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788292_1 | year and would be intended for machines using the Unix operating system. The software would be embedded in products made by the companies, so users would not have to purchase it separately. The three companies have equipped a laboratory in El Segundo, Calif., where the software would be tested on a variety of computers and printers, including machines made by Hewlett-Packard and Eastman Kodak, as well as those made by Xerox, D.E.C. and Sun. The alliance is also holding discussions with Novell Inc. to develop a link between Printxchange and Novell's Netware Distributed Print Services software. The companies in the alliance said obtaining printed copies of documents composed on personal computers or work stations had been a big problem in distributed computing. A user sending a document to a remote printer does not know if the machine has sufficient paper, is overwhelmed with work or is not operating. They said surveys by consultants found that the top complaint of systems administrators was difficulties with printing, and that many companies kept mainframe computers in operation solely to handle printing. The object of the new software is to "take the pain and misery out of printing," John A. Lopiano, head of Xerox's production systems division, said. Printxchange could be the basis for applications that would deliver a detailed status report immediately after a printing job was sent to a printer; it would also have a feature to forward a job to an alternate printer automatically to avoid delays, and would contain accounting features to report the cost of a job and charge the appropriate department. Research for the Printxchange system was originally conducted at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. The system would have three modules: one to initiate print system requests, another to store data to be printed and one to control the printing devices. The companies have tested the various pieces of the system for compatability during the last 18 months. The alliance with a computer hardware and a software company was consistent with Xerox's strategy of linking closely with the computer industry without becoming part of it. It was also an demonstration of how large manufacturers are teaming with computer-based companies as they move into the digital age. Earlier this year, the Eastman Kodak Company announced a series of relationships with computer industry companies as it sought to develop electronic imaging devices to market along with its chemically based film. | Digital, Sun and Xerox Join To Make Better Printer Link |
788423_8 | than do nonconsumers, and thus may be more prone to fractures. Indeed, the nurses' study linked caffeine intake to an increased risk of hip fractures but not wrist fractures in postmenopausal women. Among those who consumed the most caffeine (more than 817 milligrams a day), the risk of suffering a hip fracture was nearly three times higher than for those who did not consume caffeine. But among more moderate coffee consumers, drinking just one glass of milk a day can offset the calcium loss induced by the caffeine in two cups of coffee, a recent study of nearly 1,000 postmenopausal women in southern California showed. PREGNANCY -- In 1980, following a study in which pregnant rats that were force-fed the human equivalent of 56 to 87 cups of strong coffee gave birth to pups with missing toes, the Food and Drug Administration warned pregnant women to avoid or at least moderate their consumption of caffeine. Two years later, the agency's concerns were reinforced by a study of 12,000 pregnant women that linked drinking four or more cups of coffee daily to premature birth and low birth weight. But while smoking turned out to be the chief culprit, the agency has yet to ease its warning. Studies of caffeine and pregnancy continue to produce conflicting results. One study of 2,800 fertile women found no effect of caffeine on their chances of conceiving, while another study of 1,900 women linked drinking more than 300 milligrams of caffeine daily to a delay in conception. A study of more than 7,000 Canadian women linked increasing doses of caffeine to a rising risk of fetal growth retardation, but there was no rise in premature births or low birth weight. And the newest study, published this year by researchers at the University of North Carolina, also failed to document a link between caffeine consumption during pregnancy and pre-term births. Still, enough research has suggested that caffeine may delay conception, increase the risk of miscarriage and slow fetal growth to prompt many public-health specialists to advise women planning pregnancy, as well as those who are already pregnant, to eliminate caffeine or restrict its consumption to the amount in one or two cups of brewed coffee a day. "Based on the better studies, I don't think caffeine is a problem," said Dr. Mills of the child health institute. "But during pregnancy, you should be cautious about any substance | The Latest on Coffee? Don't Worry. Drink Up. |
788406_0 | To the Editor: "Mr. Chirac's Nuclear Blunder" (editorial, Sept. 7) criticizes France for its decision to resume nuclear testing. Many of your points apply to United States nuclear policies. Like France, the United States has "no nuclear-armed enemies" and "no pressing need for a nuclear arsenal." Yet somehow Paris cannot have its own nuclear arsenal, whereas Moscow and Washington can. Why? No nation in the post-cold war world needs its own nuclear arsenal; better that a multilateral institution like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization control nuclear weapons. Only then can both France and the United States justifiably call on other nations to renounce the nuclear option. MARK S. STERNMAN Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 8, 1995 | France's Nuclear Twin |
788339_2 | men and women by the "power of darkness." Mr. Fujimori, a Catholic and the son of Japanese Buddhist immigrants, said, "We are not trying to confront the church, but rather to help poor women and to express our solidarity to the women's movement." Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora, Roman Catholic Primate of Peru, said, "My feeling is one of deep sadness because at this moment, when Peru needs God's protection to emerge from many problems, the country accepts a law that goes against the law of God." In a radio address during the weekend, he said his followers were "guinea pigs" being manipulated by the state, and he warned that Catholics would be committing a "grave sin" if they availed themselves of the new birth control procedures. As Mr. Fujimori arrived, the women's conference was still a grinding marathon of negotiations behind closed doors seeking to reach consensus on language for its final "platform for action." Delegates and lobbyists reported especially tough going on the question of inheritance rights for women, which are denied in some African countries and are subordinated to men in many Islamic countries. A majority of nations here are determined to affirm a woman's equality in inheriting the land and property of husbands and fathers. But both Iran and Sudan have pressed for recognition of Islamic law, under which wives and daughters are treated as a sheltered class and are entitled to a smaller portion of inheritances than men are. A member of the American delegation, Geraldine Ferraro, predicted today that the declaration of this conference will assert a woman's "equality" in inheritance. Some Islamic countries are expected to withhold their support for this part of the final text, while joining the overall consensus. From other negotiations Monday night and today, the conference appears to have reached agreement on the inclusion of language urging governments not to punish women who have had abortions and establishing a standard for parental responsibilities in the sexual health of adolescents. "On parental rights, we've reached a reasonable compromise that recognizes that children have a need for confidentiality and privacy, but also that parents have a role to play," said Marcy Wilder, legal director of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. However, another advocacy group, the Family Life Coalition, called it "an antiparental rights document" that "will cause firestorms in the United States" because it "encourages sex for unmarried girls." | At Women's Forum, Peru's Leader Defies Church |
787159_0 | Battered by a wave of global outrage over its resumption of nuclear tests in the South Pacific, the French Government gritted its teeth today, sniped at the "hysteria" of some of its critics and gambled that short-term damage to its image would be compensated by long-term respect for its firmness. The loudest protests came from Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru and the Nordic countries -- all of which had already denounced the plan. The reaction of major powers, including the United States, Russia, Britain and Germany, was more muted, suggesting a reluctance to risk a broader crisis in relations with the new French Government. In France, a poll published by Le Monde today said 60 percent of French respondents opposed President Jacques Chirac's decision to end a three-year moratorium on nuclear tests. Opposition parties unanimously denounced the move, with the Greens calling it "an act of barbarity" and the Socialists complaining that it had isolated France. Yet while some French business groups, notably wine exporters, have expressed concern about a threatened international boycott of French products, many experts doubted that Mr. Chirac would pay a high political price domestically for his policy. Le Monde's poll said 59 percent of those surveyed still supported France's possession of nuclear weapons. Answering its critics, the Government walked a narrow path between open defiance and acknowledgement of opposition. "Some reactions this morning owe more to hysteria than to real political reasoning," the chief Government spokesman, Francois Baroin, said. While Foreign Minister Herve de Charette insisted that France was "very attentive to international opinion," Mr. Baroin also stressed after a Cabinet meeting that France would display "absolute firmness" on the nuclear tests. In a television interview on Tuesday, 11 hours before the first underground explosion, however, Mr. Chirac, who has been in office four months, seemed to take note of the protests, suggesting that it might be possible to reduce the number of scheduled tests from eight to six and to end them earlier than planned. France has said it will sign a comprehensive test ban treaty after it completes this series of explosions. Every French President since de Gaulle in the 1960's has considered France's nuclear deterrent to be a pillar in its claim to be a great power. Nonetheless, as part of its response to European critics of the tests, France has proposed that its nuclear deterrent serve as an umbrella for the | Despite Wave of Protest, France Defends Pacific Nuclear Test |
787122_2 | in, but he expected a "significant" rise this year compared to the total so far, which he called modest. Some experts noted that the law could have gone much further, saying that early discussions had included more free-market enticements. One debate focused on whether to allow foreign employers to hire their workers directly rather than through Government agencies, which was ultimately rejected. The new law also requires the Government to give case-by-case approval of each project. Antonio Jorge, professor of economics and international relations at Florida International University in Miami, said the standard formula to attract foreign money calls for rapid privatization and a free-labor market, among other measures. He said the law in the end may be more political than economic. "I think this is related to Castro's intention to obtain credit from international institutions and restructure his outstanding debt with Western countries," he said. But John S. Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which disseminates information about the island to American businesses, said that the law goes further than many thought possible for Cuba and added that he saw it as a transitional tool for the gradual expansion of commercial opportunities. He said some American businessmen consider it a positive change that merits a review of the United States' trade ban against Cuba -- which many say excludes them from an attractive emerging market. At the same time, Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican and Representative Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican, have introduced legislation that would impose sanctions on foreign countries that trade with Cuba. Among Cuba's leading investors are Mexico, in telecommunications, Spain, in tourism, and Canada, in the nickel industry. These and some 50 other countries with a commercial presence here see in Cuba a virgin market free of American competition as the country undertakes reforms that in recent years have included legalizing possession of dollars and authorizing some forms of self-employment and agricultural free markets. There was unusually heated debate within the ruling Communist Party over some aspects of the legislation. One of the most controversial issues was the question of whether to prohibit investments by Cubans who left the island. Some Assembly deputies voiced opposition to accommodating exiles but most agreed that the Government still held a prerogative to deny entry to "enemies of the revolution" and that there was no need for wholesale discrimination against all Cubans who left. | Cuba Passes Law to Attract Greater Foreign Investment |
787050_0 | Ignoring majority opinion in his own country and protests around the world, France's new President, Jacques Chirac, has ended a three-year French moratorium on nuclear weapons tests by exploding a Hiroshima-size bomb under the South Pacific. This unjustified blast, and the five to seven expected to follow over the next few months, will isolate France from important allies and trading partners and weaken the fight against nuclear proliferation. With no nuclear-armed enemies, France has no pressing need for a nuclear arsenal. What it could use is strengthened nonproliferation efforts to prevent radical Middle Eastern or North African neighbors from developing atomic bombs and missiles capable of reaching Europe. The strongest protests have come from Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific countries. French companies see this region as a promising export market. But since the testing program was announced, French goods have been hit by consumer boycotts and French companies excluded from bidding on major public contracts. The tests have also drawn an unfavorable reaction in Europe, setting back French hopes for a coordinated defense policy within the European Union. Paris insists that the main purpose of the tests is to guarantee the accuracy of its new nuclear warheads and to perfect methods for future testing by computer simulation. Fully reliable methods of computer simulation already exist. For Mr. Chirac, however, these methods are unappealing because they rely on American technology. Thirty years ago his mentor, Gen. Charles de Gaulle, insisted on an independent nuclear weapons force. Today Mr. Chirac unwisely insists on an independent capacity to simulate nuclear explosions. But French defense needs have changed significantly in the past 30 years. Paris no longer needs its own nuclear arsenal to carve out an independent diplomatic space between cold-war Washington and Moscow. French polls consistently show strong opposition to conducting further nuclear tests. In a slight bow to public opinion, Mr. Chirac now says he might stop testing before completing the eight scheduled explosions. He would do himself and France a favor if he stopped now. | Mr. Chirac's Nuclear Blunder |
787124_1 | student at the prestigious National Superior School for the Arts and Techniques of the Theater, said she was startled, then humiliated, when it happened to her. As she left a Paris train station, three policemen surrounded her, questioning her and checking her background. They detained her for 15 minutes. "They were very abrupt, coming at you as though you were guilty of something," Ms. Kheloufi said. "People were coming out of the station looking at me with three policemen with their guns and sticks. I wanted to hide." She added, "I don't know why I was chosen, but I am sure they would not have stopped a blue-eyed blonde." . In Paris, thousands of police officers have been deployed in train stations, tourist sites and shopping malls. Trash cans have been sealed shut in many areas "for security reasons," with a note apologizing for the inconvenience. Beaches, theaters and train stations have been evacuated in searches for bombs. Schools are under special watch, and President Jacques Chirac has called on all citizens to be vigilant. The first bomb exploded on a crowded underground train beneath the Place St.-Michel on July 25, killing 7 people and wounding nearly 100. On Aug. 17, another bomb went off near the Arc de Triomphe. Two weeks ago, a bomb was found wired to a high-speed train track near Lyons. On Sunday, a malfunctioning bomb exploded in a crowded Paris marketplace on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, wounding four people. The most recent bomb was discovered on Monday, unexploded, on the Place Charles-Vallin. Most of the French public seems to tolerate and to some extent approve of the stiff security measures, including the questioning on the streets. The climate of fear has left Arab and Muslim populations of France in the position of suspects. France took similar measures in 1986 when it experienced a series of Iranian-inspired bombings. The current security campaign, however, is more extensive, hampering contact between France and its former colony. French visas are nearly impossible to get, because France shut down its consulates in Algeria long before the latest bombings. Cultural exchanges have come to a halt, as French schools have shut down and French teachers have left Algeria. Travel is more difficult since direct flights from Algeria to Paris were halted after the hijacking of an Air France plane by Algerian terrorists last December. French maritime transport has been suspended too, leaving | A Wary France Cracks Down on Its Muslims |
787111_0 | An article yesterday about a French nuclear test in the Pacific misstated the level of France's diplomatic relations with Australia, which opposes nuclear testing. Australia's ambassador to France was called home briefly for consultations, but not withdrawn. | Corrections |
787087_0 | International A3-15 NATO TO PRESS AIR CAMPAIGN NATO officials decided to broaden and intensify the air campaign in Bosnia after three days of bombing failed to persuade the Bosnian Serbs to lift the siege of Sarajevo, senior American officials said. A1 A Serbian leader said again that he may lift the siege. A10 CHINA JOSTLES WOMEN FORUM Chinese security officers jostled thousands of women eager to hear Hillary Rodham Clinton address an international meeting of women, but did not stop Mrs. Clinton from speaking on human rights. A8 FRANCE TARGETS NORTH AFRICANS In the seven weeks since France became the target of terrorist bombings, the police have stopped 800,000 people for security checks, most of them Muslims. A3 LUIS SWEEPS THROUGH CARIBBEAN A hurricane skipped across a necklace of resort islands, flattening houses and closing airports. At least 13 people died, 9 on St. Martin. A12 FRANCE SNIPES AT CRITICS The French Government sniped at the "hysteria" of critics of its resumption of nuclear tests in the South Pacific, gambling that damage to its image would be offset by respect for its firmness. A9 Anti-bomb, pro-freedom protesters stormed Tahiti's airport. A8 JAPANESE FIND ANTI-CULT LAWYER Police unearthed the remains of a Yokohama lawyer who disappeared six years ago and whom the police believe was killed by the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult. A15 Sawrey Journal: A storied English village draws Japanese. A4 National A16-25, A28, B11-15 EXPULSION VOTE IN THE SENATE The Senate Ethics Committee voted to recommend the expulsion of Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon, who had been accused of sexual and other misconduct. A1 No senator has been expelled since the Civil War. B12 FUHRMAN DECLINES TO TESTIFY A lively day in the O. J. Simpson trial included the refusal of Mark Fuhrman, the controversial police detective, to testify. A1 HEARINGS ON SHOOTOUT BEGIN A cabin door made for a stark opening to Senate hearings into a shootout in Idaho that has left the F.B.I. under a cloud. A1 GAY CONGRESSMAN FAULTS DOLE The only openly gay Republican in Congress denounced Senator Bob Dole, the majority leader and a Presidential candidate, for returning a contribution from a gay Republican group. A1 A CLOSE RACE IN BALTIMORE Baltimore's Mayor, once a rising star among black politicians, has fallen on hard times. A16 BOMB SUSPECT'S COUNTERATTACK Lawyers for Terry L. Nichols, one of the men charged in the Oklahoma City bombing, | NEWS SUMMARY |
787130_0 | Anti-nuclear demonstrators stormed the runway at Tahiti's international airport today and tried to set the terminal building on fire as hundreds of foreign travelers fled the frenzied scene. The demonstration, led by a Polynesian political party seeking independence from France, came a day after the French military detonated a nuclear weapon deep beneath an atoll 750 miles southeast of Tahiti. The airport clash was the first violence involving anti-nuclear demonstrators here since the French Government announced in June that it was resuming nuclear tests in the South Pacific. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries to foreign tourists at the airport or to demonstrators, although witnesses said the airport building was badly damaged when demonstrators drove a bulldozer through glass doors leading to the international departure area. Smoke could be seen rising from the building from miles away. The protesters, many of them chanting independence slogans, charged the terminal building after they were forced from the airport runway by riot policemen firing tear gas. The protesters had reached the runway across scrubland that borders the airport. The independence movement has tried to link its campaign for self-determination for the people of French Polynesia to the protest against the French tests, although many Tahitians resist the link and say they hope to remain part of France, which has subsidized the Polynesian economy for generations. Witnesses said that during the airport protest, several demonstrators managed to get past the riot police and make a dash to board a French jumbo jet that was about to leave for Los Angeles and Paris. The protesters were stopped by several police officers before they could climb the boarding steps. Tahitian labor union leaders have threatened to hold a general strike this week to protest the nuclear tests, although strike leaders have acknowledged that the strike will probably last only a day or two and that they hold out little hope of stopping the French from conducting additional tests. | French Police Fight Rioters In Tahiti |
788505_2 | subscribers, but they also enable child pornographers to trade illegal images on a public network. In contrast to the privacy of electronic mail, America Online and other popular computer services, including Compuserve Inc. and the Prodigy Services Company, routinely monitor messages posted to public spaces on their systems, including electronic discussion forums and "chat rooms." Law-enforcement officials, private individuals, ordinary subscribers and representatives of the on-line services routinely visit and monitor the activity of these public areas, especially those that cater to younger members. Typically, any member discovered posting public messages of a suggestive or abusive nature, or soliciting or offering obscene images, is kicked off the system by having the account revoked. In more serious incidents involving clearly pornographic images the network could contact law-enforcement officials. Because of its privacy, electronic mail is a more popular way to exchange pornographic material on commercial on-line services. The only way the authorities find out about violations of the guidelines is if a member contacts the on-line service or a law-enforcement agency. But the question remains, how do people who share a common interest in child pornography meet on-line in the first place? Often it is in areas of the network, "chat rooms" where two or more members can exchange typewritten messages as quickly as if they were sitting at keyboards on opposite sides of a desk. Their messages are posted publicly, for anyone to see. Using code words that signify child pornography, the two or more members then connect and arrange to exchange private messages. They drop off to chat privately, using a form of instant electronic mail, and send the images to one another's private electronic mailboxes. Occasionally they send an image to the wrong electronic address, and the surprised recipient typically notifies the authorities, or, as is increasingly the case, the soliciting member turns out to be a law-enforcement agent pretending to be a pornographer. Representatives of the on-line services said they notified law-enforcement agencies as soon as it became clear that illegal acts were occurring on the networks. All said they cooperated fully with the legal authorities in the case of subpoenas. As for solicitation of minors for sex, most cases appear to originate in chat rooms, where adults can masquerade as children, and where unsupervised children often conduct conversations with strangers. Once contact is established, the discussions typically move to private channels, the dark alleys of cyberspace. | Electronic Meeting Places Include Some Dark Alleys |
791128_2 | meeting focused far more on the significance of the research into the biology of violent behavior than it did on the research itself. There was much discussion of historical precedents for misuse of science and of the eugenics movement in the United States and elsewhere, including the showing of a movie on the subject. Scientists did present data showing that studies of identical twins indicated a heritable component of antisocial behavior, and they also talked about the role of such neurotransmitters as serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine in orchestrating violent behavior. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that allow brain cells to communicate, and the relative activity of each is thought to help account for one's peace -- or war -- of mind. But Dr. Adrienne Asch of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, the chairwoman of one panel, pointed out the difficulty of linking neurotransmitters to psychopathology. "What about corporate executives who make faulty products?" she said. "Should we examine their neurotransmitters? That could be considered a violent act as well, and it may even be worse than direct person-to-person violence, with more consequences for more people." Some of the participants complained that the meeting was muddled, while others said they had not learned anything new. Yet Dr. Martin Daly of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who takes an evolutionary perspective on the study of family violence, said he thought it was good for biologists and sociologists, camps that rarely talk to each other, to meet and learn each other's lingo. One striking feature of the meeting was its relatively monochrome nature. Many participants emphasized that blacks were the hardest hit by the national pandemic of violent crime. While blacks account for about 12 percent of the population, they constitute nearly half the people convicted of violent crimes and half the victims of such crimes. However, only a handful of blacks either spoke at the meeting or sat in the audience. The air of academic remove was accentuated by the setting of the conference at the Aspen Institute, a retreat in rural Maryland surrounded by woods and farms and rows of corn stalks swaying sweetly in the breeze. Correction: September 28, 1995, Thursday Because of an editing error, an article in Science Times on Tuesday about a conference on genetics and criminal behavior misstated the political views of Support Coalition, a self-described "psychiatric survivors liberation movement" whose members participated in a protest. It says | At Conference on Links Of Violence to Heredity, A Calm After the Storm |
791121_1 | presented by Sasha Waltz and Guests on Sunday night at La Mama as part of a North American tour. "Travelogue" borrows from the genre of dance-theater developed by Pina Bausch and her colleagues in West Germany in the 1970's and 80's. It has a similar concern for male-female relations, dramatic details that deal with everyday events, and nonlinear structure. But Ms. Waltz's generation is also more interested than Ms. Bausch in pure movement. In "Travelogue," each episode finds expression in striking and formally patterned movement. These aspects speak to Ms. Waltz's strong points. The weakness of "Travelogue" is that its episodes do not add up to any cumulative effect. Ms. Waltz's program notes credit Luis Bunuel's surrealistic "Chien Andalou" and Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" as her inspiration. Yet the inner logic of these films finds no counterpart in her work. She has, however, borrowed a cinematic sensibility in her use of speed and timing. The journey in "Travelogue" is possibly that of life, which is lived out in a symbolic kitchen designed by Thomas Schenk. The international cast leads off with Takako Suzuki from Japan, who throws an assertive stamping tantrum atop a small refrigerator. Whatever she does (usually throwing her torso and head around with stamina and abandon), she is a remarkable dancer. Dramatic shifts are signified by the coded colors of Thomas Binsert's superb lighting and by Tristan Honsinger's jagged score. In contrast with Ms. Suzuki's outburst, a solo by Nasser Martin-Gousset of France is a picture of dejection, full of dead weight as the dancer bounces on a chair and drops his head on a table. When Ms. Waltz and Charlotte Zerby from the United States enter, they complete a quartet that moves with geometric angularity and whiplash force. Ms. Waltz's choreography occasionally alternates a pure-dance passage with a dramatic vignette. But when Akos Hargitai from Hungary enters with a loaf of bread, the diving lunges by all for this loaf are dance and action combined. The most brilliant example of this fusion, presented with straightforward toughness, has Mr. Martin-Gousset seduced by Ms. Waltz in a leg-flicking milonga (or tango) while seated or lying on the table. Yet her passion cools as his is aroused. This intensity is never matched again. There was, however, a fluent female trio and a collage, silent-film style, of everyday chores, which had its moments in an uneven but inventive work. DANCE REVIEW | Two to Tango, Especially on a Kitchen Table |
791057_0 | The international women's conference held in Beijing earlier this month asked the United Nations Secretary General to appoint the organization's first high-level official for women's issues. But the choice is proving difficult, officials say, because it threatens to reopen fissures between rich and poor nations only recently bridged in Beijing. The leading contender for the job, which is expected to carry the rank of an under secretary general, is Gertrude Mongella, a former politician and diplomat from Tanzania who was secretary general of the Beijing conference. Some women's organizations, human rights groups and diplomats have begun to lobby Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali against that choice, saying Mrs. Mongella presided over a conference administration that was inefficient and too conciliatory to the Chinese. Other critics say the United Nations might be on the verge of creating another politically vulnerable office not equipped or motivated to do the assigned job in the face of resistance from member nations. Diplomats and officials from African countries and other developing nations who are pressing the Secretary General to appoint an African, or another woman outside Europe and the Americas, say Mrs. Mongella's critics are racially biased. A Western diplomat said that the country of a candidate's origin is not an issue, though there is considerable agreement that an African would be a good political appointment. The challenge, this diplomat suggested, is to find the best qualified person for job, and that this person should perhaps come from outside the United Nations system and the diplomatic world around it. Diplomats and women's organizations say that even within the system there are many other candidates from developing nations who have long experience in women's issues and rights, among them Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani physician who heads the United Nations Population Fund and ran the Cairo population conference in 1994 to almost universal praise, or Mervat Tallawy, an Egyptian diplomat, now Ambassador to Japan, who played a major part in negotiating an agreement in Beijing. | A Dispute On U.N. Post For Women |
788788_2 | individualism, in which key relevant provisions of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights are slighted, such as the obligation to provide special care to motherhood." During the conference, the Vatican found itself allied with other states that stress the primacy of religion, like Iran, Sudan and Libya. On the other side of the table was the European Union, the most aggreesively liberal on such deicate matters as sex education and sexual orientation. American delegates, sensitive to charges from Republicans that items like a child's right to privacy on health matters and a woman's right to say no to sex were "anti-family," went out of their way to describe the United Nations document they endorsed as "pro-family." Yet to many delegates, the achievements of the conference were in one favorite issue or other, irrespective of pronouncements. B. Ngeny of Kenya said she thought the conference's most positive achievement was the agreement that proposes equal inheritance among male and female heirs. "In Kenya, when the parent dies, only the boys can inherit the family property," Mrs. Ngeny said. "That is not fair and we made it clear during the discussions that women should have the same rights as men." That provision did not go far enough for Hina Jilani, from the Asian Foundation on Women, Law and Development in Pakistan, who pointed out that the wording agreed upon was that women have "equal rights to inheritance" rather than the "right to equal inheritance." "They have been trying to give with one hand and take away with the other," Ms. Jilani said. "The question is not what the Koran says. The issue is: do you want to give equal rights to women? This is not a conference about religion." She also questioned the appropriateness of allowing the Vatican to take part in a conference on women. Around the conference site in northern Beijing today, however, many women were upbeat, particularly on the relative lack of rancor in the conference's debate. "I was really impressed that the consultations and dealings were done peacefully and calmly and in an understanding manner," said Jehudith Huebner, a member of the City Council in Jerusalem. "For the first time in the history of women's conferences, when the representative from Israel spoke, sisters from my neighboring countries did not walk out." Parma Khastgir, a high court judge in India, expressed a similar sentiment. "What appealed to me the most | Women Carry Hopes As Conference Ends |
790716_3 | reach 2,000 to 3,000 tons. Jerusa de Souza Andrade, an agronomist who studies Amazon fruits for the National Institute of Research on the Amazon in Manaus, said the lack of development to support agribusiness was one of the main obstacles to a greater reliance on fruit crops by Amazon farmers. "Our main problem is that we don't have a large and regular enough supply of fruits for export," Ms. Andrade said. The camu camu tree, for instance, grows naturally along river banks and in firm soil; much of it floats by boat toward Manaus, the state capital. By the time the boats reach Manaus, there is little time to process and package the fruits. "We don't have the infrastructure to produce perishable foods," Ms. Andrade said. While planting trees cannot remedy the damage to the Amazon's ecosystem, Ms. Andrade said, much of the work now is to salvage whatever has not been lost. The state of Rondonia, roughly the size of Colorado, was virtually all rain forest before development began 25 years ago, said Renato da Costa Mello, secretary of Rondonia's environmental agency; now, only a quarter of it remains. Mr. Groenveld's institute appears to have succeeded in kindling commercial interest in the Amazon's rich array of fruits, which may bring modern solutions to puzzles of harvesting and transportation. Congelado, a small Brazilian company specializing in frozen dinners, recently purchased the institute's factory for $180,000, with plans to invest some $1.2 million on equipment to sterilize and vacuum-pack the fruit pulp -- a process that will allow the fruits to be transported over greater distances and extend their shelf life from months to years. Valdecir Tecchio, president of Congelado, said the company would start by selling the pulp among countries of the Mercosur trade bloc -- Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay -- to Bolivia, and later to the United States and Europe. Mr. Tecchio said his company expected the fruits would be popular in ice creams, deserts, jams and jellies. "You know where it'll have a really great use?" he asked over a glass of cupuacu at a Porto Velho hotel. "To soften the taste of medicine, because the fruits are very powerful." In Brazil, he said, the fruits will probably be advertised for their taste or nutritional value. In the United States and Europe, the company might pitch them based on their role in saving the Amazon rain forest. | Hope for Amazon Rain Forest: New Fruit |
790730_1 | to say Germany wished the Italian economy well. He avoided pointing out, as Mr. Waigel had apparently done in a closed session of the German Parliament, that it was difficult to see how Italy could meet the criteria laid down by the Treaty on Monetary and Political Union, which European leaders agreed to in the Dutch city of Maastricht nearly four years ago. Some European economists even have doubts now about whether France, which said this week that it would cut spending to get its budget deficit down to 3.55 percent of gross national product next year, could make the required limit -- 3 percent by 1999 at the latest. Total national debt is supposed to be no more than 60 percent of gross national product; France is below this limit, but Italy's debt is far above it, at 120 percent. "The criteria are more important than the timetable," Mr. Kohl said after the talks. German officials say that they do not expect Italy or Britain to be part of a common currency, but that there is no way Germany will go ahead without France. Things were no easier on the political side of the discussions here. Prime Minister Poul Nyrut Rasmussen of Denmark said today that he had told Mr. Chirac that there was widespread popular dissatisfaction in Europe with the way France had decided unilaterally to conduct 8 to 10 underground nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific before signing a comprehensive test ban treaty next year. The first French test took place beneath Mururoa Atoll early this month. Jacques Santer, president of the European Union Executive Commission in Brussels, said all 15 leaders here agreed that the treaty next year should ban all further explosions, no matter how small. Mr. Chirac and President Clinton both agreed to that position last month. The European leaders spent relatively little time discussing the war in the former Yugoslavia, though that was a centerpiece of the common foreign policy European leaders aspired to when they signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1991. A Balkan settlement is now being left largely to the diplomatic efforts led by the United States. But the European leaders agreed that any settlement should be guaranteed not only by the NATO peacekeeping force that the Clinton Administration insists on as a condition for American participation, but also by soldiers from Russia and non-NATO Islamic countries, Mr. Chirac said. | Amid Strains, European Chiefs Reaffirm Common-Currency Goal |
790766_2 | city life is on view at close range. Dozens of low-lying canal boats that transport goods to Shanghai from inland areas are moored against the river bank on any given day, and the families who live aboard let their children play on the flat decks while parents hang laundry to dry on "People who live on these boats wash their hands in it now," said Mr. Yao of the river. "A year ago, they wouldn't even do that." If the water looks better than it used to, it isn't exactly what anyone would call clean. One recent morning, watermelon rind, plastic sandals, and discarded white Kentucky Fried Chicken cups could be seen drifting downstream on the gray water. "Suzhou Creek is still our worst waterway," said Gu Youzhi, an engineer who works on the cleanup project. "It's a lot better, but there is still a long way to go." The cleanup effort actually began in 1988, with the construction of a series of pipelines to discharge human and industrial waste into the city's huge sewage treatment system. It was done with the aid of a $145 million loan from the World Bank and completed just over a year ago. In their eagerness to hail the success of the cleanup, city officials proclaimed their ambition to make the Suzhou Creek as lovely an attraction as the Seine in Paris. Mr. Gu is a little more realistic, saying the river's cleanup is less than half complete and will require more infrastructure. Sixty percent of the waste is industrial, he said, while the rest comes from spill that feeds into the river from city streets each time a hard rain falls, and from the refuse chucked over the side of boats. "You see these boats packed against the river bank?" asked Xu Yongcai, who operates one of the garbage collection boats that lift floating refuse into a small boat. "They'll stay for a few days, and when they pull out, all this garbage will be left behind." Protecting the environment is still a new idea in China, Mr. Yao pointed out, and teaching ordinary people something as simple as throwing garbage into a refuse bin rather than directly into the river will doubtless take time. "People are only starting to have this idea of cleaning up the environment around them," he said. "At least the government is doing something about it." CORRESPONDENT'S REPORT | Something New in China: Environmental Cleanup |
786777_4 | that it will again take up the issue that has sundered the national politics of many nations of the world: the reproductive rights of women and the issue of abortion. The forum met last in Nairobi in 1985. In part, this meeting appears doomed to debate again policy statements and recommendations that were reached last year at the United Nations conference on population in Cairo, which formed what at the time seemed a strong international consensus that the most effective strategy for limiting population was providing women better access to education and reproductive health care, including contraception and safe abortion. Thus armed, or empowered, many women chose to plan smaller families to balance the number of children against family resources, the conference found. "For those of us in this field," said Dr. Fred Sai of Ghana, the president of the International Planned Parenthood Association, "we have learned the importance of teaching the balance of human numbers with human resources and human aspirations." The debate will again pit the delegations of many national governments against the Vatican and an assortment of Islamic and conservative governments. In the platform for action, much of the language on "reproductive rights" has been placed in brackets, indicating that one or more governments have registered an objection. The platform carries no force of law, but women's advocates in many nations can invoke its influence in making arguments to legislatures to enact laws protecting women's rights. A coalition of women's groups is circulating a petition calling on the United Nations to remove the Vatican's special status as the only religious organization with permanent observer rights in the body. But the Vatican and other anti-abortion forces are expected to make a strong showing here. In a letter to Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, a former Congresswoman and deputy chairwoman of the 45-member United States delegation, the president of the American Life League, Judie Brown, said, "On behalf of the 300,000 families supporting the work of the American Life League, I want to express my outrage at the insidious, deceptive manner in which the U.S. delegation" to the conference "continues to promote abortion, contraception and population control, all under the guise of human rights." Mrs. Margolies-Mezvinsky was equally adamant. "The majority of nations have made it perfectly clear that they are not going to backslide and lose ground from Cairo," she said. Maps show site of the Great Hall of the People. | Hillary Clinton in Beijing as Women's Conference Opens |
786773_1 | no assurance that Mr. Adams would accept the proposals or the concessions. Sir Patrick met Mr. Adams in Belfast this afternoon after a morning meeting in Dublin with Mr. Spring. Mr. Spring and Sir Patrick agreed that their meeting had been "very good" but that some issues, which they did not specify, remained to be resolved. Mr. Adams said he was disappointed at Sir Patrick's responses to Sinn Fein proposals, which he did not specify, but said he hoped Sir Patrick would think them over. In recent days ranking Irish officials have given an outline of what the Prime Ministers hope to announce, contingent on some kind of advance approval by Mr. Adams. First, they are preparing to propose an international commission to deal with the issue of disarmament of the I.R.A. Disarmament has been the issue that has blocked the peace effort for several months. Sinn Fein has insisted that the I.R.A. cannot be persuaded to surrender a single weapon, until Sinn Fein is invited to all-party peace talks with the two Governments and Protestant Unionist leaders who oppose the ultimate goal of the Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. of a united Ireland free of British control. Dublin officials say the Irish and British are ready to accept from Sinn Fein a "political commitment" that the I.R.A. has abandoned forever its campaign of violence. Sir Patrick, however, seemed to be sticking close to the tougher position today. When asked if a political commitment by Sinn Fein and I.R.A to abandon violence permanently would be "enough" to qualify Sinn Fein for all-party talks, he said, "The commitment evidenced by a start being made" toward disarmament, "is certainly enough." But Mr. Adams has insisted that Sinn Fein will not consider a policy change unless the British and Irish announce a date for the all-party talks. And he has said that he is wary of a disarmament commission that might be mandated to force disarmament before overall settlement is reached at an all-party negotiations. Those familiar with Sinn Fein thinking say the party might accept a commission that does not set a deadline for disarmament, where, in effect, the issue can be "parked" while peace talks continue. Irish officials said that the two Governments had tentatively decided to announce the start of all-party talks in November, but without setting a date. That was one of the issues under discussion today, officials said. | British, Irish and Pro-I.R.A. Leaders Discuss Ulster Peace Effort |
786074_0 | To the Editor: Re "The Fantasy Coup," Bob Herbert's Aug. 14 column on Nigeria: Gen. Sani Abacha's Government came to office to restore order at the request of Chief Moshood K. O. Abiola and other politicians who were worried by the turmoil of the June 12, 1993, presidential election. After achieving this objective, the Government renewed the democratization process, resulting in the National Constitutional Conference, the drafting of a new Constitution and the lifting of the ban on political activities. The country is now calm awaiting announcement by the head of state on Oct. 1 of a program that will lead to elected government. The political atmosphere belies the story of a country about to disintegrate. The economic problems highlighted by Mr. Herbert are mainly a result of Nigeria's high population growth rate. However, through tight fiscal policies General Abacha's Government has contained runaway inflation, stabilized the local currency and achieved a $382 million budget surplus in the first quarter of 1995. The measures taken by the Government against coup plotters are designed to maintain this stable situation and to prevent bloodshed. The decision to arrest Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and Maj. Gen. Shehu Musa Yaradua was painful to General Abacha because he respects both men. Among the coup plotters are many former aides who worked with him. However, in making final decisions on the current trial, General Abacha, a humane man, will take into account appeals for clemency and the overall interest of Nigeria. It is unfair to blame Nigerians alone for distributing drugs, when Nigeria neither produces nor processes such drugs. Because of the effective antidrug measures taken by General Abacha's Government, drug trafficking through Nigeria has been substantially reduced. ZUBAIR M. KAZAURE Ambassador of Nigeria Washington, Aug. 21, 1995 | Nigeria Had to Act Against Coup Plotters |
786106_0 | International 2-4 BALKAN ENEMIES TO MEET The foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federation agreed to meet in Geneva next week for the first direct meeting of all parties to the war in more than two years. 1 For the first time in 50 years, German planes risked combat. 2 CHINA WARNED ON MEDDLING The intrusiveness of Chinese security services threatened to overshadow the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and tarnish the image of the United Nations as the meeting's sponsor. 1 FRANCE STRIKES BACK IN PACIFIC The French military struck back at its principal adversary in the South Pacific: a flotilla of ships protesting the resumption of French nuclear tests at a tiny Polynesian atoll. 1 JAPAN PREPARES FOR NEXT QUAKE The destruction of Kobe in January gave the usually routine earthquake drill in Japan a special intensity, and the result was good theater if not good practice. 3 LIBERIA STEPS TOWARD DEMOCRACY Liberia's three principal militia leaders were formally seated on a new six-member Council of State today whose mandate is to govern the country and lead it to democratic elections in the coming year. 4 Swakopmund Journal: Strudel in the Namibian desert. 4 National 5-8 RIVERS' CLEANUP IS THREATENED Some rivers near Birmingham, Ala., are awash in pollution from poor sewage systems. Now, an agreement to clean them is threatened by Congressional action. 1 DOLE'S CONTRIBUTORS Senator Bob Dole's refusal of a gay group's donation has put the spotlight on other sources of his campaign's money, like executives of some entertainment companies he has criticized. 1 A DIFFERENT SORT OF PAPER CHASE Municipalities are going after a new kind of thief, one who pilfers newspapers left on the curb for recycling, depriving city treasuries of millions of dollars. 1 MORE TENSION AT SIMPSON TRIAL Smarting from a restrictive ruling on racially charged remarks by Detective Mark Fuhrman, lawyers for O. J. Simpson denounced the judge's decision and made more allegations against the detective. 5 TROUBLE IN LABOR'S CAPITAL In Detroit on Labor Day, James P. Hoffa plans to announce his candidacy for the teamsters' presidency. But the city hardly offers a promising picture of labor strength. 5 REMEMBERING A WORLD AT WAR President Clinton paid tribute to American veterans of World War II on the anniversary of Japan's formal surrender. 7 A convicted Congressman said he would resign in October. 5 Recasting | NEWS SUMMARY |
787297_0 | Hundreds of anti-French Tahitian demonstrators rampaged overnight through the streets of Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, setting parts of the city on fire after gutting the main passenger terminal at Tahiti's international airport. The melee ended years of peaceful protests by French Polynesians against nuclear testing. The riots began on Wednesday, a day after France conducted the first of a planned series of nuclear tests at Mururoa, a Polynesian atoll 750 miles southeast of Tahiti. More than 20 people were injured in battles between Polynesian demonstrators and the French riot police, with thousands of frightened foreign tourists stranded in hotels not far from the worst of the rioting. Several shops and French Government offices in Papeete had been reduced to smoldering rubble by the time calm was restored early this morning by hundreds of French police and soldiers, including a newly deployed platoon of more than 30 Foreign Legionnaires flown here overnight from Mururoa. The antinuclear furor has given new visibility to leaders of the Polynesian independence movement, who organized the initial antinuclear protests at the airport, although much of the later mayhem in downtown Papeete was attributed to gangs of teen-age youths who seemed more swept up in the frenzy of the moment than in the cause of independence. The leader of the independence movement, Oscar Temaru, insisted that the rioting proved that generations of French colonialism in these legendary Pacific islands were coming to an end. "Since the announcement of nuclear testing in June, the feelings of humiliation and anger have been growing in the population," he said. "The violence comes from the French state for using the atoll of Mururoa for nuclear testing and endangering and humiliating our population." The independence movement has been growing in Polynesia for several years under the leadership of Mr. Temaru. But in local elections, the separatists have never come close to taking power. In elections last year, Mr. Temaru's party took about 15 percent of the vote, and the territory's voters overwhelmingly backed President Jacques Chirac in last May's French presidential election even though his election carried the threat of new nuclear tests. Many Polynesians say that while they oppose French nuclear testing, they still want the island to remain a part of France, which has provided the 200,000 people of French Polynesia with a standard of living that is the envy of many people elsewhere in the Pacific. While | Tahiti's Antinuclear Protests Turn Violent |
791651_0 | To the Editor: The Chinese Government tried unsuccessfully to bully the New York Film Festival this week (Arts pages, Sept. 27). Two films on China are scheduled: "Shanghai Triad" by the director Zhang Yimou is the opening night film Friday, and "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," an American documentary on the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Insulted by the second, Beijing "asked" the festival to withdraw the documentary. Having failed in that, Beijing then "asked" Mr. Zhang not to attend his premiere in New York. "Shanghai Triad" is the first film from China to open the film festival. Most countries would understand that honor, but Beijing's confusion of art and politics transcends frontiers. It is proving again that free expression is the greatest threat for repressive governments. Although we regret that Zhang Yimou will not be coming to New York, we celebrate the festival's rejection of China's attempt at censorship. JONATHAN DEMME NORA EPHRON , LOUIS MALLE ALAN PAKULA, JOHN SAYLES JOAN M. SILVER, OLIVER STONE New York, Sept. 28, 1995 The writers are members of Film Watch, part of Human Rights Watch. | Beijing, Trying to Bully Film Festival, Misjudges |
791690_1 | public opinion polls. Only 37 percent of those asked said they were satisfied with his performance now, compared with 63 percent after he took office in May, according to a survey this week by the French Public Opinion Institute. Mr. Juppe is angrily on the defensive. This week, the object of his ire was an anti-corruption czar named in 1993 after a wave of corruption cases involving all the main French parties. The official, Bernard Challe, head of the Central Service for the Prevention of Corruption, had had the temerity to reply to 14 opposition Socialists who, naming no names, asked his office in July whether a deputy mayor who asked the city authorities to cut the rent for his son could be prosecuted for breaking the law. Indeed he could, for unlawful interference, Mr. Challe replied in a formal opinion that was distributed to the opposition figures on Monday. Last week Mr. Juppe's Justice Minister, Jacques Toubon, met with Mr. Challe and announced that the former prosecutor had submitted his resignation. Not so, retorted Mr. Challe, who said he would resign only after his report was made public. Extensive excerpts appeared in Le Monde on Monday. Rallying to the Prime Minister's defense this week, two law professors, Roland Drago and Andre Decocq, rolled out legal texts to prove that opposition figures had no right to ask the anti-corruption office for an opinion. Only the judicial authorities could do that, the professors argued, but Government prosecutors insist that there is nothing to prosecute because Mr. Juppe had not used his influence for personal gain. "The opinion is null and void," Mr. Toubon said. Mr. Juppe, who was elected Mayor of Bordeaux last spring, said, "Everybody knows that this is just a little political conspiracy." But opposition figures are not the only ones who would like to see the cocky Prime Minister, who just turned 50, get a comeuppance. If he does, his main rival in Mr. Chirac's neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic Party, Philippe Seguin, the president of the National Assembly, would be likely to succeed him. Mr. Seguin has had a high profile recently, defending Mr. Chirac's foreign policy positions and his decision to resume French nuclear testing in the Pacific this month, while Mr. Juppe, who served as Foreign Minister from 1993 until this May, has been struggling with the impossible task of simultaneously creating Government employment programs | French Premier Sees His Approval Rating Sink |
791566_1 | return to his parish in Yajalon, Chiapas, to pick up his personal belongings. Father Riebe was abruptly detained and expelled in June on charges that, as a foreigner living in Mexico, he had violated the law by becoming involved in the country's politics. Officials secretly tape recorded sermons in which Father Riebe and two other foreign priests in Chiapas, who also were expelled, reputedly told their congregations -- mostly Indian peasants -- that they can reach the kingdom of God by changing the corrupt system of government under which they live. "What I would say at church," Father Riebe said in a telephone interview from the United States, "is that when particular instances of corruption showed themselves in town, the local folks should look at the instances of injustice and consider them as incentives to make life better. "In what I would consider building up the kingdom of God," he added, "there never was any talk of overthrowing legitimate authority." The situation is delicate because the four priests are all assigned to the Roman Catholic diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, which is led by Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, the mediator in the talks between the Government and the rebels. The archdiocese, mostly through officials other than Bishop Ruiz, has strongly protested what it says are harassment against the local clergy, suggesting that the actions against them are barely disguised attacks on Bishop Ruiz, whose sympathies for the rebel cause are public and well known. The local church-state conflicts come against a national backdrop of sparring between the Catholic church and the political establishment. It was not until 1991 that the Mexican Government re-established relations with the Vatican after 70 years of estrangement. Last week, a prominent Mexican legislator who belongs to the governing Insitutional Revolutionary Party, Jorge Meade Ocaranza, accused the clergy of "launching an offensive against the PRI by sending out concealed political messages in their homilies." Mr. Meade Ocaranza said he was referring to sermons both by Catholic priests and Protestant ministers encouraging Mexicans to vote against the PRI in recent state elections. Then the national president of the PRI, Santiago Onate Laborde, politely told the ecclesiastical establishment to mind its own business. "We are a political party and we have our own goals and responsibilities," Mr. Onate told reporters. "If we do not cross that line, and if the Catholic Church does not meddle in | Rising Church-State Tensions Threaten Mexico Talks |
790279_0 | Almost a quarter century after some major Protestant denominations began ordaining women as clergy members, the presence of a woman serving as a pastor of a Protestant church has become progressively less remarkable. Yet barriers to women in the clergy remain. Some are firmly fixed, some more symbolic. For the latter, one could look to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose best-known founder was a woman, Ellen White. The denomination, best known for its extensive hospital system and its Saturday worship, allows seminary-trained women to do just about everything one would expect of a minister: they can baptize, perform marriage and burial ceremonies and serve as pastors. But they cannot be ordained. In Adventist tradition, only men can take part in the spiritually significant ceremony in which a minister kneels in the front of the church, while other ministers lay their hands on his head and shoulders, thereby symbolically endowing him with his authority. Today, the second-largest Adventist congregation in the country will challenge that rule. Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church in Takoma Park, Md., a congregation of more than 3,000 members, will hold an ordination service for three women, a ceremony whose organizers say will be otherwise no different from the ones held for men. "I do think it's a historic event for the church," said Kendra Haloviak, assistant professor of religion at Columbia Union College, a church-affiliated institution in Takoma Park. Historic, too, for her, as she is one of the three women who will take part. Ms. Haloviak, a sixth-generation Adventist who traces her family's religious roots to the denomination's 1863 founding, added: "I don't know if there are words that can adequately express how thrilled I am." The Sligo Church decided to perform the ceremony in direct response to a closely watched vote by delegates to the Seventh-day Adventists' World Congress on July 5, who solidly rejected a move to allow women's ordination. Although the Seventh-day Adventist Church was founded in the United States in 1863, its growth overseas in this century has far outstripped membership in this country. Worldwide, there are more than 8 million Seventh-day Adventists: Fewer than 10 percent of that number live in the United States and Canada, the nations that make up the worldwide church's North America Division. At the World Congress, held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, officials of the North America Division asked that decisions on whether to ordain women be left | Religion Journal; A Church Breaks Ranks on Role of Women Ministers |
788010_0 | The failure of the British and Irish Governments to hold a top-level meeting last week is the strongest indication yet that the peace effort in Northern Ireland is at a dangerous low point. Whether the effort grinds to a halt or picks up again after a summer of deadlock and frayed nerves depends upon a willingness to compromise on the part of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, and the British Government, or both. But each side claims to be locked in on what it insists is a matter of principle, and each is looking to the other to give way. The issue dividing them is the British Government's insistence that the I.R.A. begin disarming before talks can begin with Sinn Fein and other political parties on the province's future. Sinn Fein, which got peace efforts rolling with the I.R.A.'s cease-fire a year ago, asserts that all-party political talks should start first. It is backward thinking, it says, to expect weapons to be surrendered or taken out of operation before -- instead of after -- some sort of overall accord. British officials, on the other hand, say it is unfair to expect negotiators to sit across from Sinn Fein representatives with "weapons under the table." By this they mean that the threat of renewed violence would give Sinn Fein an unbeatable hand. Protestant Unionists, who want to keep Northern Ireland British, would not stand for it, they argue. The third protagonist, the Irish Government, is a go-between. But on the critical issue of the timing of the discussion about arms, it tends to lean toward the Sinn Fein position. Some critics said it was also responding to suggestions from Ireland's opposition party, Fianna Fail, that it was not doing enough to advance peace moves. The Dublin Government, though historically antagonistic to Sinn Fein within Ireland itself, has tended to work the Sinn Fein corner in the dynamic of the peace efforts in the North in the same way that the British Government has worked the Unionist corner. Irish officials and others say they believe that any handing over or "decommissioning" of weapons would be construed as surrender by I.R.A. militants and could spark a mutiny within the ranks. So if Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, were to go along with an arrangement that put disarmament ahead of a political settlement, he would not last long, | Ulster Danger Point; Dublin Cancels Key Meeting With London Over British Demand That I.R.A. Disarm |
788080_0 | The peace process in Ireland has entered a dangerous stage. Ten days ago, with a summit meeting planned between the Irish and British Prime Ministers, progress seemed possible. The two Governments had arrived at a draft statement that did not mention the irksome issue of disarming the Irish Republican Army, the main obstacle to the all-party talks that could cement the shaky yearlong peace. But it quickly became clear the issue was still raw and unresolved. The Irish Government asserted that an unequivocal commitment by the I.R.A. not to resort to violence would be acceptable. The British Government appeared divided, with its Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, saying some weapons would have to be surrendered before all-party talks could begin, and another senior official, Michael Ancram, saying the British Government had "never looked for the surrender of arms." Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, interpreted the contradictory signals as a deliberate smokescreen aimed at creating a rift between the republicans and the Irish Government. Distrust prevailed, and the meeting, planned for last Wednesday, between the Irish Prime Minister, John Bruton, and British Prime Minister, John Major, was called off. There is intransigence on both sides. The British say they cannot back down on the arms issue without losing the support of Protestant loyalists who want Northern Ireland to remain British. Mr. Major relies on the votes of unionists in Parliament. Mr. Adams says any surrender of arms -- given that it was an I.R.A. initiative to forswear violence in the first place -- would be unacceptable to the hard men in the I.R.A. Along with other Sinn Fein leaders, he believes the British are hiding their own inflexibility behind the unionists' fears. In another worrisome development, the Ulster Unionist Party elected a new leader on Friday who has not seemed inclined to compromise. The winner, David Trimble, is a member of the British Parliament. He defended the unionists who wanted to march through Catholic neighborhoods this summer, exacerbating tensions between the two communities. Both the Irish and British Governments need to reach out to Mr. Trimble and bring him into the peace process. Mr. Adams has now offered to meet with him. A proposal to delegate the issue of disarming to an international commission, which would allow both sides to save face, still seems the best solution. But both sides must approach it with a renewed commitment. The British | Ireland: Once More to the Brink |
788007_0 | Asserting a woman's right to make sexual decisions free of coercion or violence, delegates to an international conference here agreed tonight to declare for the first time in a United Nations document that a woman has the right to say no. With the Vatican acquiescing, a consensus of delegates from nations on every continent attending the Fourth World Conference on Women made what many considered to be their greatest stride yet, agreeing to expand the definition of human rights in their final document. The agreement is expected to be approved in some form later this week. "This is a major step forward in defining human rights," said Sally Ethelston, a spokeswoman for Population Action International, a group lobbying the conference. "It is a recognition that a woman is not just a reproductive machine, but is a sexual being with rights." While the document is nonbinding, it is influential. Although there is a huge gap between reality and what is put on paper at a conference, the draft is likely to have both a political and social impact on the lives of women. For women who live in countries where husbands can legally force a wife to have sex even, for example, when a husband is infected with the virus that causes AIDS, the agreement can be used as a social and legal tool to ensure greater protection for women, advocates said. For women in nations where rape within marriage is already considered a crime, the agreement may also serve to improve understanding among women that they can have greater control over whether, when and with whom they have sex. The agreement tonight also appeared to eliminate a major element in a simmering dispute between delegates from the Vatican, who had opposed the wording, and from the European Union, who pushed for more progressive terminology. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a spokesman for the Vatican, said that Roman Catholic leaders may still voice opposition to the wording on sexual rights, but had decided not to hinder its drafting. "We are not going to block the deliberations," Dr. Navarro-Valls said. "But at the appropriate moment, we will make our comment." He said he was not prepared to elaborate on why the Vatican is taking this position now. The Vatican has taken a lower-key approach to contentious issues at the conference than it did at a United Nations conference on population last year in Cairo, several | WOMEN'S MEETING AGREES ON RIGHT TO SAY NO TO SEX |
788711_1 | as a template for national policies and legislation. After a series of key compromises on language relating to sexual rights and cultural and religious differences, delegates from 185 countries debated final sticking points until 4:45 A.M. "We have a platform," said Patricia B. Licuanan, chairwoman of the final drafting meeting, which is to present the document later today. "I promised we would be out of here before sunrise and I kept my promise," she said. Chief among the final obstacles to consensus was whether "sexual orientation" should be included in the antidiscrimination clauses of the document. But this language was jettisoned at 4:15 A.M. over the objection of more than 30 countries, including South Africa, whose delegation chief, Dr. Nkhosasna Zuna said, "We shall promise ourselves and future generations that we shall not discriminate against anyone ever again." The United States and Israel also spoke in favor of including sexual orientation. In an era of tight domestic budgets in many countries, the conference failed to win sizable financial commitments from governments to pay for new programs for women, but it managed to elicit a large number of pledges to redirect national budgets. "There is not much new money around," said Msgr. Diarmuid Martin, a Vatican representative here, "but the benefit of these conferences is that they focus the attention of everyone on how money ought to be spent and how it can be refocused." India promised to raise the level of its investment in education with a focus on women and girls. Britain pledged to raise its child-care expenditures 20 percent. The United States is setting up a White House Council on Women and will step up attacks on domestic violence. The conference ground to its conclusion with far less rancor than had been expected on the sensitive issues of contraception and abortion. Thomas H. Kean, former Governor of New Jersey and the most prominent Republican on the 45-member delegation, said: "This is a document that guarantees the same rights for women that have long been enjoyed by men. I don't see why anyone would want to oppose it." This conference on women, which follows meetings that began in Mexico City in 1975, was suffused with a sense of urgency by the rise of the number of women in poverty and the systemic rape and violence directed at women in the "ethnic cleansing" campaigns in the former Yugoslavia and in | FORUM ON WOMEN AGREES ON GOALS |
788663_0 | To the Editor: Re Henry Laurence's Sept. 9 letter, stating that the Irish Republican movement, not the British Government, is throwing a monkey wrench into the talks process: A mountain of evidence -- the yearlong Irish Republican Army cease-fire in the first place -- suggests that Mr. Laurence is wrong. In a sobering speech meant to register with opinion leaders in the international community, the Irish Foreign Minister, Dick Spring, has warned about the peril to the peace process if there is further delay. His alarm is shared by John Hume, the leader of moderate nationalism in Northern Ireland. Former Prime Minister Albert Reynolds has pointed out that it is not Irish republicans who keep introducing preconditions. Let us hope we do not now see the British Government try to hide behind the emergence of the intransigent, new Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble. Moments after selection as party leader, Mr. Trimble sought to move the goal posts, yet again. He declared that even full I.R.A. weapons decommissioning might not be enough to bring his party to the table. Meanwhile, at every turn, Sinn Fein leaders appeal for setting a date for all-party talks that can bring all-sided disarmament and a peaceful, more just, agreed Ireland. It is clear to American public opinion who is being reasonable and who is not. It is growing clear, too, that President Clinton, due to arrive in Ireland in November, and who has played such a constructive role in the Irish peace process, may again have to put to British leaders the self-evident case for early, all-party political talks. JOSEPH JAMISON Bayside, Queens, Sept. 10, 1995 The writer was part of an American group that met privately with Sinn Fein leaders in Belfast in the months preceding the I.R.A. cease-fire. | Don't Blame I.R.A. for Stalling Talks |
791289_0 | Trying to recoup some of the losses it suffered in this year's austerity budget, the City University board will vote today on a request for $94.6 million more in state aid. The money would not be used to restore academic programs, but to help replace senior faculty members and to expand support programs for students. The request calls for an increase in state aid to $717.3 million next academic year from $622.7 million this year. The university is also asking for $14.7 million more from the city. The budget request assumes that annual tuition, which rose this year by $750 for students at the system's 12 four-year colleges and by $400 for students at the 6 community colleges, will not rise again next year. CUNY officials have asked for money to hire 98 professors at the senior colleges and 60 professors at the community colleges. Another major request is for increases in student services, to reflect the increasing diversity of the students. Officials are asking for $4.5 million for a language immersion center and English-as-a-second-language programs. Now, 47 percent of students speak a native language other than English, and 20 percent of the current freshman class needs English-as-a-second-language classes, according to tests administered to all incoming students. The university is also asking $1.5 million for child care. Officials say there are long waiting lists for the child care centers on most campuses, so they want to expand those and open new programs at York College and the Graduate School. The budget document also lists steps CUNY is taking to save money, because state budget officials have said they face a $2.7 billion deficit. The university system took a $100 million cut in the spring. Among the money-saving plans are the consolidations and cancellations of academic programs. Forty-four programs at senior colleges closed this year, and 12 more are scheduled to close. Twenty-two other programs have been cut off to new students. Those already enrolled will be able to finish their degrees; then university officials will decide on the fate of the programs. Officials also estimate that they will save $2 million a year by limiting remedial classes. Next year, students will not be able to enroll in a four-year college unless they can finish remedial work in the first year. Remedial courses will be allowed to be taken no more than twice. The university is seeking to hire more senior | CUNY Board to Vote on Plea for $94.6 Million Aid Increase |
791271_5 | single day this month, four giant food companies -- Conagra, Nabisco, Kraft Foods and Hershey Foods -- introduced so-called healthy or good-for-you products in the mushrooming reduced-fat category. Beyond developing their own products, many of the food giants are seizing the opportunity to jump into the reduced-fat business through acquisitions. Last November the Campbell Soup Company paid $1.2 billion to buy Pace Foods, the leading maker of fat-free Mexican sauces. Early this year, Grand Metropolitan P.L.C. bought Pet Inc. and its Old El Paso line of salsas and low-fat soups for $2.6 billion. Some food rivals are even forging alliances in the low-fat field. Conagra, whose Healthy Choice line has grown from its initial offering of a few frozen dinners in 1988 to more than 300 products, with annual sales of $1.3 billion, is teaming up with Nabisco. They plan to create a new roster of cookies, crackers and snacks, to be marketed by Nabisco under the Healthy Choice logo. In licensing the Healthy Choice name, Nabisco, owned by the RJR Nabisco Holdings Company, will be competing with its own Snackwell's line. The Hershey Foods Corporation introduced a low-fat chocolate-chip baking product on the day of the Conagra-Nabisco announcement. Oscar Mayer Foods, the $2.3 billion packaged-meat division of the Philip Morris Companies' Kraft Foods unit, introduced what it said were the first fat-free sliced ham products for the mass market, joining the company's no-fat hot dogs and cold cuts. The food giants will keep rolling out low-fat offerings. Caught napping, Campbell's Pepperidge Farm bakery business, while already offering some products with reduced fat, now plans to sell its first fat-free cookies and brownies in October -- two years behind Snackwell's. As for Snackwell's, it has gone from nothing just two years ago to a brand that is expected to generate $500 million in sales this year. Ray Verdon, Nabisco's president, said that low- and no-fat products contributed 32 percent of Nabisco's sales last year. "But we can't stand still," he added. "We think Healthy Choice will be the reason the category grows in 1996 and 1997." Meanwhile, Pepsico's Frito-Lay is investing $225 million in a drive to make low-fat products contribute one-third of its projected $6 billion in sales in the salty snack category by 1998, up from 15 percent of $5 billion today. In the second quarter, Frito-Lay's reduced-fat products, ranging from Baked Tostitos tortilla chips to Rold Gold | Low-Fat Food: Feeding Frenzy For Marketers |
786985_0 | A meeting scheduled for Wednesday between Prime Ministers John Major of Britain and John Bruton of Ireland was postponed today because of differences over how to deal with the disarmament of the Irish Republican Army and when to start all-party peace talks that would include Sinn Fein, the I.R.A. political wing. Officials in Dublin said the postponement came after two days of urgent effort, including three telephone conversations between Mr. Major and Mr. Bruton, to iron out the differences in their proposals. The meeting, which was to be held at Mr. Major's country home, was to deal with the question of I.R.A. disarmament, which has blocked progress in the peace effort for months. There was no immediate statement on a new date for the meeting. But Irish officials said Mr. Bruton might delay or curtail his scheduled visit to Canada, which was to begin on Saturday, in order to meet with Mr. Major. Neither the Irish nor British Governments, nor Sinn Fein, made statements on how serious a setback for the peace effort the postponement might be. But the delay raised fears that restless units of the I.R.A. might resume their campaign of violence. Such fears were stirred after a man was shot and killed this morning in Belfast, reportedly by the I.R.A. But British police and Sinn Fein officials were quick to agree that the incident was a settling of accounts between drug dealers, and as such should not be considered a violation of the cease-fire the I.R.A. called just over a year ago. The differences were over setting a target date for all-party talks that would include Sinn Fein and over British insistence that the I.R.A. start disarming before Sinn Fein is invited to such talks. The two Governments have agreed to establish an international commission to deal with disarmament of the I.R.A. arsenal, but they differ over whether the commission is to be a forum for discussion of the problem, as the Irish prefer, or whether it is intended, as Britain wants, to set methods and deadlines for disarmament. The Irish approach is said to reflect the view of Sinn Fein, which might agree to a commission where the disarmament issue can be "parked" while full-fledged negotiations proceed. Britain wants the commission to deal with the specifics of the actual surrender of arms. The Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams, has said he cannot persuade the I.R.A. to | Snags Postpone Peace Talks Between Irish and British Premiers |
786982_0 | France Begins Nuclear Tests In a long-awaited and widely condemned action, France detonated a nuclear device beneath a remote Pacific atoll today. Page A3. Big Bank Merger in Atlanta Nationsbank, already the largest in Georgia, plans to acquire Bank South of Atlanta for stock worth $1.6 billion and to cut 2,000 jobs. Page D1. Whitewater Case Dismissed A judge quashed an indictment against Gov. Jim Guy Tucker of Arkansas, saying the Whitewater prosecutor had gone too far. Page A20 | INSIDE |
786906_0 | International A3-15 NATO RESUMES BOMBING SERBS NATO resumed its bombardment of the Bosnian Serbs after a four-day pause for negotiations failed to achieve the withdrawal of artillery from around Sarajevo. A1 Serbs sought refuge from latest NATO strikes. A12 FIRST LADY SPEAKS IN CHINA At an international women's conference, Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary on Chinese soil. A1 WOMEN'S LIVES FOR SALE For many Chinese women, provincial labor markets are the first step on a journey that begins with the promise of a job and ends in a life of domestic slavery. A1 FRANCE CONDUCTS NUCLEAR TEST France detonated a nuclear device in the South Pacific, the first of a planned series of nuclear tests condemned by foreign governments and environmental groups. A3 HURRICANE HITS CARIBBEAN The 140-m.p.h. winds of Hurricane Luis tore off roofs and snapped telephone lines in Antigua and other eastern Caribbean islands before veering to the north. A3 Radio Marti was again the center of a Congressional dispute. A8 Mexican villagers demonstrated against a development project. A9 France tightened its borders to combat a wave of bombings. A14 British and Irish leaders postponed a meeting. A15 Kyoto Journal: The Japanese mob is truly sorry. A4 National A16-22, D20 NEW CHRYSLER BATTLE SEEN Bolstering his effort to gain control of Chrysler, Kirk Kerkorian has hired the auto maker's former chief financial officer. A1 FIGHT OVER FLIGHT SUBSIDIES Montana is the nation's largest user of commercial air services and thus it is bound to be the largest loser if Congressional budget-cutters succeed in eliminating a little-known program that such services. A1 SIMPSON JURY HEARS OF FUHRMAN The O.J. Simpson jury heard three witnesses who offered graphic testimony about the racial animus of Detective Mark Fuhrman. A16 The ruling on Mr. Fuhrman threw the defense into turmoil. A16 WHITEWATER INDICTMENT OUT A Federal judge quashed an indictment against Arkansas's Governor, Jim Guy Tucker and two other defendants, finding that the Whitewater special prosecutor had exceeded his jurisdiction. A17 VIOLENCE IN DETROIT STRIKE The seven-week standoff between Detroit's two daily newspapers and their striking unions here has erupted into violence. A21 MILITARY SPENDING APPROVED The Senate approved a $242.7 billion military spending plan that covers purchases, the salaries for military personnel and a new generation of fighter aircraft and missiles. D20 CLINTON ON EDUCATION On a trip to California, the President stumped | NEWS SUMMARY |
786975_1 | to perfect computer simulation techniques that would end the need for further testing. Mr. Chirac's decision to resume the tests in the South Pacific -- three years after his predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, placed a moratorium on nuclear testing -- drew criticism from the United States and other nuclear powers that have ended their own testing programs. The worldwide protests have had some impact in Paris judging by comments today from President Chirac, who said that he might cut short the testing program. "If we have the information we need to change over to simulation before the eight tests," he said in a television interview in Paris, "I will stop the blasts since my objective is not to carry out eight tests." France had originally planned to carry out seven or eight tests. Among the other nuclear powers, only China continues to carry out testing of large nuclear devices, although its testing program has drawn notably less emotional protest from foreign governments and antinuclear campaigners since the Chinese, unlike the French, carry out their tests on their own soil. Mururoa Atoll is more than 10,000 miles from the French mainland. Mr. Chirac's suggestion today that he might cut short the testing program appeared to do little to placate South Pacific leaders, who have been outspoken in their criticism. "France is flying in the face of world opinion," Prime Minister Jim Bolger of New Zealand said today after learning of the first blast. Foreign Minister Gareth Evans of Australia, which has withdrawn its Ambassador from France, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the test "increases not only the dangers in a fragile marine environment in the South Pacific, but it's a blow to our hopes for achieving a nuclear free world." He added, "This is not the action of a good international citizen." Across the South Pacific and Asia, there have been waves of protests against the resumption of French testing, with tens of thousands of people joining in demonstrations in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. French products are being boycotted across Asia and the Pacific, with sales of French wine down by nearly a third in major Australian cities. The French honorary consulate in the Australian city of Perth was firebombed in June. A flotilla of nearly 25 protest ships, ranging from an unarmed New Zealand naval research ship to a ceremonial canoe from the Cook Islands, have ringed Mururoa. The | France, Despite Wide Protests, Explodes a Nuclear Device |
786987_1 | of Paris. France has reacted by putting in place an extraordinary security and surveillance system. Thousands of uniformed police officers are patrolling the streets of Paris and other major cities. Train stations, airports and border crossings have been placed under a close watch. Today, 13 million students returned to school amid unusually tight security measures that barred parents from accompanying their children into school buildings. In commenting on the bombings today, President Chirac raised the possibility of freezing France's participation in the agreement that provides for dismantling border and passport controls among seven of the 15 nations in the European Union. In addition to France, the participants in the accord are Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. "If the situation doesn't improve, if our partners don't take measures to really control the borders, then let's not talk about it anymore," Mr. Chirac said. France has postponed its official adherence to the agreement until January, but border controls had been relaxed or eliminated for periods since March with Germany and the Netherlands. Tight controls, however, were reinstituted after the first bombing in Paris in July. While asserting that France has yet to track down the bombers, Mr. Chirac said, "The Islamic trail is the most likely one." French police investigators, in unattributed comments to French journalists, have identified the radical Armed Islamic Group, which is based in Algeria, as the organization that carried out the bombings. It is not clear where the people who carried out the bombings were from, but Belgium, Germany and Denmark have all arrested or expelled members of the group who allegedly made arms purchases. In Brussels today, a major trial for 13 members of the Armed Islamic Group opened under extraordinary security. The Armed Islamic Group had publicly vowed to "punish" France for its support for the Algerian Government, which several militant Islamic factions in Algeria have been battling since 1992, when the Algerian military abruptly canceled elections that the main Islamic party was expected to win. The conflict has cost more than 30,000 lives. In December, four members of the Armed Islamic Group hijacked an Air France plane and killed three passengers before they themselves were shot dead at the Marseilles airport. The newspaper Le Monde, citing police sources, reported on Monday that that the Armed Islamic Group may have several, independent cells, some using French citizens, to carry out bombings in France. | Chirac Orders French Borders Tightened to Combat Bombings |
785978_1 | last if the politicians continue to creep toward a peace settlement at a snail's pace? "It's been great," Simon O'Hagan, a 22-year-old medical student at Queens University, said of the cease-fire. But of the politicians, he said: "It would be good if they could get something done. They should certainly all sit down and talk. People generally have a feeling that it's at a dodgy stage, but they're still optimistic." His views seemed to reflect those of many Catholics and Protestants interviewed in recent days: polls say most people in the North want the politicians to enter full-fledged negotiations without further conditions. To delay, the people say, is to risk a resumption of I.R.A. and Protestant paramilitary violence. Since the I.R.A. cease-fire was announced and Protestant paramilitaries followed suit in October, there has been only one terrorist killing, a post office worker shot by I.R.A. robbers, though there have been some vigilante "punishment beatings" by self-appointed guardians of public order from the I.R.A. and Protestant paramilitary groups. There was hope that the reduction in violence would be followed quickly by significant steps toward a political agreement. But the politicians of the overwhelmingly Catholic Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing; of the Protestant unionist parties, and of the British and Irish Governments still seem months away from all-party talks and years away from a definitive settlement. For the last few months, the peace effort has been stuck on whether the I.R.A. must begin disarming, as Britain insists, before Sinn Fein can sit down at a peace table with the other politicians, including the Protestants who abhor the I.R.A. goal of a united Ireland free from British control. Increasingly people are looking to the planned visit by President Clinton to Belfast and Dublin at the end of November. Mr. Clinton has indicated that he wants progress toward a settlement before he gets here. Catholics and Protestants say leaders on both sides are to blame for the slow pace, and they also accuse each other over the continuing violence. "I'm a little bit worried about the violence," said Alan Nixon, a 19-year-old Protestant student. "There are the punishment beatings by the I.R.A. and the tit-for-tat bombing and burning of Catholic churches and Protestant Orange Order halls." Most people say they think the politicians will keep talking. Prime Ministers John Bruton of Ireland and John Major of Britain are expected to meet next week | In What Passes for Peace in Ulster, Anxiety Still |
785935_0 | Three state workers were notified yesterday that they would be suspended for three months without pay for distributing offensive and racist jokes across a computerized mail system at the Department of Environmental Protection, The Associated Press reported. A fourth employee of the department, who officials said was only "tangentially involved," received a warning letter. Officials learned about the material last week and conducted an internal investigation. NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING | Suspended for On-Line Racism |
786059_0 | The antique French billboards that once decorated the Restaurant Le Monde are being taken down and hidden away. The brass lamps, meant to create the ambience of a Paris cafe, have been yanked from the ceiling. The French menu has been torn up, replaced by one entirely in English. "We're changing everything, steering clear of anything French," said Simon McGill, a 32-year-old New Zealander and once-dedicated Francophile who fulfilled a dream last October and opened Le Monde, his tribute to French cuisine and culture in the heart of Auckland, New Zealand's most populous city. As of this week, however, Le Monde is no more. The restaurant has a new name -- Relish -- and entirely new decor and menu, the result of a hasty $25,000 makeover made necessary by the decision of President Jacques Chirac of France to resume underground nuclear tests in the South Pacific as early as Sept. 1. In New Zealand, Australia and across much of the Pacific and Asia, the French and their products, from Champagne to military hardware, are finding themselves unwelcome. "Jacques Chirac needs his head looked at," said Mr. McGill, watching forlornly as workmen began installing the track lighting that will replace the ornate brass lamps. "The world is supposed to be heading for nuclear disarmament, so why do the French need more nuclear tests? Maybe Chirac didn't have any toys to play with as a child." In the South Pacific, the protests against the French tests have been as large and heart-felt as anything that the people of this hemisphere have experienced in a generation. The French Government has insisted that its decision to test nuclear weapons at Mururoa Atoll, in French Polynesia is irrevocable, but it has promised to end the tests by next May, in time for France to sign a comprehensive global test-ban treaty that is intended to end nuclear testing forever. The promise has done little to placate the people who live in the South Pacific nations closest to the test site, and who say earlier nuclear tests there wreaked havoc with wildlife and human health. The French have refused any independent testing of radiation levels at the site, which is about 3,000 miles from here. "You should not underestimate the sense of outrage here," said New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, whose Government has cut off all military ties with the French as a protest, and has | Nuclear Test Plan Tarnishes France's Image in Pacific |
789806_0 | The Bosnian and Croatian Governments yesterday wisely averted a new crisis in the Balkans that could have jeopardized the fragile peace negotiations and even ignited a wider war. The two Governments promised not to attack the Serb stronghold of Banja Luka, which could have disrupted the delicate equilibrium between battlefield gains and negotiating leverage that has brought recent progress toward ending the war. It is hard to know precisely when military advances by Government and Croatian forces will stop producing negotiating concessions from the Bosnian Serbs and their friends in Belgrade, and instead draw the powerful Yugoslav Army into the field. Until recent days, gains by resurgent Bosnian and Croatian forces were the principal reason American-brokered peace talks made progress. The NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serb targets around Sarajevo also helped. But a new offensive by Bosnian Government and Croatian forces in northwest Bosnia risked pushing the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, to withdraw from the peace talks and send his army into Bosnia to recover lost territory and pride after Bosnian Serb forces were routed in fighting over the last week. The tripwire for Mr. Milosevic could well be Banja Luka, a Serbian center in northwest Bosnia already clotted with thousands of Bosnian Serb refugees fleeing ahead of the advancing troops. It is the largest Serbian-dominated town in Bosnia. Bosnian Serb forces were frantically reinforcing their defensive positions near the town this week with tanks and artillery pieces. Acting with a self-restraint rarely displayed in this war, the Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, and his Bosnian counterpart, Alija Izetbegovic, yesterday pledged not to move against the city. Strong gravitational forces pulled the other way. The Bosnian Government sensed an opportunity to retaliate for Serbian military gains earlier in the war and Serbian human rights abuses against Muslims. Croatia, in an uneasy alliance with the Bosnian Government, stood to extend its control over new areas of Bosnia. The division of Bosnian territory promised by the peace plan -- 51 percent under Bosnian and Croatian control, 49 percent under Serbian -- looks less favorable to the Bosnian Government than the outcome it might dictate on the battlefield. At a minimum, the Bosnian Government and Croatia could bargain from greater strength if they took Banja Luka. For there to be any hope of peace in Bosnia, the cycle of violence and revenge must end. Banja Luka was a good place to start. | A Tipping Point in Bosnia |
789801_0 | The lion in "The Wizard of Oz" didn't have it, but at least he knew where to get it. Nelson Mandela had it, and so did F. W. de Klerk, and they used it to good effect. Yitzhak Rabin has it and so does Yasir Arafat, although occasionally they lose it and need help finding it again. It's called "courage," and unfortunately none of the key players in the Northern Ireland conflict have it right now. Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein doesn't have it, the British Prime Minister, John Major, certainly doesn't have it and the Protestant leader David Trimble wouldn't know it if it were pinned to his chest. And that's why 13 months after the cease-fire took effect in Northern Ireland, the parties still have not begun peace talks to bring a permanent end to the fighting. The sticking point has been the British-Protestant refusal to sit down for peace talks with Sinn Fein -- the I.R.A.'s political wing -- until the Catholic gunmen of the I.R.A. first surrender some weapons. This is poppycock and nothing more than a pretext by Mr. Major to disguise his ambivalence about entering into negotiations with the I.R.A. at all. If the I.R.A. had tanks, missiles and MIG-29's, there might be some strategic merit to the British insistence that it turn in some weapons first. But the I.R.A. arsenal consists almost exclusively of handguns, knives, flaming bottles and some plastique explosives. They could turn them all in tomorrow and replenish most of their arsenal the next day with a Guns & Ammo mail-order catalogue and a visit to the local hardware store. The I.R.A. invented the fertilizer bomb. The issue is not how to deprive the I.R.A. of their military capabilities, which are endlessly replenishable. The issue is how to change their intentions to resort to violence. The only hope of doing that is through all-party peace talks. (If Israel could talk to the P.L.O. without insisting it disarm, the British can talk to the I.R.A.) A perfectly reasonable compromise is on the table: an international commission would be formed, parallel with the start of peace talks, that would bring British, Protestant and I.R.A. representatives together to discuss how weapons might be "decommissioned" as part of a final peace deal. This international commission could, in effect, disconnect and isolate the weapons issue from the peace negotiations, while giving everyone a sense that | Foreign Affairs; No Guts, No Glory |
788244_0 | For a year now, there has been peace in Northern Ireland. Not total peace, but peace enough to transform the life of the people, to bring unemployment down steeply, and to create real optimism about the chances of achieving a lasting peace. A summit meeting of the British and Irish Prime Ministers was due to take place last week. But the Irish Government postponed the meeting after problems arose with the intricate negotiations. These talks are intended to move the peace process forward to the point where we can then convene negotiations that include all the major political parties. That postponement was a disappointment, but our determination to continue the search for a settlement remains undiminished. Most of the major parties in Northern Ireland have never had any association with violence. Others have. Sinn Fein, with a little over 10 percent of the vote, and two much smaller loyalist parties have for years been associated with the Irish Republican Army. Those who have never used violence should expect something more than a "cessation of hostilities" before sitting down to negotiate with the representatives of those who have. We need to be confident that a return to violence is neither a threat nor an option. In December 1993, the British and Irish Governments invited all "democratically mandated parties which establish a commitment to exclusive methods and which have shown that they abide by the peaceful democratic process" to negotiate with them. Both governments made clear at the time that this meant they would have to give up their illegally held weapons. They do not have to get rid of all their weapons -- and there are a lot -- at once. It is wrong to state that we are insisting on the surrender of all arms before allowing the I.R.A.'s political supporters to join future talks. But the I.R.A. must make a start, to signal the beginning of a process. We have responded positively to the cease-fires that have held for a year. Troops are off the streets, two battalions have left Northern Ireland, road checks have ceased, and border crossings are open. But there has been no response from the I.R.A. It argues that it cannot even begin the process of decommissioning its weapons except as part of a final negotiation about Northern Ireland's future. Not surprisingly, others in Northern Ireland find this unacceptable. The urgent need is to create | Ireland's Path to Peace |
788168_2 | film back from outer space. A dozen more failures occurred through 1961. One gold-plated film pod speeding back from space landed in a Russian forest, where woodsmen chopped it up with axes. *The first successful mission in 1960 covered more than 1.6 million square miles of Soviet territory -- far more that the earlier U-2 spy planes had obtained in all their 24 flights over four years. Eventually Corona photographed more than 750 million square miles of Earth's surface, many times its overall area. *Corona spied not only on foreign targets but also took extensive photographs of the United States. Eventually such photos became the documentary basis for many Government maps, including those of the Defense Mapping Agency and the United States Geological Survey. *The name Corona, far from referring to a bright light or astrophysical phenomenon, like the outer part of the Sun's atmosphere, arose in the early days of the program when an official took inspiration in from his typewriter, a Smith-Corona. The main forum for the pioneers' disclosures was a two-day symposium in May that was co-sponsored by the C.I.A.'s Center for the Study of Intelligence and George Washington University. After more than 35 years of intense secrecy, it was the first time that many of the innovators were able to speak candidly with one another about the reconnaissance work and see the spy photographs themselves. "I had guys crying who had worked on the product but never seen the imagery," said Carole S. Minor, a C.I.A. coordinator of the symposium. Corona was born at a time of extreme apprehension in the West. Moscow exploded a hydrogen bomb in 1953 and launched a long-range missile in 1957, and soon afterward claimed it had joined the two technologies together in a deadly new expression of Communist might. The West, relatively backward in rocketry, was apprehensive. The lack of data, recalled Lawrence Houston, the C.I.A.'s general counsel at the time, "was just appalling." "We just didn't have it -- any real information," he said. "We just didn't know what was going on." The United States began U-2 flights over the Soviet Union in 1956, but their reconnaissance results were limited and the flights were quite risky. The planes were considered less of an intelligence asset than a political liability. Something better was needed and fast. In February 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized work on Corona, an imaging satellite | Spy Satellites' Early Role As 'Floodlight' Coming Clear |
789368_3 | northern climes, an increase in rainfall in some regions that need it, and faster crop growth. Grain belts of North America and Russia could expand. Agricultural production worldwide is not expected to decrease much. But some regions -- especially sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia and tropical Latin America -- could suffer losses in their harvests. Deserts are expected to expand, and the heartlands of continents to become drier. There would be more rain throughout the world. Northern temperate regions would experience more rain and less snow in winter. In summer, water would evaporate faster, drying the soil. Natural ecosystems, being untended, would be even more vulnerable than cropland. Forest trees could not migrate northward fast enough to keep up with shifting climatic zones, and some forests would disappear, the panel says. Computerized models indicated that if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels double, "one-third of all the forest area of the earth will change," said Dr. Steven P. Hamburg, a forest ecologist at Brown University who is a member of the intergovernmental panel. "But we still don't have a good grasp of what it will look like," he added. Carbon dioxide concentrations are expected to double late in the next century if no further action is taken to limit emissions. Climate forecasting is a difficult and often controversial science. One major subject of dissension are the computer models on which the intergovernmental panel's report largely depends. The climate experts on the panel believe their models have become increasingly reliable. But skeptics continue to assert that the models fail to simulate the present climate realistically and hence are an unsure guide to future climates. There is wide agreement among scientists that the average surface temperature of the globe has already risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit during the last century, with the steepest rise taking place in the last 40 years. But given the natural variability of the earth's climate and the wide fluctuations in temperature known to have occurred in the distant past, climate experts have until now been almost unanimous in saying they could not prove that human emission of greenhouse gases was playing in part in the warming. Scientific opinion among climatologists is now shifting, and more are prepared to say that human activity is a likely cause of at least part of the climatic change experienced so far. The human contribution to global warming could range from highly | Scientists Say Earth's Warming Could Set Off Wide Disruptions |
1412539_0 | The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, an hour's drive from London in West Sussex, England, is a kind of retirement home for medieval barns and other traditional farm buildings. The Downland Gridshell is the museum's first contemporary building. While it adapts one of the world's oldest vernacular building techniques -- latticework construction -- to form a large-span structure, it is a high-tech building in disguise. The shell, at bottom left, was designed with three-dimensional computer software. Buro Happold, an engineering firm, worked with Edward Cullinan Architects of London and a team of artisans. Using traditional techniques like finger-jointing (which allows the snug meshing of pieces whose ends have been cut into ''fingers'') and scarf-jointing (the joining of boards at diagonal end cuts), carpenters built a flat lattice of thin oak lath and raised it on scaffolding. When the scaffolding was dropped, gravity pulled the lath into a triple-domed shape, bottom right. The grid shell, which houses a workshop and storage space, is 164 feet long and 52 feet wide and encloses one big open space, top. Light floods in through a roof of very untraditional polycarbonate. The founder of Buro Happold, Ted Happold, worked with the architect Frei Otto in 1975 to build a grid shell at a garden exhibition in Mannheim, Germany. It is still standing. The new one is in Singleton, near Chichester. The museum includes a working water mill. Information: 011-44-1243-811363 or www.wealddown.co.uk. VICKY RICHARDSON CURRENTS: STRUCTURES | They Propped It Up. Then It Fell Down. Perfect, They Said. |
1415401_0 | Pedro Sanchez, a Cuban-American soil scientist who pioneered methods for reviving tropical agriculture while saving threatened rain forests, was named the winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize yesterday at ceremonies in Toronto. Mr. Sanchez, 62, is chairman of the United Nations Task Force on World Hunger, but the award recognizes his decades of work to improve agricultural yields from depleted soil while protecting the environment in South America, Southeast Asia and Africa. Mr. Sanchez was cited for ''having played a critical role in establishing real alternatives to slash-and-burn farming, which has destroyed millions of acres of rain forest, as well as his work in driving the international effort to establish agroforestry as a means of mitigating global warming.'' Educated at Cornell University after leaving Cuba in 1958, Mr. Sanchez first made his mark working in South America. He helped Peru improve its rice yields in the 1970's and then developed a soil management program for western Brazil, helping bring into production 75 million acres of cropland. As director of the International Center for Research in Agroforestry in Nairobi, Mr. Sanchez developed a method to replenish soil with nutrients from local rock phosphate and by planting trees on cropland, helping the poorest farmers fertilize their soils naturally without using expensive chemical fertilizers that can cause environmental damage. The practice has helped to eliminate slash-and-burn agriculture, expanded the forests of Africa and increased food production for many African farmers by as much as 400 percent. A professor emeritus of soil science and forestry at North Carolina State University, Mr. Sanchez is the author or editor of books in English, Spanish and Portuguese on tropical soil and forestry. He is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and is chairman of the Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition Commission of the International Soil Science Society. The World Food Prize was established in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace laureate in 1970 for his work in world agriculture, and honors contributions to improving the world's food supply. | Cuban-American Honored for Agriculture Innovations |
1415444_0 | Despite the plummeting stock market, millions of Americans are opening college savings accounts. They are drawn by new federal tax breaks, a growing array of options and an uneasy awareness of the ever-higher cost of college. Americans created more than two million tax-protected college savings accounts in the last two and a half years, including half a million accounts in the first three months of this year. By the end of March, assets totaled $19 billion, more than three times the $6 billion in December 1999. ''There has been an explosion,'' said Diana Cantor, executive director of the Virginia College Savings Plan and chairwoman of the state treasurers' College Savings Plans Network. ''Even in the last two years -- even this year -- money is still pouring in.'' Most people are still choosing accounts that automatically move them into less risky investments as children approach college age, an approach that means the recent market losses have not been disastrous for families in such plans with children heading to college soon. But a growing number are opting either for aggressive stock investments, in hopes of buying at low prices, or for guaranteed returns, to avoid the swooning market entirely. The investment choices -- and tax breaks -- vary greatly from state to state, for these savings accounts, called 529 plans for the section of the Internal Revenue Service code that created them. But they all now shelter gains from federal taxes, and some shelter gains from state and local taxes, too. In some states, like New York, even the contributions are deductible from taxable income for state tax purposes. But if the earnings are not used for college, they will be subject to penalties. The tax benefits have drawn people like Arthur H. Krulewitz, a doctor in Granby, Mass. Although he was already saving for his three children's college educations, he decided to move to 529 plans last year after Congress freed their gains from federal taxes. He said he found the tax-free earnings attractive, ''given what the markets are doing and what money market funds are paying.'' He set up one account with the help of a broker but has held off on the other two because of market volatility and because he wanted more time to compare plans. He is now spending hours on the Savingforcollege .com site, one of the Web sites devoted to 529 plans. While tax | College Savings Plans Are a Growing Draw |
1416851_7 | by about 80 percent, to $12 billion from $60 billion. ''I do not see these proposals as a basis for compromise,'' said Franz Fischler, the European Union's commissioner for agriculture, denouncing the plan as ''unbalanced.'' American officials and American farm groups, which back the proposal, say it would simply force the biggest reductions in countries that have the biggest protection. ''This is a totally defensible position,'' Mr. Zoellick said. ''Is it wrong to say that those who provide more support should also cut more?'' Mr. Zoellick faces even bigger potential opposition in Brazil, which imports about $15 billion a year of goods from the United States. Brazil's president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has repeatedly warned that Brazil will not be part of a pan-American free-trade pact if the United States does not offer more access to Brazilian products. ''Brazil has been negotiating in earnest,'' said Rubens Barbosa, Brazil's ambassador in Washington. ''The problem is that so far we don't see how we could get a balanced result. When we see the U.S. retaliation in steel, and when we see the farm bill increasing subsidies, we are concerned. Brazil, like most other countries, will not rush to accept anything.'' Brazil, however, maintains tariffs of more than 30 percent on cars, many types of machinery and telecommunications equipment. Trade experts say it also keeps scores of nontariff barriers, generally regulations intended to keep out imports. But Brazilians, knowing that their population of more than 172 million offers big opportunities to American exporters, complain they are being kept out of a long list of American markets. American sugar quotas, for example, keep foreign producers from exporting more than 1.1 million tons in total to the United States each year, about 10 percent of American consumption. The price of sugar is about 17 cents a pound in the United States, compared with about 5 cents in the world market. Brazilian leaders also complain about tariffs on orange juice, which amount to nearly 40 percent of the selling price. The duties protect citrus farmers in Florida and California. European leaders have been actively making overtures to Latin American countries. On Aug. 8, the European Union reached a preliminary agreement with Brazil to cut restrictions on textile trade in both directions, and it is pursuing its own plan to form a free-trade area with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The European Union also has free-trade pacts with | Why Isn't Fast Track . . . Faster? |
1416719_4 | of its fishing boats due to the regulations. ''It's difficult for people who have been fishing their whole life to easily transition to shore side work,'' she said. ''They have a lifetime of unique knowledge about how to do a job well that doesn't translate into going ashore.'' Whaling and sealing were once an important part of this community, but those industries died in the 19th century. Fishing, however, has survived for the past three centuries. One of the first written accounts of fishing in town came in 1762 and described four large fishing schooners that caught cod. Fishermen would then hang the fish to dry on shore. Many of the Portuguese immigrants who made up the majority of this community in the 19th and 20th centuries either fished or worked in one of two large mills. Today, many of the fishermen still have Portuguese surnames, such as Medeiros and Maderia. At one point in the 1950's, the fleet dwindled to just nine boats as the fish suddenly disappeared, said Arthur Medeiros, the longtime president of the Southern New England Fishermen and Lobstermen's Association. The fish came back several years later and so did the boats. About 12 years ago, fishing stocks began to dwindle again as the larger, more technologically advanced boats became very efficient in catching large numbers of fish. The National Marine Fisheries Service and other regulatory agencies began implementing restrictions when studies showed the stocks of some popular fish such as cod had collapsed because of overfishing. The federal government was also pushed into action by environmental groups, which filed lawsuits to increase protection for the fish. As a result, the federal government decreased the number of days fishermen could land cod, haddock, flounder and other so-called groundfish species. It also closed areas to fishing and required fishermen to use nets with larger holes to let juvenile fish escape. In ports such as New Bedford and Gloucester, Mass., which are almost solely dependent on these species, some fishermen went out of business. Up until this year fishermen had a maximum of 88 days when they could catch groundfish, but, following a lawsuit by environmental groups, a federal court judge made reductions of 20 percent or more depending on a boat's history of landing the fish. One program that has specifically hurt fishermen here was the implementation of an annual quota on the landing of summer flounder, | An Old Fleet Under a Dark Cloud |
1416548_3 | doctrine appropriate to the problem under discussion, but together the dialogues do not necessarily cohere into a larger whole. Plato wrote, Hadot suggests, ''because he wanted above all to address not only the members of his school, but also absent people and strangers. . . . His dialogues can be considered as works of propaganda, decked out with all the prestige of literary art but intended to convert people to philosophy.'' Hadot is an expert guide to the major schools that emerged after Socrates, though it must be said that some of these, for all their seriousness of purpose, take on the aspect of an intellectual freak show. The Cynics, who believed that the state of nature was superior to social conventions, tried to out-Socrates the barefoot, bohemian Socrates. They did not bathe, they survived by begging, they fornicated and masturbated in public. The Skeptics were almost as odd. Their way of life consisted of an attitude of indifference. They made no distinction between what was dangerous and what was not, between suffering and pleasure, between life and death. Hadot tells the story of how Pyrrho, a leading Skeptic, saw his master, Anaxarchus, fall into a swamp one day, but ignored him and continued walking. Anaxarchus survived and later congratulated Pyrrho for his indifference and insensitivity. Among Hadot's genuine virtues is his ability to describe even this sideshow with a degree of sympathy, getting inside the heads of these figures to understand how they saw the world. When his subjects are more mainstream, he practically convinces a reader that first one and then another school had discovered the correct approach to life. Turning the pages, one becomes an Aristotelian, then an Epicurean, then a Stoic. Hadot is especially good on the scientific theories of the various schools, a topic that easily lends itself to ridicule by modern minds. He explains that the ancients refused to divorce science from ethics, and that the ethics came first. For Plato, mathematics was a way of purifying the spirit; the Epicureans developed the idea of an endless universe, composed of an infinite number of atoms, as a means of overcoming the fear of death. Sometimes, however, Hadot can get bogged down. He is an expert on Plotinus and Porphyry, but a reader would have to be really, really interested in late Roman Neoplatonism to want to wade through the dense discussion of these two | The Second-Oldest Profession |
1416902_0 | Emily Halpin had no luck finding a job this spring, so she joined the Peace Corps and will be packing her bags for Nicaragua next month. Ms. Halpin, who has had a longstanding interest in the Peace Corps, joins a record number of people seeking to volunteer. Peace Corps applications nationwide are up 17 percent since late January. The Chicago office, which reported a 111 percent jump in applications in the metro area from February through June, compared with that period in 2001, has hired two additional recruiters. Peace Corps officials, thrilled about the increase, say they do not know exactly what to attribute it to, but they point to three crucial factors: an abysmal job market, a post-Sept. 11 civic consciousness and a presidential plea for Americans to increase their volunteerism. ''The job market has to play into this,'' said Scot Roskelly, a spokesman for the Peace Corps in Chicago. ''It's not what it used to be, especially for people coming out of college.'' Ms. Halpin, 21, who graduated from Ohio State University in June with a degree in animal science, said that after attending two job fairs, sending a dozen resumes to zoos, sanctuaries and private companies and attending six interviews, she got nothing but rejection letters. ''I don't know anyone who graduated with me who has a job,'' she said. But college graduates are not the only ones finding themselves jobless and thinking of leaving the country. Mary Weiland, 48, a materials manager until she was laid off in July, joined 21 other people at a Peace Corps information session on Thursday. Ms. Weiland said she had always wanted to join the corps but was searching for the right time. The increase in applications comes as a recent report from the General Accounting Office said disorganization in the Peace Corps may have contributed to a lack of safety for volunteers. The Peace Corps, which cites volunteer safety as one of its top priorities, removed 300 volunteers from countries near Afghanistan, like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and the Kyrgyz Republic, shortly after Sept. 11. Thirty have returned. Jeff Thorn, 24, left for Uzbekistan in the summer of 1999, three months after graduating from Yale University with a degree in political theory. ''I think a lot of college students have romantic notions about the Peace Corps,'' he said. ''I was content to go wherever they sent me.'' His tour was over | Jobs Scarce, Many Heed Call to Serve In Peace Corps |
1416583_6 | dozen steps out of your car in Glacier National Park without being reminded that the area is home to at least 350 grizzly bears (the densest population in the lower 48 states) and 400 or 500 black bears. Every trailhead we saw was posted with a notice announcing in large letters, Entering Grizzly Country, ending bluntly with, ''Visitors have been injured and killed by bears.'' Since the park opened in 1910, grizzly bears have killed 10 people in Glacier, with most incidents in the last four decades as more visitors have taken to the backcountry. But we comforted ourselves by considering the odds. The entire park averages only one bear attack annually. Statistically, our chances of even seeing a bear were slim. Only about 2,000 sightings are reported to rangers each year, according to Amy Vanderbilt, a park spokeswoman. Among other precautions, hikers are told to make noise continuously while they walk and to travel in groups. We were guilty of following neither piece of advice. A bad idea, as we learned while climbing through a chest-high thicket of huckleberries on the way to No Name Lake. Branches a few feet from the trail began to rustle and shake violently. We had no idea what was making the noise, except that it was enormous. To our relief, the crashing sounds moved away, deeper into the thicket. A moment later, the quizzical face of a small black bear popped up to look at us. Chances are our reception would have been dramatically different if the animal grazing on the huckleberries had been a grizzly. They often charge when surprised. We felt much safer during the hour we spent watching a hungry black bear working a meadow a few hundred yards away from us on the other side of a swift river. The animal paced back and forth, its head and shoulders swaying, nose close to the ground, covering every inch of the field, uprooting plants, overturning rocks, clawing apart logs. We ended each day's hike by 4 or 5 o'clock and returned to our cabin for a shower and a change of clothes before heading out for dinner. East Glacier's half-dozen options were a pleasant surprise. At the homelike atmosphere of Restaurant Thimbleberry, we had fresh whitefish from nearby St. Mary's Lake, lightly seasoned and pan-seared in butter until just done. From a refurbished log cabin on a side street, Serrano's | In the Backbone Of the World |
1416571_2 | focus on religion a bit narrow, but called her account ''engaging, provocative and often persuasive.'' Another offering from the Modern Library Chronicles is The Renaissance: A Short History, by Paul Johnson ($9.95), an unabashedly old-fashioned overview of Renaissance art and literature. McNeill said Johnson's emphasis on the era's cultural achievements is similarly one-sided in its dismissal of political and religious affairs, but praised the book's ''interesting details and idiosyncratic judgments.'' Inventing Paradise: The Greek Journey, 1937-47, by Edmund Keeley. (Northwestern University, $22.95.) A scholar and translator recounts Henry Miller's adventures in Greece before and during World War II, and his friendships with writers like Lawrence Durrell and the poet George Seferis. Keeley ''fleshes out Miller's impressionistic portrait of place . . . with generous swaths of poetry not only by Seferis but also by others of the renowned Greek 'Generation of the Thirties,' '' David Yezzi said here in 1999. Funeral Games, by Mary Renault. (Vintage, $14.) Renault (1905-83) won a worldwide audience with her intensely realized fictional chronicles of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age. This novel (her final one) completed her trilogy on Alexander, which began with ''Fire From Heaven'' in 1970 and ''The Persian Boy'' in 1972. It is a ''vivid, harrowing and disciplined account of the power struggle after Alexander's death in 323 B.C.,'' Christopher Ricks wrote in the Book Review in 1982. ''Renault deals scrupulously with a world which was monstrously unscrupulous.'' The Return of Felix Nogara, by Pablo Medina. (Karen and Michael Braziller/Persea, $15.) Though it takes place on an imaginary island, this novel by a Cuban émigré is actually a thinly disguised imagining of life after Castro, as it recounts the orgy of privatization and free-market free-for-alls following the death of the island's aging dictator. The result is a ''delicious, astute, darkly funny'' act ''of literary clairvoyance,'' Bob Shacochis said here in 2000. The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church, by Margaret Visser. (North Point/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $14.) A historical anthropologist of daily life charts the structure and nervous system of Sant'Agnese Fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls), a church in Rome, reflecting on the interaction of architecture and prayer through time. Last year our reviewer, Marina Warner, called this ''an ascetic, private, devotional meditation on Christian history, embodied in a church and its bones and stones, which she lovingly numbers.'' Scott Veale | New & Noteworthy Paperbacks |
1416578_26 | commodities -- were buying less and less of the high-value-added goods they wanted to import. In effect, they were getting poorer each day. Their solution was to close their markets and develop domestic industries to produce their own appliances and other goods for their citizens. The strategy, which became known as import substitution, produced high growth -- for a while. But these closed economies ultimately proved unsustainable. Latin American governments made their consumers buy inferior and expensive products -- remember the Brazilian computer of the 1970's? Growth depended on heavy borrowing and high deficits. When they could no longer roll over their debts, Latin American economies crashed, and a decade of stagnation resulted. At the time, the architects of import substitution could not imagine that it was possible to export anything but commodities. But East Asia -- as poor or poorer than Latin America in the 1960's -- showed in the 1980's and 1990's that it can be done. Unfortunately, the rules of global trade now prohibit countries from using the strategies successfully employed to develop export industries in East Asia. American trade officials argue that they are not using tariffs to block poor countries from exporting, and they are right -- the average tariff charged by the United States is a negligible 1.7 percent, much lower than other nations. But the rules rich nations have set -- on technology transfer, local content and government aid to their infant industries, among other things -- are destroying poor nations' abilities to move beyond commodities. ''We are pulling up the ladder on policies the developed countries used to become rich,'' says Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. The commodities that poor countries are left to export are even more of a dead end today than in the 1950's. Because of oversupply, prices for coffee, cocoa, rice, sugar and tin dropped by more than 60 percent between 1980 and 2000. Because of the price collapse of commodities and sub-Saharan Africa's failure to move beyond them, the region's share of world trade dropped by two-thirds during that time. If it had the same share of exports today that it had at the start of the 1980's, per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa would be almost twice as high. Probably the single most important change for the developing world would be to legalize the export of the one thing they have | Globalization |
1416813_4 | ''But technological improvements are accelerating to the point that we can do this more now.'' Consider the Cornice Use of these new techniques, supporters say, can prompt waves of preservation. Consider the cornice, the cantilevered ornament often placed atop the facade of apartment buildings. Many landlords once got rid of cornices that had become decrepit rather than replace them with costly wood, metal or terra cotta lookalikes. But with the arrival in the early 1980's of affordable fiberglass substitutes, the bald brows of buildings began sprouting again with curlicued cornices, as if they had all joined the Hair Club for Men. In the last 15 years, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development has installed fiberglass cornices on 750 of the 7,500 buildings it manages. Before then, the department simply removed worn cornices. ''If we took a cornice down,'' said Carol Abrams, a department spokeswoman, ''we would raise the building's parapet wall and stucco it over.'' This practice has fostered the drab look still seen on many buildings around the city. By contrast, making repairs with original materials is costly and inconvenient, say the proponents of the new ways. Last year, Mr. Culbreth's company replaced an unstable terra cotta cornice at 490 West End Avenue, a 1920's brick apartment building. To replace the cornice with original terra cotta would have meant removing it with great care. ''You get a fair amount of material loss when you disassemble,'' Mr. Culbreth said. Then, he would have had to find and hire an artisanal shop to make replicas of the damaged terra cotta. (No more shops in New York do this kind of work.) Finally, the new terra cotta cornice would have to be attached to a new steel framework set into the building. ''The problem with terra cotta generally is that water infiltrates and weakens the steel anchoring system,'' Mr. Culbreth said. He estimated that the job would have cost up to $750,000. Instead, his company installed a fiberglass cornice for $150,000. Such large savings are common. If the Landmarks Preservation Commission had not let Mr. Culbreth use one-piece double-paned windows at the Claremont Riding Academy, he said, the job would have cost $260,000 instead of $120,000. The new windows, he added, provide much better insulation than would replacements that were more faithful to the original. The commission is careful in its approach, and sometimes refuses to allow new materials. It | The Bionic Brownstone |
1417304_0 | A Test for Palestinians A convoy carrying about 100 armed Palestinian police officers arrived in Bethlehem to begin a trial resumption of Palestinian authority there under an agreement with Israel reached on Sunday. PAGE A3 Amtrak Restores Service Amtrak restored most of its Acela train service, but with half of its high-speed fleet still in need of repairs, officials concede that it could be days before the system is fully operational again. PAGE A14 Bear Kills Infant in Catskills A young black bear killed a 5-month-old girl outside her family's summer bungalow in a Catskill resort, snatching the baby from her stroller while the mother took her two other children to safety. PAGE B1 The Theater Rebounds Despite the closing of a number of hits and a decline in advance ticket sales, many shows across town, from the Fringe Festival to ''Hairspray'' to ''Harlem Song,'' are doing just fine. THE ARTS, PAGE E1 The Yankees vs. Everyone The San Diego Padres' owner said he and other owners would be willing to shut down for a season to get the kind of labor deal they want, a viewpoint opposite that of the Yankees'. SPORTSTUESDAY, PAGE D1 Whose Phone Is Ringing? In a typical year, 2,500 cellphones are among the items that end up in the Metro-North Lost and Found at Grand Central Terminal. PAGE B1 | INSIDE |
1417231_6 | the device actually did work. Mr. Giangola said that the consultant was legally prohibited from commenting on the tapes. But he said that the tape was listened to and that it confirmed their recommendations. ''You do need to ask the question, 'Was there any information that they did not use in compiling the report?' '' said Jim Slevin, vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association. ''And if so, would that information have been helpful in making some of these recommendations?'' In another unexplained discrepancy, the authors chose to adopt a figure of 25,000 as the number of people evacuated from the towers that day, although other analysts have placed the number at half that. ''I think the effort over all is inadequate,'' said Charles R. Jennings, an assistant professor of fire science and public administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who noted that he had not read the reports. ''I think the fact that we had two separate investigations, each one of which was captive to a particular agency, is a problem,'' he said. EMERGENCY RESPONSE Recommended Changes in Procedure Following are some top recommendations of McKinsey & Company for changes in city emergency procedures. The complete reports are available at www.nyc.gov. FIRE DEPARTMENT *Expand the formal system of what is known as Incident Command to better direct strategy and share information. *Expand the existing Operations Center into a fully functional facility with information and communications capabilities to provide citywide command, control and operational planning for all emergencies. *Build two groups, of 21 people each, called Incident Management teams, with training in different areas like planning or logistics. *Enforce regulations for calling in off-duty firefighters and create flexible recall systems for an array of emergencies. *Develop agreements with neighboring departments for fire operations and mutual aid. *Expand capabilities to deal with hazardous materials and re-evaluate heavy rescue and marine capabilities. POLICE DEPARTMENT *Must have greater coordination with other agencies. *In an emergency, officers should be directed to staging areas instead of flooding the scene itself. *Reserve officers should be held in check to respond later. *Operational leaders must be identified early on and the roles and responsibilities of senior officials clearly spelled out. *Enforce discipline on the radio waves to reduce on-air clutter, and develop better land-line and mobile-phone communications. *Undertake larger and more frequent emergency drills to prepare for the next major catastrophe, with better analysis afterward. | MAYOR PROMISING BETTER RESPONSE TO CATASTROPHES |
1417234_3 | 30 years, ''sustainability'' has become the mantra of many private groups, government officials, scientists and, even, a growing number of businesses. Most define the notion as advancing human endeavors without diminishing prospects for future generations. The Johannesburg summit will be the third global conclave in that span chasing this elusive goal. But movement toward concrete action has been slow. The first meeting, in Stockholm in 1972, rang an alarm about despoiling the earth. Wealthy nations began cleaning air and water, but continued to assault forests and other resources elsewhere to fuel growth. In 1992 came the second meeting, in Rio de Janeiro, called the Earth Summit. There, diplomats forged ambitious agreements aimed at holding back deserts and protecting the atmosphere, forests and pockets of biological richness. But the agreements were vague, relying more on good will than on concrete obligations. Developing countries refused to take on obligations, saying the north should step first. After Rio, population continued to grow, poverty persisted, forests retreated, soils eroded, fish stocks shrank, and concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases rose, despite a treaty in which industrialized countries pledged to ''strive'' to reduce them. Now, a host of satellites provides streams of data that powerful computers sift and disseminate on the Web. Communities can track forest loss in Indonesia, sprawl in Indiana and the flow of pollution from state to state, country to country. After disasters like the chemical release in Bhopal, India, in 1984 and the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, many companies have shifted practices to avoid environmental damage, shareholder wrath and consumer boycotts. Fast-growing developing countries including China and Mexico are rapidly cutting urban air pollution.. They have been spurred both by commmunity pressure and awareness of the high costs of treating illnesses cause by pollution. Indonesia, China and other countries are posting factories' chemical emissions on the Web. The technique, pioneered in the United States, is prompting cleanups. No one expects that people will be able to manage the planet like some giant corporation -- the real Big Blue. ''If you mean making the thousands of little decisions that need to be made, we can no more effectively manage the world than the Soviet Union could manage its centrally planned economy,'' said Dr. Robert W. Kates, a geographer who headed a National Academy of Sciences committee on sustainable development and is an author of ''Great Transition.'' But Dr. | Forget Nature. Even Eden Is Engineered. |
1417234_4 | sift and disseminate on the Web. Communities can track forest loss in Indonesia, sprawl in Indiana and the flow of pollution from state to state, country to country. After disasters like the chemical release in Bhopal, India, in 1984 and the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, many companies have shifted practices to avoid environmental damage, shareholder wrath and consumer boycotts. Fast-growing developing countries including China and Mexico are rapidly cutting urban air pollution.. They have been spurred both by commmunity pressure and awareness of the high costs of treating illnesses cause by pollution. Indonesia, China and other countries are posting factories' chemical emissions on the Web. The technique, pioneered in the United States, is prompting cleanups. No one expects that people will be able to manage the planet like some giant corporation -- the real Big Blue. ''If you mean making the thousands of little decisions that need to be made, we can no more effectively manage the world than the Soviet Union could manage its centrally planned economy,'' said Dr. Robert W. Kates, a geographer who headed a National Academy of Sciences committee on sustainable development and is an author of ''Great Transition.'' But Dr. Kates says the potential exists to make informed choices that spread the benefits of development to an impoverished majority while not depleting vital assets. One impediment to such a transition is the change itself, the environmental and societal turbulence created by explosive human growth, technological advance and the planetwide linkup of disparate cultures, Dr. Kates and other experts say. Another barrier, they add, is the enormous growth of population and consumption. Although global population appears headed for a 50 percent increase in the next 50 years, for example, demand for food will likely double, as prosperity raises the per capita consumption of calories. There is another roadblock. Not every problem of consequence comes with a Bhopal-style wake-up call. Global warming and species extinction are examples of potential catastrophes that are hiding in plain sight, experts say. Scientists are helping identify problems and opportunities. But communities will make choices guided only in part by what makes sense for the long haul. For one thing, big gaps persist in the basic information needed to measure progress. When a team from Yale and Columbia studied dozens of trends in 142 countries to rank their sustainability, the members had to leave 40 percent of | Forget Nature. Even Eden Is Engineered. |
1417234_13 | China has expanded the work to 250,000 acres, said Dr. Christopher C. Mundt, a plant pathologist at Oregon State University who helped conduct the research. ''Perhaps more important,'' he added, ''the Chinese are taking the general concept of diversification into related approaches'' to other crops. The key to the next green revolution, Dr. Mundt said, will be abandoning most of the industrial model of agriculture of the 20th century and shifting to a ''biological model based on management of ecological processes'' like applying fertilizer and water only as needed. Such efforts are being made in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and other fields around the world. But, once again, experts say the challenge lies in moving to the scales needed to avert widespread harm. The Role of the City The Megalopolis As Eco-Strategy Another focal point for experts who envision a managed earth is cities. In many ways, they are where the battle will be won or lost. Cities are where almost all remaining population growth will occur, demographers say. The roster of megacities, those with populations exceeding 10 million, is widely expected to climb, from 20 today to 36 by 2015. These vast metropolises have been widely characterized as a nightmarish element of the new century, sprawling and chaotic and spawning waste and illness. But increasingly, demographers and other experts say that cities may actually be a critical means of limiting environmental damage. Most significantly, they say, family size drops sharply in urban areas. ''The city is perhaps the most effective device for reducing the birthrate,'' said Dr. George Bugliarello, chancellor of the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn and an expert on urban trends. For the poor, access to health care, schools and other basic services is generally greater in the city than in the countryside. Energy is used more efficiently, and drinking and wastewater systems, although lacking now, can be built relatively easily. And for every person who moves to a city, that is one person fewer chopping firewood or poaching game. Still, many cities face decisions now that may permanently alter the quality of human lives and the environment. Dr. Kates said the pivotal nature of these times is perfectly illustrated by Mexico City, which is just behind Tokyo atop the list of megacities. The sprawling megalopolis, where traffic is paralyzed, is about to choose in a referendum between double-decking its downtown highways or expanding its subway system. One course | Forget Nature. Even Eden Is Engineered. |
1417208_0 | Demography has never been an exact science. Ever since social thinkers began trying to predict the pace of population growth a century or two ago, the people being counted have been surprising the experts and confounding projections. Today, it is happening again as stunned demographers watch birthrates plunge in ways they never expected. Only a few years ago, some experts argued that economic development and education for women were necessary precursors for declines in population growth. Today, village women and slum families in some of the poorest countries are beginning to prove them wrong, as fertility rates drop faster than predicted toward the replacement level -- 2.1 children for the average mother, one baby to replace each parent, plus a fraction to compensate for unexpected deaths in the overall population. A few decades ago in certain countries like Brazil, Egypt, India and Mexico fertility rates were as high as five or six. As a result, United Nations demographers who once predicted the earth's population would peak at 12 billion over the next century or two are scaling back their estimates. Instead, they cautiously predict, the world's population will peak at 10 billion before 2200, when it may begin declining. Some experts are wary of too much optimism, however. At the Population Council, an independent research organization in New York, Dr. John Bongaarts has studied population declines in various countries over the last half century. He questions the assumption that when fertility declines begin they will continue to go down at the same pace, especially if good family planning services are not widely available. Sharp fertility declines in many industrialized and middle-income countries had already challenged another old belief: that culture and religion would thwart efforts to cut fertility. In Italy, a Roman Catholic country whose big families were the stuff of cinema, family size is shrinking faster than anywhere else in Europe, and the population is aging rapidly as fewer children are born. Islamic Iran has also had great success with family planning. ''Projections aren't terribly accurate over the long haul,'' said Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demography expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ''Demographers have been surprised by just about every big fertility change in the modern period. Demographers didn't anticipate the baby boom. They did not anticipate the subsequent decline in fertility in industrialized Western democracies.'' What's next? Demographers can agree generally on a few measurable facts | Experts Scaling Back Their Estimates of World Population Growth |
1417210_0 | For decades, economic advisers from rich countries have preached the virtues of slower population growth to poor countries striving to improve their standards of living. Intentionally or otherwise, the advisers' own countries may have followed that recommendation too closely. Where a stabilizing population can offer economic succor to one country, it may wreak fiscal turmoil in the next. ''The reduction in population growth is actually a good thing on almost all fronts,'' said Dr. Paul Beaudry, a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia. But, he added, ''It still can put some countries into fiscal problems in terms of paying for old-age security and things like that.'' Economists are well acquainted with the dynamics of shrinking populations. In most cases, their theoretical models can adapt to negative population growth as easily as positive. And even when the world's population begins to stabilize, some countries -- mostly poor ones in the Southern Hemisphere -- will keep growing in population while others decline. That growth, however, is likely to be slower. In poor countries, the benefits of slowing population growth are many. Natural resources do not diminish as quickly, government budgets go further and the position of women -- often an untapped force in the economy -- can improve. ''When you go and give people contraceptives, especially the pill and intrauterine devices, you liberate women from the home and childbearing,'' said Dr. Joseph Chamie, director of the population division of the United Nations. ''That gives them time to pursue higher education, complete their schooling and training. And that is a great, great achievement.'' Moreover, when smaller numbers of children grow up to join the work force, more capital is available to help each one's productivity. ''It's a big cost to the system to have a lot of population growth,'' Dr. Beaudry said. ''Each year you have a whole group of new workers that come in. You have to create a whole set of infrastructure for them. You have to educate them.'' India's experience highlights the link between population growth and economic advancement in poor countries, said Carl Haub, the senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group. Fertility rates in India's southern states have dropped markedly, but the northern states' rates -- around five children for each woman -- have stayed stubbornly high. In Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Haub said, the growing population dilutes resources for education and | Bracing for Economic Changes, When the Population Grows No More |
1417346_0 | A young black bear killed a 5-month-old girl outside her family's summer bungalow in a Catskill resort yesterday afternoon, snatching the sleeping baby from her stroller while the mother took her two other children to safety. The bear ran into the woods of Fallsburg, N.Y., with the girl, but dropped her moments later as horrified members of an Orthodox Jewish vacation colony screamed and chased after it. The baby, Esther Schwimmer, was taken by ambulance to Ellenville Regional Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival around 3 p.m., hospital officials said. The bear, a 150-pound male, was killed by a Fallsburg police officer, David Decker, who followed him into the woods and shot him once with a .40-caliber pistol as the bear tried to climb a tree. The bear's body was taken to a state laboratory in Delmar, N.Y., to be tested for rabies and other diseases. Officials from the State Department of Environmental Conservation said it was the first time they could remember a bear mauling a human to death in the wild in New York, though bear attacks have been reported in the past. ''Most bears usually shy away from humans,'' said Peter Constantakes, a spokesman for the department. ''Bears are not usually predatory creatures at all. In most cases, they are wary of humans.'' The last known attack in which a human was killed by a bear in New York was in 1987, when two polar bears mauled and killed an 11-year-old boy who climbed a fence at the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn and sneaked into the polar bear enclosure. The bear in Fallsburg yesterday was believed to be about 2 years old, and had not been tagged -- an indication that he had not been involved in previous encounters with humans, Mr. Constantakes said. The department has received about 40 nuisance complaints about bears this year in the lower Hudson Valley, including four in Sullivan County, where Fallsburg is located. The Fallsburg police chief, Brent L. Lawrence, said the dead girl's mother, identified by family friends as Rachel Schwimmer, was playing in a grassy area with her three children near the Ohel Faiga Summer Cottages, a group of 20 or so worn buildings frequented by families from the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When she heard warning cries from neighbors, she grabbed the two older children and took them to the bungalow, the police chief | Catskill Bear Snatches Infant From Stroller And Kills Her |
1417219_5 | in the forests. The Wildlife Conservation Society began working closely with C.I.B. in 1999 after the company won rights to the area adjacent to Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, which the conservation society runs for the government. The company was seeking to deflect criticism from environmentalists, mostly those in Europe. Even with the cooperative agreement, differences remain. For instance, the company recently put a road about three miles from the park, prompting protests from Mr. Elkan. Still, the bulldozers went ahead. ''He gets excited when he sees nice animals, and I'm excited when I see a nice log,'' acknowledged Jean-Marie Mévellec, C.I.B.'s longtime director. ''We have different jobs, although it's good that he's around to defend the animals.'' Still, many environmentalists prefer a more confrontational approach. ''We are calling on the government of Congo to commit to formal independent monitoring of logging company activities,'' said Filip Verbelen, a forest campaigner at Greenpeace. Last summer, in a move that company officials had hoped would quell the critics, C.I.B. agreed not to log about 100 square miles of land in its concession, an area known as the Goualogo Triangle. Biologists had lobbied C.I.B. to save the forest because it has some of the highest densities of gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants. Still, for every stretch of protected area there are many even larger swaths of forest set aside for logging. Preserving the Congo Republic's forests is but one of many challenges facing the government here, which is also grappling with political instability, corruption and poverty. Logging is the country's second-largest source of foreign currency, behind offshore oil drilling. ''We have to move away from protection, where we close off the forests,'' said Bai-Mass M. Taal, a forestry expert at the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi. ''We can use these forests in a way that strikes a balance.'' Still, scientists say much remains unknown about the species that may be snuffed out when centuries-old trees crash on the forest floor. ''Logging may favor some of the big cuddly species but that may be at the cost of some of the others,'' said Simon Counsell of the London-based Rainforest Foundation, who has criticized the partnership between C.I.B. and the Wildlife Conservation Society for focusing on a few large mammals. As for Mr. Elkan, he said he had more appreciation for the profit-loss pressures of being a logger. ''We had a confrontational relationship in the beginning,'' | Learning to Live With Logging and (Gasp!) Even Liking It |
1417250_2 | United States senators urgently asking for an extension of the Dec. 31 deadline for ensuring that all passenger luggage be inspected by bomb-detection machines. There is, incidentally, general consensus that the machines, each of which is the size of a sports utility vehicle and costs about $1 million, do not work all that well. Even their most enthusiastic supporters concede that the machines -- 1,100 of which are supposed to be in operation by Jan. 1, with thousands more to follow -- register false positives on about a third of the bags they handle. Their critics, meanwhile, say they are nearly worthless in realistically detecting explosives. But that's not the tack the airport executives take. Instead, they argue that the Transportation Security Administration has to date managed to hire and train exactly 166 people to inspect baggage. ''That leaves more than 21,400 screeners to be recruited, hired and trained before the Dec. 31 deadline,'' the airport bosses said, adding: ''We earnestly believe that this is an insurmountable task.'' ''No one is more concerned about aviation security than the employees at our nation's 429 commercial airports,'' the letter said. ''Yet with less than five months remaining, most of these airports, large and small, have yet to receive the T.S.A.'s final plans'' for buying, installing and operating those machines. Jeff Fegan, the chief executive at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, said airports were increasingly concerned about the ''customer service'' implications of the mandate. Stubbornly sticking to the Dec. 31 deadline with inadequate equipment and poor planning will mean ''very long lines that will most likely stretch outside the doors of the terminal building,'' he said of his own airport. ''That's based on scientific modeling, on common industrial engineering -- how many people can you process, how many bags, in the amount of space and time that you have,'' he said. ''The secondary issue, equally important, is whether or not the T.S.A. can ramp up with the staffing necessary to do any sort of job at the larger airports,'' he said. ''We are anticipating the need for at least 2,400 employees from T.S.A. -- 1,200 for baggage screening and probably a similar number for security checkpoints'' that have to be federally run by Nov. 19. ''The last I heard, they had less than 100 people who have been actually hired and are in training right now for this airport,'' Mr. Fegan said. Well, not | Aversion to U.S. Airports Is Rooted in Stress Factor |
1417224_1 | areas. Some microbes, like the ones that cause tuberculosis, malaria and food poisoning, have become dangerously drug resistant. In a 2000 report, the World Health Organization identified a half-dozen factors that could affect the distribution and emergence of infectious diseases. The factors include ecological changes like those from global warming and changes in land use; human factors like population growth, migration, war, sexual behavior, intravenous drug use and overcrowding; international travel and commerce; technological and industrial factors like food processing, livestock handling and organ transplants; microbial changes like the development of antibiotic resistance; and breakdowns in public health measures like sanitation, vaccination and insect control. In the case of West Nile virus, researchers say global warming caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases may be contributing to the warm winters and summer droughts that seem to favor the spread of the virus. Dr. Paul R. Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard Medical School, said an important consequence of warming was an increase in ''extreme weather events'' -- droughts punctuated by torrential rains. Drought, he said, helps the mosquito species Culex pipiens, which plays a major role in spreading West Nile. He added that drought might also wipe out darning needles, dragonflies and amphibians, which destroy mosquitoes. Drought may also aid the spread of infection by drawing thirsty birds to the pools and puddles where mosquitoes breed. ''Hot weather plays a role, too,'' Dr. Epstein said. ''Warmth increases the rate at which pathogens mature inside mosquitoes.'' Climate is not the only factor. As wilderness is developed and animals' specialized habitats are destroyed, opportunistic creatures like rats and crows often take over. Known as generalists or opportunists, animals that thrive near developed areas tend to be hardy species that can eat almost anything and live almost anywhere. If, like crows, they also happen to be capable of carrying a disease and spreading it through mosquitoes to people, they become important factors in outbreaks. Dr. Epstein described a similar sequence of events for Lyme disease, which is spread to people by ticks that feed on deer and white-footed mice. The factors that helped Lyme disease emerge, he said, include ''the social and human activities that bring us in touch with fragments of forest, like sprawl and suburban life, and the fact that there are lots of deer but few predators of deer.'' In addition, | On an Altered Planet, New Diseases Emerge as Old Ones Re-emerge |
1418934_4 | ''We at the N.I.H. need to encourage research and scientists need to pay more attention to the topic,'' she said. Dr. Phyllis Leppert, chief of the reproductive sciences branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said her agency was seeking additional research on the subject. ''We made it a priority in our branch two years ago, and have tried to get grants on the topic,'' she said. ''We've seen an increase in interest, but we definitely need more scientists to get excited about the area.'' Experts in the field say that at least 30 percent of all women have fibroids, and most suggest the figure is much higher. Some estimate 70 percent. In a study that is often quoted but that will not be published until December, researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences conducted sonograms on more than 1,000 women from 35 to 49 randomly selected from a health maintenance organization in Washington and found surprisingly high rates of fibroids. Fifty percent of white women had fibroids and 72 percent of African-American women did. Reproductive hormones, particularly estrogen, stimulate fibroid development and growth. Fibroids tend to develop in the reproductive years and shrink after menopause. Older women with fibroids who are not bothered by severe symptoms often just wait until they go away as hormones decrease. No one is clear why fibroids are more common in black women than in women of other races. Figures from the Nurses' Health Study show that the incidence rate for uterine fibroids among blacks is three times as great as it is among whites and that black women have fibroids diagnosed earlier than their white counterparts. Recent studies have pointed to a genetic link, and fibroids tend to run in families. Last year, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in the Department of Health and Human Services, issued an extensive report on managing fibroids that found a ''remarkable lack of high quality evidence supporting effectiveness of most interventions for symptomatic fibroids.'' ''Patients, clinicians, and policy makers,'' the report said, ''do not have the data they need to make truly informed decisions about appropriate treatment.'' Women and their physicians are left to muddle through the options. Although hysterectomy may be the best treatment for some women, myomectomy is often a better choice, because it allows the removal of the fibroids while keeping the uterus intact. Depending on | Women Seek Choices When Fibroid Tumors Strike |
1419015_1 | of the project as well as the crash timetable. ''We have to sacrifice so that people in Beijing can drink water,'' said Zhang Jize, a 32-year-old farmer and father of two daughters who is among 370,000 people the plan will uproot. Such immense, centrally planned projects have been tried before, notably in Central Asia, where a Soviet-era plan has steadily drained the Aral Sea, turning what was one of the world's largest inland bodies of water into a salty desert and providing a vivid illustration of the dangers of bending nature to economic needs. But China, convinced of its future as a great power, believes the project is essential. Some have drawn parallels to the great water works of the United States, like the the Tennessee Valley Authority that spurred rural development beginning in the 1930's or, more appropriately, the canals that took northern waters to fuel fantastic growth in arid Southern California. But the Chinese project is on an even grander scale. Like China's construction of the Three Gorges Dam, which set off global debate, this latest venture raises a host of tough questions, including how to deliver clean water across one of the world's most polluted landscapes. Perhaps toughest of all, in a country where no good patch of land lies idle, is how to provide for those like Mr. Zhang and his family who will be moved. For Mr. Zhang and many others who live around the Danjiangkou Reservoir -- a linchpin of the new project -- it is not the first time they are being displaced, and their travails parallel China's expanding ambition to meet its water needs. Some 30 years back, when Mr. Zhang was a toddler and the dam was first completed, he and his parents were sent from their fertile valley plot to a remote spot on the banks of the new lake, receiving little compensation for their troubles. ''Life is too hard here,'' he recently told a visitor, gathering with his family in their house with walls of wood and packed earth, covered with old calendars and newspapers. As the government makes its plans for a new mass move, bitterness survives from those earlier rounds of resettlements. Party leaders know that the issue could be explosive if not handled with more care than during past projects, including the Three Gorges Dam project, which will eventually displace more than a million people. Chinese | Chinese Will Move Waters To Quench Thirst of Cities |
1418966_0 | LAST Thursday, my wife and I flew to Phoenix on Continental Airlines, on round-trip tickets that cost $404 each. Because each of us last year flew over 25,000 miles on Continental, we qualify for when-available upgrades to first class. As has happened frequently this year, with so many fewer people buying high-fare seats, we were upgraded to first class. The flight was on time; the food was good; the first-class flight attendant was cheerful and helpful. Even the movie was watchable. It was pleasant enough to almost forget about the standard experience of going through the security checkpoint back at the airport. You know the one: being perp-patted and curtly ordered to drop your belt and remove your shoes by a security guard who seems to have been recruited from the overnight shift at the state penitentiary. The point here is that the major airlines, whatever other vilification is justifiably hurled their way about their indefensibly convoluted fare structures, often seem to be making a serious effort to provide a pleasant flight, under staggering financial and political constraints. ''The airlines get it; the federal government doesn't,'' said Michael Boyd, a consultant whose Web site (aviationplanning.com) often publishes sharp commentary criticizing the government's management of airport security. The so-called airport hassle factor is by now well established as a reason many Americans are flying less. And it's only going to get worse early next year, Mr. Boyd and other analysts say. That's when all 429 commercial airports in the United States are required to have in operation huge bag-screening machines that are supposed to inspect checked luggage for possible explosives. There are a lot of new problems ahead, according to Mr. Boyd and other analysts. Last month, I flew out of the airport in Salt Lake City, where the big machines have been in place since the Winter Olympic Games, and was amazed at how cumbersome the bag-checking process was. It required half a dozen employees, and a total of 12 minutes, for my checked bag, accompanied by me, to move from the ticket counter to the checkpoint, through the machine, and then onto a cart for delivery to the airplane. ''The machines don't work,'' Mr. Boyd said. ''They're supposed to do 500 bags an hour. They do about a bag a minute. Plus they require a phalanx of people. You've got the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra out there wandering around operating | When on the Road Means on the Road |
1416121_4 | protect against what engineers call progressive collapse -- the kind of sudden, overall structural failures that led to the crumbling of the World Trade Center towers. The problems that the 1.6 million-square-foot Citigroup Center faced in the summer of 1978 were, if possible, even more frightening than the potential for a simple collapse. A year after tenants moved into the new skyscraper, its main structural engineer discovered a design flaw that could have caused the entire structure to topple like a rotten oak tree in high winds. The engineer, William J. LeMessurier, made the discovery in July, just as the hurricane season was about to begin. That was hardly the ideal that Citigroup had envisioned when it hired Hugh Stubbins, an architect, and Mr. LeMessurier to design what was to be a striking, even radical, architectural and structural vision for the company's headquarters. The company bought the air rights above St. Peter's in a deal that involved constructing a brand new church on the northwest corner of the site. Because of the church, Mr. Stubbins and Mr. LeMessurier put the building, in effect, on stilts. The designers did not place the legs of the stilts at the corners of the tower, a move that would have pierced the church. ''There couldn't be a column in that corner,'' Mr. LeMessurier said in an interview this week. ''My solution was to move the columns to each side,'' he said. That left the four corners of the tower beetling into space over the plaza. To give the soaring, 914-foot tower steadiness against the wind and keep it from toppling over, Mr. LeMessurier outfitted its outer walls with powerful, eight-story, V-shaped steel supports. He also placed a 400--ton concrete block, called a tuned mass damper, in the crown of the building. When the building began to sway in the wind, machinery would float the block on a film of oil and hydraulically slide it back and forth to counteract the sway. But in the summer of 1978, Mr. LeMessurier and his colleagues discovered that their original estimates of wind forces on the building had been far too low. He also learned that, despite specifications to the contrary, the steel structural members had been bolted together rather than welded, seriously weakening the building's ability to withstand the wind. Mr. LeMessurier realized with horror the devastation that a tipped-over Citigroup Center could wreak in a section | A Midtown Skyscraper Quietly Adds Armor |
1415963_2 | systems use access points that can transmit signals as far as about 300 feet to devices equipped with wireless receiver cards. The systems are generally used as substitutes or additions to local area Ethernet networks that link several computers so they can share resources like a fast Internet connection and a printer. Bluetooth, which has a maximum range of about 30 feet, is usually a replacement for short-range cables like the cord that connects a printer to a computer. Bluetooth is being incorporated into laptops, hand-held organizers, wireless phones and other devices that otherwise would need a cable to transfer data to another device. Q. I got an e-mail message about a virus that was going around called jdbgmgr.exe, but my antivirus software didn't find anything. Does this virus damage antivirus files? A. The e-mail message about jdbgmgr.exe is a hoax that has been traveling around the Internet since last spring. It instructs recipients to delete a file from their Windows systems that is actually a legitimate program, the Microsoft Debugger Registrar for Java. Your antivirus program did not recognize the file as a virus because it isn't one (although computer worms can indeed damage and disable antivirus software). The file you were asked to delete, jdbgmgr.exe, is used by computer programmers who are developing software to run on Windows systems. If someone sends you a copy of the file by e-mail to replace your ''infected'' one, do not install it, because you probably will get a virus from the so-called replacement. This e-mail hoax is usually perpetuated by well-meaning individuals who forward the false alarm to friends in the hope of protecting them. If you want to know how to distinguish such false alarms from real ones, visit the Vmyths site (www.vmyths.com), which has a link to an article called ''How to Spot a Virus Hoax'' on its main page. Several databases on the Web report on common hoaxes. You can research the topic at hoaxbusters .ciac.org, a site run by the Energy Department and its Computer Incident Advisory Capability team. The CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University tracks all kinds of viruses, hoaxes and security issues and has a list of links and resources at www.cert.org/other _sources/viruses.html. J. D. BIERSDORFER Circuits invites questions about computer-based technology, by e-mail to QandA@nytimes.com. This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. Q & A | In Windows 2000 and XP, A Successor to ScanDisk |
1416063_2 | alone, is continuing because the evidence shows neither an overwhelming risk nor an overwhelming benefit. Women who have had hysterectomies generally take estrogen without progestin. For others, taking estrogen alone can lead to uterine cancer. Prempro is approved for the prevention of osteoporosis and for the relief of symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes, but doctors had hoped it might also protect against heart disease and other diseases of aging, including Alzheimer's. Many women were advised to start taking Prempro at menopause and to continue for the rest of their lives. But Prempro is not the only hormone replacement on the market, leaving many doctors and women with questions about whether other drugs, which are slightly different formulations, have similar risks. There are also questions about who should take Prempro and for how long. Prempro's label was written on the basis of older studies that did not provide the sort of precise information as the new study. Those studies did indicate possible risks of heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer, however, and that is included on the drug's label. Now, the food and drug agency is looking at the new data. ''We are going to conduct a review of the data from the Women's Health Initiative study and evaluate the product and the product labeling in light of those data,'' said Susan Cruzan, an agency spokeswoman. Ms. Cruzan said the agency would also consider whether there should be changes in labeling for formulations of the hormones made by other companies. But she added that the work had just begun. ''Until we have more details, there's not a whole lot we can say,'' Ms. Cruzan said. Dr. Bruce Burlington, the head of regulatory affairs at Wyeth, said the company was already planning to change Prempro's label. The company began meeting with the drug agency officials as soon as the results from the Women's Health Initiative were announced. ''We told them we needed to get warnings out and solid information out,'' Dr. Burlington said. In addition to changing its label to reflect the more detailed information provided by the Women's Health Initiative study, he said, Wyeth would send letters to about half a million doctors informing them of the study's findings. Dr. Burlington said that Wyeth expected to participate in the health institutes' meeting in October. But he added, ''We don't have an agenda and we don't have an invitation as yet.'' | Doubts Prompt Reviews of Hormone Therapy |
1415990_2 | University who has studied transitions from virtual relationships to real ones. ''Of all the kinds of contacts we might manage with e-mail, this probably has the sharpest contrast with how the relationship will eventually be managed, given that these people will be with each other in their most unguarded moments.'' In the real world, ''the information environment is totally different,'' said Charles R. Berger, a professor of communication at the University of California at Davis. ''A text representation of a person is really impoverished.'' Roommates have long been able to get in touch before arriving on campus. But never before have they been able to interact so extensively. Some colleges now provide home e-mail addresses along with street addresses or phone numbers. Even if they do not -- and many colleges do not collect such information because students will be getting campus e-mail accounts -- all it takes is a postcard, a phone call or a Web search to track down someone's screen name. In some cases, students go well beyond introductory e-mail, spending hours on instant messaging with their roommates-to-be. Those assigned to suites have been known to gather in chat rooms and to set up message boards. Students have also been known to fret mightily about the messages behind the messages, laboring over what they send out and scrutinizing what comes in. A long or speedy reply can make someone sound too eager; a terse or slow reply might seem standoffish. Big words can sound pompous. E-mail shorthand might sound too casual, but proper capitalization and punctuation might be too formal. Following her roommate's lead, Ms. Silverman chose a formal writing style. And she was glad that Ms. Sprague took the initiative to correspond. ''I'm generally a procrastinator,'' she said. ''I didn't want to be the first one to contact her because it seemed like a big step. I probably seemed lackadaisical but I wasn't, really.'' An incoming freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, Christina Scalzo of Tulsa, Okla., is careful not to joke when she e-mails roommates. ''I don't want to be misinterpreted,'' she said. ''I don't want them to show up with a judgment against me.'' Ms. Scalzo, who has been assigned to a four-bedroom suite, is the envy of her high school friends. She received her housing information in early June and has been in constant touch with her suitemates, who live in Miami, Bahrain | Sharing Space? Share E-Mail First |
1416009_2 | relatively large populations. The result is that 2.5 billion people have seen their standards of living rise toward those of the billion people in the already developed countries -- decreasing global poverty and increasing global equality. From the point of view of individuals, economic liberalization has been a huge success. ''You have to look at people,'' says Professor Sala-i-Martin. ''Because if you look at countries, we do have lots and lots of little countries that are doing very poorly, namely Africa -- 35 African countries.'' But all Africa has only about half as many people as China. In his paper, ''The Disturbing 'Rise' of Global Income Inequality,'' he estimates the worldwide distribution of income by individuals rather than countries. The results are striking. In 1970, global income distribution peaked at about $1,000 in today's dollars, a common measure of poverty ($2 a day in 1985 dollars). In 1998, by contrast, the largest number of people earned about $8,000 -- a standard of living equivalent to Portugal's. ''That's what I call a new world middle class,'' says Professor Sala-i-Martin. It is mostly made up of the top 40 percent of Chinese and Indians, and the effect of their economic rise is big. What about the argument that income gaps are widening within these rapidly advancing countries? With a few exceptions, it is true, but still misleading. The rich did get richer faster than the poor did. But for the most part the poor did not get poorer. They got richer, too. In exchange for significantly rising living standards, a little more internal inequality is not such a bad thing. ''One would like to think that it is unambiguously good that more than a third of the poorest citizens see their incomes grow and converge to the levels enjoyed by the richest people in the world,'' writes Professor Sala-i-Martin. ''And if our indexes say that inequality rises, then rising inequality must be good, and we should not worry about it!'' There is, however, one large country where the poor really are getting poorer while the rich grow richer: Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa. Nigeria's economy has actually shrunk over the last three decades, and the absolute poverty rate -- the percentage of the population living on less than $1 a day in 1985 dollars -- skyrocketed to 46 percent in 1998 from 9 percent in 1970. While most Nigerians were | The rich get rich and poor get poorer. Right? Let's take another look. |
1413884_3 | rate of 36.9 percent paid by the 100 largest publicly traded companies with headquarters outside the United States. The 100 largest United States companies paid 34.2 percent of their profits in taxes worldwide last year, according to the Organization for International Investment, which represents the American subsidiaries of many large foreign firms. But Accenture paid just 7 percent of its profits in taxes worldwide over the four years from 1997 to 2000, its reports to shareholders show. Last year its taxes soared to 63.3 percent of its profits because of two unusual circumstances. First, Accenture's profits fell sharply because of its reorganization. Second, creating a corporation in Bermuda ended various tax deferrals. The deferred taxes totaled $300 million, but Accenture arranged discounts that cut the bill to $224 million. Even with the exceptionally high taxes of last year, over the last five years Accenture paid just 12.1 percent of its profits in taxes, or less than a third the rate for the 100 largest companies with headquarters outside the United States. Ms. Taylor said that Accenture should be judged on the pro forma statement it gave to shareholders, which shows the taxes it would have owed had it been a corporation in 1999 and 2000 as well as last year. By this measure Accenture paid taxes at a rate of 5.3 percent of 1999 profits, 8.7 percent of 2000 profits and 66.7 percent last year. The average for the three years was 14.6 percent. Correction: August 7, 2002, Wednesday Because of an editing error, an article in Business Day yesterday about efforts by the consulting firm Accenture to be treated differently from other companies that set up shop in offshore tax havens misstated the financial situation of its former affiliate, Arthur Andersen. It has not sought bankruptcy protection. Correction: August 12, 2002, Monday An article in Business Day on Tuesday about the Congressional lobbying effort by the Accenture consulting firm to distinguish itself from American companies that reincorporated in offshore tax havens referred incompletely to the taxes paid by the company and its partners before its incorporation in Bermuda. If the firm had been a corporation in 2000, Accenture's effective worldwide tax rate would have been 40 percent, including personal income taxes paid by its partners in the United States and elsewhere on their profits. (The 8.7 percent figure represented taxes paid by partnerships, corporations and other business organizations that | Effort to Curb Tax Havens Could Be Costly For Consultant |
1413809_0 | The debate on hormone replacement therapy has centered on its effects on heart disease and cancer. But at a recent medical conference in Seattle, researchers presented a hormone study that focused on a different question: sleep. The researchers, from Stanford University, found that estrogen improved the breathing of postmenopausal women who had sleep apnea, a condition involving repeated breathing pauses. The study, by Dr. Tracy Kuo, a postdoctoral fellow, and Dr. Rachel Manber, the director of the insomnia program at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Center, was small, but it is one of a number of recent investigations into how sex hormones may disturb or improve sleep. Sleep researchers are finding that women's sleep problems differ from men's and that hormones may explain part of the difference. Many women complain of poor sleep. In a poll released in April by the National Sleep Foundation, women were more likely than men to feel they were not getting enough sleep (28 percent versus 19 percent), to report daytime sleepiness (20 percent versus 13 percent) and to have had symptoms of insomnia (63 percent versus 54 percent). Now there is wider recognition that such complaints are real, said Dr. Joyce Walsleben, the director of the New York University School of Medicine Sleep Disorders Center. ''Instead of being told, 'You're just crazy, dear,' someone may actually listen,'' she said. In the past, Dr. Walsleben said, a woman who told her doctor she was tired and groggy might be labeled depressed, when she was really describing the daytime effects of apnea. Dr. Walsleben thinks that half of women's sleep problems can be attributed to factors unique to women: menstrual cycles, pregnancy, menopause and even motherhood. ''A large part of being female is we're supposed to know what's going on with the kids at night,'' she said. A study by Dr. Rosalind Cartwright, the chairwoman of the department of psychology at the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, found that a baby's cries woke a woman sooner than a man. In a baby's first year of life, a woman may lose as much as 700 hours of sleep. Until the 1990's, most sleep research was done on men. In the early days, Dr. Cartwright said, ''it was not considered polite for women to go to sleep in front of men'' in laboratories. Dr. Terry Young, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin, found that although nine times | Women's Sleep Disorders May Be Tied to Hormones |
1413925_0 | A long-awaited federal study on possible links between pollution and high rates of breast cancer on Long Island has failed to show any connection between the disease and pesticides that were once widely used on the island. It also found only a very slight correlation between cancer rates and exposure to other pollutants, like car exhaust and cigarette smoke. The findings of the National Cancer Institute study, to be released today, come as a sharp disappointment to local advocates for breast-cancer research and to politicians who pushed Congress to approve the seven-year, $8 million study. It is the keystone of the Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project, a $30 million federal effort that includes 12 studies in all. Advocates had pinned high hopes on the study, because it addressed their suspicion that toxic chemicals in their suburban neighborhoods and homes could be behind the area's high rates of breast cancer. But some advocates, politicians and scientists now say that politics may have flawed the study from its inception. Responding to the demands of the advocates, Congress drew narrow parameters for the research, specifying the types of chemicals to be tested. ''You always want to find the smoking gun, so anything short of that is going to mean disappointment,'' said Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Nassau County who helped secure federal money for the project. ''Perhaps in the future, maybe more should be left to the scientists.'' Advocates who lobbied for more breast-cancer research on Long Island became a potent political force in the early 1990's after studies found that the breast cancer rate among Nassau County women was 30 percent higher than the national average. They successfully lobbied for more federal money for research, and Congress passed legislation in 1993 directing the National Cancer Institute to do studies of the island's breast cancer rates. At the urging of the advocates, the law specifically mandated that the research be done as a case-control study. Women in whom breast cancer had been diagnosed would be compared with women without the disease. The law also limited the environmental factors that should be tested, like air pollution and pesticides. Researchers further narrowed the list to include the pesticides DDT and chlordane, as well as chemicals found in car exhaust, cigarette smoke and charcoal-broiled foods. But some scientists say the study made too many assumptions. For example, they say, the study overlooks some | L.I. Study Sees No Cancer Tie To Pesticides |
1413934_0 | The Vatican announced that it had excommunicated seven women who have been calling themselves priests since an ordination ceremony in late June that the Vatican branded illegitimate. After the ceremony, the Vatican ordered the women -- from Austria, Germany and the United States -- to renounce any claims to being ordained and confess error in their actions by July 22. The women did not obey. Pope John Paul II has repeatedly made clear his opposition to opening the priesthood to women. The ceremony in which the seven dissidents took part was conducted aboard a ship on the Danube by an Argentine who claims to be an archbishop but is also at odds with the Vatican. Frank Bruni (NYT) | World Briefing | Europe: Vatican: Female ''Priests'' Excommunicated |
1412855_1 | toxic or would cause allergies. If the crop was deemed not to be harmful, then low levels that inadvertently leaked into the food supply would not be cause for alarm or recalls. The government also hopes that importers of American crops or food would not reject shipments because of a low-level presence of unapproved genetically modified crops. The proposal does not spell out how much contamination might be permissible. Field trials are now subject to the approval of the Agriculture Department, which looks mainly at environmental effects. The F.D.A. or the E.P.A. look at the health aspects but usually not until the crop moves closer to commercialization. Those assessments would still be made. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents biotechnology crop developers, welcomed the new proposals. ''For consumers, this enhancement adds yet another layer of assurance to the existing regulatory review of agricultural crops,'' it said in a statement. But Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, a Washington group opposed to genetically engineered foods, said the proposal, while a step in the right direction, was ''too little too late.'' ''They are recognizing that there is a likely or future problem with contamination of conventional crops with genetically engineered varieties creating potential health risks,'' he said. But, he added, the proposed new policy does not address the trials that are already under way, so his group will seek a moratorium on field trials until the new regulations are in place. He also said his group wanted to make sure the regulations were ''not simply a disguise to bail out companies'' if their experimental crops end up in food. Gene Grabowski, a spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, said food companies would have preferred the safety assessment be made mandatory to send a stronger signal to consumers. The biotechnology and food industries have already been stung by some incidents of contamination. Most notable was the case when genetically modified StarLink corn, which had been approved only for animal feed, was found in taco shells and other foods, causing large recalls and severely hurting American corn exports. In April, Monsanto and Aventis CropScience, two developers of genetically modified crops, said some genetically modified canola seeds not approved in the United States might have found their way into farmers' fields. The proposed new policies would go through a period of public comment and might take months to become effective. TECHNOLOGY | Earlier Safety Reviews Proposed for Gene-Altered Crops |
1412886_1 | Caldwell, is the third person to be killed this year in Northern Ireland's continuing sectarian strife. On July 21, a 19-year-old Roman Catholic, Gerard Lawlor, was gunned down by Protestant paramilitaries as he walked home from a pub on the outskirts of Belfast. In January a Catholic mailman, Daniel McColgan, 20, was shot and killed as he reported for work. Mr. Caldwell, a 51-year-old father of four, was working on renovations at the Caw Camp army base, which was shut down a year ago. Unlike the British military installations that are the usual targets for attacks by Irish republicans, Camp Caw was used by Britain's Territorial Army, a division for reserve personnel, to train ambulance and medical crews. Northern Ireland's labor union leaders have expressed frustration at the inability of politicians to stem the continuing violence, especially against civilians in the workplace. Nearly 1,000 medical workers in Belfast staged a one-day strike today, after a hospital employee received a letter, reportedly sent by a Protestant paramilitary group, that contained a bullet, a common death threat here. In response to the persistent violence, the labor movement planned a rally in Belfast on Friday that is expected to attract thousands of workers. The lord mayor of Belfast, Alex Maskey, proposed the protest after the death of Mr. Lawlor last month, but today's bombing death added impetus to the protest. ''It is tragic that another family has been plunged into despair and grief as a result of a savage and cowardly attack,'' said John Reid, Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, calling the attack ''utterly contemptible.'' Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing, called the killing ''absolutely and totally wrong.'' Mr. Caldwell's girlfriend, Mavis McFaul, appealed for Protestant paramilitary groups not to retaliate. ''If they could see the families they leave behind, the heartbroken, they wouldn't do this,'' she told the BBC. The Real I.R.A. broke off from the mainstream Irish Republican Army during peace talks in 1998, but it agreed to a cease-fire after 29 people were killed in a bombing in Omagh for which it was blamed. But the splinter group, which has been outlawed in Ireland, has remained active, carrying out a series of small attacks in Northern Ireland and in England. The killing today was similar to a bomb attack in February at another army base near Londonderry that critically injured a civilian worker. | Booby-Trapped Lunch Box Kills a Worker in Northern Ireland |
1414388_0 | To the Editor: ''Trying to Elude the Google Grasp'' (July 25) illuminates the issue of having information about you snatched up and used to create a limited portrait. However, rather than attempt to eliminate information and shy away from posting to the Internet, I have found that the opposite strategy, to have many hundreds of postings and references locatable on the Net, to be an effective strategy for deterring those who might wish to quickly grasp the ''me'' shown there. The article misses the point that having people find personal information is not the main problem today. It is rather having robotic agents find your e-mail address so you can be spammed. CHARLES WANKEL New York | Forever Archived |
1419677_0 | Thomas Flood, a Census Bureau statistician from Bowie, Md., had just finished answering the two familiar questions posed to airline travelers for 16 years when he learned that the inquiries about luggage were ending. ''I won't miss them at all,'' Mr. Flood said as he completed checking in for his flight at Reagan National Airport. ''Though they were kind of quaint, in a way. A remnant from the past.'' The Transportation Security Administration announced today that airline workers would no longer ask the mandatory questions. They were usually phrased as, ''Have any of the items you are traveling with been out of your immediate control since the time you packed them?'' and, ''Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry an item on this flight?'' Officials said that the requirement no longer had value for security and that airlines were free to discontinue it immediately. ''We're beyond the questions now,'' a spokesman for the security agency, Robert Johnson, said. ''Today we have so many more security measures in place and more to come. We felt that the questions did little more than add to the line.'' Mr. Johnson said the agency, which became responsible for passenger screening in February, was reviewing policies and procedures. Last week, it said that it would let fliers take beverages through checkpoints if the containers were cardboard or foam. At Reagan National, many passengers responded to the change on questions with indifference. Mr. Flood, who flies about every other week, echoed many sentiments about the questions. ''If only the bad guys were so honest,'' he said. ''Besides, I can't imagine that somebody who had a bag out of their possession for a while would actually say something.'' For many travelers, the practice lost its meaning long ago. Stephanie Laffer of Crystal City, Va., said she hardly listened to the questions. ''It's just completely pointless,'' Ms. Laffer said. ''Anyone who's a frequent flyer knows the answers. I just have it down to no and no.'' Some fliers said the questions were a reminder to be careful. ''They make people think twice about leaving their bags unattended, especially after 9/11,'' Brynda Villeneuve, a nurse from the Marshall Islands, said. ''I always hold onto mine, though.'' TRACES OF TERROR: SECURITY PROCEDURES | Airlines Allowed to Stop Asking About Luggage |
1419713_1 | called on the administration today to continue to work through the United Nations in its confrontation with President Hussein. President Jacques Chirac of France reiterated his demand that any military action against Iraq be approved by the Security Council and criticized what he called ''attempts to legitimize the unilateral and pre-emptive use of force.'' Without mentioning the United States by name, the French president called such attempts ''worrying,'' adding: ''This runs contrary to the vision of collective security of France, a vision that is based on cooperation among states, respect for the law and the authority of the Security Council. We shall repeat these rules as often as needed, and notably over Iraq.'' Mr. Chirac's remarks contrasted with comments by his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, who indicated on Tuesday that France would avoid any criticism of the Bush administration as a means of gaining the maximum leverage over any decision by Washington to wage war against Iraq. In Britain, where the government is facing mounting domestic opposition to the prospect of an American-led invasion of Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw reaffirmed his nation's commitment to the return of United Nations weapons inspectors to Baghdad. In an interview published today in the Financial Times, Mr. Straw sought to walk a fine line, reiterating Britain's support for Washington while saying his government was ''putting the ball back in Saddam Hussein's court'' by seeking to force him to allow inspections of potential weapons sites to resume. While conceding that new inspections ''would provide no assurance of itself that there would be compliance,'' Mr. Straw said they would nonetheless represent ''a first step on the way to ensuring compliance.'' Mr. Cheney displayed no such confidence today. Returning to a theme he struck earlier this week, he singled out for criticism those who advocate relying on weapons inspections to answer concerns about Iraq's development of biological, nuclear and chemical armaments. Mr. Cheney said that in 1995 the inspectors, who were later barred from the country, ''were actually on the verge of declaring that Saddam's programs to develop chemical weapons and ballistic missile had been fully accounted for and shut down.'' Only later, aided by defectors, did they realize that Iraq ''had kept them largely in the dark about the extent of his program to mass-produce VX, one of the deadliest chemicals known to man,'' he said. ''Far from having shut down Iraq's prohibited missile | Administration Seeking to Build Support in Congress on Iraq Issue |
1419672_4 | however, the fates of millions of hungry people around Zambia grow more dire. Loveness Malupande, who lives not far from Chipapa, in the village of Kabweza, with an extended family of about 24, said her family had sold off all but two of the 20 cattle they had, all to buy stopgap supplies of food, which have since run out. For now, the family is left to scavenge. ''We go out in the bush and look for wild roots,'' she says. One of her relatives, Cliff Malambo, 27, said he had heard about the food at the warehouse in Chipapa. ''They have said that the food is not good for us, but we don't know,'' he said. ''They don't explain.'' Many Zambians question the government's statements and wonder why friends who received the American corn before the ban went into effect have not died. Others applaud the government's vigilance. Almost all of them are somewhat befuddled. ''People ask me if it's safe,'' Steven Grabiner, who runs the Riverside Development Agency, a church-affiliated charity, said. ''I say, 'Yes, I think it is. If you make me a bowl I'll eat it.''' Foods produced from crops engineered to be more resistant to worms, for example, are now widely consumed in the United States less than a decade after such products first entered the market. By many accounts, they have made American agriculture more productive, but they have also brought controversy. A number of scientists and consumer advocates argue the effects of genetic engineering on both the environment and consumers have not been adequately examined. Yet, years of extensive testing have not turned up any findings that would suggest such foods are not safe for humans, Marc Cohen, an analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, said. While genetically engineered food has almost certainly found its way into Zambia for several years, through international aid or through imports from South Africa, which produces genetically modified crops, the scale was always small and never attracted attention. But the volume of food being brought in for the relief operation is huge, aimed at feeding 13 million people across six countries, and red flags went up. Mozambique and Zimbabwe at first joined Zambia in resisting the geneticaly modified corn, particularly out of concerns over cross-pollination. Ultimately, Mozambique and Zimbabwe decided to mill the corn before bringing it into the country, eliminating the potential | Between Famine and Politics, Zambians Starve |
1414881_8 | same leg. The men's sister had still another theory entirely. ''She worried that it was a plot to kill both of them,'' the nephew says, describing his aunt's concerns that terrorists might have made their way to Raahe. ''She was angry. She wanted to blame someone. So she said the chances of this happening by accident are impossible.'' Not true, the statisticians say. But before we can see the likelihood for what it is, we have to eliminate the distracting details. We are far too taken, Efron says, with superfluous facts and findings that have no bearing on the statistics of coincidence. After our initial surprise, Efron says that the real yardstick for measuring probability is ''How surprised should we be?'' How surprising is it, to use this example, that two 70-year-old men in the same town should die within two hours of each other? Certainly not common, but not unimaginable. But the fact that they were brothers would seem to make the odds more astronomical. This, however, is a superfluous fact. What is significant in their case is that two older men were riding bicycles along a busy highway in a snowstorm, which greatly increases the probability that they would be hit by trucks. Statisticians like Efron emphasize that when something striking happens, it only incidentally happens to us. When the numbers are large enough, and the distracting details are removed, the chance of anything is fairly high. Imagine a meadow, he says, and then imagine placing your finger on a blade of grass. The chance of choosing exactly that blade of grass would be one in a million or even higher, but because it is a certainty that you will choose a blade of grass, the odds of one particular one being chosen are no more or less than the one to either side. Robert J. Tibshirani, a statistician at Stanford University who proved that it was probably not coincidence that accident rates increase when people simultaneously drive and talk on a cellphone, leading some states to ban the practice, uses the example of a hand of poker. ''The chance of getting a royal flush is very low,'' he says, ''and if you were to get a royal flush, you would be surprised. But the chance of any hand in poker is low. You just don't notice when you get all the others; you notice when you get | The Odds of That |
1415351_8 | same leg. The men's sister had still another theory entirely. ''She worried that it was a plot to kill both of them,'' the nephew says, describing his aunt's concerns that terrorists might have made their way to Raahe. ''She was angry. She wanted to blame someone. So she said the chances of this happening by accident are impossible.'' Not true, the statisticians say. But before we can see the likelihood for what it is, we have to eliminate the distracting details. We are far too taken, Efron says, with superfluous facts and findings that have no bearing on the statistics of coincidence. After our initial surprise, Efron says that the real yardstick for measuring probability is ''How surprised should we be?'' How surprising is it, to use this example, that two 70-year-old men in the same town should die within two hours of each other? Certainly not common, but not unimaginable. But the fact that they were brothers would seem to make the odds more astronomical. This, however, is a superfluous fact. What is significant in their case is that two older men were riding bicycles along a busy highway in a snowstorm, which greatly increases the probability that they would be hit by trucks. Statisticians like Efron emphasize that when something striking happens, it only incidentally happens to us. When the numbers are large enough, and the distracting details are removed, the chance of anything is fairly high. Imagine a meadow, he says, and then imagine placing your finger on a blade of grass. The chance of choosing exactly that blade of grass would be one in a million or even higher, but because it is a certainty that you will choose a blade of grass, the odds of one particular one being chosen are no more or less than the one to either side. Robert J. Tibshirani, a statistician at Stanford University who proved that it was probably not coincidence that accident rates increase when people simultaneously drive and talk on a cellphone, leading some states to ban the practice, uses the example of a hand of poker. ''The chance of getting a royal flush is very low,'' he says, ''and if you were to get a royal flush, you would be surprised. But the chance of any hand in poker is low. You just don't notice when you get all the others; you notice when you get | The Odds of That |
1414970_3 | point out, however, that Dr. Gammon's findings did not prove to them that all pesticides were safe. ''To me it's still a no-brainer that you shouldn't use toxic chemicals on your lawn,'' said Karen Miller, the president of the Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition. ''They don't stop at weeds or rodents. They enter our bodies.'' She conceded that since other studies have also suggested that the pesticides in question may not be linked to breast cancer, it might be time to look elsewhere. ''All this means is we have to push for more funding to study all the other chemicals that could be causing breast cancer,'' she said. In a separate finding, Dr. Gammon's study showed that exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, commonly found in pollutants like car exhaust and cigarette smoke, produced a very modest increased risk for breast cancer. ''We're not quite sure what to make of that, though,'' she said. ''It needs to be looked at further and confirmed by other studies.'' She also stressed that these two findings were but the first of many that will come from the study. Researchers interviewed some 3,000 women, about half of them diagnosed with breast cancer. They took blood and urine samples from about 2,200 of those women in 1996 and 1997 and also took house dust, tap water and soil samples from the homes and yards of about 700 women. The results released so far used blood samples from only half of the 2,200 women and none of the urine or household samples. Dr. Gammon said she and her colleagues have already started to reinterview participants who have breast cancer to see if the pesticides and pollutants they studied might affect the severity of their disease and their mortality rates. The researchers are also reanalyzing the data on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to reconsider their effect on breast cancer and to examine how they might damage healthy cells. She said that she and her team studied the pollutants that current technology allowed them to look into but that the blood and urine samples have been saved in the hopes that new technology will allow them or other scientists to study other chemicals and possible causes. Mary Joan Shea, a breast cancer survivor from Huntington, said she believed that one of the biggest problems with Dr. Gammon's study was that she was so limited in the types of chemicals she | What Next? |
1415059_2 | Mr. Wuillermin. Michelle Infante-Casella, agricultural agent with the Rutgers University Cooperative Extension Service in Gloucester County, says growing techniques add to their succulence. ''The reason we're so hip on the Jersey tomato is because it's always been a vine-ripened product as opposed to those in other states,'' said Ms. Infante-Casella. The others, she added, ''pick mature green fruit and then they unnaturally ripen it using ethylene gas so they kind of stay a pinkish color.'' The growers in the New Jersey Tomato Council, who are concentrated in Atlantic, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem Counties, carefully schedule their plantings and grow their tomatoes on stakes -- out of the dirt -- to prevent rot, using drip irrigation and plastic mulch to nurture them, all of which is costly. Once they pick the tomatoes, they ship them to the council's packing house in Cedarville, in Cumberland County, where they are sorted by size and color in a $750,000 grading machine. ''The machinery that's required to pack round tomatoes is expensive and more than a grower of our size can afford,'' said August Wuillermin. How the legend of the Jersey tomato began is hard to say. Some say it began on a day in 1820 when Robert Gibbon Johnson gathered a crowd as he ate a tomato on the steps of the Salem County Courthouse to prove it wasn't poisonous. A 1999 catalog called Heirlooms, published by Burpee's, said the so-called Rutgers tomato that was developed in 1934 for use by the Campbell's Soup Company was the original Jersey tomato. Whichever, farmers and researchers have experimented over the years until today they can grow tomatoes with more shelf life that can travel better but still taste good. But to get something, you have to give up something, and connoisseurs say the taste isn't what it was when the tomatoes were softer and sometimes not as nice-looking as the newer ones. ''One of the detriments of being market-driven is we've had to pick a firmer variety because they have a longer shelf life,'' Ms. Infante-Casella said. ''However, what we've gained in shelf life, we've given up a little in flavor.'' Nonetheless, during the growing season, July through October, the Jersey tomato will still be fresher than the imports. ''Our advantage is we can pick them while they're ripening, put them in a box and have them in stores that afternoon or the next morning,'' said | Despite a Squeeze from Outsiders, The Jersey Tomato Hangs Tough |
1415160_0 | DR. DEBORAH WINN has had breast cancer herself, so when she speaks to women who have just received the dread diagnosis, she understands the nagging question: Why did this happen to me? Many people suspect environmental pollutants like pesticides, for instance, or car exhaust. But Dr. Winn, head of the extramural epidemiology program at the National Cancer Institute, which conducts studies to look for environmental causes of cancer, does not tell women that pollutants are the cause. ''Usually, I tell them that there are a lot of factors that combine -- it's a multistep process,'' Dr. Winn said. ''There is no one thing. Many aspects of your reproduction are involved. It may have something to do with your genes and in how you repair damage, how you metabolize estrogen.'' Dr. Winn, like many other scientists, said that the quest for environmental causes of cancer -- from chemicals in the water to electromagnetic fields near power lines to radiation from a cellphone -- may be more daunting than the public realizes. Conclusive evidence that any of these things increase one's risk of cancer has never been found, despite repeated studies. And even if there is a link, several experts said, it may be beyond the capacity of science to find it. Still, the drive to blame something other than chance is a strong one, and the issue arose again last week when a long-awaited study of breast cancer on Long Island did not find evidence that certain pesticides, exhaust fumes, or cigarette smoke were linked to cancer. The $8 million study, which was financed by Dr. Winn's group at the National Cancer Institute, came into being because local advocates had pressured Congress to approve it. When earlier studies found that breast cancer rates in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island were about 3 percent higher than the national average, advocates were certain that this new study would find a smoking gun in the environment. Instead, scientists said, the investigation raised questions about what sort of assurances research like this can really provide. Geri Barish, the president of 1 in 9: The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition, said that she knows that the pollutants studied are dangerous -- they cause cancer in laboratory animals, she said. ''How could they absolutely say that a known carcinogen is not absolutely involved in the cause of cancer?'' she asked. DR. WINN points to | Ideas & Trends: Proof; What Causes Cancer: Can Science Find the Missing Link? |
1419446_2 | resume weapons inspections in Iraq. He has also said a war could wreck the international antiterror coalition, inflame the Middle East and hurt the world economy. The French attitude towards the United States was reflected in a speech by Mr. Villepin that opened a conference of French ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. Unlike his predecessor, Hubert Védrine, who seemed to relish any opportunity to criticize the United States, Mr. de Villepin, who lived and worked for years in Washington, stressed the positive. He spoke glowingly of American ''dynamism, energy and exceptional enthusiasm,'' and the need for the United States and Europe to unite in a ''new Euro-Atlantic partnership.'' As for Iraq, he branded it a regime that ''defies international rules set by the Security Council, holds it people hostage and threatens security, particularly that of its neighbors. Such behavior is not acceptable. We Europeans, know too well the price of weakness in the face of dictatorship if we close our eyes and play a passive game.'' The emerging French strategy is to take diplomatic cover by putting any talk of war in the context of the rule of international law. Indeed, in his speech, Mr. de Villepin said that the international community must demand the unconditional return of United Nations inspectors to the country, but did not say what should be the response if Iraq refused. As for waging war, he reiterated the French position that ''no military action can be conducted without a decision of the Security Council.'' In his speech, Mr. de Villepin did not say, as other French officials have said privately, that the Iraq problem can only be dealt with after the war between Israel and the Palestinians is resolved. The passage on Iraq was carefully negotiated for hours inside the Foreign Ministry and with the Élysée Palace. It will be reiterated by Mr. Chirac when he delivers a speech to the ambassadors at the Élysée Palace on Thursday, according to Catherine Colonna, Mr. Chirac's spokesman. ''For the moment, the most useful position is to remind people of the obligations of Iraq and the role of the Security Council,'' Ms. Colonna said. Last evening, in a meeting with ambassadors assigned to the Middle East, Mr. Villepin was peppered with questions that underscore the delicacy of France's position. ''It was a real brainstorming and shows how things are too hypothetical now to take a stand,'' | France Mutes Its Criticism Of U.S. Stance Toward Iraq |
1419450_4 | on an earlier flight but had a discount ticket and was not sure whether the airline would let him fly standby. ''I'm not that thrilled with flying anymore, and these things nag on you,'' said Mr. Minor, a 53-year-old business consultant. ''Their business will continue to deteriorate if they don't pay attention to the customers. Things like not refunding a discount ticket, that will just eat away at customer loyalty.'' At O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Anu Sing, a 32-year-old hotel manager from Washington, said that the changes by the traditional carriers were eliminating the positive differences between them and Southwest. ''You shop around for the best price, but you also take other things into consideration, like service,'' Mr. Sing said. ''If you take that away, then they are all the same.'' The new rules also complicate the jobs of flight attendants and ticket agents, who have to deliver news of the changes to customers. Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 50,000 workers in the industry, said attendants were finding it difficult to keep all the rule changes straight and that ''when you're explaining reduction in service to a passenger, that's not a comfortable conversation.'' The new rules could lead to a mad scramble among passengers to carefully scrutinize which airline will give them the most benefits for their money. Passengers who know they might not make their ticketed flight could very well shun US Airways or AirTran Airways, which has always had a similar no-credit policy on its low fares. But AirTran could attract customers who want to check more than two bags because it allows a third checked bag free, as does Southwest. Continental Airlines has attracted customers that want food on their flights as rivals have cut back, although that could soon cost extra as Continental rolls out more trims in the next several weeks. Continental has said that it will charge additional fees for certain services to low-fare passengers, and it is thought to be looking at the same kinds of rules that US Airways just put in place. Continental said last week that it would charge low-fare travelers $80 for each checked bag beyond the second piece as well as not giving out full cans of soda or breakfast knives in coach class unless people ask for them. Joe Elenteny, a 66-year-old passenger who arrived yesterday in Chicago on | Big Airlines Cut Service And Add Fees |
1419371_0 | A FEW months ago, a friend who is otherwise as technologically well endowed as the next guy explained to me why he had no desire to own a cellphone. He found it irritating, he said, to have his conversations with friends constantly interrupted by nonurgent cell calls. He finally vowed never to join the mobile communications crowd when a loud cell conversation stopped him from hearing the dialogue on the screen in a movie theater. I harumphed at him, noting it was probably only a matter of time before he too would be seduced by the pleasures and convenience of omnipresent communications. But something about that conversation stuck with me. In time, I wondered if I'd moved beyond seduction to addiction. And finally, I decided it was over. Perhaps it was the head-on collision I nearly caused while ordering a pizza. Maybe it was the string of calls from a near stranger who was persistent about getting together for coffee. Or possibly it was just an accumulation of smaller annoyances. But off went the cellphone, and I began to enjoy the new silence. Things weren't supposed to turn out this way. When I bought my first cellphone nearly 10 years ago, my intention, like that of many others, was to use it only in emergencies. But the siren call of life beyond NPR in the car was too irresistible. I took to placing frequent calls to my mother-in-law while tooling around the streets of Austin, Tex. They were local calls, and therefore easy to justify. It escalated from there. I began making long-distance calls to talk to everyone about nothing. I was quickly falling prey to what a colleague calls the Cellphone Orthodontist Principle. As he explains it, this is when you can no longer be in the car without taking the opportunity to make a call. You've exhausted your list of friends and family and you wind up calling your orthodontist from junior high, and saying, ''Hey, I love what you've done with my teeth. Are you busy for the next 40 miles?'' I had it bad. The next thing to go was incoming calls. Over time, I gave my cellphone number to pretty much everyone, with reckless disregard for the consequences. People began to treat it as if it were my only number. How were they to know? And why should they care? They called that number first | Then Again, Is It a Tool or a Cellular Trap? |
1419449_1 | argued that the group and others affiliated with it -- and even social clubs and bars like the tavern in Andoain -- act on E.T.A.'s orders or to finance its attacks. [On Monday, Judge Garzón ordered a three-year ban on political activities by Batasuna, which is widely viewed as E.T.A.'s political wing, and the police began shutting down its offices. The Spanish Parliament also voted to endorse a government proposal asking the Supreme Court to outlaw Batasuna altogether under new legislation barring any political group that gives ''active or tacit support'' to terrorists.] The government's new actions go well beyond its previous antiterrorism stance, possibly marking an end to the policy of accommodation with more moderate Basque nationalists that Spanish leaders have generally followed since democracy was restored after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Since then, autonomous Spanish regions like the Basque country have amassed more powers of self-government than any similar areas in Europe, taking control of their police forces, schools and social welfare systems with ample tax revenues ceded by the state. As a strategy to undermine separatist violence, however, the autonomy policies have largely failed: E.T.A. has continued its attacks, which are blamed for more than 800 killings since 1968, when the group began its fight for a Basque state straddling Spain and France. Moderate nationalists have also continued to make common cause with Batasuna, confounding the government's efforts to isolate those who condone terrorism. In July, the moderate nationalists who control the Basque parliament answered Batasuna's proposed ban by voting to consider seizing new administrative powers from the Spanish government, including control over prisons and social security. A Batasuna leader, Koldo Gorostiaga, while maintaining the group had no direct ties to E.T.A., warned that the ban on its legal political activities would force its supporters underground, increasing the likelihood of violence. Others oppose the party's proscription on different grounds. Catholic bishops in the Basque country have warned that a ban might place innocent civilians in greater danger by deepening the political conflict. Though Spaniards often reject comparisons between the Basque country and Northern Ireland, more liberal analysts have noted that the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein, was an important part of successful peace talks there. Mr. Aznar insists that there is nothing to talk about. The Spanish leader, who survived an assassination attempt by E.T.A. in 1995, has | Buoyed by World's Focus on Terror, Spain Cracks Down in Basque Region |
1419456_0 | Pictures as Fighting Words | |
1417927_0 | In early June, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage flew to Pakistan and India -- nuclear-armed rivals on the brink of war -- and engineered a détente. From President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, he extracted a promise to end raids into Indian territory. From the Indians, he elicited a willingness to wait and see if the promise was kept. Two and a half months later, with Mr. Armitage once again en route to New Delhi and Islamabad, the détente has held, but it has also hardened into what Western diplomats describe as a stalemate. If tensions are lower than during Mr. Armitage's last visit to the region, expectations that he will manage another breakthrough are lower, too. In addition to a number of publicly announced de-escalation measures, like pulling naval vessels away from Pakistan's coast, India has taken quieter steps that reduce the immediacy of the war threat -- for instance, reinstating leave for the hundreds of thousands of troops massed along both the Line of Control in Kashmir and the international border between the countries. Indian officials, perhaps still stung by the economic effects of the American travel advisory imposed at the end of May and lifted last month, have been more cautious with war talk. But the basic situation -- two nuclear-armed neighbors eyeball-to-eyeball -- has not changed. Col. Shutri Kant, a spokesman for the Indian Army, said troops regularly continued to exchange small arms fire (Pakistan always fires first, he said). He said there had been at least one artillery exchange this month. Indian officials insist that infiltration by Pakistani-backed militants into the state of Jammu and Kashmir has declined but not stopped. India's position, reiterated repeatedly of late, is that it will not engage in a dialogue with Pakistan over the future of Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries and claimed by both, until cross-border terrorism stops. In an interview with Agence France-Presse this week, General Musharraf denied that there was any remaining government-sponsored infiltration of militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir; he said he would take no further steps toward curbing cross-border terrorism until India reciprocated with a dialogue. ''I'm not going to take 10 steps when India doesn't take one even,'' he said. Each side accuses the other of trying to skew coming elections in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state. Those elections will be a focus of Mr. Armitage's visit, as | U.S. Presses to Keep India-Pakistan Peace |
1417960_0 | By decree, the official burning season here in the Amazon is supposed to be severely limited in scope and not to start until Sept. 15. Yet the skies south of here are already thick with smoke as big landowners set the jungle ablaze to clear the way for cattle pasture and lucrative crops like soybeans. The Amazon basin, which is larger than all of Europe and extends over nine countries, accounts for more than half of what remains of the world's tropical forests. But in spite of heightened efforts in recent years to limit deforestation and encourage ''sustainable development,'' the assault on its resources continues, with Brazil in the lead. On Monday, the United Nations' World Summit on Sustainable Development is scheduled to begin in Johannesburg. That conference comes 10 years after an Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which was attended by more than 100 nations. The participants signed a series of ambitious agreements that were aimed at protecting forests, oceans, the atmosphere and wildlife. As the host country, Brazil was one of the sponsors of those accords. Within three years, however, the annual deforestation rate in the Amazon, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of Brazil's territory, had doubled, to nearly 12,000 square miles, an area about the size of Maryland. Since then, the rate of destruction has slowed and the government has begun numerous initiatives aimed at further curbing the cutting and burning of the forest. Just this week, the government announced the creation of the world's largest tropical national park, in the northern state of Amapá near the border with French Guyana. But the Brazilian jungle is still disappearing at a rate of more than 6,000 square miles a year, an area the size of Connecticut. What is more, the deforestation is likely to accelerate, environmentalists warn, as the government moves ahead with an ambitious $43 billion eight-year infrastructure program known as Brazil Advances, aimed at improving the livelihoods of the 17 million people in the Amazon. Over the last 30 years, most destruction in the Amazon has been in a 2,000-mile-long ''arc of deforestation'' along the southern and eastern fringe of the jungle. But now the government is moving to turn the Cuiabá-Santarém road, which slices through the heart of the forest, into a paved, all-weather highway so that farmers to the south can more easily transport soybeans and other products to the Amazon River | Amazon Forest Still Burning Despite the Good Intentions |
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