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1394886_1 | and airlines have become more sophisticated about identifying passengers who ought to be closely scrutinized, though further improvements are needed. At the same time, the government has wisely opposed such counterproductive measures as allowing pilots to bear arms. Passengers should be heartened when they spot the newly minted security agents of the Transportation Security Administration. Created by an act of Congress last November to take over security from the airlines and their private contractors, the agency has energized the air marshal program and is in the process of deploying tens of thousands of federal airport screeners, who are more professional than the private guards they are displacing. By mid-November all airports should be fully staffed by these federal agents. The legislation's most urgent deadline is the mandate that all checked bags be screened for explosives by the end of the year. The industry and aviation regulators have been procrastinating on this vital front for years. The new agency is rightly committed to meeting the deadline, although it has said it will do so by using a combination of technologies. It will deploy 1,100 bulky, $1 million tomography screening machines, which work like medical cat-scan equipment, and at least 4,000 of the more portable explosive trace-detection devices that are used to check carry-on luggage. The government has not yet certified that this technology is as reliable for screening unopened checked bags. Instituting the plan will be expensive and disruptive. In addition to the challenge of producing enough machines and paying for them, it can take months of renovations to install them in terminals. Over the long term, the agency hopes to rely on a new generation of smaller and cheaper detection systems, as well as new walk-through machines that check passengers for explosives. Some in Congress are already balking at the cost of what they ordered the security agency to accomplish. The House of Representatives is trying to cut $400 million in planned funding for it this year, and has resisted increasing the per-ticket security fee. Equally worrisome, airport operators are being encouraged to dip into their capital improvement funds to cover security-related costs. These steps are shortsighted in the extreme. Terrorism will remain a threat for the foreseeable future, and Americans are not willing to settle for half-baked security measures or politicians afraid to make the investments that are necessary to render flying as safe as it can possibly be. | Another Flying Season Begins |
1394832_0 | Early in the Reagan administration I spent a year on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers. While there I got a disillusioning look at how economic policy is really made. But one favorable surprise was how seriously U.S. officials took our international trade agreements. The Reagan administration, despite its free-trade rhetoric, was quite willing to protect industries for political gain; the most notable example was the ''voluntary'' restraint on Japanese car exports. Still, it was a firm rule that trade interventions had to be ''GATT-legal'' -- that is, they couldn't violate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. (The GATT has since been incorporated into the rules of the World Trade Organization.) And that scrupulousness continued up to the end of the Clinton years. Everyone understood that there were certain things that you didn't do, no matter how convenient they might be in terms of short-term political advantage. In those days, in other words, responsible people ran our international economic policy. When the Bush administration imposed steep tariffs on imported steel, it became clear that this is no longer true. In sheer economic terms, the steel tariff is not that big a deal. But it demonstrates an unprecedented contempt for international rules. The immediate threat is that other nations will strike back; the European Union has threatened retaliatory tariffs, and earlier this week Japan, Brazil, South Korea and China said they would follow suit. (Mr. Bush really has unified the world, at least on this issue.) But as a wise trade expert once told me, the big danger when the U.S. flouts the rules isn't retaliation, it's emulation: if we don't honor trade agreements, who will? Why do we need trade agreements anyway? The costs that tariffs and import quotas impose on domestic consumers almost always exceed the gains they provide to domestic producers. Nonetheless, if we didn't have trade agreements, protectionism would usually win. Consumers don't realize that they are hurt by steel tariffs or sugar quotas, but the steel and sugar industries know exactly what they're getting. The reason we manage to have fairly free trade is that the world -- under U.S. leadership -- has evolved a system that pits the self-interest of exporters against the power of industries that would prefer not to compete with imports. Each country agrees to accept the exports of other countries in return for access to their markets. In | America The Scofflaw |
1394609_2 | the report says, noting that damage to farmland in India is cutting agricultural productivity there by about $2.4 billion a year. The analysis, the third in a series begun in 1997, involved more than 1,000 scientists and a host of international research centers and agencies. It was issued as 140 countries prepared for talks starting tomorrow in Bali to finish planning for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, a meeting of world leaders in Johannesburg in late August focused on meshing economic growth and environmental protection. That meeting is widely viewed as a 10-year checkup to see how the world has fared since the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. ''Without the environment, there can never be the kind of development needed to secure a fair deal for this or future generations,'' Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, said at a news conference in London at which the new report was discussed. Already, the report says, five billion acres of soil, more than the area of the United States and Canada combined, is degraded by human activity, with a sixth of that ''strongly or extremely degraded.'' Most of the damage has come through water and wind erosion and excessive grazing. The report says water shortages will be particularly acute in a zone running from the Arabian Peninsula north through Syria and Iraq, with more than 90 percent of the population in that region living in what it called ''severe water stress'' by 2032. In considering what may happen in the next 30 years, the report looks at a variety of social and economic scenarios -- from one in which all countries focus mainly on promoting growth to one in which they seek to balance environmental, social and economic progress. It concludes that serious additional harm is likely without more focus on meshing economic growth with environmental planning. The analysis does find that substantial reductions in air and water pollution in industrialized countries in the past three decades can potentially be copied by poorer countries. It also notes that protected preserves have grown steadily for 30 years, to 4.7 million square miles worldwide in 2000 from 1.07 million in 1970. And it cites a study of 93 protected areas finding that most are blocking the clearing of land, though they are not as effective at preventing illegal logging, poaching, fires and grazing. | Severe Water and Land Loss Predicted Over a Generation |
1394611_0 | Voters in the Portland metropolitan area have turned down an initiative that would have severely weakened how elected officials can determine the shape of new urban areas. It was an endorsement of land-use restrictions that have made Oregon a national model for controlling growth. The ballot measure, brought by developers frustrated at strict rules on housing density, would have taken away the power of a regional governing body known as Metro to control how tightly houses are packed into neighborhoods. The vote on Tuesday was 57 percent against the initiative, 43 percent in favor. Oregon has long championed a state law aimed at restricting urban sprawl. The law requires cities and towns of a certain size to draw a boundary around their urban areas, keeping forests, farmlands and open space free of development. Since the law was passed in 1973, voters on three other occasions have turned down efforts to weaken or eliminate it. The biggest legacy of the law has been modern Portland, a metropolitan area built more along the lines of some European cities, with its mass transit system, compact neighborhoods and protected forests and farms outside the city limits. But builders, property rights advocates and some environmentalists have complained that Metro's enforcement of the law has put far too many homes into tightly drawn urban areas and has pushed up housing prices by restricting land available for building. Supporters of the state's urban growth plans have said that the law has allowed Oregon to do what few other fast-growing areas have been able to do: permitted new housing while still protecting rural character at the edge of cities. The vote was seen as a referendum on how Metro applied the law. Metro controls land use, conservation and transportation issues for 24 cities and three counties holding 1.3 million people in the Portland area. ''There was no groundswell of sentiment against how Portland has shaped its urban destiny,'' said David Bragdon, who helped to lead the fight against the initiative. Ethan Seltzer, an urban planning professor at Portland State University, said the vote was an endorsement, even in a recession, of Portland's restrictions of growth. ''There are an awful lot of people who are comfortable with the idea that the planning that's occurring is still making things better rather than worse,'' Mr. Seltzer said. | Portland Voters Endorse Curbs On City Growth |
1394642_0 | The selection of the New York architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle to design a master plan for ground zero and the financial district confirms once again that architecture will play no more than a marginal role in the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan. While the firm's remodeling of historical structures has earned high praise, its original work has been lackluster. It is not a crime to lack imagination, and Beyer Blinder Belle cannot be faulted for being cast into the intense public glare now focused on ground zero. Accountability for this exposure rests with the Port Authority, owners of the 16-acre site, and with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the state agency created to supervise reconstruction of the site and adjacent areas. Thus far, these two agencies have failed to rise to an occasion of historical magnitude. Since last September, we have been witnessing the construction of mediocrity in Lower Manhattan. The structure is now in place. If there is any chance of changing course toward a more inspiring direction, it lies with the prospect that the reality constructed thus far by the development corporation will evaporate this November after the gubernatorial election. Mediocrity, the choice of this firm reminds us, is not a default mode. It is a carefully constructed reality, erected at vast public expense. Ignorance is the brick from which this wretched edifice is built. Secrecy is the mortar holding it together. To date, Beyer Blinder Belle is better known for restoring old landmarks than designing new buildings of distinction. The firm's most notable project, the restoration of Grand Central Terminal, is a magnificent piece of work. Prior to that, Beyer Blinder Belle received high praise for its plans for Ellis Island National Monument, which included the restoration of the historic United States Immigration Station. The firm's original designs, however, have been less impressive. Its masonry residential towers in Manhattan -- at 2250 Broadway, on the southeast corner of West 81st Street, or the West Side Y.M.C.A. apartment tower, on West 63rd Street between Central Park West and Broadway -- have led some of Beyer Blinder Belle's more unsympathetic colleagues to nickname the office Blah, Blah and Blah. Beyer Blinder Belle's remodelings of historic structures occasionally lack sensitivity. Some have criticized the restored immigration hall for being overly sanitized. A renovation of the Brooklyn Army Terminal is marred by an opaque railway platform canopy that obstructs the building's | An Appraisal; Marginal Role for Architecture at Ground Zero |
1396137_2 | Sheckells was stunned when more than 81,000 responses arrived in just three weeks. ''I was losing vital e-mail from the school,'' she said. Even teachers who have done a better job of segregating incoming e-mail have been unable to keep themselves from being swamped by it. Among many teachers who set out on such projects, ''the level of naïveté is breathtaking,'' said Barbara Mikkelson, who, with her husband, David, a computer programmer, runs www.snopes2.com, a Web site that chronicles Internet frauds, urban legends and cybermishaps. A page on their site called ''School Daze'' reports on how the Los Angeles science project and others ended up shutting down and posting pleas for people to stop e-mailing them. Mrs. Mikkelson says teachers setting up Internet projects underestimate the pleasure people get out of doing something that feels like a public service yet requires no more than a few keystrokes. ''It's all fed by slacktivism,'' she said, ''the desire people have to do something good without getting out of their chair.'' Stopping the projects can be harder than starting them. When the notice ending Mrs. Sheckells's experiment was posted, her school started getting calls and letters from as far away as Japan and Europe saying something was wrong with the site. The school's principal got 158 calls from people who could not get through by e-mail but wanted to be included, Mrs. Sheckells said. ''Our advice would be to never do it for more than a week,'' said Sandra Slape, a computer teacher who helped set up an experiment for a fifth-grade social studies class at an elementary school in Taylorsville, N.C. Although the Taylorsville experiment was intended to run for five months, the school shut down the Web site at the end of just one month, after 500,000 e-mail messages had arrived. But time limits will not address the more subtle shortcomings of these e-mail projects. For instance, some students draw erroneous conclusions from the responses, as when they view the numbers as a measure of how modernized each country is. In truth, the uncontrolled nature of the experiment deprives it of much of its educational potential. Designing productive constraints is a huge challenge. Businesses are spending billions of dollars trying to figure out how to collect timely, reliable information from strangers over the Internet. Teachers reaching into cyberspace will have to substitute insight and ingenuity. Lessons Richard Rothstein is on vacation. | They Weren't Careful What They Hoped For |
1396232_0 | In what is described as the biggest military exercise ever held in the Amazon, the Brazilian military has begun maneuvers in a remote area that borders Colombia. Colombian guerrillas and drug cartels have occasionally crossed into Brazil, but a government spokesman said the exercise had been planned long in advance and was not related to concerns of increased violence after Colombia's presidential election last Sunday. Larry Rohter (NYT) | World Briefing | Americas: Brazil: Military Flexes Muscles In Amazon |
1396117_0 | An F.B.I. investigation two years ago that was apparently linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was hampered by problems with the bureau's e-mail wiretap system. The system, Carnivore, which was supposed to pick up e-mail from targets of counterterrorism investigations, ''also picked up the e-mails of noncovered'' individuals, according to an internal bureau e-mail message dated April 5, 2000, that was made public yesterday. ''The F.B.I. technical person was apparently so upset that he destroyed all the e-mail,'' apparently including mail related to the investigation, said the memorandum, addressed to M. E. Bowman, associate general counsel for national security affairs. Bureau documents written the next week said Carnivore had a tendency to cause ''improper capture of data'' that ''not only can violate a citizen's privacy, but also can seriously 'contaminate' ongoing investigations'' through unlawful interceptions. Yesterday, a bureau official disputed the account in the memorandum. He said no information had been lost, because the e-mail had been recovered. The system gathered too much information, the official said, not because it was flawed or experimental, but because the Internet service provider gave agents outdated settings for the tapped computers. ''The technology assistance provided by the I.S.P. is vital to proper configuration,'' the official said. Although the bureau would not comment directly about the target of the tap, the memorandum said the tap was conducted in Denver under counterterrorism laws for the ''UBL Unit,'' presumably concerned with investigating Osama bin Laden, who is often referred to in government documents as Usama. The documents were made public under a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy and policy group in Washington. The bureau developed Carnivore to give it some of the power that it has historically had with telephones. The system can tap the communications stream of an Internet service provider to retrieve e-mail to and from the target of an investigation. The system can also retrieve just the e-mail addresses of senders and recipients of the target's e-mail, a method similar to technologies long used by investigators to capture phone numbers dialed by suspects and people who call them. The system, announced to the public in 2000, has been criticized by civil liberties advocates. They have said that it might collect more information than law enforcement is entitled to collect and that it samples the communications of many people not under investigation to capture a | Bin Laden Inquiry Was Hindered by F.B.I. E-Mail Tapping |
1391323_0 | Implantable Medical Information | |
1391305_0 | Here are some tips for travelers from airlines, airports and the federal government: *Check the airlines' Web sites for updates and advice, including delays, recommended check-in times and items to avoid bringing. *Do not joke about terrorism, bombs or other such topics. *To avoid causing delays, take laptops out of bags well before you reach the scanners. Be prepared to go through a full security check, including taking off your shoes. *If you have an electronic ticket, use automatic check-in kiosks. If you are checking baggage, though, you will have to go to the ticket counter if there is no agent next to the kiosk. *Prepare children for stringent security measures. Baby strollers will have to go through X-ray machines, and children might have their bags and toys inspected. Toy guns will be confiscated. Some airlines require children traveling alone to show identification. | Tips to Make Flying Easier |
1391253_2 | had spoken personally with both Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and that they ''have endorsed this in its entirety.'' Mr. DeLay's press secretary, Stuart Roy, said the measure had been refined after consultation with the White House. Victoria Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said that while ''I am confident the secretary has not read every line, he is very supportive of the intent'' of the measure. ''We have been talking to DeLay,'' she said. Mr. Rumsfeld said on Monday that the court imperiled American servicemen and women by putting them ''at risk of politicized prosecutions.'' The White House confirmed that it had worked with Mr. DeLay on provisions that would allow the president to grant waivers, if he thought them necessary, for arms deals to nations that ratified the treaty. ''We support Congressman DeLay's version and we worked with him on this proposed legislation,'' said Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council. The arms deal ban exempts NATO countries and other major allies, but arms deals with nations like Colombia or the Philippines would require a waiver. A State Department official said that with the waiver authority, the department supported the measure. The proposal would also cover participation in peacekeeping operations that might put service members at risk of court jurisdiction. Before the committee's 38-to-18 vote to adopt Mr. DeLay's plan, it was bitterly attacked by several Democrats. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island said it was a ''shame'' that the United States did not support the treaty and that the DeLay measure sent a message of unilateralism to the world. Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the appropriations panel, said the committee should not even consider the measure, but leave it to the International Relations Committee, which has the necessary expertise to address it. He insisted that most committee members did not know what was in the 28-page amendment. Mr. DeLay said the threat to American troops was so urgent that ''we don't have time for Mr. Obey to read the bill.'' Mr. Obey, after demonstrating that some committee members did not know the court would be located in The Hague, asked if Mr. DeLay understood that under the rescue provision, ''We would be sending our troops to invade the Netherlands.'' Mr. DeLay said he did not consider that a serious question. | House Panel Approves Measures to Oppose New Global Court |
1391255_1 | ''Given e and k, h is true if and only if c is true,'' he said. ''The probability of h given e and k is .97'' In plain English, this means that, by Mr. Swinburne's calculations, the probability of the Resurrection comes out to be a whopping 97 percent. While his highly technical lectures may not net Christianity many fresh converts, Mr. Swinburne's efforts to bring inductive logic to bear on questions of faith have earned him a considerable reputation in the small but vibrant world of Christian academic philosophy. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Swinburne and a handful of other nimble scholarly minds -- including Alvin Plantinga at the University of Notre Dame and Nicholas Wolterstorff at Yale -- religious belief no longer languishes in a state of philosophical disrepute. Deploying a range of sophisticated logical arguments developed over the last 25 years, Christian philosophers have revived faith as a subject of rigorous academic debate, steadily chipping away at the assumption -- all but axiomatic in philosophy since the Enlightenment -- that belief in God is logically indefensible. ''They are the first group within 20th-century Anglo-American philosophy to tackle questions of religious faith using the tools of philosophy,'' said Brian Leiter, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which ranks academic philosophy departments. ''It would be accurate to say that it's a growth movement.'' Mr. Wolterstorff, who retired from Yale in December and in whose honor the conference was organized, agreed. ''And it's not just graybeards,'' he added, referring to the dozens of younger scholars and graduate students in attendance. ''Within the general discipline, this development of the philosophy of religion has been extraordinary.'' To be sure, not all of the movement's philosophers agree with one another, use the same tactics or even hold the same religious beliefs. Some, including Mr. Swinburne, for example, are what's known as evidentialists: they accept the Enlightenment doctrine that a belief is justified only when evidence can be found for it outside the believer's own mind. According to the classic evidentialist argument, for faith to be considered rational it has to be supported by independent proof, and there simply isn't any. (Asked what he would say if God appeared to him after his death and demanded to know why he had failed to believe, the British philosopher and staunch | So God's Really in the Details? |
1391243_1 | be stopped,'' said Penchom Sae Tang, coordinator at the Campaign for Alternative Industry Network in Bangkok. ''It violates the constitutional principle of public participation.'' The proposed Trans Thai-Malaysia Pipeline, a joint venture of the two nations' state-controlled oil companies, PTT and Petroliam Nasional, would carry gas from jointly owned offshore fields across the Isthmus of Kra to customers in Malaysia. It is a crucial link in a regional grid of planned pipelines meant to help Southeast Asia, with rich gas resources in inconvenient places, to wean its power-hungry cities off dependence on Middle Eastern oil. The pipeline has become a sticky issue for Mr. Thaksin, one that pits his populist image with voters against his desire to appear pro-business to investors. The new Constitution, introduced after the 1997 financial crisis, has made it easier for opponents to resist the kind of pell-mell development seen in the boom years before the crisis. Mr. Thaksin's strategy seems to be to seek compromise, or at least stall for time, on many projects. He also announced today that his government would postpone, but not cancel, construction of two deeply unpopular coal-fired power plants south of Bangkok. The government said Thailand had enough electricity for now, and that it needed more time to assess the impact of the power plants, one of which is partly owned by an American company, Edison Mission Energy, a unit of Edison International. PTT and Petroliam Nasional, known as Petronas, had planned to start construction of the pipeline last year, but when opposition mounted, the Thai government put the project on hold, hoping tempers would cool. Now Malaysia wants no further delays, because it is contractually obligated to start paying for the gas in a few months, pipeline or no pipeline. Petroliam Nasional has said it will invoke the ''force majeure'' clause in the contract and refuse to pay for gas that cannot be delivered, but it is still negotiating for time with the gas field's operators, which include BP and a Thai subsidiary of Amerada Hess. (BP recently announced that it wanted to sell its 25 percent stake in the field.) This week, Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, told reporters that if the pipeline was not begun soon, Petronas would build one farther south that bypassed Thai territory -- which would thwart the Thai government's hopes for using the pipeline to encourage industrial development in the isthmus. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS | Thai Premier Offers Compromise of Sorts on Pipeline Dispute |
1396306_1 | Philips). Learning from my mistakes, I then brought one of the radios along on the trip. Shortwave broadcasters like Voice of America and the BBC's World Service rely on the earth's atmosphere to carry their signals over long distances. The signals used for AM and FM radio and television either pass through or are absorbed by the ionosphere. Shortwave signals, however, bounce off it. By repeatedly ricocheting off the ionosphere and the earth's surface, shortwave broadcasts can travel enormous distances from their transmission towers. That, unfortunately, is the easy part. The time of year, the time of day, sunspot activity and other factors can affect shortwave reception. One consequence is that shortwave broadcasters change their frequencies generally twice a year. Some broadcasters also transmit at several different frequencies to improve reception in different parts of the world. ''If you now receive one frequency very well, perhaps next year at the same frequency you will not receive anything,'' said Jacques Fonteyne, head of the broadcasting division for the International Telecommunication Union, which coordinates the assignment of shortwave frequencies among countries. Mr. Fonteyne suggested that anyone interested in finding a specific station at a set time check with the broadcaster. Many of them maintain Web sites, for example, that include frequency charts. New shortwave radios, however, have a feature clearly aimed at lazier travelers. Over the last decade higher-end digital radios have replaced analog tuning knobs and dials with liquid crystal displays and push buttons. Like many car radios, these digital tuners will automatically scan the airwaves and stop when they encounter a signal. That's the idea, at least. But figuring out which buttons to push is not necessarily easy. The Sony ICF-SW7600GR model I tested, for example, had 25 buttons, many with multiple functions, on its front alone. The sheer number of buttons and their not always obvious functions meant that while I could turn the radio's power on, I was not able to produce a sound without studying the manual. The ICF-SW7600GR made up for the fiddling somewhat by having the most solid feel of the six radios I tested and the clearest reception for shortwave broadcasts and local FM stations. (I tested the Sony with its main antenna, but it comes with an antenna extension that makes it even more sensitive.) Tuning in stations on the Sony or other shortwave radios requires a bit of an adjustment for people | With the World Band in Your Hands |
1396409_1 | screening at the gates. A draft plan, dated March 27, calls for making an updated version of a computerized passenger profiling system available at the checkpoints. Before Sept. 11 that system, known as the Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System, was set up to provide information at the check-in counters and was used to decide which checked bags should be closely examined. Since Sept. 11, the focus has shifted to include carry-ons. Security officials said today that they were leaning toward making the profiling system available at the checkpoints as well as at the check-in counters. The plan was written by PWC Consulting, EDS Inc. and an EDS subsidiary, A. T. Kearney. It also calls for a ''registered passenger program,'' under which people who voluntarily submitted to background checks would be passed through some kind of streamlined security procedure, although the document is not clear on this point. John Magaw, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, has resisted such a system, although some people in the travel industry strongly favor it. The document divides the security administration's work into three steps, starting with those needed for the agency to take over security at the 429 airports where the agency will work. The second stage involves the most urgently needed improvements, like installing weapons detection equipment, after the takeover. In the third stage, less urgent improvements would be made. The first steps are already under way. The security administration took over checkpoints at part of Baltimore-Washington International Airport on April 30 and is supposed to replace all contractor employees by Nov. 19. By Dec. 31, the agency is supposed to screen all checked baggage for explosives. Much of its work is driven by those deadlines, which were set by Congress. The plan did not give a schedule for the second and third phases. The second phase also includes the addition of video cameras and motion detectors to enhance security and a ''mini X-ray for shoes.'' Shoes that are examined now have to go through the main X-ray machines. Another possibility under discussion is express lanes for ''premium passengers'' and for passengers carrying a single bag. The chief security official at each airport would get cable television ''for news updates.'' Still other changes, which would not be noticeable for travelers, would be secure radio communications on common frequencies for all local law enforcement and emergency response personnel. TRACES OF TERROR: AIRLINE SECURITY | Plan Sharply Tightens Airport Screening |
1396331_1 | of Statewatch, which monitors civil liberties issues in Europe. The compromise language adds a requirement that police surveillance of citizens' phone and Internet use be appropriate, proportionate and limited in length. The draft law now also makes reference to the European Convention on Human Rights, though only in a footnote. Mr. Bunyan said that even with those concessions, the law will still ''pave the way for blanket surveillance of individuals'' and that it is ''a myth to say this is needed in order to tackle terrorism.'' The terror attacks last fall softened opposition to the law's data retention provision by many civil liberties advocates and by Erkki Liikanen, the European commissioner who oversaw the drafting of the law. He dropped his objection last fall, saying people must ''look at the world differently'' after Sept. 11. ''We can live with this compromise,'' Mr. Liikanen said of the draft law today, ''but we must have a position on the length of data retention, the maximum number of months it can be held.'' Some in law enforcement, including senior British police officials, want the traffic data kept for seven years. Part of the debate is cost, with the phone and Internet companies afraid that they will be required to bear it. Neither the companies nor proponents of the new law have an estimate for how much it will cost. ''This compromise mentions data retention but it doesn't define what data is,'' said Fiona Taylor, a senior adviser to ETNO, a telephone trade group. ''It could include the content of people's messages, as well as the time, duration and direction of the call or e-mail. Until we know what we need to store, we can't say how much it will cost.'' Jo McNamee of EuroIspa, an Internet companies' trade association, said retrieving the data when needed may cost even more than storing it. But his main concern, he said, is the precedent it sets. ''This is the beginning, not the end of data retention,'' Mr. McNamee said. ''Member states will be able to pass national laws, and there is nothing here in this E.U. data protection directive to stop them.'' Other provisions that the Parliament is expected to approve include a ban on unsolicited e-mail advertising, known as spam, unless the recipient has specifically ''opted in'' and agreed to receive such mailings; companies will be allowed to go on sending mailings to existing customers. | Europe Police Likely to Get Longer Access To Records |
1396328_1 | can build a successful company on teenagers' buying power. Now, as Wildseed's focus-group session demonstrates, cellphone manufacturers are maneuvering in that same tricky terrain, with the goal of making cellphones that are designed expressly for teenagers. Some companies are retooling existing phone models, adding features and looks that appeal to young users. Others, like Wildseed, are designing phones for teenagers from the ground up. The companies have their sights set on young people for good reason: since only 38 percent of American teenagers have cellphones, the market has plenty of room for growth. Yet with product development cycles of up to two years, designing a phone for the rapidly changing tastes of American teenagers can be as tricky as doing a kickflip on a moving skateboard. There are three basic concerns: what the phones look like, what they do and what they cost. But design issues are often more nuanced, because for teenagers, more than for most adults, a cellphone is not just a means of communication. It is an accessory, a fashion statement, an instant messenger, a toy, a social prop. It is a symbol of independence second only to the car, many teenagers say, and an extension of their personality. ''Individuality is really important with phones,'' said Kyle Fox, 17, a high school student who was chatting with friends outside a Seattle mall. ''I don't want the same phone as everyone else.'' Nokia has a line of what it calls ''expression'' phones, which have spawned secondary products like customized faceplates, add-on lights and downloadable ringer tones. While Nokia has something of a head start in the teenage phone market, other companies are quickly catching up, both in fashion and in function. Motorola's v120 cellphone comes with a built-in FM radio, and Wildseed is also planning to offer a phone with a radio and headset. One of Samsung's phones has AOL Instant Messenger. Other companies offer phones that allow the user to compose ringer tones, and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications has phones with cameras and multimedia messaging. Wildseed is planning to customize its phones around popular fashion themes. The phones will have ''smart skins'' -- replaceable taco-shell-shaped faceplates with computer chips that allow teenagers to change functions as well as the phone's appearance. There are graffiti-splattered faceplates for skateboarders, for example, that come with edgy urban ringer tones and gritty icons. (The phones are expected to be introduced later | Youth Will Be Served, Wirelessly |
1390486_0 | The first detailed scientific analysis of organic fruits and vegetables, published today, shows that they contain a third as many pesticide residues as conventionally grown foods. The findings, published in the Food Additives and Contaminants Journal, confirmed what consumers of organic food have taken for granted but did not settle the argument over whether organic food is safer than conventional food treated with chemical pesticides. The debate gained prominence in February 2000 when John Stossel, a correspondent on the ABC News program ''20/20,'' reported that testing had proved that the levels of pesticide residues in conventional produce were similar to those in organic produce, making organic claims a fraud. Though Mr. Stossel retracted his statement -- such testing had never been conducted -- his report alarmed proponents of organic agriculture and those like Consumers Union who do not oppose the use of synthetic pesticides but want stricter standards. Edward Groth III, a senior scientist at Consumers Union and a co-author of the report, said: ''There have been some very strong opinions voiced about organic produce that haven't been based on data and have confused the issue. This report shows rather convincingly and compellingly that organic foods are much less likely to have any residues; that when they have residues they have fewer and that the levels of the residues are generally lower.'' The findings are based on pesticide residue data collected on a wide variety of foods by the United States Department of Agriculture from 1994 to 1999, tests conducted on food sold in California by the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation from 1989 through 1998, and tests by Consumers Union in 1997. The combined data covered more than 94,000 food samples from more than 20 crops; 1,291 of those samples were organically grown, about 1.3 percent. The Agriculture Department data showed that 73 percent of the conventionally grown foods had residue from at least one pesticide and were six times as likely as organic to contain multiple pesticide residues; only 23 percent of the organic samples of the same groups had any residues. The California data found residues in 31 percent of the conventional food and 6.5 percent in the organic. Consumer Union tests found residues on 79 percent of the conventional samples and 27 percent on the organic. The study also looked at why organic foods contained any pesticide residues. When residues of persistent insecticides, like DDT, were | Study Finds Far Less Pesticide Residue on Organic Produce |
1390589_0 | Meeting in Bloomington, Minn., bishops of the United Methodist Church have elected their first female president. The new leader, Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher of Illinois, left, will serve for one year as president of the Council of Bishops. With her election, two women now lead the Methodist bishops. Bishop Sharon Rader of Wisconsin has served as secretary of the council since 1996. Laurie Goodstein (NYT) | National Briefing | Religion: Woman Will Lead Bishops |
1390495_1 | against child soldiers is an issue around which consensus can be reached, relatively easily. Even though the three-day General Assembly Special Session on Children does not get under way until Wednesday, it is already riven by acrimony. Much of the debate centers on abortion, and how it should be addressed in the final document of the special session. All 189 member states must agree on the document, which will delineate specific goals and measures to improve the lives of children over the next 15 years. At issue is the phrase ''reproductive health services.'' The Bush administration, whose chief delegate to the special session is the secretary of health and human services, Tommy G. Thompson, wants the document to specify that such services would not include abortion. Its allies are a host of Catholic countries from Latin America, as well as a swath of the Islamic world. ''Let's do an asterisk that says, 'Hey, by the way, health care services doesn't mean abortion,' '' an American official said, explaining the administration's wishes. ''Nobody wants to put it down and spell it out.'' The other point of contention concerns language on the rights of children. The United States is one of only two countries in the world that have yet to ratify the landmark 1989 treaty on children's rights; Somalia is the other. Conservatives in Congress have repeatedly objected to the treaty. They say they fear its provisions place the rights of children over those of their parents; allowing children to access certain health services without their parents' consent, for instance. The treaty also outlaws the death penalty for anyone under 18, something that nearly half of all American states allow. The American delegation to the session is unlikely to agree to any language in the final document that is seen as an endorsement of the convention on children. If nothing else, the special session has already offered a chilling snapshot of the plight of the world's smallest, most vulnerable citizens to some of the world's most powerful. Among the 3,000 official delegates from over 180 countries are 60 presidents, prime ministers and monarchs and about 200 child delegates. Indeed, a progress report for the decade, assembled by the secretary general's office, offers as much evidence of progress and regress for the world's two billion children. More children are in school than ever before, the report has found. Yet 100 million children | U.N. Prepares For a Debate On Dire Needs Of Children |
1390495_3 | session is unlikely to agree to any language in the final document that is seen as an endorsement of the convention on children. If nothing else, the special session has already offered a chilling snapshot of the plight of the world's smallest, most vulnerable citizens to some of the world's most powerful. Among the 3,000 official delegates from over 180 countries are 60 presidents, prime ministers and monarchs and about 200 child delegates. Indeed, a progress report for the decade, assembled by the secretary general's office, offers as much evidence of progress and regress for the world's two billion children. More children are in school than ever before, the report has found. Yet 100 million children are unable to attend school, 60 percent of them girls. Polio has been all but eradicated, and the number of children who die of diarrhea has been reduced by half. Yet 10 million die every year from preventable diseases. The picture in sub-Saharan Africa is especially stark. Infant mortality rates have improved in much of the world. But in several African countries, the picture is the opposite: 17 percent of newborns do not live to the age of 5. Sub-Saharan Africa has 10 percent of the world's population and 90 percent of its AIDS orphans. Squeezed by foreign debt, many governments have spent less and less on basic social services. Some poor countries, the United Nations report found, spend three to five times as much paying off foreign debt as they do on basic services. At the same time, rich countries fell far short of the commitments they made at the 1990 summit meeting: to devote an average of 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product to development assistance. Only four countries, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, met the 1990 goal. The United States ranked No. 22 among donors, with 0.1 percent of its G.D.P. devoted to aid. Correction: May 9, 2002, Thursday An article yesterday about preparations by the United Nations for its special session to discuss the needs of children misstated the number who died of preventable diseases in the 1990's. It is estimated at 130 million, not 10 million. The article also misstated the number of countries that met their pledge to devote an average of 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product to development assistance. It is five, not four. (Luxembourg did, along with Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway.) | U.N. Prepares For a Debate On Dire Needs Of Children |
1388847_1 | been one key success on the financial front. Money is critical to any large terrorist operation, so the arrest by Spanish police of Mohammad Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi is significant. He has been linked by American and German investigators to Mamoun Darkazanli, the Syrian businessman who had ties to Mohammad Atta. Some of the funds Mr. Atta used to finance the Sept. 11 attacks may have originated with Mr. Zouaydi; his arrest should close down an essential component of Al Qaeda's European organization. This part of the war on terrorism, consisting entirely of intelligence and police work, has been about as multilateral as can be imagined. Since last June, Spain has arrested 23 Qaeda suspects, at least three of whom have been released and one of whom was extradited to France. The Dutch, French and Italians have all identified and apprehended members of Al Qaeda, while Germany has uncovered a web of interconnected Qaeda cells and assemblies of militant Islamists. In all, some 1,600 Qaeda suspects have been arrested in over 30 countries, although only a small percentage of these are still in custody. These arrests have hampered Al Qaeda's attempts to reorganize and promote new acts of terrorism against the United States. Unfortunately, the dispersal of Qaeda cadres from Afghanistan has resulted in a more decentralized command structure. While some pending attacks have been frustrated by American authorities, the arrests of central operatives like Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Zouaydi do not foreclose terrorist attacks from other Qaeda elements. Al Qaeda has demonstrated a remarkable ability to adjust to the Treasury Department's global effort to identify and close down terrorist money channels. Money continues to flow but is harder to identify. Meanwhile, progress on the investigation in the United States has been slow. Zacarias Moussaoui remains the only person indicted in the United States who has been linked to the events of Sept. 11. Customs Service raids on institutions like the International Institute for Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va., and F.B.I. raids on the Holy Land Foundation in Richardson, Tex., and Patterson, N.J. -- suspected as a Hamas fund raising front -- have failed to reveal Qaeda links, according to F.B.I. sources. Indeed, the Justice Department's detention of thousands of immigrant Muslims -- the policy of ''shaking the trees'' in Islamic communities -- alienates the very people on whom law enforcement depends for leads and may turn out to be counterproductive. | The War on Terror Enters Phase 2 |
1371512_0 | Dozens of Afghan and Arab fighters are hiding in this 40-mile-long slash of rock and forest in the Caucasus Mountains, according to Georgian officials. They say at least some of the new arrivals are plotting terrorist strikes in Russia or seeking to reach Europe and the United States, possibly to mount attacks. Officials from both Russia and the United States have indicated they would like to bring the fight against global terrorism here to the snow-encrusted escarpments northeast of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. But the government of President Eduard Shevardnadze is reluctant to act while an estimated 8,000 Chechen refugees and about 1,500 Chechen rebels are also taking shelter in the area, which has long served as a no man's land of crime, drug trafficking and hostage taking on the border between Georgia and Russia. The Russian defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, referred this month to the Pankisi Gorge as ''a mini-Afghanistan on Russia's doorstep,'' a pronouncement in line with Russia's history of pressing Georgia to crush the Chechen rebels on its territory, or at least drive them back into Chechnya. But senior government officials in Tbilisi note that any military operation in the gorge would endanger civilians and risk bringing Russia's war in Chechnya to Georgia. [In Moscow, Russia's foreign minister said an American proposal to deploy about 200 military specialists to train and equip Georgian armed forces to fight terrorism ''could further aggravate the situation in the region, which is difficult as it is.'' Page A12.] Georgia, among the weakest of the post-Soviet states, would like the United States to provide military hardware -- tanks, artillery, munitions and armored vehicles -- before Georgian troops are sent against the hardened fighters of the gorge. But neither Washington nor Moscow seems willing to provide the kind of heavy weapons that Georgian officials are seeking, in part because Georgia remains afflicted by deep ethnic conflicts in two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There is no guarantee, American and Russian officials say, that such weapons would not be employed to inflame those conflicts. And so far, Mr. Shevardnadze and senior officials in his government insist that neither Russian nor American troops will be allowed to intervene in combat operations here, though all agree that action against Islamic militants hiding here is urgently needed. The terrorist threat is growing, according to Georgia's top security officer, Valery Khaburdzania. In an interview, he said his | In Caucasus Gorge, a Haven for Muslim Militants |
1371336_0 | ANYONE who has upgraded to a new cellphone has grappled with the question of what to do with the old one. Stick it in a drawer somewhere? Toss it in the trash can? Every year in the United States, 40 million to 50 million mobile phones face one of these two fates, said Seth Heine, founder and president of CollectiveGood International, a company that sells used phones in Latin America. How many end up in the garbage is unclear. In Europe, where more research has been done on the subject, less than 15 percent have been thrown out, said Bette Fishbein, a program director and senior fellow for Inform, a nonprofit environmental organization in New York. Recycling sounds like the conscientious alternative. Several American recycling centers are dedicated to dismantling electronic equipment, including cellphones, and extracting the trace amounts of gold inside. But municipal recycling programs are not equipped to process buckets of cellphones the way they do aluminum cans. Instead, recycling companies get the phones from manufacturers and wireless companies like Verizon, Triton PCS and U.S. Cellular that have ''take back'' programs in which they collect old phones for disassembly or reuse. (Information on the closest recycling program can often be obtained by calling the subscriber's wireless carrier or a city's waste management center.) How the phones are recycled is another question. This week, five environmental groups released a report that pointed to environmental hazards from the recycling of electronics equipment in India, Pakistan and China, much of it Western refuse. In some cases, the report said, the recycling techniques expose workers to toxic material. Because of the number of intermediaries, it is hard to tell what becomes of equipment given up for recycling. The International Association of Electronics Recyclers has started a certification program to weed out companies that may be dumping products on poorly run operations in developing countries. At the same time, however, the industry wants to deter the government from imposing recycling requirements on manufacturers. One option for consumers, according to industry experts and many environmentalists, is to donate old phones to people who can still use them. Donate a Phone (www.donateaphone.com) gives women's shelters the phones it has gathered from the mail, local drop boxes and door-to-door collections. (Corporate ''take back'' programs donate usable phones to this service because it is affiliated with the wireless industry association.) CollectiveGood (www.collectivegood .com) collects phones by mail | Phones in the Drawer or in the Trash, or to a Good Cause |
1371352_2 | into electronics equipment and has given manufacturers the primary responsibility for collecting the used gear. Mining cellphones for gold is, in fact, just one way the Japanese are finding new uses for what they cast off. They are among the world's most avid recyclers, and for good reason. With nowhere near the abundance of natural resources found in the United States, Japanese have long recycled items ranging from lacquered lunch boxes to tatami mats. Still, the amount of garbage produced has soared nearly 60 percent in the last three decades, and the Tokyo metropolitan area, where 20 percent of the population lives, is fast running out of landfills. As the cost of waste disposal soars, recycling has increasingly become not only a habit but a requirement, too. Last April, the government passed a law requiring home appliance manufacturers like Hitachi and Toshiba to recycle all the washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners and televisions they make and import. The government is likely to expand the law to include personal computers and office equipment (though not cellphones), a prospect that is pushing companies to increase the amount of reusable and recyclable content. ''They see the writing on the wall,'' said Dylan Tanner, a Briton who is director of the Yokohama office of Environmental Resources Management, an environmental consulting firm. ''They are going to have to phase out using a lot of materials, so they want to stay one step ahead.'' But with the exception of the cellphones and a few other items, recycling is a money loser. For home appliances covered under last year's law, consumers pay a recycling fee of up to $35, with 60 percent going to manufacturers and the remainder to retailers who collect the goods and turn them over for recycling. While motors and metals are easily sold, most of the remainder must be dumped. That makes it difficult for electronics makers to turn a profit on recycling even though they retrieved more than one-third of the nearly 20 million appliances thrown out last year. ''Basically we're losing money, but we're getting more products than we thought, so our loss is shrinking,'' said Yusuke Tokita, who runs the Recycling Promotion Group at the Mitsubishi Electric Company, which built the nation's first recycling plant that uses no water or incinerators. Cellphone recyclers have better luck because handsets have no resale value and transporting the phones from shops to warehouses | Mining Cellphones, Japan Finds El Dorado |
1369880_0 | Following are excerpts from remarks prepared for delivery yesterday by Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services. A complete version is available at The New York Times on the Web: nytimes.com. Over the course of the past few months, and particularly in the past few weeks, there's been renewed discussion about mammography and its impact on saving lives. The Department of Health and Human Services, with its agencies, will continue to review the latest science about mammography. H.H.S.-funded researchers are discovering innovative and promising techniques to prevent, detect and treat breast cancer. We are committed to providing women with the best information and advice on breast cancer possible. The federal government's recommendation about mammography is clear: Women in their 40's and older should be screened every one to two years with mammography. The National Cancer Institute also advises women to consult closely with their clinicians about breast cancer and what course is best for them. It is important for women to be fully aware of the N.C.I.'s recommendation so they can make informed choices. Today, we have more information on mammography from an independent review of this early detection tool. In 1998, our Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reconvened the highly respected U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and asked this independent panel of experts to review the value of a broad range of clinical preventive services, including mammography. The result of that review: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends routine mammography every one to two years for women 40 and older. This is an update from the task force's 1996 recommendation on mammography, which recommended routine screening for women age 50 to 69. The task force's recommendation sends a powerful message about the value of mammography as an early detection tool that can help save lives. Now, we certainly acknowledge that there are legitimate issues surrounding mammography. Mammography is not a perfect tool. Sometimes, for example, there can be false positives that cause a great deal of anxiety. But mammography is an important and effective early detection tool that helps to save lives. We want women to understand this point. . . . Advancements and developing science will bring more debate. It will bring more reviews of our existing practices and recommendations. But we must keep these discussions in the right perspective. The ongoing debate that comes with the progress of science and technology should not | Excerpts From Speech On Use of Mammograms |
1369772_0 | When the millions of students who are set to graduate from college this spring started out in the late 1990's, the stock market was on a bull run and the dot-com frenzy was in full swing. At colleges across the country, career-services offices fashioned makeshift interview booths to accommodate the companies on a hiring binge. Fresh-faced 22-year-olds commanded signing bonuses of $10,000 or more. People with bachelor's degrees in engineering or computer science often had a dozen job offers, some with six-figure salaries. Liberal arts majors found plenty of opportunities, too, working for Internet companies and consulting and financial firms. Those heady times are gone. With the economy still struggling, layoffs increasing and corporate America wary about the near future, students who complete their undergraduate degrees this year face the worst job market for college graduates in nearly a decade. ''It's not like people even want a job in their major -- they just want a job,'' said Sakara A. Bey, a senior at Tufts University who is majoring in engineering psychology. ''It's become a prize possession.'' Amid a severe retrenchment in hiring that began last summer, said Marilyn F. Mackes, executive director of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, ''the job candidate is no longer calling the shots.'' The association calls this year's job market the tightest for graduating seniors since 1994, when companies began hiring again -- slowly -- after the 1990-91 recession. Ms. Mackes estimated that there would be 20 to 25 percent fewer jobs for students who graduate with bachelor's degrees this year, typically in May or June. That does not surprise Nathan I. Perlis, 21, a biology and Judaic studies major at Tufts, who has long planned to go to medical school. ''Out of 20 friends, I have one who actually has a job,'' he said in December, about two months after the peak recruiting season at most colleges. ''A lot aren't even looking because they know it's so hard.'' At Boston University, barely 50 companies came to a two-day recruiting fair in October, compared with about 100 the previous year, said Richard A. Leger, director of career services at the university. Many companies had just instituted hiring freezes, he said, and even those that showed up were, in many cases, there simply to maintain a presence on the campus. Among the no-shows at a B.U. off-campus job fair last month in New York, | Not Wanted: '02 Graduates Seeking Jobs |
1369767_0 | The government should more carefully, and publicly, review the environmental impact of genetically altered plants before approving them and, to detect unforeseen problems, should monitor fields even after such crops are being grown commercially, a panel of biologists and agricultural scientists concluded yesterday. The panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences, said the Department of Agriculture had not missed any big environmental risks in its review of genetically modified plants, a step required before the plants can be either field-tested or grown for marketing. The scientists also emphasized that their findings were intended to ''improve an already functioning system,'' and noted that ''the standards being set for transgenic crops are much higher than for their conventional counterparts.'' But, they said, biotechnology companies are rapidly developing new plants containing either combinations of genes, or individual genes that induce the plant to produce industrial chemicals, fuels and other materials. These efforts, the panel said, will require much more rigorous testing and review than the government currently undertakes. Other crop types, produced by nongenetic means, can pose environmental risks as well, the panel said. But it said the public had demanded, and should be granted, an extra level of precaution when organisms are genetically engineered. The panel's report, a summary of which was described yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, was requested by the Agriculture Department and took two years to produce. It concluded that the testing and assessment of genetically altered plants should be made ''significantly more transparent and rigorous,'' with reviews by independent panels of experts, with more involvement of the public and with less secrecy. It noted that companies seeking permission to commercialize genetically altered plants in the United States were allowed to keep much more data confidential than in other countries. Officials of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an Agriculture Department agency that issues permits for genetically modified crops, said the study validated their current program while pointing to areas to improve. Bobby R. Acord, administrator of the inspection service, said the agency was already ''considering how best to further encourage public comment and receive broader scientific input.'' Companies producing bioengineered crops echoed the agricultural officials, pointing to the report's qualified endorsement of the existing regulatory system. ''They make a number of suggestions for enhancing that process, but they make it very clear that a rigorous assessment is being done,'' said Dr. Eric Sachs, a geneticist | Panel Urges U.S. to Tighten Approval of Gene-Altered Crops |
1366413_2 | volunteers to give up their seats on overbooked flights in exchange for compensation, but would not accept those volunteers to make room for passengers who had missed connections. ''It was like, you're on your own,'' said Carla Aquaro of Paramus, N.J., who missed her connection to Traverse City because her flight to Detroit from Newark had also been delayed. Ultimately, I finally found an agent willing to work the computer system to come up with a boarding pass and a seat assignment on an afternoon flight that was supposedly overbooked. I'm not sure how he did it, or what it took to elicit better service. But I suspect it was the right note of pleading and determination struck by another stranded passenger at the desk, and our luck in finding an agent adept at manipulating the computer. Likewise, Ms. Aquaro said it took finding a resourceful agent to secure a place on the same afternoon flight. ''I wouldn't leave the desk,'' she said. ''I just kept giving him a hard time.'' Although all three of us made it to Traverse City that day, the experience revealed what little recourse passengers have when an airline delivers them only halfway to their destination. Mary Beth Schubert, a Northwest spokeswoman, said if a connection was missed because a flight was delayed, the airline would accommodate passengers on the next available connecting flight, but would not pay for a car rental regardless of the reason for the delay. If passengers have to stay overnight, she said, the airline will ordinarily pay for the hotel if the delay is caused by mechanical or crew problems, but not in case of weather. Close Look at the Fine Print As for whether the airline is responsible for getting you to your destination within a particular time, Ms. Schubert referred me to the 134-page contract of carriage passengers enter into when they buy a ticket (available at www.northwest.com). ''We don't guarantee the time,'' she said. ''But we guarantee that we will get you to your destination.'' The policy is essentially the same in other airlines' contracts, which the Department of Transportation requires them to publish and most make available on their Web sites. The relevant provision is known as Rule 240 for most airlines (some use a different numbering system), which covers what happens when a flight is delayed or canceled, or a passenger misses a connection. Rule | Those Uncertain Air Connections |
1366351_1 | from the 16,000-foot heights of the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong plunges south through a geological wonderland of dizzying escarpments, hanging valleys and steep gorges for a distance Chinese geographers now calculate at just over 3,000 miles. In 1998, Gargan, knowing there was ''no certain trail along the Mekong . . . no boat schedules, no bus routes, indeed, sometimes no roads,'' set out by car from a yak pasture 70 miles from the source. Almost four months later, down on the Chinese-Burmese border, he finally got afloat. Up to 100 million people live around the Mekong watershed, many belonging to ''fractured or dying cultures . . . societies that had turned on themselves or been savaged by outsiders.'' In Tibet, where Beijing dismisses 1,000 years of Buddhist piety as an ''invidious splittist superstition,'' Gargan found a loathing for China so profound it could only be matched by China's own determination to destroy every vestige of Tibet's past. But there was some hope amid the gloom; he met up with a Tibetan friend who, having opened a successful carpet shop on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, now ran a busy hotel back home. But ''The River's Tale'' really gets started farther downstream. In Laos, the Mekong, after a turbulent descent of 14,393 feet, finally relaxes into a waterway suitable for shipping. Yet it would continue to taunt Gargan; ahead lay impassable falls and rapids -- and developments that virtually closed the Mekong down. The unexpected emergence of shoals one morning, for example, halted all southbound traffic for the season. By now, Gargan had arrived in the first of the countries on his tour on which Washington had waged war. The two million tons of bombs dropped on Laos, he discovered, still defined the aims and objectives of its leadership, a cabal of weary, reclusive, secretive old Marxists whose tunnel vision had reduced their land to penury. Its currency, the battered kip, was virtually worthless, its economy derelict, it exported little but opium (though plenty of that) and offered its people lives of unremitting torpor. Thailand lay, teasingly, just across the Mekong, and foreign travelers on the river couldn't help being perplexed by the contrasting political systems on show. One bank offered busy freeways, high-rise buildings, riverfront restaurants and, after dark, an affluent, electric glow in the sky, while the other featured only ''scraggles of bamboo huts on stilts'' and forgotten people staring | Peace as a River |
1366621_1 | blanket, people turn to you and say, 'So what am I supposed to do?' '' The mammogram story shows both the uncertainty of scientific progress and the slipperiness of scientific truth. ''There is a great ignorance of the scientific process,'' said Dr. Leon Gordis, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University. All too often, science progresses in fits and starts, reexamining data, reinterpreting evidence -- a path that can be hard to accept in medicine, when answers are needed now. It happened recently with hormone replacement therapy for women after menopause. First it seemed that all women could benefit. Then scientists cautioned that estrogen might spur breast cancer. But, they said, it protects the heart, and more women die of heart disease than breast cancer. Now, it looks as if estrogen pills do not protect the heart. Estrogen does slow bone loss, and so it may help prevent fractures from osteoporosis. And it alleviates hot flashes. Who should take it? Experts disagree. ''Uncertainty is very painful,'' Dr. Gordis said. ''The idea that science is not giving you certitude is very difficult for many people to accept.'' The mammography argument, scientists say, is only taking place because the test's benefit was never that great in statistical terms. While the test can find tumors too small to feel, does finding and treating them that early save lives? Some of the strongest evidence is from a study begun in the 1960's. It found that after 18 years, 153 out of 30,131 women who had mammograms had died of breast cancer, and 196 out of 30,565 women who did not have the test died of breast cancer. That is a 30 percent difference in breast cancer death rates -- but it hinges on the medical histories of just 43 women. Questions about the design and conduct of this study have led some to doubt its conclusion. And similar questions have been raised about other mammography studies. The question now is whether there are enough doubts about mammography's benefits and enough evidence of its risks that women should reconsider having them. Some risks lie not in the test itself, but in the treatments -- chemotherapy, surgery and radiation -- when malignancies are found. But what if mammograms are picking up tumors that would never threaten a woman's life, and would otherwise never have been noticed -- or treated? What if mammograms are finding tumors | The Nation: Second Opinion; The Painful Fact of Medical Uncertainty |
1366534_4 | on the corner to the multi-location auto dealerships, from the regional banks to the local deli.'' And, he said, he is not completely assured that XM will steer clear of local broadcasting and advertisers in the future. ''Any time anybody wants to pick my pocket, I have a concern,'' he said. On Dec. 18, Harrison's zoning board questioned XM's temporary license, as well as the function of the repeaters. The board wound up tabling a decision on XM's proposal. The White Plains planning board approved one XM plan for a repeater late last year because ''there was no real opposition raised,'' said Mary Cavallero, the board's chairwoman. But by the time XM applied at the board's Dec. 18 meeting to install a second tower, Ms. Cavallero had heard about objections from planning boards in Harrison and Mount Vernon. She decided to delay the board's decision, to allow more public response. A decision will most likely be announced at the board's Feb. 19 meeting, she said. In January, Mount Vernon's planning board postponed a public hearing on XM's proposal until the F.C.C. issues permanent licensing for the repeaters. Its board chairman, David Alpert, said that XM was not forthright in declaring that its license was temporary. Neil J. Alexander, a White Plains representing XM, downplayed the lack of immediate approvals from the boards and called them minor delays. Westchester County is ranked 59th nationally in radio markets, but it is known for its high-income listenership. Cumulus Media, an Atlanta-based, publicly traded company of 250 radio stations, is in the process of acquiring WFAS-FM and two other Westchester stations. They are generally among the highest rated of the county-based stations. The deal has gotten F.C.C. approval and is expected to be finalized in April. Lew Dickey, chairman and chief executive officer of Cumulus, the country's second-largest radio station chain, argued that satellite radio would never sign up enough subscribers to succeed. ''They might have a channel for Korean ballads, but are you going to retrofit your car to get it?'' he said. As far as satellite encroaching upon local broadcasting, he is not concerned. ''We have a unique relationship with its listeners and they're not going to affect that,'' he said. ''Listeners want a local touch, a local feel, and, believe it or not, they also want to hear local commercials.'' Chance Patterson, vice president of corporate affairs for XM, said that | Satellite Radio Comes to Westchester |
1366651_0 | Five years ago, Anna Quindlen wrote that there were three stages in the life span of women: pre-Babe, Babe and post-Babe. Now there are four: pre-Babe, Babe, Botox Babe and Cher. Baby boomer babes don't want to be post-anything, even if it means freezing their faces into freakish death masks. The Times's Alex Kuczynski wrote on Thursday about imminent F.D.A. approval for cosmetic use of Botox -- the botulism neurotoxin -- to paralyze muscles and erase wrinkles. ''It is now rare in certain social enclaves,'' she observed, ''to see a woman over the age of 35 with the ability to look angry.'' A face with character is passé. A face without expression is chic. Dr. Nancy Etcoff, a Harvard psychologist who wrote ''Survival of the Prettiest,'' was quoted as saying that in Botox Nation, ''We will look at wrinkles the way we look at cracked or discolored teeth -- remnants of the past.'' She added, ''It is as though we have given up on authenticity.'' Women have put more faith in artifice than authenticity for ages. Shakespeare wrote in his sonnets about women fighting '' 'gainst Time's scythe'' and ''Time's thievish progress'' by primping and painting -- ''fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face.'' From Victorian corsets to the silicone-gel bra, from hennaed hair and pupil-dilating belladonna drops to nose bobs and collagen-swollen lips, women have always sought to look younger and prettier and more fecund. According to Dr. Etcoff, men simply gravitate like zombies toward a ''maximally fertile woman, or at least one who looks that way.'' Feminism was supposed to release women from the tyranny of the unnatural ideal. But the ideal is more unnatural than ever. In the immortal words of Patricia Wexler, a New York dermatologist who caters to uncrinkled celebrities: ''A scowl is a totally unnecessary expression.'' The explosive popularity of Botox (men use it, too) is an irony wrapped in a paradox for women. After all these years of trying to train men to respond better to emotional cues, women are making it even harder by erasing the emotion from their faces. Actresses are caught in a cosmetic Catch-22. They must look young to get juicy roles, so they do Botox, which makes it impossible to play juicy roles. ''Their faces can't really move properly,'' complained the ''Moulin Rouge'' director Baz Luhrmann, who pines for the frowns of yesterface. Men long carped that | Pretty Poison |
1366473_2 | who need surgery,'' Mr. Donno said. ''This is the driving force for everyone involved. This is our mission.'' In the case of the two Mongolian children, who returned home last month, Marcia and John Henry Gladwish of Stony Brook volunteered to serve as the host family. ''We've had so much help,'' said Mrs. Gladwish, a former first-grade teacher who now produces brochures, business cards and advertisements for her husband's organic lawn-maintenance business. ''People from the Grace Gospel Church in Patchogue and the Manhasset Baptist Church helped us pay for groceries and clothes and toys for the children at Christmas, and for dental and eye care for the women, even for manicures and hairdressers.'' ''This experience has been so challenging and so humbling,'' said Mrs. Gladwish, who has four grown daughters. ''It makes me realize that we take so much for granted. Where these young women live, they don't even have running water.'' Duya Tsedevsuren, the translator who accompanied the two Mongolian families, is also receiving medical treatment in the United States, although that came as a surprise. In December, she was told she had breast cancer, and she underwent a mastectomy at Winthrop University Hospital. ''I'm thankful that I had the chance to come to America and that I'm going to live,'' said Mrs. Tsedevsuren, 29, the wife of an evangelical minister in Mongolia. She plans to stay in the United States with the Gladwishes during her follow-up treatment. Before each arrival, Mr. Donno and the foundation do some homework. ''It's important that we learn everything about the culture of the children we sponsor,'' he said, ''so they get the warmest welcome, the most appropriate host family and the best treatment. When we brought a child from Turkmenistan recently, I ran out and bought 'Islam for Dummies' and the Koran.'' The foundation has produced dozens of offshoots, among them the Philippines Gift of Life, headed by Dr. Ramiro Cadag, an internist in Great Neck. ''This is a way to help the poor people of the country we came from and to give something back to them,'' he said. For the physicians involved in Gift of Life, the cultural differences and language barriers seem to be less significant than for the program's administrators and host families. Dr. Sean Levchuck, 39, a pediatric cardiologist at St. Francis, and the administrator of the hospital's Gift of Life program since 1996, said: ''To paraphrase | Helping Hands That Heal Hearts |
1364685_3 | this spring. ''It's a great time to give options,'' said Pearl Meyer, president of the firm. ''They're cheap because they involve no charge to earnings, and that's important at a time when profits are down and boards are trying to make up for the fact that salaries and bonuses are both down.'' But Ms. Meyer and many others in the field -- as well as, they say, the members of corporate compensation committees -- are not happy to see the increase in options grants. Their expressions of concern are striking because compensation consultants have been among the biggest champions of the use of options as performance incentives. The consultants are worried, in part, about the option ''overhang'' -- options outstanding, plus those shares that investors have authorized but that have yet to be granted. More fundamentally, they suggest that the links between a manager's pay and a company's performance -- as measured by, say, profitability, market-share growth and smart acquisition strategies -- have become more tenuous. Ms. Meyer suggests that the at-risk components of executive pay be viewed as the legs of a stool; the leg reflecting stock performance has grown longer and longer, while those reflecting business and financial performance have become shorter. ''We have overdosed on options and the stock market,'' she said. ''We're dependent on the stock market for executive compensation, pension payments, directors' compensation, 401(k) plans -- our whole economy, practically, is dependent on the market's performance.'' That reliance has produced an overhang that dangles like a sword of Damocles over investors. Eventually, their stakes will be diluted -- either when companies issue vast quantities of new shares to make good on options grants, or when they undertake share-repurchase programs that eat up cash they might use for operations. According to a study by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a human resources consulting company, the average options overhang of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was 14.6 percent of outstanding shares in 2000, up from 13 percent a year earlier. This spring's numbers will probably show another rise. The overhang ''is definitely going to be up'' by a percentage point or more in 2001, said Ira T. Kay, a consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, ''because people aren't exercising their options the way they were when the stock market was booming.'' Mr. Kay predicted that the slowdown in the exercising of options would work to curb | Even Last Year, Option Spigot Was Wide Open |
1364490_1 | qualified for some state services. The cutoff was a score of 70 on an I.Q.-like exam, and bless his heart, Jamie had doodled after drawing parallel lines in one part of the test even though state law explicitly stipulates -- it really does -- that the lines have to be parallel for two-thirds of their length. Fortunately, the state does not yank Jamie's in-class support aide every time he discovers a new cognitive skill, like an aptitude for multiplication (which was this year's surprise). There's no denying that ''disability'' is a labile category. What's less clear is that the extraordinary instability of disability is both a promise and a threat: it can give shelter and solace to people with mental illness just as easily as it can consign people with high blood pressure or mild cerebral palsy to a stigmatized identity with which they do not want to identify. For in an important sense the disabled can indeed become undisabled, every time a deaf person sits down to read or a wheelchair user takes the elevator; so, too, can the able-bodied become disabled -- not only because of falling anvils and chronic diseases, but also because of new legal and medical interpretations of ordinary human conditions. Think of that annoying co-worker who is no longer merely ''annoying'' but now ''obsessive-compulsive''; the bouncy 7-year-old now with a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And think of how you might respond to your own sudden redescription: perhaps with ''Thank God I'm not crazy -- I just have a disability'' or with ''But this doesn't mean I'm disabled, thank God.'' So let's try brushing our teeth with the other hand for a moment. What if people with mild disabilities were included under the A.W.D.A.? People with easily correctable disabilities -- including Antonin Scalia, who famously took off his glasses during oral argument in 1999 to question whether he had a disability according to the broad reading of the law. People with often imperceptible disabilities, from M.S. to AIDS? People with ''mock'' disabilities, like the suburbanite teenagers haggling over extra time to complete the SAT? People with temporary disabilities, including me for the six weeks I had Bell's palsy, the two years I took antidepressants -- during which I never, not once, wanted to think of myself as disabled? And why stop with mild or temporary disabilities? Why don't we read the A.W.D.A. as | Can Do |
1364547_0 | 'Finally in Full Color' Smithtown Township Arts Council, Mills Pond House, 660 Route 25A, St. James, (631) 862-6575. Through Feb. 24. Organized by William H. Foster 3rd, a professor of English and avid comic book collector, this show aims to trace the changing image of African-Americans in comic strips and magazines. The exhibition is evidently an abbreviated version of a more comprehensive traveling show, for it fails to do justice to a fascinating topic. The works on view only hint at the range of black characters, both African-Americans and others, that have populated the pulps since the late 19th century. The first documented example is an anonymous youngster in Richard Outcault's 1896 comic strip, ''The Yellow Kid.'' For decades after, blacks were usually portrayed in stereotypical roles, from jungle savages -- as in the inexplicably omitted Tarzan series -- to entertainers and servants. The heroes, both mortal and superhuman, were white, although at least one, the Spirit, had a black sidekick. But there were also alternative publications, like Jackie Ormes's ''Torchy Brown'' newspaper strip, which made its debut in 1937, and ''All Negro Comics,'' a 1947 magazine whose author unfortunately is not identified. Black sports figures, including Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, were the subjects of popular booklets that may also have appealed to white fans, but while these examples are shown, their circulation, popularity and influence are not discussed. Only Ms. Ormes, whose career included marketing the first black character doll, gets in-depth treatment, thanks to a reprinted profile of her in a fan magazine. The black superhero emerged in the 1960's, with Lobo and the Black Panther leading the way. Women joined the ranks in the 1970's, when the character Storm was created, and a new crop of powerful black figures appeared in the 1990's. But who is the audience for this material? Is it strictly a race-based market, or is there genuine crossover? And where are the contemporary newspaper strips that regularly feature black and mixed-race casts? The show does not answer those questions, but at least it raises them. 'Drawn to Size' Hillwood Art Museum, C. W. Post campus, Long Island University, 720 Northern Boulevard, Brookville, (516) 299-4073. Through March 3. Size matters, the saying goes, but all such judgments are relative. Is bigger necessarily better? Do good things really come in small packages? For the seven artists in this show, the dimensions of their work | From Jungle Savage to Superhero |
1364424_0 | WARRIOR POLITICS Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos. By Robert D. Kaplan. 198 pp. New York: Random House. $22.95. ROBERT D. KAPLAN'S ''Warrior Politics'' praises the wisdom of previous ages, their historians and political philosophers, and recommends their study to modern statesmen as a basis for making good decisions on the great problems of our day. Kaplan, the author of many books of travel and political reportage, rejects the proclaimed differentness of today's world from the past: it is ''not 'modern' or 'postmodern,' but only a continuation of the 'ancient.' '' It is a world with which the ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman philosophers could have coped and to which they would have applied their salutary tradition of ''skepticism and constructive realism.'' Kaplan's exemplary statesman is Winston Churchill, a historian himself, whose thinking and imagination were rooted in history and the past. Kaplan places him where he himself would like to stand, with the ''realists'' of this world against the ''idealists,'' with the tough-minded pagans of antiquity against the soft-minded strand of Christianity and its offshoots that too often shape modern thought and policy in the West. The wisdom of the past is to be sought in the works of Livy, Sun-Tzu and Thucydides, and of moderns like Machiavelli, Hobbes and Malthus. But learning from them may be harder than Kaplan realizes. He is not daunted by the difficulties facing the layman; he is like ''a traveler during his first days in a strange country: there are things he will misinterpret, but he will spot things that longtime residents have ceased to notice.'' There surely are advantages in a fresh reading of classic works, but to draw conclusions about 3,000 years of human history and then to build theories about the past and future upon them requires more reading and thinking than Kaplan appears to have done. He sees Herodotus as being ''never judgmental,'' like a naturalist studying nature, but even a cursory reading of his history of the Persian Wars reveals messages that celebrate Greek virtues and warn against moral errors. The Persian king Xerxes' violent, arrogant ambition, his ignoring of appeals for moderation, are plainly the cause of his disastrous defeat. The Athenians' equality under the law brought greater success than tyranny. Herodotus is no naturalist but a historian showing how free men, obedient to their own laws, defeat arrogance and lawless despotism. At a broader level of | Saber Rattling for Democracy |
1364740_0 | At a time when Cuba is exhibiting increasing signs of reaching out to the United States, the Bush administration is filling its Latin America policy ranks with officials known for a hard-line stance toward Fidel Castro's government. Several incoming officials advocate an unyielding hostility toward Cuba and the maintenance, if not strengthening, of a trade embargo that is four decades old. The policy being promoted by people like Otto J. Reich, a Cuban exile who is the State Department's top policy maker for Latin America, is increasingly placing the administration at odds with farmers, business executives and a growing number of members of Congress -- including many Republicans -- who have been pushing for trade with Cuba. But the hard line is still an article of faith among many Cuban-Americans. ''The Cuban-Americans sense the momentum is moving away from their position quite rapidly, and they're trying to put in some fire walls,'' said Sally Grooms Cowal, director of the Cuba Policy Foundation, a bipartisan group that advocates an easing of sanctions. In recent months, Cuba has made gestures that indicate an eagerness to set relations with Washington on a new track. The Castro government has bought more than $40 million in food from the United States; it has withheld criticism of the use of the United States Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay to house captives; and it has offered to increase cooperation on a variety of issues, including drug trafficking and fighting terrorism. Mr. Castro has invited former President Jimmy Carter, who has been an intermediary between Washington and hostile nations, to visit, said Deanna Congileo, a Carter spokeswoman. He has not decided whether he will go, she said. Taken together, the moves reflect the most significant outreach since 1996, when Cuba shot down two civilian planes flown by Cuban-American activists and the United States responded by tightening sanctions. Yet the overtures have fallen flat with the Bush administration. The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said this week that the Cubans had no reason to expect the United States to ease its policy. ''Since you give me the opportunity,'' he said, ''let me try to disabuse them of this notion. Cuba has not taken any of the steps necessary to make improvement of relations possible.'' Cuba must free political prisoners, carry out free elections or otherwise guarantee human rights, Mr. Boucher said. Other officials dismissed Mr. Castro's outreach as | Bush Hires Hard-Liners To Handle Cuba Policy |
1365021_0 | A month after United States officials expressed confidence that they had cornered Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora, they now acknowledge that they have lost track of the terrorist leader and are increasingly frustrated over the virtual absence of intelligence on his whereabouts. The officials say they have had no firm fix on Mr. bin Laden since early December, when intelligence agents believe that they overheard him directing troops over a short-wave radio in the Tora Bora area of southeastern Afghanistan. ''He has gone silent,'' one official said. That silence has fueled debate among analysts over whether Mr. bin Laden has switched to a more secure form of communications, gone into hiding or died. So far, the consensus of American intelligence officials is that Mr. bin Laden remains alive, hiding in either southeastern Afghanistan or just across the border in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Other operatives of Al Qaeda may have slipped into Iran, possibly with its compliance, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others in the administration say. The assessment of Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts is based primarily on an absence of evidence, officials said. It is assumed that if Mr. bin Laden were dead, the remnants of his network, Al Qaeda, would be overheard discussing his demise in phone calls or radio transmissions. ''It would be hard for some of these guys to resist talking about it,'' said one American official. Another reason he is believed to be alive, officials said, is that Afghans have not produced any convincing evidence that he is dead, despite a $25 million reward for such information. One official described the effort to find Mr. bin Laden as a mix of guesswork and analysis. ''We have some fixes on where he was at certain times in the past,'' the official said, ''and we have some estimates of how fast he was moving from one fix to another and so we kind of navigate where we should look next.'' The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, appearing on ''Fox News Sunday,'' said that the administration had ''no recent evidence that he's alive or dead.'' For months, intelligence officers have scoured Afghanistan, peering at thousands of hours of videotape and satellite photos and listening to countless intercepted phone calls and radio transmissions. While the exhaustive hunt has not yielded Mr. bin Laden, officials disclosed that they have turned up some sensitive information: | Bin Laden's Trail Is Lost, but Officials Suspect He Is Alive |
1365077_0 | In another time, the panelists speaking about Northern Ireland at the World Economic Forum yesterday might have sent the bomb-sniffer dogs howling at the skies and the metal detectors blaring out alarms. One was once held on a British prison ship and in jail on suspicion that he was a member of the Irish Republican Army. Another served time as a bombmaker for loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. A third joined a hard-line group that shut down the province with strikes and violent protests rather than share power with Catholics. Even one expert questioning the panel had a loud past: as a teenager, he had been a member of the Stern Gang, the Zionist fighters who sabotaged and attacked British institutions holding territories that would become Israel. Still, the bishop of Oslo, Gunnar Stalsett, deputy leader of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, said he was ''proud to be at the feet of such men'' yesterday, and said they offered glimpses of hope in tense times. The four main political leaders in Northern Ireland said that despite continuing violence against Catholics in northern Belfast, and caches of arms held by various paramilitary groups, they were sure their peace agreement would stand. Eight years after the I.R.A. and paramilitary loyalists called cease-fires, it was clear that the political leaders who emerged from the peace process were considering what the next decade would bring -- including the question of how people in Northern Ireland who retain British identity would be treated if the entire island of Ireland were to become united under a single government. Population and political shifts make the issue more than academic. Some demographers forecast a Catholic majority within a decade or two in the six counties of northeastern Ireland. In that area, retained by Britain after the island was partitioned in 1920, Catholics generally identify themselves as Irish nationalists, while many of those who see themselves as British -- often called unionists or loyalists -- come from one of the Protestant traditions. In response to a question about the rights of unionists in a united Ireland, Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, the political party of Irish republicans, said Irish nationalists could not prudently pursue a course of ''mathematical majoritarianism.'' ''I don't think we can force upon unionism an all Ireland which doesn't have their assent or consent and doesn't reflect their sense of being comfortable, of them | A Forum for the Formerly Radical |
1368566_1 | to avoid bitterness in medicines, and beer makers to avoid it in their brews. Though the industry is in its infancy, said Jean-Christophe Mifsud, 38, a chemical engineer who is chief executive of Alpha, the advantages of the electronic nose give it extraordinary promise. The device typically sells for $43,000 to $86,000. ''The human nose is a very perfect device,'' said Mr. Mifsud, a tall, bearded man with a handsome nose, in a recent conversation. But the electronic nose never gets the sniffles or needs a day off, and its results, expressed digitally, can be transmitted quickly worldwide. After working in mergers and acquisitions in the United States for the French chemical group Rhône-Poulenc, now part of Aventis, Mr. Mifsud returned to France and with $10,000 of savings set up Alpha in 1993. Among the first to try the electronic nose was Philip Morris, he said, to test for residual solvents in paper. Alpha raised $1.5 million in 1996 from the investment firms Thompson Clive Venture Capital and Galileo Partners. Two years later, Mr. Mifsud listed Alpha on the Nouveau Marché in Paris. Last year, Alpha introduced the first electronic tongue. Yet the going is risky for Alpha, which expects revenue this year of $3 million and has yet to turn a profit. (Mr. Mifsud said he expects Alpha to break even by year-end.) For a relatively small company like Alpha, which has 44 employees, the danger in trying to be strong in a variety of sensor types is that it will spread itself too thin and fail to keep pace with specialized companies. In the last year, Alpha's share price has shed half its value, though it rebounded recently, gaining 13 percent since Jan. 1. ''One of our difficulties,'' said Eric Chanié, 31, Alpha's director for engineering and development, ''is that you have to adapt to customers' needs, and it is actually difficult to follow the whole gamut.'' In industrial applications -- say, to sniff out defects in products or raw materials -- Alpha runs up against the likes of Cyrano Sciences, a company in Pasadena, Calif., that is named for the king of noses. In the field of medical technology, where electronic noses are being used to identify bacteria, it competes with Osmetech., a British company that was started in 1994 under the name AromaScan to develop its own electronic nose. The industry is bubbling, and new companies | Sniffing and Tasting With Metal and Wire |
1368290_2 | and trading genes, bacteria have developed immunity to countless drugs. And the time it takes them to acquire it seems to be shrinking. Linezolid (Zyvox), last line of defense against vancomycin-resistant strains, encountered drug-resistant bugs only a year after its F.D.A. approval. Worse, these two cascades of change (in bugs and in us) interact in a vicious spiral. Our unrealistic goal of freedom from infectious diseases led us to gross overprescription and overuse of antibiotics. Our growing technology enabled us to incorporate them in a host of products, from cutting boards to cat litter, and especially soap -- despite the fact that plain soap and water disinfects as efficiently. Growing affluence increased the eating of meat, leading to ever more crowded stockyards and poultry houses, with medieval sanitation; such conditions fostered disease, driving farmers to use antibiotics, thus promoting more resistance in strains of bacteria that all too readily adapted to people. At the root of these developments lies an unpleasant but crucial fact that we should all thank Drexler for emphasizing. Our present state would be less perilous if we had spent less on trying to purge developed nations of disease and more on vigorously promoting public health programs throughout the rest of the world. ''Poverty breeds compound infections,'' Drexler writes, and thus, with globalization, ''the growing disparity worldwide in health and wealth imperils all countries.'' For once Bill Gates (seen more often as business menace than benefactor) gets due appreciation as a pioneer contributor to global health causes. Drexler, formerly a medical columnist for The Boston Globe Magazine, has absorbed a mountain of material and distilled it into an authoritative, well-paced, vividly written book that will scare the pants off you. (You may never eat another hamburger!) It's so up-to-date it includes even the recent anthrax attacks, though Drexler reminds us that biological weapons date back to at least 1346, when Tatars hurled corpses of plague victims into a besieged city (and may thereby have caused the Black Death that reduced Europe's population by one-third). But it warns us that neither bioterrorism nor exotic diseases from Central Africa are the worst threats we face: we are overdue for an influenza strain as lethal as the one that caused the 1918 pandemic, an outbreak more sudden and more severe (in number of fatalities, if not mortality rate) than any other that has afflicted humankind. Just the places you once | No More Miracles |
1368352_5 | and a cosmopolitan air, but also attracted invaders. Several times pirates sacked Granada, most notably Henry Morgan in 1665. In the 1850's the city suffered its most bizarre attack, led by a mad American adventurer named William Walker who not only seized it but also proclaimed himself president of Nicaragua. Walker planned to use Granada as a base from which to build a Central American empire, and troops from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala joined to attack him before he could carry out his plan. He held out for while, but was finally forced to flee in 1856. Before doing so his men set fire to the city, and one of them left behind a sign reading ''Here Was Granada.'' The city has long since been fully rebuilt, but there are still a few reminders of Walker's occupation. One is a statue of a priest named Rafael Villavincencio who is said to have rushed into the burning cathedral to rescue a sacred chalice. The area around Granada was one of the few parts of Nicaragua that was not directly affected by the civil war that tore the country apart during the 1980's. Like the rest of the country, it suffered from decay and neglect, but there was no fighting in the region. Although Granada has not escaped the poverty that has overwhelmed Nicaragua, it is in better shape than almost any other city in the country. Tourists are welcome and -- as in the rest of the country -- there have been few reports of the robberies and assaults that have kept tourists away from some other parts of Central America. Lake Nicaragua is famous for having some of the world's only freshwater sharks, although only a few are believed to survive. But the lake's tastiest fish, the guapote (pronounced wa-PO-tay) is still thankfully abundant. I enjoyed it at several meals, including one at a restaurant directly overlooking the lake. Shrimp, steak and other local dishes are also available at very low prices. There are a few fine restaurants, including one at La Casona de los Estrada, but most range from simple to dirt-floor primitive. But many of the most unpretentious places serve wonderful food. One morning I resolved to find a nacatamal, the most typical of Nicaraguan foods. By tradition nacatamales are available only on weekends and only early in the morning, and in Granada women | A Faded City Brightens In Nicaragua |
1368339_1 | on time of year and destination. (In addition to suspending certain routes for security reasons, the F.A.A. has boosted security measures for courier travel; however, the changes affect the companies, not individual travelers, and so are not being publicized, said Rebecca Trexler, a spokeswoman.) Flights can usually be booked up to three months in advance; the closer to departure, the cheaper, and last-minute tickets can even be free, with spending money and hotel thrown in to sweeten the deal. Most tickets are round trip and allow for stays from a few days to six months -- and usually passengers can keep the frequent flier miles. The deal is for one person, so a travel companion must buy an ordinary ticket or, with some of the more regular flights, fly in the next day or two as a courier. (On the return flight, when the passenger is usually not acting as a courier, the two travelers can often fly home together.) The company, not the passenger, is responsible for the goods being shipped, mainly documents or computer-related gadgets, and most companies X-ray all packages before accepting them. To qualify, you must be at least 18, in some cases 21, and have a valid passport. It is the traveler's responsibility to obtain any necessary visa. Tickets can be purchased through courier companies themselves or through clearinghouse organizations that charge a fee. Members of these clubs get access to available flights for the next month or so and are then put in touch with the appropriate courier company. Either way, passengers end up doing business directly with the courier company. It usually works like this: You choose a flight; the company sends you a contract; you fill it out and send it back with a certified check or money order for the agreed amount; you arrive at the airport two to three hours ahead of time and meet an agent from the company; the agent hands you the ticket and helps you check in (the airlines are often well acquainted with these companies and know the drill); you meet another agent at the destination, hand over the baggage ticket and manifest, and go on your way. The Clubs Following are the two most recognized clubs that set people up with courier companies. They suggest you agree on return dates and luggage allowance before booking. The Air Courier Association offers members ($29 a year, | How to Fly As a Courier |
1370663_2 | old codger if ever there was one? ''He has always been leveraged on Michelin's point-of-purchase material,'' said Mr. Ludwig, who called him the ''obvious choice'' for the new campaign. Certainly, his behavior in Michelin's new ads is hardly what one would expect from a centenarian. For example, in the first new TV spot, scheduled for late tonight on NBC's ''Last Call With Carson Daly'' and CBS's ''Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn,'' the Michelin Man is seen in a flight suit as he accompanies three astronauts to the space shuttle, where Michelin is ''the only tire'' used. Another commercial shows automated factory testing of a tire, followed by shots of the Michelin Man, who weeps as he undertakes a final hand inspection and then reluctantly releases the tire for sale; the old rock ballad ''Never Gonna Let You Go'' is heard. There is also a third spot, which shows the floors and walls of Michelin's offices shaking as the Michelin Man boogies upstairs, celebrating the fact that the company has won, in the words of the voice-over announcer, ''more J.D. Power awards for customer satisfaction than all other tire companies combined.'' The campaign is budgeted at about $35 million for this year, Ms. Heiser said, an amount that is equivalent to historical levels but more than last year, when the agency switch was in progress. Aside from broadcast media and print, some of the money will also be spent on sending the Michelin Man on a 16-city tour. Will all of this succeed in raising sales? It is not as if the company is suffering now, Ms. Heiser said, adding that Michelin had already seen its market share and unit sales increase even before the change in agencies last year. Tire Business, an industry journal, estimated earlier this month that sales of the Michelin brand had risen last year to 10 percent of the North American passenger tire-replacement market from 9 percent, making the brand second only to Goodyear, with 16 percent. No doubt, some of that strength is attributable to Firestone's problems. But brand image is also important, said Rod Lache, an automobile and tire industry analyst at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, because people no longer think of a tire as just a commodity, and that means the new strategy is appropriate. ''The Michelin Man is very well known,'' he said. ''He is identifiable with Michelin in a way | Passed over for a younger face, the Michelin Man returns as a company icon. |
1369453_2 | charges $34.95 for a basic business site that includes software for making a product catalog with an electronic shopping cart feature and secure credit-card forms. If you don't want use the templates from a domain registration or hosting site to create the material for your site, you can hire a Web design company. If you are a do-it-yourself type and do not mind paying a few hundred dollars for Web-page creation software, programs like Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive and Microsoft FrontPage can help you build and manange your site's pages. You can also register a name with a domain site and then use a different Web-host company, which can sometimes prove less expensive. Netfirms (www.netfirms.com) will provide 50 megabytes of server space for as little as $5 a month. The company has many package deals, as do Web hosts like CommuniTech .net and C.I. Host.com (cihost.com). Q. Can Windows computers connect to an Apple AirPort wireless networking station alongside the Macs? A. Apple Computer's latest version of the AirPort base station uses the standard 802.11b wireless protocol and can handle up to 50 Macintosh or Windows-based computers at a time. Each PC or Mac user will need to have an AirPort or other wireless card, and one Mac is needed in the mix to configure the AirPort unit. The AirPort base station, which costs $299, includes a built-in firewall and is now compatible with America Online. You can find more details about AirPort products at www .apple.com/airport. Q. I often receive e-mail messages with a file attachment called winmail.dat at the end. What is that? A. The winmail.dat file attachment can turn up in messages sent from Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange mail systems or by people using Microsoft Word to write e-mail messages. Those programs allow users to send messages with styled and formatted text in the body of the message, but some non-Microsoft e-mail programs cannot handle Microsoft's Rich Text formatting or display the original message properly. In such cases, the e-mail program will usually display a file attachment called winmail.dat along with the message sent by the user. The attachment file is very small, but the recipient usually cannot open it. One way for Outlook and Exchange users to prevent their recipents from receiving the winmail.dat attachments is to change the e-mail program's preferences to send messages only in plain text. J. D. BIERSDORFER Q & A | Setting Up a Web Site, Be It Fancy or No-Frills |
1369509_3 | Times Magazine, including last Sunday's cover article, ''To Wait or to Flee,'' about a thousand-year-old community stranded by war and starvation in Afghanistan. That article went to press before The Times was aware of the improper narrative techniques in the earlier one. Mr. Finkel has assured the editors that none of his other writing was falsified or fictionalized, and The Times knows of no evidence to the contrary. The Times's policies prohibit falsifying a news account or using fictional devices in factual material. Mr. Finkel has been under contract to the magazine as a contributing writer, but the editors have informed him that he will not receive further assignments. Editors' Note: February 24, 2002, Sunday An editors' note on Thursday reported that The Times Magazine had learned that improper narrative techniques and falsified sequences of events were employed in its article of Nov. 18 about a West African youth who sold himself into service on a cocoa plantation. For magazine readers who did not see the note, it remains available online at nytimes .com/magazine. Editors' Note: April 14, 2002, Sunday An editors' note on Feb. 21 reported The Times Magazine's discovery that a Nov. 18 article by Michael Finkel, ''Is Youssouf Malé a Slave?'' had been built around a composite character, with time sequences and certain other facts falsified. Since the discovery, the editors have undertaken to verify the accuracy and integrity of the six other articles written by Finkel for the magazine over the last two years. The Times's investigation, which included rereporting by telephone as well as site visits in several cases, is complete and has found only the following two factual errors: In ''Naji's Taliban Phase'' (Dec. 16, 2001), about two Afghan men who communicated across partisan lines, the number of letters exchanged between the two men was reported incorrectly. The article said there were 20. The two men say the number was 7. In ''Playing War'' (Dec. 24, 2000), an article about Palestinian youths, a town referred to as Hamman should have been rendered Hamama. In addition, the magazine learned that the boat carrying Haitian refugees described in ''Desperate Passage'' (June 18, 2000) did not sink of its own accord, as it appeared to be doing at the time the author and refugees were rescued by the Coast Guard. As the Coast Guard recently explained, it accelerated the sinking of the boat ''to protect shipping lanes.'' | Editors' Note |
1367344_2 | societal impact.'' ''Even if this raises the risk of one rare breast cancer, over all the picture is improving,'' he said. ''Death rates from breast cancer in the United States are falling.'' Lobular tumors form in clusters of milk-producing cells, unlike most breast cancers, which grow in the ducts that carry milk. The two types are treated in the same way, but lobular tumors are harder to detect. Some studies have suggested that the incidence of lobular breast cancer is increasing in the United States, and some researchers say the increase is most likely due to hormone replacement. Dr. White's study included nearly 1,400 women, ages 50 to 74. Half the women had breast cancer. The researchers identified the two groups of women and then looked back at whether they had taken hormone replacement. All the women were enrolled in a health plan that kept records of their prescriptions, which the researchers used to determine what drugs they took. In the women who developed breast cancer, the researchers studied prescription records during the five years that ended a year before the cancer was diagnosed. ''A unique aspect here is that we didn't rely on the women to remember,'' Dr. White said. ''We used a computerized pharmacy database, so we have accurate information.'' Nonetheless, a weakness of this study and previous ones is that the women themselves decided whether to take hormones, rather than being assigned at random to take either drugs or placebos. Studies in which the patients pick their own treatment are not considered definitive, because they are not as reliable scientifically as experiments in which the treatment group and the controls are picked at random. A rigorous, nationwide study of hormone replacement, the Women's Health Initiative, in which women have been assigned at random to take the hormones or not, is under way, but results will not be available until 2004 or 2005. In the meantime, women and their doctors have to make educated guesses, based on incomplete information. Hormone replacement can prevent bone thinning, and it clearly relieves hot flashes and other unpleasant symptoms that many women experience at menopause. ''We can't be dogmatic about this right now,'' Dr. Hudis said. ''For some women, the quality of life enhancements on hormone replacement clearly make it worthwhile. But the quantifiable health benefits are much more in question than they used to be, and the risks are better defined.'' | New Evidence of Cancer Risk In Hormone Therapy Study |
1367476_0 | A global ban on child soldiers has gone into effect, the United Nations said. The treaty bars recruitment of children under 18 by armies and militias, a practice that affects an estimated 300,000 children. Since the pact was approved in May 2000 by the General Assembly, 96 countries have signed it and 14 countries have ratified it. The United States, which allows voluntary enlistment at 17, has not yet ratified the treaty. Elizabeth Olson (NYT) | World Briefing | World: Ban On Young Soldiers |
1368974_4 | with radiation and certain chemotherapeutic drugs. People with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis who have to take prednisone for long periods also usually experience excessive bone loss. And premature infants risk osteopenia later because 80 percent of bone mineralization normally occurs in the last third of fetal life, when acquisition of bone minerals is much higher than after birth. Controlling Osteopenia Several influences -- family history, ethnic background, age and sex -- are out of a person's control, but many things can be done to prevent osteopenia from developing into osteoporosis. First and foremost, be sure to consume adequate amounts of calcium and vitamin D. The usual recommendation is to take about 500 to 600 milligrams of calcium twice a day to supplement dietary sources. Dietary calcium need not come only from dairy products or a few vegetables. Citrus juices and some breakfast cereals, as well as milk, are sold with added calcium. As for vitamin D, needed for the body to process calcium, studies at the Tufts University School of Medicine strongly indicate that older people need more vitamin D daily than is commonly recommended -- 800 international units, rather than 400 units. Regular physical activity that puts stress on the bones is also important. This can include walking, jogging, dancing, cycling and swimming, lifting small weights and working out on muscle-strengthening equipment. University of Wisconsin researchers showed that women in their 80's who worked out by holding onto to the back of a chair and stomping their feet were able to increase bone mass in their hips and thighs. Estrogen replacement starting in perimenopause is an excellent way for women to avoid rapid postmenopausal bone loss. Whenever estrogen is stopped, however, bone loss is likely to accelerate unless some other estrogenlike drug is taken in its place. Women who have had an estrogen-sensitive breast cancer can instead take tamoxifen or raloxifene, which have estrogenic effects on bone but not on breast tissue. Raloxifene (sold as Evista) may be ideal for menopausal women with osteopenia who cannot or will not take estrogen. Quitting smoking is another important strategy, for many reasons beyond bone protection. And alcohol consumption should be limited to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men. People who must take medications like prednisone that increase bone loss may require treatment with a bone-building drug like Fosamax to prevent osteoporosis. PERSONAL HEALTH | Strong Bones, With and Without Drugs |
1369019_3 | it full on. You can't put your whole hand on it.'' For security reasons, Ms. Neal declined to explain exactly how the search should be conducted. So did Rebecca Trexler, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. If at all possible, Ms. Trexler said, it might be best for women not to wear underwire bras when they are flying. Huntleigh employs the screeners at the United Airlines terminal in Boston, and as the screeners were observed at work for two hours this morning, they were professional and thorough. The passengers they chose for random wandings and pat-downs included men and women of all ages, business travelers and vacationers alike. Children were not exempt. Stephanie Pan, age 2, who was on her way to China with her father, Fei Pan, 30, and her grandparents, began sobbing uncontrollably as the screener waved the wand over her body and then gently patted her down from head to toe. Mr. Pan tried to reassure his daughter, pointing to a little girl with blond curly hair, who was calmly submitting to the same procedure. ''We understand,'' Mr. Pan said as his family headed toward their gate. Later, at rush hour, there were dozens of people in line at the checkpoint at the US Airways terminal. ''We do have many complaints,'' said Salova Houmairy, a duty manager for International Total Services, which handles the checkpoint. ''Some women say they don't want to be patted down.'' There have been a number of complaints of improper touching by screeners from female passengers at airports around the country, and even from some male passengers. One screener at the US Airways checkpoint, Lori Henderson, 45, who worked as a letter carrier until a month ago, said she tried to be respectful. ''You get very used to it,'' Ms. Henderson said. ''You feel like you're patting down your neighbor.'' Sara Dela Cruz, who traded in a teaching job six years ago to become a flight attendant for a major airline she declined to name, understands on a deeply personal level the need for heightened security. She lost seven friends on Sept. 11; they were working aboard the flights that crashed into the World Trade Center. Whatever the new inconveniences and problems and frustrations, said Ms. Dela Cruz, who earns $30,000 a year, ''I want to keep flying in honor of them.'' Articles in this series look at the state of airports | Airport Journal; Underwireless, but Wishing for Wings |
1368989_0 | The movie ''John Q.'' stars Denzel Washington as John Q. Archibald, a father so desperate to obtain a heart transplant for his son that when his H.M.O. refuses to pay for the operation he takes over an emergency room at gunpoint. This hospital cum hostage drama opened nationwide last week amid some brickbats from reviewers, although in this case it was not just movie critics who weighed in. Health policy analysts, transplant coordinators and managed care advocates had plenty to say about ''John Q.,'' even before it opened. Does the story at the heart of the film square with real life? The American Association of Health Plans, the leading trade association for health insurers and health maintenance organizations, bought full-page advertisements in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter last week featuring the tag line, ''John Q.: It's Not Just a Movie.'' The advertisements' copy acknowledged that 40 million Americans were without health insurance -- a statistic offered up repeatedly in the movie -- but argued that managed health plans were not to blame. ''People are pointing fingers at each other and getting mad,'' said the director of ''John Q.,'' Nick Cassavetes, the newest bête noire of the managed care industry. ''That's great. The more awareness the better.'' ''This movie is splitting people along the lines of money,'' Mr. Cassavetes added. ''The people this doesn't affect find it to be an overly fantastic melodrama. But play this movie in a middle class or poor area and people are angry and yelling at the screen. They get it.'' Although James Kearns wrote the screenplay for ''John Q.'' in 1993, Mr. Cassavetes's own experiences in dealing with doctors and hospital administrators animate the film, which is dedicated to his 13-year-old daughter, Sasha, who has had four operations to repair a congenital heart defect. Mr. Cassavetes said his family was one of the fortunate ones. As a member of five Hollywood unions, he is ''insured up to the hilt,'' he said. Still, he expressed empathy for the ''runarounds people get from insurance companies, hospitals and doctors.'' Mr. Cassavetes described how he and Mr. Kearns confirmed the details of the title character's health insurance problem. In addition to the usual key grips, gaffers and best boys, ''John Q.'s'' credits include a heart transplant consultant, Dr. Mehmet Oz, director of the Cardiovascular Institute at the Columbia-Presbyterian Center in New York, and Eric Price, a health policy expert | More Drama Added to Politics of Transplants |
1365848_0 | The board of Blu, an Italian mobile phone operator, will meet today to consider bids received for all or part of the company. Blu, a consortium of five wireless operators, failed to win a license for the next wave of radio spectrum, and has said it will either be sold or liquidated. Roger Westbury, a spokesman for British Telecommunications, which owns 29 percent of Blu, said ''a liquidation is an extreme option and not in the cards at the moment.'' Suzanne Kapner (NYT) | World Business Briefing | Europe: Italy: Phone Concern Considers Bids |
1367641_0 | The head of the White House Office of Management and Budget took the unusual step today of rejecting a tire safety proposal made by the Bush administration's top auto safety regulators and said in a letter that their analysis was flawed. The Office of Management and Budget has not been known previously to return a significant regulatory proposal to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for reconsideration. The heads of both agencies are Bush administration appointees. Dr. John D. Graham, the budget agency administrator, is the top regulatory watchdog for the White House and has the authority to review rules proposed by dozens of agencies. The traffic safety agency's rule proposed standards that would have required automakers to phase in systems to monitor tire pressure automatically. Congress, in the Tread Act passed in 2000, required the traffic safety agency to set new standards after the controversy surrounding defective Firestone tires, which have been linked to 271 deaths. The traffic safety agency suggested that automobiles be equipped with special pressure sensors in each tire by the model year 2007. But Dr. Graham said in a letter to the agency urged consideration of a less expensive system that estimates tire pressure by using sensors already in place in antilock brake systems, and that such a system would encourage greater use of antilock brakes. Both pressure systems are already in use in some vehicles. ''Additional safety may be available at a lower cost to the public,'' Dr. Graham said in his letter, and added that the ''indirect'' system, as it is called, could also encourage installation of antilock brakes. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data indicated that the ''direct'' system it proposed saved more lives, but Dr. Graham also said his agency had concerns that the estimates of fatalities and injuries were ''based on limited data and/or assumptions that have not been fully explained or analyzed.'' Dr. Jeffrey Runge, the administrator of the traffic safety agency, said in a statement, ''We have received Dr. Graham's letter and will be looking carefully at the analysis by O.M.B.'' Dr. Graham previously served as the head of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, which was financed in part by a variety of corporations, including automakers. He said the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry lobbying group, was the only outside group he met with before making his tire decision, but added that no other group asked | Regulation on Tire Safety Rejected by Budget Chief |
1367610_4 | Miami. Cargill was among the first to close a deal with the Cubans, for 26,400 tons of yellow corn. ''They said the funds were coming out of some type of emergency reserve that was set aside to alleviate the impact of Hurricane Michelle,'' he added Shortly after Cuba was devastated by Michelle last fall, officials in Havana sent faxes to a long list of American food suppliers asking for bids to sell Cuba a range of goods. That step abruptly reversed Cuba's previous policy of turning up its nose at American suppliers because of the financing restrictions in the law. Hurricane damage gave Cuba a reason -- some critics call it an excuse -- for reversing that stand, at least temporarily. But after the first round of sales in November and December, Cuba went back to Tyson Foods and other suppliers and placed new orders, a step suggesting that the change was more than temporary. Always short of cash, Cuba has strong reasons for wanting the embargo on food sales lifted. It imports more than $1 billion a year in food and grain, most of that from Europe and Asia. Switching to American suppliers would save 15 to 20 percent on shipping, a large part of the total cost of the commodities, because the United States is so much closer. A freighter full of rice, for example, may take 12 days to reach Cuba from France, while a ship from Texas can make it in 3 days. Cuba has been handling the transportation of the food it has bought from Cargill, chartering Mexican ships to pick up the goods in New Orleans and carry them to Havana. Complications arose from the Cubans' lack of knowledge of American standards and regulations -- not surprising after Cuba's 40-year absence from that market -- and also from Cuban health and sanitary specifications. American executives said Cuba's regulations in that sphere were more demanding than those of other export markets, so they had to take extra steps to comply. Whether the recent purchases prove to be an anomaly or the opening of a new market for American farmers depends largely on the Cubans. President Castro, who has recently toned down his attacks on the United States, said earlier this month that he might buy more American food this year but that any purchases next year would be contingent on the lifting of financing restrictions. | Cuban Cash Reopens U.S. Food Trade |
1367581_0 | ALTHOUGH talking on a wireless phone the size your palm may seem the image of cutting-edge technology, a cellphone is really nothing more than a radio. And like the FM stereo in your car, a cellphone can suffer from the same limitations: blocked signals and interference. ''When you go behind a mountain or down to the second level of a parking garage, a wireless signal will fade just like a radio station in your car,'' said Ed Reynolds, president for network operations at Cingular. The cellphone traces its roots back to the 1920's, when patrol cars in large cities used radio telephones to keep in touch with one another. The bulky devices depended on one central tower and had a limited number of channels, so only a few conversations could occur at the same time. A breakthrough came in the late 1940's, when AT&T engineers decided to stretch the limited number of available radio frequencies by dividing a city into sectors, or cells, each with its own low-power transmitter that would allow calls to be handed off as a car traveled around a city. Because the system operated at such a low power, a channel carrying a conversation in one cell could be reused in nearby cells without interference. When more capacity was needed, a cell site could be divided again. But it was the portable cellphone, first developed in the early 1970's, that fueled the growth of the industry. Today, the number of cell sites in the United States is one of the most visible signs of that growth. There are more than 114,000 sites, nearly six times the number that existed in 1995. As cellphone use grew in the late 1980's, carriers started to look for new ways to boost capacity and to offer new services like text messaging and voice mail. Up to then cellphones had operated on analog networks, which essentially split the radio spectrum into many channels. But the carriers believed that analog technology was an inefficient use of the limited spectrum allocated to them by the government because it reserved a channel for the duration of each call. The introduction of digital technology in the early 1990's allowed carriers to boost capacity by squeezing more out of the available radio spectrum. Two competing digital systems emerged. One, time division multiple access, or T.D.M.A., allows multiple users to gain access to a common channel without | Squeezing Ever More From the Cellphone Spectrum |
1367585_3 | about service in the area. What is more, executives say, some customers expect too much from a service that essentially depends on radio waves traveling through the air. ''At the end of the day,'' said Dan Wilinsky, a spokesman for Sprint PCS, the country's fourth-largest carrier, ''we're talking about mobile phones, not land lines. Expectations are sky-high of digital coverage all the time, everywhere. But if you're in the heart of New York City, in between tall buildings or in a steel-door elevator, you may not get service. In rural areas, we're not going to have full coverage until cows talk.'' Customers say it is the cellphone carriers who have set the bar high with unrealistic promises in advertisements or on Web sites like that of VoiceStream, which boasts of service ''whenever, wherever.'' ''The wireless operators certainly present an image of ubiquitous coverage in their advertising campaigns,'' said Philip Marshall, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group, a market research firm. ''But the days are gone when subscribers were more accepting of poor network performance. They have increased expectations because they're more reliant on the phones.'' Beth Case, a sign-language interpreter in Fresno, Calif., grew so frustrated with her Cingular phone service at one point last year that she stopped her car at a pay phone when she needed directions to a client's home. ''It totally defeated the purpose of having a cellphone,'' she said. Of the 100 calls on her bill one month, she said, fewer than 20 of them lasted for more than two minutes because calls were continually dropped. Ms. Case switched to Sprint PCS in November and said she had had no problems so far. Cingular officials acknowledged that they had difficulty meeting consumer demand in California last year but said that service in the state had improved. The problems were compounded because California is ''one of the more stringent jurisdictions'' when it comes to building new cell sites, said Ed Reynolds, president for network operations at Cingular. ''Frankly, customers just exceeded our expectations,'' Mr. Reynolds said. ''We were victims of our own success.'' All wireless carriers have capacity problems. The range of a cellular site varies from a city block to about five miles in radius in a rural area, and the site can handle only a finite number of calls. If a site is full, new callers get a busy signal. When callers move | Talking More but Enjoying It Less |
1367636_4 | in November 2000. The suspension last April of a policy that allowed Peruvian Air Force planes to shoot down drug flights has also permitted trafficking to pick up, Peruvian officials say. The suspension came after a Peruvian fighter plane shot down a private plane carrying American missionaries, killing a woman and her baby. American officials, though, remain optimistic about eradication efforts here, noting that antidrug aid to Peru is tripling to about $150 million this year to pay for the renovation of antidrug aircraft and to finance alternative development programs for farmers. More money is likely in the coming years for a sustained, long-range program here and elsewhere in the Andes. ''It's not a one-year effort,'' said the State Department official. ''It won't work in one year, and I think Congress agrees.'' Peru's government has increased the police presence in coca-growing regions, signed a new eradication plan with the American government and declared narcotics a national security issue. American officials in Washington also say that the suspension of the aerial interdiction program may be lifted later this year. ''I anticipate the possibility of making great headway here in the next few years,'' said John Hamilton, the American ambassador in Lima. Still, coca and opium poppies, which are also on the rise in Peru, will be particularly hard to uproot fully because the recent collapse of coffee prices and stubbornly low prices for other legal crops have given farmers few options, said Patricio Vandenberghe, director of the United Nations Drug Control Program in Peru. For now, here in the Monzón valley planting more coca simply makes economic sense, since prices have reached nearly $50 for 25-pound bales of leaves, the highest in Peru because of the quality of the plant. But the crop has also brought violence and other social ills. Beyond leading to renewed signs of drug trafficking, the increased coca plantings here and elsewhere have led to a reappearance of Shining Path guerrillas, who benefit from the coca trade. The group was nearly wiped out in recent years. In fact, across Peru the police are discovering that traffickers are increasingly operating labs that process coca paste into cocaine, a change from years past when labs were solely for producing paste that was then shipped to refineries in Colombia, said Juan Zárate, director general of intelligence at the Interior Ministry. New trafficking routes, many of them headed into Brazil or | Farmers in Peru Are Turning Again to Coca Crop |
1367567_0 | MANY cellphone makers now offer information on the rate at which radiation is emitted by the phones, even as the issue of associated health risks is still being debated. The information is included with new cellphones certified by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, an industry group. More than half the phones manufactured today are certified by the association. Many other manufacturers include the information or at least provide a link to information at the Web site of the Federal Communications Commission (www.fcc .gov/oet/rfsafety), which sets safety guidelines for the phones' radio-frequency emissions. So far none of the major cellphone manufacturers have plans to develop phones or devices to protect users from radiation. A few companies have developed so-called radiation shields, but cellphone manufacturers and health experts say they doubt that such gadgets are effective. The World Health Organization says it has not been proved that they reduce radiation from cellphones. ''The shields are not endorsed by anyone,'' said Jo-Anne Basile, a vice president at the cellular association, ''and there are serious questions on whether they can have some harmful effect on the performance of the phone.'' The Food and Drug Administration has recommended that cellphone users who are concerned about radiation use earpieces instead of holding the handset itself to the ear. Major studies that looked for a connection between cellphones and cancer have yielded mixed results, but most of them concluded that there is no link between the two. The largest study of the issue, conducted by the Danish Cancer Society and the International Epidemiology Institute in Maryland, looked at 420,095 Danish wireless users between 1982 and 1995. The results, reported last year, showed that cellphone owners were no more likely to have cancer than the general population of Denmark. A study released last year by the National Cancer Institute compared cellphone use among 782 people with brain tumors with 799 healthy people. It found that those who used wireless phones for an hour or more a day for five or more years were no more at risk of developing brain tumors than people who did not use the phones. Research conducted by the World Heath Organization in the late 1990's, however, found an increased risk of lymphoma in mice after exposure to the radiation level of cellphones. Industry executives expect the results of several studies at the end of this year or the beginning of 2003. In | Cellphone Safety: An Update; Tests Continue, but Radiation Risks Remain Unproven |
1370869_3 | quickly, converging with the free-market price by 1997. This was good news for big companies in Mexico importing corn for animal feed and processed food. But it was hard on the farmers, who have little political clout under the government of President Vicente Fox, an ardent free-trader. The effect of American imports on Mexican agriculture was not unforeseen. ''Integration into the global economy will also accelerate the social dislocation that rapid modernization inevitably brings to a developing economy,'' Bernard Aronson, a former assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, wrote eight years ago as the trade pact took effect. But some things were not predicted. One unforeseen result of the collapse of corn farming, Mr. Nadal warns, will be the loss of genetically unique kinds of corn. As imports grow and farmers give up their fields, he said, ancient varieties like the succulent blue corn used for tortillas may be endangered. Some may already be lost, he said. ''If traditional growers abandon corn production -- as the Nafta strategy foresees -- then even more significant genetic erosion will occur,'' he said. The importation of bioengineered corn from the United States is a separate but heated issue. Mexico's government does not permit the planting of genetically modified corn. But the new modified breeds can be imported as food or feed. The science journal Nature and Mexico's government published findings last year showing that bioengineered genes from American imports have invaded ancient varieties of corn in the state of Oaxaca. Nafta has had demonstrable benefits for many sectors of the Mexican economy that have become competitive, and Mr. Fox says it is no longer possible for the government to step in and assist farmers. State legislators who want Mexico to protect its corn the way Japan protects its rice have had no luck swaying him. Mr. Fox's agriculture minister, Javier Usabiaga -- a highly successful exporter known as the Garlic King in Guanajuato, his home state as well as Mr. Fox's -- says that a farmer who cannot survive in the 21st century is simply ''going to have to find another job.'' Farmers like Mr. Rebollo are regarded as artifacts of an earlier, simpler age. ''I have this little bit of land, and I work it, and it's good hard work,'' he said as he walked his fallow field. ''But I think when I go it will go too.'' Manzanillo Journal | In Corn's Cradle, U.S. Imports Bury Family Farms |
1368283_0 | Federal officials are investigating why the Denver Zoo did not separate two Asiatic black bears who fought repeatedly over their 14 years in captivity together until the male killed the female in October. As zoo visitors watched, 14-year-old Moktan attacked 17-year-old Sherpa on Oct. 11, crushing her throat, mangling her leg and causing internal injuries. Animal handlers were unable to separate the bears. A local animal rights group is asking for a separate investigation by the city as well as temporary suspension of the zoo's license along with the appointment of an ombudsman to oversee animal welfare and public accountability. ''This is a very unusual freak-of-nature thing,'' said Diana Weinhardt, chairwoman of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's bear advisory group. ''This is not normal for this species. The injuries are phenomenal in that short a time. It's really very freaky.'' Sherpa and Moktan lived with another female bear, Tenzing, and none had ever bred together. The federal investigation is the third at the Denver Zoo in less than a year by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Division at the Department of Agriculture. In the other two cases, an elephant died after being pushed over by another elephant, and an elephant escaped into the zoo during business hours and slightly injured a child. Both investigations were closed without charges or fines against the zoo. The Agriculture Department can levy fines and suspend licenses at any zoo or facility that handles live animals and violates animal welfare laws. On the day the bear died, a federal veterinary inspector was at the zoo doing a routine inspection. In the investigation into the bear's death, the inspector, Ruth Nelson, reviewed the bear handlers' logs and noted 36 fights between the bears in the previous 10 months. Ms. Nelson wrote in her report, ''The records give evidence of a serious case of incompatibility between the male Asian and the female, Sherpa.'' Yet because there was no known history of similar incidents between black bears that resulted in death, zoo officials chose not to separate the three bears permanently. ''In 20-some years at zoos, I've never seen one bear kill another bear,'' said Lynn Kramer, the zoo's vice president for biological programs. ''It's hard to speculate why this would have escalated to a life-threatening event.'' Like cranky toddlers, the bears were given ''time outs'' after some fights but were always reintroduced. Angela Baier, | Denver Zoo Is Investigated for Bear Fights, Including a Fatal One |
1368126_1 | these families, in their own homes and in groups small enough for conversation, to learn how others see what he has done and failed to do. The pedophile scandal in Boston, though gross and costly to the institution, reveals a much deeper, though separate, problem: the massive rift between the clergy and most Catholics on sexual matters. A poll sponsored by The Globe says that 70 percent of Boston Catholics reject an exclusively celibate male clergy; 65 percent favor ordaining women and married men; church positions meet rejection from 70 percent on birth control, 63 percent on divorce, 54 percent on premarital sex and 51 percent on homosexuality; and, on abortion, only 48 percent accept official teaching. There may be only one Catholic Church, but the clerics' church is not the same as the laity's church. The faith as most believers live it may not be the same as the faith as most priests teach it, and media references to ''the church position'' do not paint the full picture. They call into question the church hierarchy's claim to speak for all Catholics on issues of public policy. This divergence between the faithful and the clergy on sex and gender issues is not new; the gulf has been widening, especially in America, for decades. But the latest scandal reveals more than a clergy out of touch with its congregation. The scandal seriously undermines the moral authority of the cardinal and the church hierarchy -- and their ability to exercise that authority on behalf of those with no power of their own. The church cares for the poor, the sick and the dispossessed. It calls for believers to respect as God-given the dignity of every person, even a murderer. (Many Catholics, in Boston and elsewhere, do not know that church teaching opposes the death penalty.) The church's role in the community has done much good. Parishioners in Boston are now asking for Cardinal Law and his clergy to begin some self-examination and a sincere conversation with individual Catholics -- not just through pastoral letters or sermons. For those of us in the community, the scandal reveals the need for honest reflection on why the rift between the clergy and laity grows in silence. And in the aftermath of this scandal, perhaps the rest of society will begin to listen to more than one voice from the church. Rose Moss teaches creative writing | A Clergy Ill Prepared to Deal With Scandal |
1368132_0 | It was while in jail awaiting trial on double murder charges that O. J. Simpson had his famous heart-to-heart chat with the pro-football-player-turned-minister Roosevelt Grier. For weeks afterward, the press was rife with rumors that Mr. Simpson had confessed to the crimes. Questioned on the stand about what he'd heard that day, however, Mr. Grier declined to say, testifying that the conversation ''was part of a religious discussion.'' In American jurisprudence, private conversations between the clergy and their congregants have generally been considered off limits to the court. Originally derived from Roman Catholic canon law, which places a seal of absolute secrecy around what's said in the confessional, this legal convention, known as clergy-penitent privilege, is intended to protect confidentiality in all faiths. Thus, Robert Hanssen, the F.B.I. agent arrested last year on charges of spying for the Russians, was able to seek absolution for his crimes years ago, confident that his priest would never voluntarily divulge them -- or be forced to by law. Lately, however, there are signs that such confidence may increasingly be misplaced. Thanks, in part, to a spate of sexual abuse scandals involving priests, clergy-penitent privilege is no longer considered inviolable. The latest development is yesterday's decision by the Manchester, N.H., diocese to turn over the names of 14 priests accused of abusing children to state prosecutors. [Page A12.] Most states already have laws requiring doctors, therapists and lawyers to break a patient's or client's confidence in order to prevent a serious crime or to report knowledge of child abuse. And over the last few years, some states have passed legislation requiring the clergy to report knowledge of such abuse as well. According to data compiled by the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, which is maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, as many as 14 states make no explicit exemption for information obtained in the confessional. To some scholars, the new statutes suggest a troubling erosion of religious freedom. ''It's a very disturbing trend,'' said Edward McGlynn Gaffney Jr., a professor of law at Valparaiso University School of Law. ''These most recent developments are a sad departure from the age-old tradition of respecting secrecy around confession.'' Sister Rose McDermott, a professor of canon law at Catholic University, said Catholic priests would be unable to comply with a law that required them to break the seal of confession. ''The sacramental | Secrets Confided to the Clergy Are Getting Harder to Keep |
1368108_0 | Confessions of ignorance are not usually in a critic's best interest. But in this case, perhaps, an exception can be made. Ignorance, after all, is now common when confronting Greek literature. Beginning with ignorance is also an approach recommended by many of these demanding essays by Seth Benardete, a classicist at New York University, who died to relatively little notice in November. Because of his difficult and idiosyncratic interpretations, that notice is not likely to expand beyond a small group of philosophers, political scientists and classicists. Yet testimonials are unqualified. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, the respected French historian, has proclaimed of Benardete, ''I have long believed that he deserves glory -- that of the heroes of Homer, to be precise.'' Harvey Mansfield, a political scientist at Harvard, said Benardete was ''the most learned man alive and, I venture to assert, the deepest thinker as well.'' According to several anecdotes, T. S. Eliot heaped praise on his brilliance. At a memorial program at New York University earlier this month, encomiums for the man -- who spent his career writing translations and commentary on Plato, a book on ''The Odyssey'' (''The Bow and the Lyre'') and essays on Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristotle -- were offered by philosophers and classicists, including Ronna Burger of Tulane University and Michael Davis of Sarah Lawrence College, both of whom edited the current collection. But why the broad devotion to so specialized a scholar? Why the praise for a writer whose gnomic vocabulary about gnomic material uses phrases like ''eidetic analysis'' and ''indeterminate dyad''? ''The Argument of the Action'' provides some answers by collecting essays written throughout Benardete's career. They are so intimidating in their minute attention to Greek tragedies and Platonic dialogues that they can barely be read without following the works themselves (only some of which I have studied). The essays ornately weave allusions, analyses and images, engaging in close textual analysis while venturing unsettling hypotheses. The first step, Benardete stressed, is indeed to approach the works as a beginner, to read, say, ''The Republic'' or ''Oedipus Tyrannus'' free from millennia of interpretations. At first, the arguments and plots might seem fairly transparent. Sophocles' most famous Oedipus play, for example, has long been regarded as a story about a man who unknowingly kills his father, the king of Thebes, and marries his mother. When he discovers the truth, he blinds himself. Such are the tragic consequences of | A Classicist's Starting Point: Putting Aside Interpretations |
1370288_0 | ALMOST a century ago, Upton Sinclair, the noted muckraker, repaired to a small cottage in Princeton to write ''The Jungle,'' his classic book about the inhumane treatment of both people and animals in the Chicago slaughterhouses of the early 20th century. No doubt Sinclair would be astonished to know that animals are being abused in an equally cruel manner in Princeton in 2002. Princeton has hired a tax-exempt nonprofit outfit to virtually eradicate its deer population. The cornerstone of Princeton's plan is the barbaric and medieval practice of repeatedly ramming four-inch steel metal rods into the skulls and brains of deer. This is done after the animals are trapped in nets and struggle violently but futilely for several minutes to escape, often breaking legs and antlers while wrestling nets and humans before meeting their hired makers in a gruesome death. This barbarism has never before occurred in New Jersey and was only tried once before in this nation, in Illinois. There, this so-called ''net and bolt'' method was immediately halted after the authorities viewed the brutality on a surreptitiously recorded videotape. The footage showed deer bleating, crying, whimpering and thrashing for 35 minutes after being netted. Despite massive condemnations of this procedure by editorial writers, ethicists, humane organizations, hunters and veterinary organizations, the mayor of Princeton Township, Phyllis Marchand, soldiers on with this savage practice. New Jersey's political leaders are indifferent to opinion polls showing that 66 percent of New Jersey citizens want a nonlethal solution to the problem and to the fact that Americans are animal lovers, spending $27 billion on pets in the year 2000 alone. Princeton's program is not only cruel to animals but also dangerous to humans. In addition to bolting deer in the skull, Princeton's hired killers also shoot deer using .223-caliber military weapons that discharge bullets up to 2.5 miles. Every societal institution is within range and subject to errant projectiles and ricochets: child care centers, hospitals, libraries, schools, homes and houses of worship. The shooters add to the danger by using silencers to bag deer from the back of pick-up trucks. A former Firearms Division chief of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the federal agency charged with regulating weapons, has warned that this practice is ''extremely dangerous'' in the densely packed suburb of Princeton. Princeton homeowners feel further under siege because they receive no notice of where and when shooting | Deer to the Slaughter |
1370125_10 | the Wertheimers bought from the Bader family the remaining 20 percent of the house. Chanel kept making headlines: Marilyn Monroe declared the only thing she wore to bed was No. 5, and Jacqueline Kennedy stood solemnly next to her husband President Kennedy's flag-covered casket on Air Force One in a blood-splattered pink Chanel suit. But as popular as the little Chanel suit was then, the company's fashions and finances remained static. The reason was probably Jacques, Pierre's 55-year-old son, who took over when Pierre died in 1963. Jacques, by all accounts, was a kind and sad man who was not terribly interested in the business. He preferred to spend much of his adult life tending to the family's racehorses in Chantilly. He and his French-born wife, Eliane, divorced in New York in the 1950's, and he lived alone on the Avenue Foch in a splendid, sprawling flat filled with Egyptian sculpture and his impressive collection of abstract paintings. ''I don't think he did a great deal,'' one old friend admitted. Coco Chanel referred to him as ''the kid.'' Chanel died in her room at the Ritz in January 1971, at age 83. Jacques, himself an old man by then, slowly became mentally incapable. By 1974, the company had dwindled, and only the perfume line and the original shop on rue Cambon remained. Frustrated with the business's poor performance, Jacques's son, Alain, a 25-year-old who barely knew Coco, petitioned the board of trustees to let him take over the company. Alain had little business experience -- he had interned at Moët & Chandon before taking over Chanel -- but he saw quickly what needed to be done. He began by reining in distribution, pulling Chanel No. 5 off drugstore shelves. He started the Chanel Beauté cosmetics line, which he made sure was sold only in high-end stores. In 1978, Chanel introduced its first mass-produced ready-to-wear line, designed by Philippe Guibourgé. Then in 1980, Alain hired an advertising executive, Kitty D'Alessio, to run the American branch of the company. D'Alessio had handled Chanel's ad campaigns for years, and understood what the company needed to reposition itself in the rapidly changing fashion world: a new designer. She zeroed in on Karl Lagerfeld, then the designer for Chloe. ''I had been following his career for a long time and thought he was brilliant and had a great sense of modernity,'' D'Alessio told me. What | The Power Behind The Cologne |
1370176_5 | man. We saw a lot of them. Greater rheas, a South American counterpart of the ostrich, are even bigger. Then there is the improbable toco toucan, flying along pushing a bill that seems to occupy half its body bulk. Cattle-raising has so far coexisted well here with astonishingly rich wildlife, but the Pantanal faces a serious threat. The Hidrovía project proposes to dredge and canalize the Paraguay and Parana Rivers for 2,000 miles into the interior, in order to create a ship channel for oceangoing vessels serving Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Brazil. This development would change water levels, bring in industrial development and end the Pantanal as it is today. Although dredging has begun in Argentina and Paraguay, Brazil has not approved the project and its future is still uncertain. From the ranch, we went on to the more elaborate Hotel Fazenda Santa Tereza, halfway back to Poconé, where we were taken up the Pixaím River to see giant river otters. These labrador-sized animals have become very rare in most of South America because of hunting and clearing, but here they are protected. Several of these superb swimmers came up to the boat to take fish offered by our boat driver, pushing their spaniel heads so far out of the water that we could smell their breath. We had expert guidance from Andrew Whittaker, a young English ornithologist who went to Brazil to participate in a research project, fell in love with the country, its wildlife and one of its young women, and stayed to raise a family. He knows the birds of his adopted country so precisely that he has already described two new species. We witnessed an impressive display of Andy Whittaker's field skills on our way out of the Pantanal. As our van passed a waterfall, Andy suddenly ordered the driver to stop. After listening intently, he took us down to the waterfall where nearly a hundred biscutate swifts and great dusky swifts were plunging through a curtain of water to roost on the wet cliff face behind. He had heard their faint cries from the van. If you go Our 12-day trip was organized by Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, 2525 Wallingwood Drive, Building 10, Austin, Tex. 78746; (800) 328-8368, fax (512) 328-2919; www.ventbird .com. It cost $1,995 a person, double occupancy, not including air fare. Andrew Whittaker runs his own tour service called Birding Brazil | The Parrots of the Pantanal |
1370303_0 | IT has now become a fact of air travel. Tightened security has made getting onto an airplane an arduous process, and not only at the major airports of Boston and New York. Waits average two hours at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, less at Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport. And if you have a hamster in your pocket, anything can happen. One woman at Bradley was caught trying to get a hamster on board her plane, but a security screener saw the flap on her coat pocket move. The only reason the woman still made her flight was because an airline worker offered to care for the pet until the woman came back three weeks later. ''That's an exception,'' said Stephen Korta, the administrator of Bradley. The increased security has made air travel more of a chore than ever before. Not only are passengers' bags being searched more carefully, but often so are their clothes, from shoes to hats, and their cars. Nail clippers or tweezers forgotten at the bottom of purses won't make it through. Pack them in check-in luggage. ''With security being the way it is, there's no fooling around,'' Mr. Korta said. ''The process is looking at everyone.'' Although the federal government took over the security supervision last week, nothing has changed. ''The public will probably perceive little if any change,'' said Mr. Korta. At Bradley, the state's largest airport, the inspections begin even before many people get into the terminal. The National Guard is inspecting all vehicles as they enter the short-term parking areas, asking drivers, and sometimes passengers, to get out of their cars. Once inside the terminals, many passengers are being pulled aside after they check in so their luggage can be searched. Then comes the traditional security check as passengers head for their gates, but the days of simply putting carry-on bags on the conveyor belt of the X-ray machine and walking through the metal detector are over. Now the airport said manybags were hand searched, passengers sometimes had to remove their shoes for inspection, and if anything in the bag or inside a person's clothes raises any questions, the passenger is pulled aside for a more thorough search. Mr. Korta said the whole process takes an average of two hours. ''At certain times of the day you will see lines that are unbelievable, and other times of the day you will see passengers | Before Taking Off, Prepare to Stand By |
1370509_4 | itself from a ''study, study, study program,'' with endless delays and litigation, to ''a big construction program, and the money goes right into the communities.'' Katherine Probst, a longtime expert on the Superfund and a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, an independent research group, said the drop was partly because of less money being available for cleaning up more complicated sites and partly because the Superfund program ''hasn't been efficiently and effectively managed.'' Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, recently wrote to Christie Whitman, administrator of the E.P.A., asking for an explanation by March 6 of ''the sudden slowdown.'' ''Has the administration made a policy decision to slow down Superfund cleanups, contrary to your assurances to us last May?'' the letter asks. It also asks for details of each project that the administration had initially designated and no longer does. The agency has not made that list public, but various officials said they had been sending notices saying activity would be delayed. For example, Myron Knudson, director of the Superfund division based in Dallas, said he had five sites ready to be cleaned up by the trust fund but was not able to start because he had no money. ''I have five sites ready to go tomorrow, but I'm sending out letters saying there's no money at this time,'' Mr. Knudson said. Since the Superfund began, 1,551 sites have been put on the national priority list, with 257 sites cleaned up and 552 mostly cleaned up, the E.P.A. said. At most of the sites, groundwater contamination remains a problem that will take years to remedy. But money also remains a problem. A study by Ms. Probst, financed by Congress, predicted that over the next decade, 230 to 490 new Superfund sites could be added to the E.P.A.'s priority list and would cost at least $14 billion. Democrats in Congress say they intend to push the administration to reconsider its refusal to reauthorize the corporate taxes, though they have little expectation that it will. Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat whose New Jersey district is home to one of the biggest concentrations of Superfund sites in the nation, said, ''The problem is that the president is adamantly opposed to the tax, and the Republican leadership is adamantly opposed to it, so the chances of getting it through are very slim.'' | Bush Proposing Policy Changes On Toxic Sites |
1370204_0 | In the absence of a procedure for returning items confiscated by airlines inspectors, the constitutional guarantee of security in one's possessions is gone (photographs by Susan E. Evans, Feb. 10). The pictures in your gallery are evidence that the airlines, at the very least, are guilty of overzealous petty larceny. How many of the items have been implicated in an airline incident? An inhaler? Oh, come on! Marge Wyngaarden Westwood, N.J. | The Things They Carried |
1365323_4 | you wield.'' Mr. Annan, who comes from Ghana, reminded the audience that a larger, rival gathering was held in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, in parallel with the World Economic Forum. ''Its title, 'World Social Forum,' is intended as a criticism of yours, implying that you are interested 'only in economics, or in profit, and that you do not care about the social effects of your economic activities,' '' Mr. Annan said. He did not share that perception, he said, and he believed that globalization in fact held the best hope of overcoming poverty and other social ills. ''But it is up to you to prove it wrong, with actions that translate into concrete results for the downtrodden, exploited and excluded,'' Mr. Annan said. Mr. Annan made many of the same points in a parallel message to the Pôrto Alegre gathering, though there he challenged participants to ''show that you are ready to work in partnerships for change, rather than remain aloof through the politics of confrontation.'' In New York, Mr. Annan challenged a contention that was frequently made in the carpeted meeting rooms of the Waldorf, that it was for governments, not businesses, to set social policy. ''In many cases, governments only find the courage and resources to do the right thing when business leaders take the lead,'' he said. He cited various channels through which corporations could contribute, including a Global Health Initiative that was discussed at the meeting, the United Nations Development Program, and a variety of other United Nations funds, programs and agencies. At the forum, most business leaders seemed to agree with the general sentiment expressed by Mr. Annan. ''We need a discussion about whether the rich world is giving back what it should in the developing world,'' Mr. Gates, the Microsoft chairman, told a session on ''Business Leader to Global Leaders.'' ''I think there is a legitimate question whether we are.'' The problem that increasingly surfaced was what exactly that meant. David H. Komansky, the chairman of Merrill Lynch, cited the example of China's Three Gorges Dam. Environmental groups were fiercely opposed, while the Chinese government said the project was urgently needed. What was business to do? ''We're trained as businessmen, but we're being asked to pass judgment on the moral and ethical value of these projects,'' Mr. Komansky said. ''We need to recognize there are two sides to this story.'' A NATION CHALLENGED: THE MEETING | Annan Cautions Business as Forum Ends |
1365186_0 | Toward the back of an Uffizi Gallery warehouse here, an overstuffed storage closet for minor or damaged works of art, Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished masterpiece ''The Adoration of the Magi'' stands propped against a far wall, where it has been during months of diagnostic tests. The results of these tests, ordered to settle a dispute over whether the yellowed painting would be enhanced or endangered by a restoration, are in. ''Based on what we found, I would rule out any major work at this point,'' said Maurizio Seracini, the independent art diagnostician called in on the case. Critics of the proposed restoration, which was to have begun last spring, see the decision as a moral victory and a personal vindication. More than 30 Renaissance scholars signed a petition just before the work was to begin, pleading that the painting, commissioned in 1481, was far too fragile to be overhauled. ''This is the first success we've had,'' said James Beck, a Columbia University professor and founder of ArtWatch International, a group that monitors restorations. He has spent 13 years crusading against the dangers of overzealous restoration, singling out projects like Leonardo's ''Last Supper'' and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. ''I'm an old man who has been ostracized for taking a position that was unpopular,'' Mr. Beck, 71, said. ''But now I feel I've done the right thing in Florence.'' The director of the Uffizi, Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, however, is just as convinced that the decision against the restoration is a colossal mistake. To her, it was a cowardly choice made by her boss, Antonio Paolucci, who oversees all the state museums of Tuscany, and with whom she has been feuding for some time. ''Paolucci received this threat from Jim Beck, so he decided to give up,'' she said. Mr. Paolucci acknowledged the pressure. ''It's not the right moment politically'' to go forward, he said. After the controversial restoration of ''The Last Supper,'' in Milan was completed in 1999, ''restorations should be done in silence,'' he said. ''We don't want an international fight over Leonardo.'' He insisted, though, that his decision was based solely on the test results. Yet both sides cite Mr. Seracini. For Mr. Beck, his tests ''show the risks outweigh the gains.'' For Ms. Petrioli, ''they reveal that what we see now is not the real painting by Leonardo, because there are other layers'' of paint added later, apparently in a | Restoration Of a Leonardo Is Ruled Out |
1365185_3 | there are benefits that outweigh the risks. Breast cancer accounts for 1 to 3 percent of deaths among women. Even with the most optimistic estimate of mammography's benefits, a woman who had mammograms every year starting at age 40 would do as much for her life expectancy as she would by losing five ounces of fat and keeping it off, Dr. Berry calculates. Still, with the mammography disputes raging, and with few other options to determine whether the test is effective, Dr. Berry and researchers at five other medical centers are collaborating to find out why breast cancer death rates are declining. Around 1990, the rates started to drop drastically, by about 1 percent a year. The question is why. ''Radiologists say it is because of mammograms,'' Dr. Berry said, noting that the screening test was coming into widespread use by the end of the 1980's. But medical oncologists, he went on, point to improved treatment -- in particular, tamoxifen, which can sharply decrease the death rate from breast cancer. The drug was first prescribed for postmenopausal breast cancer patients at the end of the 1980's. Five years later, when doctors realized it worked just as well for younger women, they began getting it too. The drug works on breast cancers whose growth is fueled by estrogen, preventing the hormone from reaching them. And in women with these estrogen-sensitive cancers, it can decrease the breast cancer death rate 30 to 40 percent, Dr. Berry said. He said the effect was ''extraordinary'' because these are women who are at high risk of dying from the disease, so a treatment that slashes their death rate can make a huge dent in mortality statistics. Dr. Berry said the researchers would try to explain the declining death rates to see if they can determine whether tamoxifen or mammography or both can account for those decreases. They will be relying on data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of mammography by healthy women and tamoxifen by women with breast cancer in the 1990's. Dr. Berry said it was far from an ideal way to answer the mammography question. But considering the circumstances, he said, it may be the best anyone can do. Still looming, however, are unanswered questions about the original seven mammography studies that were done in decades past. Experts disagree about whether those | Putting Mammograms to the Test |
1365964_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Bush Hires Hard-Liners to Handle Cuba Policy'' (news article, Feb. 3): Why does the United States continue its 40-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, which it justifies for human rights reasons, while supporting China's membership in the World Trade Organization? China's abuses of human rights are widely reported. Perhaps it is because the administration's Latin American policy is shaped by the views of a small group of Cuban-Americans who still harbor deep-rooted resentment against Fidel Castro and, incidentally, form a strong voting bloc in a state governed by President Bush's brother. Or it could be that Cuba has no strong economic lure for corporate interests, while China represents a potential market of more than one billion consumers, cheap labor and plentiful natural resources waiting to be exploited. ELYSIA G. NG Seattle, Feb. 3, 2002 | Policy With Two Faces |
1365991_2 | cockpit door, and passengers reported seeing him stick his head through the hole. ''Blows were exchanged'' between Mr. Moreira and crew members, Commodore Reta said, before they overpowered and restrained him with seat belts and plastic handcuffs for the rest of the flight. He said that Mr. Moreira later expressed remorse for his behavior and that a brother had said that Mr. Moreira ''has a tendency to panic anytime there is turbulence during a flight.'' Though Mr. Moreira was turned over to authorities here, F.B.I. officials in Miami said he would be returned to the United States, perhaps as early as today. Because he apparently made no threat to hijack the aircraft, it is expected he will face a lesser charge, that of interfering with a flight crew. In a statement issued from its headquarters in Chicago, United underscored that ''the passenger never gained full entry due to the reinforced cockpit door bar United has installed on all of its fleet.'' The statement, issued in the name of the company chairman, Jack Creighton, also said that Mr. Moreira had been ''processed to the fullest extent of United's security procedures prior to boarding the aircraft.'' Ms. Leyva, the spokeswoman, said she would not discuss whether Mr. Moreira had aroused suspicions before boarding the plane in Miami, except to say that ''certain criteria make certain individuals go through extra layers of security,'' and that Mr. Moreira had received that additional attention. Like other airlines, United has intensified its scrutiny of passengers and their luggage since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in which hijackers took over four flights, including two on United. The airline has daily flights to Buenos Aires from New York, Chicago and Miami. Ms. Levya said that those and all other Latin American flights would continue on their normal schedules. Today's incident marked the second time in less than two months that a passenger on a United flight bound for Buenos Aires created havoc on board. On Christmas Eve, a flight from Kennedy International Airport was diverted to Miami after a passenger threatened the crew and passengers and said they would die in a fireball. The man, a 34-year-old Uruguayan who said he was a waiter, ignored orders to return to his seat and cursed the crew. After the plane arrived in Miami, he was taken into custody by F.B.I. agents and was charged with interfering with a flight crew. | Airline Passenger Is Subdued After Trying to Enter Cockpit |
1364373_1 | Most singers try to make their singing as little speechlike as possible, but Mr. Holzmair goes another way. Not only does he emphasize the words by means of rhythm, phrasing and enunciation, but he also lets the breath of speech come through. There is something raw about his vocal quality, especially when he sensitively increases the vibrato. Each song is a way of delivering a poem, and each poem is a way of charting a state of mind. By his choice of program, Mr. Holzmair was able to make that state of mind consistent. Ahead of time his selections looked pretty standard: Mendelssohn (more often sung these days than a little while back) and Schubert in the first half, folksong arrangements by Falla, Brahms and Ravel in the second. But by the time he was near the end of his Mendelssohn group, it was clear he had a story to tell. In his earlier Mendelssohn songs, he flipped nicely between Romanticism straight (Eichendorff) and teasingly ironic (Heine). Then two more Heine songs upped the stakes. Not only was ''On Wings of Song'' thoroughly rescued from overfamiliarity by Mr. Holzmair's freshness and immediacy, it also became keenly poignant at the end as the blessed vision dissolved to leave the singer staring into space. A darker awareness was opening up, and in the final Mendelssohn number it gained its voice. The item was ''Wayfarer's Song,'' which comes from the same set as ''On Wings'' and ends with the same word, ''dream.'' But where the earlier song allowed Mr. Holzmair to utter that word on his own account and so become aware of the unreality of his hopes, in ''Wayfarer's Song'' the dream was coldly and efficiently withdrawn by the world outside -- by the words Heine gives to the wind in the oak tree, words that Mr. Holzmair made bleak and unarguable. Expressive space was thereby opened up for the Schubert songs and for some moving portrayals of aloneness in ''Dass sie hier gewesen,'' ''Die Liebe hat gelogen'' and even ''Sei mir gegrüsst,'' where Mr. Holzmair suggested an intense optimism powered by desperation -- hope rushing with its hands over its eyes. The folk songs allowed Mr. Holzmair more swagger, which he took to. But the talk of tears went on: behind the Spanish whoops and the French-Greek stoicism, the same suffering character was on the platform. PAUL GRIFFITHS IN PERFORMANCE: CLASSICAL | Stressing the Speech of Songs, Each a Poem of Emotion |
1364315_1 | towers collapsed on Sept. 11, engineers and other experts have been struggling to answer the monumental questions of exactly why and how the buildings, designed to sustain a jet impact, completely collapsed. But despite promises of a broad federal investigation, and after weeks of calls from victims' families and others to halt the destruction of the steel that could hold all sorts of clues, the half-heroic, half-comic scenes at the Jersey City scrapyard continue to play out. Small teams of engineers plot slightly mad dashes, like mountain goats, into mounds of steel to claim pieces of tower columns. The engineers time their forays to avoid being crushed. Indeed, Ms. Bonilla made her find while the scrapyard workers were on their lunch break. Through it all, the engineers profess optimism that they are catching and saving what is most useful. But they concede that there is no way of saying for sure; an unknown number of steel columns has been sent off to mills as far away as Asia without ever having been examined or saved. ''What they're doing is extremely noble, ambitious and wonderful and I'm glad somebody is doing that,'' said Dr. James G. Quintiere, a professor in fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland. But, he added, ''the steel, to me, it's almost a foregone conclusion that its gone.'' The organizers of the steel recovery effort will not say how many pieces in total have been set aside for future study, saying only that it is more than 100 from among the hundreds of thousands of World Trade Center steel parts. But without a doubt, the teams surveying have made some important discoveries. The steel column identified last Wednesday by Ms. Bonilla, with its brackets, bolts and two pairs of winglike steel plates still attached, is a potentially critical discovery. It ran three stories from the 98th to the 101st floor on the exterior face of one tower, just above the zones struck by jets laden with fuel. Now that it has been found -- and spray-painted with the word ''Save'' in florescent orange paint -- tests can be conducted to determine whether heat or stress or some design or material flaw might have let it fail. Another crumpled steel member set aside at a Keasbey, N.J., scrapyard has markings clearly showing that it ran on the east face of the north tower from the 92nd to | A Search for Clues In Towers' Collapse; Engineers Volunteer to Examine Steel Debris Taken to Scrapyards |
1364229_0 | To the Editor: A Jan. 26 letter suggests that flying baggage separately would do away with the need for baggage screening and ''would provide 100 percent safety from baggage bombs.'' I daresay that the pilots and the crews of the cargo planes would find the safety level considerably less than 100 percent. CHRIS CHRISTENSEN Portland, Ore., Jan. 26, 2002 | Less Than Perfect |
1370033_6 | flight management system. But as they approached the city, the hijackers almost certainly had to take manual control of the aircraft, because the automatic pilot in navigation mode is not accurate enough to target the center of building, pilots said. Video of the approach of United Flight 175 to the south tower shows that it banked westward in the final moments, its right wing going up, its left wing down. That maneuver may have been intended to maximize damage to the building. But it has been interpreted by some pilots as a sign that the hijacker nearly missed the tower. ''It was unfortunate luck,'' said Richard Fariello, a retired T.W.A. captain who works as a consultant to NASA. ''The way he was headed, he could have just clipped it perhaps with one wing. There is a good chance that would have been the case.'' Structural engineers cannot yet say how important a role the planes' speed played in how quickly the towers collapsed. Aside from the fact that the second plane hit a lower floor, it also struck more to one side of the tower's face, presumably causing asymmetric damage that could have made it more difficult for the tower to reapportion its loads among surviving structural columns. But determining the force and energy of impact is the starting point for any effort to understand what failures within the buildings eventually caused collapse, said Dr. Shyam Sunder, chief of the structures division at the building and fire research lab of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. ''It's important to have the speed of the plane and the direction that it hit for any analysis that we do relating to aircraft impact on the structure,'' Dr. Sunder said. If the plane that hit the south tower had been traveling slower, and the tower perhaps had stood longer, it is still unclear how many more people would have survived. Even though the south tower fell in only 56 minutes, fewer tenants died in it than in the north tower. In large part, that is because many of the people who worked in the upper floors had evacuated during the 16 minutes between the two attacks. But extra time might have meant that those trapped above the impact zone at the south tower would have found the one emergency exit stairwell that was still passable. A NATION CHALLENGED: THE TRADE CENTER CRASHES | First Tower to Fall Was Hit At Higher Speed, Study Finds |
1366964_2 | lawyers.'' In Chicago, school officials are hoping to lure new teachers with an advertising campaign that depicts teaching as a recession-proof career. They are also playing up job security in presentations to college students. ''The idea is that the economy may be down,'' said Carlos Ponce, chief of human resources for the Chicago schools, ''but there is still a high demand for teachers.'' The increased interest is also reflected in applications to graduate programs in teacher education and to Teach for America, which places recent college graduates in troubled urban schools after a summer of training. At Columbia University Teachers College, the nation's largest graduate school of education, new enrollment for the spring semester was up 23 percent over last year. Christine Persico, executive director for enrollment services, said the applicants included more people than usual with advanced degrees, including Wall Street executives who wanted to be principals or superintendents. ''Some are saying they lost their job or anticipate losing their job,'' Ms. Persico said. ''They might have had a penchant for a service-oriented job like teaching before but had a career opportunity in the business world or elsewhere that they felt they couldn't pass up.'' Teach for America has had the sharpest year-to-year increase in applicants in its 12-year history. It received 3,300 applications by its first deadline, Oct. 31, compared with 1,100 the previous year. The organization has received a total of 8,704 requests for applications for September 2002, compared with 4,343 last year. In a poll of 200 people applying to the program in recent months, more than half said they had changed their career plans as a result of Sept. 11. ''This is not typical for us at all,'' said Melissa Golden, a spokeswoman for Teach for America. But she said that the increase might not be directly related to the recession, because in the past, applications actually decreased when the economy was weak. In regions that have been hard hit by layoffs, school districts are also seeing more teachers returning after an extended absence. Houston and Raleigh, N.C., for example, have received inquiries from people who had left teaching to raise families or take better-paying jobs and now need steady paychecks because they or their spouses are out of work. This group includes several former employees of the Enron Corporation in Houston, said Beatrice Garza, who is in charge of hiring for the school district. | MORE APPLICANTS ANSWER THE CALL FOR TEACHING JOBS |
1368096_0 | It's not as if France were one of the world's superpowers on ice. And it's not as if a judge bending to political pressure is unheard of here. So the French have so far taken with a Gallic shrug the news that a French judge may have thrown her vote under pressure to a Russian figure skating pair at the Salt Lake Olympics. The major newspapers have devoted far more attention to the shy Carole Montillet, who on Tuesday unexpectedly became the first Frenchwoman to win a gold medal in the downhill. Le Monde, the country's most respected daily, suggested that the North American media had become overexcited about the figure skating controversy by giving an ''unprecedented sonorousness'' to a dispute over a fractional score difference. Would the American and Canadian news media have treated the story as gravely, Le Monde asked, if the aggrieved pair had been Russians or Chinese? ''It's hardly probable,'' the paper sniffed by way of an answer, saying that North American journalists seemed to have naïvely discovered that scoring figure skating involved judgment calls. On Wednesday, L'Equipe, the national sports paper, dryly said, ''We'd prefer not to believe it,'' as it reported that a French judge, Marie Reine Le Gougne, stood accused of shading her vote in favor of the Russian pair in return for Russian support when a highly ranked pair of French ice dancers take to the rink on Friday. Today, the allegations against Le Gougne were far stronger, as the head of the French Olympic team conceded that she had been pressured. But, this being France, L'Equipe did not appear on newsstands with a second opinion, because its workers were on strike. Thus far, the French have neither conceded that they have a disgraced judge nor treated the allegations as an assault on French honor. Rather, the close outcome of the pairs competition is seen here as more evidence that the world's skating federations cannot break out of their crusty Soviet-bloc-versus-the-West mentality. This time, once again, France has found itself caught in the middle because of its Gaullist habit of saying no to American-led demands for solid ranks and sincere cheerleading. Philippe Pélissier, a coach for the French Figure Skating Federation, may have come closest to hinting that there was an anti-French bias when he said, ''I don't understand why we're looking only at the French judge when there were five who, | Answering Accusations With a Gallic Shrug |
1367994_2 | security managers, with oversight for an entire airport. Some airports will have more than one security manager. The department has begun looking for 81 permanent federal security managers, and has had 9,500 applications, Mr. Magaw said. Mr. Jackson said the phased changed was part of a ''deliberately planned, incremental improvement process.'' Mr. Jackson spoke at a briefing for reporters where Mr. Magaw was asked about a security change being sought by the airlines, the issuance of a ''trusted traveler'' card for their best customers, to qualify them for a faster passage through security. He was not enthusiastic. ''There may be a place for it,'' Mr. Magaw said, but he said the checked luggage and carry-on baggage of those passengers would still have to be screened. ''You could have a go-fast lane,'' he said. But he added that at airports in Europe where such a system had been tried ''you almost had riots'' among passengers. The fast lanes were then moved to another part of the airport, he said, and hardly anyone used them. Mr. Magaw said that people who wanted such a card would have to submit to background checks, but that there was not much the government would ask ''that's not already out there.'' Mr. Magaw also said that his department would hire an ombudsman to accept public complaints about airport security. Asked about a complaint by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that male screeners were inappropriately patting down female passengers, Mr. Magaw said the practice of having screeners pat down members of the opposite sex had been banned. Mr. Jackson said the department would meet the Dec. 31 deadline to examine all checked bags for bombs. The department had ordered 100 new bag-screening machines from each of the two companies that produce models acceptable to the government to induce them to increase production, he said. The machines are the size of a minivan and cost up to $1 million each. They are so heavy that they sometimes require that floors be rebuilt. It may take 2,200 of them to equip the country's airport system. The government may meet the deadline by using a smaller, less expensive device, the trace detection system, Mr. Jackson said. These are already familiar to passengers at checkpoints, where screeners use them by rubbing an absorbent pad over hand-carried items and then putting the pad in a detector. A NATION CHALLENGED: AIRPORT SECURITY | As U. S. Assumes Screening, Little Will Appear Changed |
1371110_3 | 11, and later established separate reserved lines for premium passengers. Northwest designed its two classes of lines to enable agents to direct passengers at the head of either the elite line or the regular line to any security checkpoint, depending on congestion. This way, passengers in the elite line still tended to arrive at the checkpoint sooner, but after that they were sent to the same security lanes as everyone else, Mr. Ebenhoch said. ''It's natural that we would have some role in how we organize our customers as they feed into the security checkpoints,'' he said, noting that those eligible for the elite treatment form ''a pretty small group of people anyway.'' The definition of lines versus lanes aside, the velvet-rope contretemps and turf tussles are more signs of a basic philosophical debate that is occurring just below the surface in commercial aviation these days, as robust business-travel revenue continues to elude the airlines. Last month, average domestic air fares declined 16.1 percent from January 2000, according to the Air Transport Association. Despite lower fares, passenger traffic declined 14.7 percent. While a sour economy and fear of flying after Sept. 11 account for some of this, airlines are increasingly worried that their bread-and-butter customer, the frequent business traveler, is flying less frequently now because of the wide perception of unpleasant searches, rude treatment and delays sometimes encountered at airport security checkpoints. The Transportation Security Administration has hired private-industry specialists in crowd control and customer service to assess and address these problems. But the airline industry is arguing behind the scenes that subjecting all passengers to equally rigorous security is pointless and counterproductive, and that security resources should be concentrated more on a smaller pool of people whose behaviors, background or travel habits fit certain profiles for potential trouble. The airlines also want the federal government to back proposals for a ''trusted fliers'' program that would provide an identity-protected electronic card allowing expedited security check-ins for customers who submit to a background check in advance, with the presumption that the card would appeal to business travelers. The Department of Transportation, however, is known to be strongly opposed to any security system that provides unequal levels of security, or depends on any kind of passenger profiling. ''They're really butting heads over this in Washington right now,'' one industry official said. Business Travel The Business Travel column appears each Wednesday. E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com. | Despite federal rules, the airlines are still finding ways to speed favored passengers to their flights. |
1371147_0 | The United States is considering sending a ''sizable'' number of Special Operations forces to the former Soviet republic of Georgia to help train that nation's military in counterterrorism tactics, a senior military official said today. The aim of the training mission, which has not yet been approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would be to prepare Georgian troops for combatting foreign fighters that have been operating in a mountainous region of the country and could have links to Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's network. The military official, without disclosing details of the potential operation, sought to distinguish the effort from the more extensive ongoing United States training mission in the Philippines, which involves more than 600 Special Forces soldiers. Pentagon officials said any American troops in Georgia would not be allowed to take direct part in combat operations, but they could defend themselves against any attack. The possible deployment of American forces to Georgia comes after an assessment team from the military's European command visited Georgia about a month ago to study the potential of such a cooperative mission. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said last week that Georgian officials had confirmed the presence of foreign fighters and that the United States had discussed the problem with Georgia's president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister. ''We have supported them in the anti-terrorism training and cooperation, and we'll continue to do that,'' Mr. Boucher said. One Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said tonight that the United States was seriously exploring a possible role in Georgia. ''Clearly, where we can offer support in the fight against terrorism, whether it is training or intelligence information sharing, we will do so,'' he said. The region where the guerrilla fighters are believed to operating is the Pankisi Gorge, a lawless region northeast of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi along the border with Russia. In his remarks, Mr. Boucher noted that a State Department report on patterns of global terrorism said that foreign mujahedeen were using Georgia as a conduit to Chechnya. Russian officials have raised concerns about the activities of the rebels, but Mr. Boucher said the United States' was ''that this situation is best dealt with through cooperation with the United States and Georgia so that Georgia would have better control over the area, better control over the borders.'' Correction: February 28, 2002, Thursday Because of a transcription error, a front-page | U.S. MAY SEND G.I.'S TO EX-SOVIET AREA |
1371116_0 | A debate on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians opened today in a Security Council gripped by a sense of urgency and frustration over rising Mideast violence, with the United States arguing against any Council action and pledging to send its own mediator, Gen. Anthony Zinni, back to the region as soon as possible. The Palestinians, working through Syria, a Council member since January, want a Security Council resolution calling for withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied Palestinian territories and an end to Israeli settlements there, among other things, as a prerequisite for peace. Although the resolution has not been formally introduced, and has been reworked at least once in recent days to win broader support, the United States is expected to veto it if it is put to a vote soon. ''As a practical matter, Security Council action at this time will not resolve the problems between Palestinians and Israelis,'' Ambassador John D. Negroponte, the United States representative, said in the Council today. The Bush administration has fought to keep the Security Council out of the Mideast crisis. Mr. Negroponte reiterated Washington's desire to be left to work out a solution between the parties. The ambassador told the Council of President Bush's conversation today with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who has proposed that Israel give up territory in return for recognition by Arab governments. He also said that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had been in touch with Arab governments, Palestinian and Israeli leaders and Secretary General Kofi Annan. But the Council, created to keep peace, has been frustrated by its position on the sidelines of this deteriorating situation. ''Acts of violence, the cycle of reprisal and counterreprisal, political acts of extraordinary pettiness, all too often seem to be the order of the day,'' said Ireland's representative, Richard Ryan. Mohamed Iqbal Latona of Mauritius, which holds a rotating Council seat, reflected a common theme: ''The time for action is now,'' he said, ''before the peace process is completely shattered.'' | U.N. Security Council Debates Worsening Mideast Violence |
1371192_0 | Testing for Authenticity | |
1365529_2 | it, too, had been profitable last quarter. And e-commerce appears to have surged this past holiday season. The 51 million weekly visitors to online shopping sites were a 50 percent increase over the same period in 2000. Those shopping numbers underscore a critical factor that dot-com skeptics overlook: that even if the pundits have cooled on the Internet, the public has not. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that the number of Internet users in America surged 26 percent last year. Some 143 million Americans, or 54 percent of the nation, used the Internet in 2001, the first time a majority of the country was online. Many parts of cyberspace are booming, both obvious ones like online news sites, which are attracting millions of visitors a week, and less expected ones like photo editing and sharing, software for which is now installed on 21 million wired computers nationwide. The worst excesses of the dot-com era are gone. We will probably never again see business models based on the belief that people will buy all of their canned pet food online (and pay the shipping costs). And investors are unlikely to be won over, in the future, by the old dot-com rallying cry that being first is more important than being best, or that dominating a space is more important than turning a profit. But companies that take advantage of the unique efficiencies of the Internet show more promise than ever. PayPal caught on because it did just that. It allows users to send money from their credit cards or bank accounts to other people, who can receive the funds, by wire transfer or check, starting with a visit to PayPal's Web site. The great majority of those first million users were eBay buyers and sellers who were miffed that after having conducted a sale online, they had to make the payment by sending a check through regular mail. PayPal made the payment as easy as the auction. Amazon is holding its own because the service it provides -- offering millions of books and other items quickly and easily from home at any hour of the day or night -- is a real one, and one that was impossible before there was an Internet. The auction giant eBay leverages the Internet the most. There is no way 42 million people could trade with each other except through an online network like eBay's. | PayPal and Other Post-Bubble Signs of Life on the Internet |
1365545_0 | To the Editor: Your Feb. 2 editorial ''Return the Parthenon Marbles'' is eloquent testimony to the need for Britain and the British Museum to consider returning the historical treasures of the Parthenon to Greece in time for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Not mentioned, however, is that Greece not only can preserve and display the marbles but is also constructing a space precisely for that purpose. As a result of an international design competition held in 2001, a new Acropolis Museum, designed by Bernard Tschumi, dean of the faculty of architecture at Columbia University, and Michael Photiadis, an Athens-based architect, will be located directly below the Parthenon and will be completed in time for the 2004 Olympics. With a gallery specially designed for and dedicated to the Parthenon marbles, this museum will allow them to be seen in the historical context for which they were designed for the first time in more than 200 years. DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS Athens, Feb. 5, 2002 The writer, a professor of archeology at the University of Salonika, is president of the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum. | A Marble Glory That Was Greece |
1365506_0 | As the debate over the value of mammography intensifies, it is disappointing that key organizations and individuals in the cancer establishment have mostly chosen to draw their wagons in a defensive circle. Now that recent studies have raised serious challenges to the value of mammograms, other experts need to examine the data with an open mind if the public is to retain its faith in the recommendations of prestigious medical organizations. The prevailing orthodoxy on breast cancer is based on seven major studies that found mammograms can help save women by detecting tumors early, when they are most treatable. That conventional wisdom was challenged by two researchers in Denmark, who concluded that five of the seven studies were too flawed to warrant much confidence, and that the other two studies taken in combination showed no evidence that mammography reduced breast cancer deaths or prolonged women's lives. That conclusion was endorsed by the editor of The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, and by an expert group sponsored by the National Cancer Institute whose job is to update the cancer information supplied to doctors and patients. This state of affairs can only be described as astonishing. For many years mammography has been a bedrock of efforts to reduce the toll from breast cancer, yet now a handful of respected scientists are suggesting that it may all have been a huge mistake, a misreading of the clinical trials that were supposed to determine whether mammography helped save lives or did not. It's not surprising that the cancer establishment, which has devoted so much effort to persuading women to have mammograms, is unsettled. Its reaction has been to call on higher authority -- itself. In a full-page ad in The Times last Thursday, 10 health organizations asserted that despite some flaws in the studies, ''the evidence as a whole'' solidly supports the idea that breast cancer mortality rates are reduced by screening mammography. The statement derived its authority from the prestige of the signers, which include the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, among others. A more technical defense was mounted by scientists at McGill University and the Weill Cornell Medical College who published a research letter last week rebutting the critics. But as a defense of mammography, the paper fell far short of inspiring confidence. The authors relied on a single study that | Circling the Mammography Wagons |
1365456_1 | suspect, he called over an American who questioned me in English and declared me a fellow citizen when he saw that I was using frequent flier miles. In Zurich, transferring on the way home from Egypt, I was pulled out of line and taken to a large, bare hangar where my luggage was taken apart. I eventually found out that I had been taken to the isolated building in case a bomb was in my luggage. Was I surprised and upset? Who would not be? But I wanted to get home safely, too. Once while flying on El Al from Cairo to Tel Aviv, my husband and I were seated in the front and the crew watched our every move. And at Heathrow, I was interviewed at great length about what I would be doing in London. I was staying with a friend. My most harrowing experience was in Cairo. After a flight from Tunis, my husband was passed through while I was held back and my passport confiscated, perhaps because I had made the mistake of speaking Arabic. After an hour of my beseeching, a kindly older man finally located my passport and gave it back to me. Despite the inconvenience to me, I believe this scrutiny is a defensible tactic for picking out potential problem passengers. Although I am not a terrorist, others do not necessarily know it. The airline security procedures I ran into also protect me from terrorism. In the last few years, I saw less profiling by American carriers, perhaps because concerns had been raised about discrimination. That laxity continued until Sept. 11. Security officials need to keep an open mind about national origins. There will be more Richard Reids and John Walker Lindhs, who will not be found through profiling. Yet it is a fact that the particular terrorist group sworn to our destruction, Al Qaeda, is made up largely of Middle Easterners. It is not unreasonable to direct increased attention to passengers with some connection to the Middle East. Arab-Americans like me want to be safe when we fly. Cooperating with security procedures, even when we suspect that we are getting more attention than our fellow citizens, makes sense. Does anyone really want a security official to hesitate before stopping a suspicious passenger out of fear of an accusation of bias? Fedwa Malti-Douglas is a professor of humanities and law at Indiana University. | Let Them Profile Me |
1369209_0 | AS spring approaches, the seed companies begin clamoring to provide new and fascinating things. Like fashion designers, they send their latest creations down the catalog runways. And like the annual parades of haute couture, these new fruits and vegetables are designed to stir excitement and desire in the hearts of consumers. This year, the catalogs are going to be hard to resist. They have gone over the top with color, from red-flecked romaine and deep-purple cauliflower to ivory-white cherry tomatoes. And petite is the size to be, whether it's a thumb-size carrot or bonsai apple tree. True, they are outrageous bids for attention, the vegetable equivalent of a Versace neckline. But sometimes, even the outrageous can be functional. Take the purple cauliflower. The gardener does not have to cover the head to protect it and keep it white; it needs sun to develop the most vivid hue. And the cook does not have to watch it turn an ordinary green on the stove top, a typical disappointment with colored vegetables. This cauliflower keeps its color, though it will be a little more blue after steaming. Developed in Europe, the purple cauliflower, called Graffiti, was chosen for the Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog through the company's vegetable trial program. Each year Johnny's plants 2,000 to 3,000 different new flowers, herbs and vegetables from around the world in its experimental gardens. Steve Bellavia of Johnny's research department said the company looked for the most interesting or flavorful varieties, and those that will thrive in the Northeast. About 50 varieties make the cut each year. Some of the selections -- the new Diva cucumber, for instance, an all-female variety that needs no pollination and is seedless -- are developed through crossbreeding. It took eight generations and truckloads of cucumbers to produce the Diva, which is the All-America Selection featured in this year's catalog. Shaping new crops can be a serendipitous venture, too. A superproductive miniature apple tree from Miller Nurseries began with a trip to British Columbia, where John Miller, a third-generation plantsman from Canandaigua, N.Y., spotted a columnar apple tree with a profusion of spurs, the parts of the tree where the fruit forms. By grafting this variety onto New York State-grown dwarfing rootstock, his company developed a tree that grows a mere 6 to 8 feet tall and 2 feet wide. This summer Mr. Miller expects to harvest a basketful of apples | What If Versace Did Vegetables? |
1367120_0 | The government last week seized the banking operations of NextCard, a company that issued credit cards over the Internet, saying that it had grown too fast and with scant attention to lending quality and had endangered the safety of its $525 million in government-insured deposits. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said late Thursday that it had taken over the operations of NextBank, NextCard's main banking subsidiary. The company has stopped issuing new cards, but existing cardholders can continue to use their Visa accounts, paying their bills for the benefit of the government insurance fund. The F.D.I.C. is seeking a buyer for some or all of NextBank's assets. Depending on its success, depositors stand to lose up to $29 million, representing deposits in accounts in excess of $100,000. The seizure is the first time that regulators have had to close an Internet-only bank. But in fact there were very few Internet banks to start with. One reason is that bank regulations are tight enough to prevent some of the casual start-ups that took place elsewhere on the Internet. Another is that the Internet did not create opportunities for start-ups to challenge existing banks with substantially better products, in the way that Web stock trading shook up the entire brokerage industry. NextCard cloaked its marketing in new-economy imagery and let customers check balances and pay bills on its Web site. But its main distinction was that it sought new customers through banner advertisements and e-mail solicitations rather than through the mailings used by most credit card companies. It analyzed applications in 30 seconds, assigning credit lines and interest rates immediately to those it approved. The company was a marketing success. At the end of September, NextCard had 1.2 million accounts with balances totaling $2 billion, double the balances of a year ago. But the Web was NextCard's financial downfall, regulators and banking experts said, because it attracted too many of the wrong sort of customers, a phenomenon known as adverse selection. The borrower's lament that banks want to lend money only to people who do not need it is largely true. Lenders who find customers by mail get a mix of people who want their cards because of a low rate or attractive benefit, rather than simply a need for cash. But NextCard's instant approval process turned out to be sort of an online slot machine, tempting both criminals and those in | U.S. Seizes Bank Business Of Web Credit Card Issuer |
1367149_5 | more than a keystone for the recovery effort. With nearly four million data and telephone lines radiating from it, the building is also a nerve center for the commercial and residential infrastructure of Lower Manhattan. It took hits on two sides. First, the steel hurled from the collapsing towers smashed into the building's south face, penetrating an underground vault containing thousands of telephone cables. Later that day, 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story skyscraper just to the east, came tumbling down, its ruins slumping like a slain giant against the Verizon Building's east facade. The remains of the collapsed trade center buildings have been picked away, but the wounds they created are still visible. Two-foot-wide steel support columns at the east facade of the Verizon Building are bent inward like crumpled car fenders. A hole in this face of the building reaches as high as eight stories from the ground, and is covered by nothing more than white sheeting. The recovery effort at the Verizon Building began almost immediately after Sept. 11. Hundreds of thick black cables, carrying data and phone lines, were strung through hallways and out of windows, over scaffolding and through a maze of trenches to restore service. Concrete boxes have been built around the bent steel columns. But much about what has been done is temporary, and another estimated $300 million and two years of construction work will be needed, company officials said. Overhauling the damaged telecommunications network will be ''a whole other animal,'' said Dominic Veltri, manager for design and construction for Verizon in New York, perhaps adding hundreds of millions more dollars to the rebuilding cost. And a legion of artisans will be drafted to rebuild decorative bronze work and restore the interior ceiling murals, which trace the history of human communication from Aztec runners to candlestick telephones from around 1925. All these costs could bring the final tab to over $1 billion. With such an expensive repair bill, Mr. Veltri said, the company does not know whether to celebrate or lament the building's survival. But in spite of the costs, Mr. Veltri said, ''We're not going to knock it down.'' Fiterman Hall The emotional, financial and physical equation could yield a different result at Fiterman Hall. The 15-story building owned by the City University of New York was hit by debris from 7 World Trade Center during what was supposed to be a | Rescuing the Buildings Beyond Ground Zero |
147096_0 | LEAD: In a major change of a longstanding policy, the National Cancer Institute is urging that all women who have breast cancer should have chemotherapy or hormonal therapy after the initial surgery, even if there is no evidence that the cancer has spread. In a major change of a longstanding policy, the National Cancer Institute is urging that all women who have breast cancer should have chemotherapy or hormonal therapy after the initial surgery, even if there is no evidence that the cancer has spread. The advice is based on three unpublished studies. The institute had previously said there was no reason to administer drug therapy to most women who had surgery for early breast cancer, in which there is no sign the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. #13,000 Doctors Get Letter The new stand was based on ''persuasive'' evidence that women who received drug therapy were much less likely to have a recurrence of the cancer. In an unusual effort to reach physicians quickly, the institute sent a letter to 13,000 cancer specialists this week, rather than waiting many months for the data from the three studies to be published in medical journals. However, it was unusually quiet in releasing the information to the general public, choosing to rely on a mailed press release rather than a formal news conference. [ Page 11. ] Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr., director of the institute, said the overwhelming majority of the 60,000 women diagnosed each year with early breast cancer do not receive chemotherapy or hormonal therapy to fight cancer cells that may remain after the breast lump is removed with either a mastectomy or a lumpectomy followed by radiation. The hormonal therapy involves use of a drug that blocks the action of estrogen, a female sex hormone that encourages growth of some tumors. Many experts have thought that in cases of early breast cancer the chances of a recurrence after surgery were so small that patients would not benefit from these powerful drugs. But recent evidence indicates that up to a third of the women with early cancer who did not have additional therapy have a recurrence. Dr. Diane Fink, vice president for professional education at the American Cancer Society, said she agreed with the institute's decision to recommend a change in treatment strategy. ''This is exciting and important,'' she said. ''We can't keep it under wraps.'' Exclusion | Cancer Drug Therapy Urged For All After Breast Surgery |
144792_2 | missile warheads before they re-enter the earth's atmosphere; a space-based interceptor, whose high-speed rockets would be fired from orbiting satellites at missiles rising from the earth or at nuclear warheads moving through space; a ground-based system for detecting and tracking warheads in space, or a space-based sensor for the same tasks. Others envisioned are a satellite sensor meant to detect missile launchings and track their ascent and a network of communications links, based on land and in space, to coordinate the entire operation. None of the hardware has yet been fully designed, although big contracts for some of them have been awarded. The burden on the team selected today is to assure that the complex hardware involved in the program uses the same computer language, communicates by common radio frequencies and otherwise works in concert. The contractors will also be responsible for designing tests of the various systems and keeping the entire effort on schedule. But the schedule itself for the initial deployment remains one of the most controversial aspects of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which is under review in the Pentagon and hotly debated in Congress. The program is central to the prospects for an arms control agreement governing long-range strategic and space weapons. Panel's Recommendations A special Pentagon science advisory board has recommended to the Secretary of Defense that the initial deployment be broken down into a series of steps, rather than being pursued as a monolithic project, as called for under current plans. The Secretary, Frank C. Carlucci, has spoken favorably about the recommendations of the Defense Science Board, which called for deploying the first phase of defenses in six steps, beginning with installation of 100 or fewer ground-based interceptors as soon as technically possible. Later steps would involve improvements to space-based and terrestrial sensors, the addition of more interceptors based on the ground and, near the end of the project, the installation of space-based interceptors, according to Government officials familiar with the review panel's conclusions. ''The Defense Science Board did argue that there is merit in going to a limited protection system, provided that it can be part of the process in getting to Phase One,'' Mr. Carlucci told a Senate committee on Tuesday. But he added that the panel, headed by Robert Everett of the Mitre Corporation, ''was insistent on getting on with Phase One.'' Congress Acts on Spending On Wednesday the House of Representatives | G.E. Wins 'Star Wars' Contract |
146528_2 | less than the 25 percent in New York. 'More Conducive Climate Asked why he had not held a meeting like today's when he campaigned in New York, Mr. Jackson said: ''Here you have a climate that is more conducive to meeting. Here you have the contrast to the aggressive and savage attacks of Mr. Koch in contrast to the more civil behavior of Tom Bradley. Here you have leaders, black and Jewish, who are willing to sit together and agree to agree and agree to disagree and start on a long journey. One not only needs a seed but one needs a fertile field in which to plant those seeds.'' The Chicago clergyman said he would like to meet with Jewish leaders in New York after the California primary on June 7. Mr. Jackson said he was working with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo to set up a meeting. Those who attended today's the meeting at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel said Mr. Jackson was questioned and discussed all of the well-known sources of strain between himself and Jews. He reminded those at the meeting of his public comments at the 1984 Democratic National Convention apologizing for describing New York as ''Hymietown.'' Asked about the anti-Semitic views of one of his more controversial supporters in the 1984 Presidential campaign, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, Mr. Jackson said, according to one of his supporters, that just as Jews have problems with racism in their community so blacks have problems with anti-Semitism in their community. In the meeting, Mr. Jackson also said his meeting with Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was part of an effort to free American hostages and to build bridges in the Middle East. And he repeated his belief that the only way to assure peace in that region is to guarantee Israel's borders and to create a stable homeland for the Palestinians. Jackson Praises Meeting ''For many people it is the beginning of a meaningful and in-depth dialogue,'' Mr. Jackson said. ''For many people the dialogue has never stopped.'' Outside, about a dozen protestors picketed the hotel, marching and chanting ''Jesse Go Home.'' One demonstrator carried a placard that said ''Jackson-Arafat 88.'' Irv Rubin, national chairman of The Jewish Defense League, who was carrying a sign that said ''I Love Hymietown,'' said: ''Any Jew who sits down with a Jew hater like Jackson might as well be sitting | Jackson, in Bid to Heal Rift, Meets With California Jews |
142782_0 | LEAD: INTERNATIONAL 2-6, 28 Poland's bishops denounced the Government's use of force to end the strike at a major steel complex near Cracow. The decision to use force indicated divisions in the Polish Communist leadership. Page 1 Lech Walesa spoke to young strikers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk as riot police massed outside the gates. INTERNATIONAL 2-6, 28 Poland's bishops denounced the Government's use of force to end the strike at a major steel complex near Cracow. The decision to use force indicated divisions in the Polish Communist leadership. Page 1 Lech Walesa spoke to young strikers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk as riot police massed outside the gates. About 800 workers are left, and the Solidarity founder sought to bolster their spirits. 1 Israel ordered the deportation of a Palestinian-American who advocated nonviolent resistance in the Israeli-occupied territories. Washington objected to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's order to deport Mubarak Awad. 1 India is storing plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons, in installations without international safeguards, Indian officials said. The country is proceeding with an ambitious nuclear energy program. 1 France's parliamentary majority, a loose rightist coalition, could be split if President Francois Mitterrand wins Sunday's presidential election convincingly. Private polls show Prime Minister Jacques Chirac trailing. 3 France recalled a secret agent from exile. Prime Minister Jacques Chirac infuriated the New Zealand Government by summoning home the agent, who had been convicted of blowing up a ship in Auckland in July 1985. 3 A political stalemate in Belgium has prompted King Baudouin to ask Wilfred Martens, the caretaker Prime Minister, to form a new government. Relations between the Flemish speakers and French speakers complicate the situation. 28 Nicaraguan construction workers called off a 10-day hunger strike Thursday, but have not returned to work. Workers said the Government promised to negotiate; the Government said no agreement was reached. 2 Taiwan's aging legislature blocks democracy, according to Chu Kao-cheng, a 33-year-old opposition legislator who makes his point by jumping on desks, smashing microphones and shouting at older legislators. 4 American hostages reportedly abused 3 West German asks U.S. missiles 4 German company calls transfer of heavy water proper 4 27 die in Lebanon battles 5 Afghan leader appeals to rebel moderates and issues warning 5 NATIONAL 7-8, 34-36 The nation's jobless rate fell a tenth of a point in April to 5.4 percent, the lowest since | NEWS SUMMARY |
142939_0 | LEAD: Two days before France's presidential election, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac infuriated New Zealand's Government today by summoning home a secret agent convicted of sabotaging an environmentalist group's ship. France had agreed that the agent would be held on an obscure Pacific island until July 1989. Two days before France's presidential election, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac infuriated New Zealand's Government today by summoning home a secret agent convicted of sabotaging an environmentalist group's ship. France had agreed that the agent would be held on an obscure Pacific island until July 1989. Many political commentators in Paris and New Zealand said Mr. Chirac's decision to bring the 38-year-old agent, Dominique Prieur, back to France was designed to show his toughness as well as his sympathy for a French citizen in distress. The Prime Minister said his Government was not violating its agreement with New Zealand, asserting that Mrs. Prieur was pregnant and had to return to France for medical attention. Mrs. Prieur was one of two French secret agents sentenced to 10 years in prison for blowing up the ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland, New Zealand, in July 1985. France, however, negotiated a United Nations-sponsored accord with New Zealand that said the two agents would instead spend three years on Hao, a small French island in the Pacific. Photographer Was Killed A photographer for the Greenpeace environmentalist group was killed in the explosion, which occurred when the Rainbow Warrior, owned by Greenpeace, was in New Zealand preparing to stage a protest against French nuclear tests in the Pacific. Mrs. Prieur and the other agent, Alain Mafart, were convicted of manslaughter. Mr. Mafart was allowed to return to France in December after the French Government said he needed treatment for a stomach disorder. New Zealand vigorously protested. Many French citizens sympathized with Mrs. Prieur, who arrived on the atoll in July 1986, because she was sentenced for a crime that was carried out apparently under orders from the French Government. ''Should she leave, it would be a clear breach of France's obligation under international law,'' Prime Minister David Lange of New Zealand said. ''After the French presidential election has been determined on Sunday, the New Zealand Government will be pursuing the matter with the French authorities.'' Some New Zealand officials have questioned whether Mrs. Prieur, who was often visited by her husband, was pregnant. In December, when rumors began circulating that | France Letting Ship Saboteur Return |
142918_3 | music to ''Zorba the Greek'' and to the award-winning movie ''Z.'' (The score for ''Z'' was smuggled out of Greece because Mr. Theodorakis was under house arrest. The music for ''Zorba the Greek'' was, financially, the most successful.) The juxtaposition of the ancients and the modern bouzouki style that traces roots to Byzantium and the music of the cafes and the islands is not unusual. ''I like always to be contemporary,'' the composer said. ''I like to deal with the things of today.'' The blend of traditions suffuses Mr Theodorakis's music. Thus the Third Symphony, he said, is oratorical in style, built around the poetry of Dionysus Salomos, the 19th-century Greek poet, embracing a chorus and soprano and interwoven with Byzantine hymns in praise of Petros, a fighter in the Communist youth movement that opposed the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II. A Different Tradition The work, in four parts, is based on a Salomos poem chronicling the tragedy of a woman who kills two sons and falls into insanity as a result. ''Its tone,'' he said, ''encompasses lyricism and tension, suggesting both the calm before and the mother's insanity afterward at the point where human limits stop.'' The form of the symphony, Mr. Theodorakis said, arises from his conclusion that symphonic music is ''a problem for those of us who are not part of central and northern Europe.'' ''Our tradition is made of song and dance,'' he said. ''It is monophonic. Moreover, the Greek public still displayed a fear of symphonic music played to large audiences. That is why I use the chorus and the human voice to create a symphony closer to the Greek tradition and the greater audience. At the finale, the chorus leaves the stage, reflecting the closing moments, and the catharsis, of classical Greek tragedy.'' The work, in a way, dates from 1939, when the young composer first took an interest in setting the poetry of Salomos to music. It evolved in varying forms over the years, first as a piece for chorus and string orchestra, then as a suite for chorus and orchestra, before its completion as a symphony in 1981. ''The symphony offers a critical statement about humanity,'' Mr. Theodorakis said. ''We people, maybe because we have the greatest wisdom, we are also mad. We destroy the harmony of the world. Maybe the mad woman is Greece. Maybe Petros was one | A Composer's Musings on Life |
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