1999 The writer is a genetic engineering specialist at Greenpeace. |
1126472_20 | Discord Undermines Efforts to Repair and Build Public Schools | by the board found that almost one-third of the city's schools had their windows or roofs replaced, their exterior masonry shored up or some combination over the last five years. But that survey also found that one out of four city schools had seriously deteriorated roofs or exterior walls, and two out of five had deteriorated windows. In a more disturbing finding, the survey highlighted significant problems in a number of schools that were either built or repaired by the authority within the last five years. Those deficiencies, often in the very roofs or set of windows that were to have been fixed, point to any number of shortcomings in the system, from sluggish contractors to a maintenance budget so paltry that it allows for little maintenance. This leaves teachers and students waiting -- people like Karina Constantino, the principal of P.S. 22 on Staten Island. The authority spent $2 million putting a new roof on the school and sealing its brickwork from 1995 through 1997. But almost two years later, the roof leaks in seven places, she said, pointing out the wide, wet blotches on the ceilings of a number of classrooms. Ms. Constantino is hardly surprised, since she said it was often up to her to bound up to the roof to scrape her fingernails against freshly set mortar to determine its consistency or to check whether the chimney was in danger of falling -- tasks, she says, the authority should have been doing. The board and the authority disagree over who is to blame for the lingering leaks. Ms. Constantino, her eyes on the ceilings above her students' heads, closes her ears to their squabbling, while awaiting the next round of repairs she has been promised. Physically Unfit MONDAY -- By depending on inept contractors, and paying scant attention to their work, New York City school construction officials have fallen short in their quest for a physically fit school system by century's end. Attempts at reform have been hard-won, and sometimes short-lived. TODAY -- To mend and expand the city school system, the School Construction Authority and the Board of Education must work closely together. But their discord has made a daunting task even harder, and a succession of top political officials have too often declined to intervene. ON THE WEB -- For more information log on to The New York Times on the Web at www.nytimes.com/education. |
1121323_5 | A Pragmatist on What Computers Can Do | at the millennium. Why is it this time so focused on technology with Y2K? A. You gave your answer by asking your question. It is in the nature of human beings -- to go crazy about potentially apocalyptic events that have no basis in rationality. Now, Y2K is a fully rational bug. We know it's going to be trouble. So now we have the apocalyptic tendency of human beings, with a real bug that could hurt a lot of things. I take the position that, yes, we are going to have a few bad cases, but the bulk of it is going to be mostly a nuisance. The minute I took this position, I heard from a large number of people who said, ''How can you say this -- the world is coming to an end!'' Q. If you had the power to redesign the curriculum of an engineering school, how would you change it? A. I would make it a lot more sensitive to the whole human being. So I would study more some of the seminal key aspects of human activity -- historical, political, psychological. For example, I would take key issues that we're facing today, for instance privacy, and say, ''Where else have we had problems in privacy before?'' I would take a situation in technology in which loyalty comes in conflict with the truth and see how it plays out. Should you tell the truth or be loyal to a friend or hide it? Q. Was that the dilemma you faced when you gave a deposition in the Microsoft case? A. No, I wasn't torn at all. Nobody is going to make me say something that I don't think is true. So I was really never torn. I do value money and loyalty, but in any business the biggest capital we have is sticking to our guns. Q. You grew up in Athens, in the 1940's and 50's, where your father was an admiral in the Greek Navy. During those years, did you ever dream you'd become a priest at this temple of high tech? A. No, but I went to a Greek-American school. So I was imbued with high tech. By the time I was 13, I was reading the books of people who work at this institution. I was riding bicycles with sails on them. And I built a radio station. I absolutely related |
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